#like my mom has friends with a dad who went to federal prison for it

[inklingofadream]

So, having given up on the book that was vexing me a couple days ago I'm now reading Unmask Alice and it's killing meeeee

Things I knew: Go Ask Alice is not a real diary; subsequent anonymous diaries were also super fake; it's not even an especially good fake if you are not a suburban parent in the 70s who has never encountered The Drugs; there was some deeply hinky stuff going on with the author's subsequent fake diaries

Things I didn't know: Beatrice Sparks was Mormon. She grew up in Logan. She lived in Provo at the time she wrote the diaries

This book literally opens with "I know we're all used to being able to look up what we're doing to find out where it's going but I think you'll have a better time if you don't."

I have not obeyed this directive. I know this guy doesn't have the information I need. He isn't going to bother to tell me the name of the restaurant in Logan she worked at as a teen. He isn't going to tell me where in Provo her house was. He won't bother with whether her and her husband were eventually sealed in the temple in their lifetime, or if they were just kinda passively next to the church but not doing much about it

I went on familysearch trying to find this information. I went DEEP. I also FAILED. but. all attempts to search HER got me a 404 error. Searching her mother and getting to her page via the family tab DID work. which is all very suspicious to me...

[shemarmooresfedora]

Home

Series Summary: After being arrested, Spencer Reid desperately tries to get back home to his daughter, Camellia, who was placed into foster care in your home.

Pairing: Single!Dad!Spencer x Foster!Mom!Reader

Word Count: 1.7k

Content/Warnings: mentions of Diana’s Alzheimer’s and Schizophrenia, prison, separation of father and daughter, swearing

A/N: i hope you guys enjoy my new fic! this may be about 8 chapters or so! i’m not sure yet, going to see how interested people are in the plot :) (also quick disclaimer: i have never been in the foster care system so please excuse any inaccuracies)

Masterlist

Chapter 1

Spencer never wanted his daughter to see him like this, being brought into the BAU bullpen in handcuffs. He was supposed to be the good guy.

Right now, he couldn’t tell if he still was. He had good intentions going down to Mexico to get non-FDA approved medicine for his mom but he may have killed someone in the process. If only he could just remember.

Camellia ran into his arms to hug him, a hug he so desperately wanted to return if it wasn’t for these stupid cuffs around his wrists.

“They can’t just take you away, Dad,” she cried.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m going to get back to you as soon as possible,” he promised, kissing the top of her head.

Spencer felt absolutely crushed as the guards had to drag his crying 11-year-old off of him so he could be taken to his holding cell.

-

You had just gotten off of work when your phone rang. Eileen, the head foster care coordinator, was calling.

“Hello,” you answered.

“Hey Y/N,” she greeted you, “I know you haven’t had a foster kid in a few months but I kind of have an urgent case. 11-year-old sixth grade girl. Mom has been out of the picture for a while, Dad recently imprisoned and on trial for murder. There are a bunch of family friends willing to take her but no direct family,” she explained.

“I can take her for as long as she needs,” you told Eileen.

“Great! I’ll text you the address, it’s the FBI headquarters.”

-

When you walked into the BAU, still in your dino scrubs and white lab coat, Eileen was surrounded by a frantic group of people.

“As I said before, I don’t doubt any of your credentials but this is the law. We can only give away a child to direct family at this point in time. If you are not direct family, you will need a lawyer to fight for custody as well as permission from her father but that process could take months,” Eileen stated.

“Spencer hasn’t spoken to his father in years and his mother is in a facility for her schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s,” a dark-haired woman spoke.

“Exactly so she must be turned over to the foster care system. I apologize to you all but this is how it works. We can’t bend the rules,” Eileen said.

“I don’t want Callie fending for herself in a house with 20 other kids,” a blonde-haired woman argued, “I’m her godmother. She stays with me all the time. She was staying with me while Spencer was in Mexico.”

“Sorry, my answer is still no. But, hopefully this will squash your concerns, Y/N!” she called you over, “This is Y/N. Jo will be placed with her. She is a pediatric doctor and currently has no other foster kids at the moment but all of her past kids have absolutely adored her. She always passes her surprise safety and wellness checks with flying colors.

“Hi,” you waved, intimidated by this huge group of frustrated people with guns on their hips.

“A doctor? So she isn’t even going to be home most of the time,” a curly-haired man scoffed.

“Actually, I own my own practice. I don’t work at a hospital so I usually have a regular 8-4 shift unless one of my patients needs urgent attention,” you clarified.

“JJ, don’t make me go,” a girl, who you could only assume was Callie, sobbed.

They were all staring at you like you were the worst person on Earth. You wanted to shrivel up and die. When you went through the process of becoming a foster parent, you thought this was a very admirable thing to do. You just wanted to provide a good home to kids in need.

“Do any of you have a key to Dr. Reid’s residence so Camellia can pack a bag?” you asked politely.

The woman closest to Callie that must be JJ pulled a key off of her chain and handed it to you.

“I’ll-um-leave my phone number and address here so you guys can contact me at any time or stop by. I understand your concerns but please know I try my absolute hardest to make sure all kids feel welcome and safe in my house,” you scribbled your information down on a scrap piece of paper.

“Are you ready to go, Camellia?” you asked softly.

She went around hugging everyone in the circle before solemnly nodding to you.

God, you felt like such an asshole.

-

After Callie finished packing her things from her bedroom in relative silence, you returned to the car.

“I don’t know what you like to eat but we can stop at the grocery store so we can get stuff you like and any other things you need,” you said.

You were met with silence from the backseat. You offered for her to sit in the passenger seat but she declined.

“Listen, I’m really not trying to be the bad guy here. Please don’t make me out to be one. I know you are having a tough time with your Dad’s situation right now but shutting everyone else out won’t help,” you spoke softly, “Trust me, I know.”

You sighed when the silence continued. You pulled out of the Reid’s driveway and headed to the grocery store.

-

You let Callie lead when you entered the grocery store, opting to follow behind her with the cart. She went immediately to the frozen meal section and started throwing them in.

“Camellia, that’s fine if those are what you want but just so you know, I love to cook so I can make you anything you want,” you offered.

“This is what I’m used to,” she spoke sharply, “My dad is not a bad dad, he just usually doesn’t have much time.”

“I never claimed he was,” you defended yourself.

After that, you kept your mouth shut. Clearly, she was a very independent girl and she had her own routine she liked to stick to.

-

You hauled all the grocery bags inside the house and unloaded them as Callie brought in her suitcases.

“So Camellia, I put all the food you picked out in these two cabinets. I mean obviously, you are welcome to anything in the kitchen but I just wanted you to know where the things you picked out were. I always have a grocery list on the fridge that you can add to,” you began to give her a tour of the house, “Bathroom is in there. There’s another upstairs. Here’s the living room with a TV,” you headed up the stairs, “Here’s my room.”

On your bed was an adorable toyger kitten cuddled up on your pillow.

“Oh! This is Winnie like Winnie the Pooh. I just got her a few weeks ago from a shelter. She is super friendly and loves snuggles so she will probably try to sneak into your bed unless you keep your door closed.”

“I don’t mind,” Callie spoke softly as she petted Winnie.

You smiled softly. These were the first words you got out of her that weren’t a rejection.

You continued the tour, “There’s a bathroom between our rooms but I tend to use the downstairs one so feel free to make it your own. And here’s your room,” you opened the door to a white room with a queen bed in the center, a small bookshelf, a few plants, and paintings.

“I hope this is good enough for now. We can go out this weekend to a home goods store if you want to redecorate. I’d even be open to repainting it if you want,” you offered.

Callie just set her bags down and nodded.

“Alright, I’ll leave you be. I’ll probably be downstairs for a while watching TV if you want to join. Let me know if you want me to make you anything,” you began to shut the door but Winnie slipped in first.

“Good night, you guys,” you smiled softly.

-

“Do you want me to wait out here or come in with you?” you asked softly.

Spencer had been denied bail, meaning he was transferred to a federal prison and Callie was going to be staying with you for a while. She had taken the news rather hard as expected when the team came over to your house to tell her. You still weren’t really accepted by the group so you mostly stood in the corner of the kitchen while they were all in your living room.

You had spoken to Eileen several times about Callie’s current situation. She gave you permission to do whatever you saw fit. This means you could opt her out of school one or two days a week if she wasn’t feeling up to it as long as she emailed her teachers and got her missed work in on time. You were researching different therapists for her to talk to because she didn’t seem to want to open up to you. You were also given a schedule of visiting times for her to visit her dad in prison.

“I’ll just go in alone,” she walked in the door to the visiting room, leaving you in the waiting room.

-

“Dad,” Callie tried to hug Spencer but the guard pointed to the ‘No Touching’ sign posted on the wall.

They both sat down defeatedly at opposite ends of the table.

“How are you?” Callie inquired, wiping her tears away from seeing her father locked up.

“I don’t want to talk about me, sweetheart. How are you? Emily and my lawyer visited yesterday and told me you had to be placed into foster care,” Spencer asked, concerned.

“It’s okay. Not the best,” she sighed.

“What’s happening? Are they hurting you? Are they not giving you enough to eat? Callie, I’ll have my lawyer on the phone and you out of there so quick,” Spencer frantically stated.

“No, Dad. Y/N is fine…nice, even. But she’s not you,” Callie cried.

Spencer’s face softened, “I’m so sorry, Callie. You don’t deserve to be dealing with any of this.”

“Just please come home,” she sniffled.

“I’m trying, sweetheart, I’m really trying,” he replied earnestly with tears in his eyes.

A/N: i will also be starting a series taglist if you don’t want to be added to my main taglist so just clarify which one you want to join! also i recommend listening to the song Home by Phillip Phillips because it is kind of like the theme song for this story

main taglist (just ask to be added/removed!): @samuel-de-champagne-problems @g0lden-cth @spencerreid9 @averyhotchner @coldlilheart @k-k0129 @ickleronniekinsemotionalrange @harrystylesandthegoobs @cmily @jswessie187 @rem-ariiana @hoodpankow @mochionly @spencerreid-187 @babymetaldoll @fics4arainyday @ssavanessa22 @all-tings-diego

series taglist: @ilovespencerreidmarryme

[tabloidtoc]

Star, January 11

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover Story: Hollywood’s Best and Worst Bosses 

Page 1: Shia LaBeouf currently accused of relentless abuse and sexual battery by his ex FKA Twigs was snapped making out with Margaret Qualley after she arrived at LAX for a solid 10 minutes and holding up traffic -- the PDA session was the first time Shia and Margaret who is the daughter of Andie MacDowell were spotted out in public together but the two got well-acquainted a few months ago rolling around naked for a NSFW music video for a song by the actress’ sister Rainey Qualley a.k.a. Rainsford -- Shia went out of his way to charm Margaret as soon as they met and he wooed her with compliments and gifts and flowers and texts and spur-of-the-moment dates where he’d just show up at her house but her friends are concerned because Twigs’ lawsuit against Shia alleges multiple incidents of abuse including choking her in her sleep and knowingly giving her a sexually transmitted disease -- Shia said many of those allegations are not true and he is in a 12-step program and therapy for PTSD and alcoholism

Page 2: Contents, Prince William and Duchess Kate with kids Prince George and Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis for a Christmas card 

Page 3: Candice Swanepoel in a bathing suit in Miami, Jennifer Garner stepped out to run errands in a mask and an expressive sweater in L.A., Ryan Reynolds cuddled up with a puppy to encourage his Instagram followers to donate to the SickKids Foundation 

Page 4: Friends of Johnny Depp are keeping their distance as he gears up for another ugly defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard -- after losing the case against a U.K. newspaper that called him a wife beater and a scathing feature in The Hollywood Reporter that dubbed the star radioactive and his career all but dead, former pals want nothing to do with him -- the likes of Jude Law, Leonardo DiCaprio and Channing Tatum have been backpeddling on Johnny and it’s making him furious but to be fair Johnny had already alienated Leo and Channing by calling them Pumpkin Head and Potato Head and accusing them of having affairs with Amber -- Jude’s indifference cuts the deepest because for a time he and Johnny were brothers-in-arms as they filmed the second Fantastic Beasts movie and from Johnny’s perspective Jude hasn’t lifted a finger to defend him 

Page 5: Mossimo Giannulli’s son is speaking out claiming the fashion designer is being treated harshly at California’s Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc and Gianni Giannulli took to social media to complain that because of the pandemic his dad has been locked in solitary confinement for one full month and is only let out every three days for a few moments to shower and Gianni, Mossimo’s son from an earlier relationship, is irate that his father is being mistreated and he feels sorry for his dad and doesn’t want to see him languishing in prison however his half sisters Bela and Olivia Jade don’t seem too bothered by it

* At age 74 Susan Sarandon has had it with men -- she said she hasn’t really had a large dating career and in fact hasn’t had a guy in five years and it’s not that she can’t get a man, it’s just that the men she attracts are losers or sub-par in some way -- she is happy hanging out in her NYC apartment but still friends can’t help trying to fix her up because she’s attractive and in phenomenal shape but the problem is she scares guys away; she’s a force they can’t handle 

* Two years after sharing her shock diagnosis with multiple sclerosis Selma Blair is struggling with pain and fear -- she was recently spotted getting emotional outside a West Hollywood cannabis shop and she has turned to medical marijuana to soothe symptoms of the chronic immune-system disorder which can include fatigue, spasticity, walking issues, numbness, weakness, vision issues and pain -- on some days she can’t even get out of bed but she’s trying to stay strong for her son Arthur and smile more for him but it’s been hard 

Page 6: Julianne Hough appears to be sweetness and light but she’s a heartbreaker according to her ex Chuck Wicks who split from Julianne in 2009 -- in a revealing podcast Chuck blasted Julianne saying they were both loving life then out of nowhere you find out that they are not the person you thought they were and you break up -- Chuck admitted that he and Julianne agreed to say their split was amicable but it wasn’t fine and it wasn’t his fault

* After holing up at his Oklahoma spread Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani are having a blast decorating their 13,000-square-foot $13.2 million new home in the Encino area of California’s San Fernando Valley -- the home sits on 1.6 ultra-private acres behind double gates and extensive walls and features a pool and fabulous views -- inside the engaged pair give each other space: Gwen wants a dance studio and Blake gets his own man-cave with a big screen and high-tech surround sound 

* Star Spots the Stars -- Nicky Hilton, Katharine McPhee Foster, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt making dairy-free and plant-based holiday appetizers, Jenna Dewan, Natalia Dyer

Page 8: Big Losers -- these stars shed pounds and got healthy in 2020 -- Jessica Simpson, Rebel Wilson, Kelly Osbourne 

Page 10: Star Shots -- Gwen Stefani on the way to the recording studio in Santa Monica, Jerry O’Connell started his morning off with a fresh mimosa and a kiss from one of his dogs, Jodie Turner-Smith is the first Black actress to play Henry VIII’s ill-fated queen Anne Boleyn in a major U.K. TV series in Emley, UK 

Page 11: Nick Cannon pitched in to help distribute 2000 free meal boxes to the Hollywood Food Coalition

Page 12: Demi Moore in a yellow bow for a selfie thanking readers for checking out her memoir, Paris Hilton kicked back for a Coach campaign reintroducing the early-2000s ubiquitous Swinger bag

Page 13: Derek Hough and his dogs Romie and Luna, Irina Shayk striking a pose 

Page 14: Sofia Vergara during a photoshoot, Real Housewives of New York City alum Kristen Taekman is taking advantage of the California winter weather in a bikini in Malibu, Wells Adams takes out the trash in L.A. 

Page 16: Carrie Underwood showed off her comfy at-home style, Vanessa Hudgens and her favorite condiment, Katherine Schwarzenegger celebrates her dog’s birthday 

Page 17: Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval picked up a holiday-themed centerpiece ahead of Christmas in L.A., Katie Holmes slung a guitar over her shoulder in NYC, Dame Joan Collins dropped by The Jonathan Ross Show in London 

Page 18: Normal or Not? Hailey Baldwin shares a glimpse into her beauty routine -- normal, Tiger Woods’ son Charlie showed off his skills ahead of the PNC Championship -- normal 

Page 19: Pete Wentz playing tennis in L.A. -- normal, Pete Davidson hurt himself a few times while making a scarf -- not normal 

Page 20: Fashion -- stars charm in romantic ruffles -- Keke Palmer, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lupita Nyong’o 

Page 21: Kirsten Dunst, Halsey 

Page 24: Ariana Grande announced her engagement to realtor Dalton Gomez with some celebratory shots and she’s telling everyone how she never thought it was possible to be this happy -- the couple began dating in early 2020 when Dalton helped Ariana find a home in L.A. and things hit the fast track amid the health pandemic which saw the two enjoying quality time together in lockdown and realizing they were a perfect fit because they never fight and are totally in sync about how they look at life -- Ariana went straight into wedding mode already deciding on an intimate outdoor setting in mid-2021

Page 25: Jon Hamm stepped out in L.A. recently with girlfriend Anna Osceola and she was showing off a noticeably rounder midsection and there’s a good chance the two are pregnant because they’ve been actively trying to get into the family way -- though Jon admitted in 2016 that having children isn’t necessarily an imperative Jon may have changed his tune after his year-long relationship with Anna and hitting the big 5-0 in March has him reassessing his life and now having a child has become important to him 

* Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher will be camping in style now that they’ve purchased a $140K Mercedes Benz Sprinter and they’re preparing to embark on an adventure  -- with sleeping accommodations for four and a kitchen the spacious luxury vehicle is perfect for the couple and their two kids -- other stars can spend their vacations in five-star resorts but Mila and Ashton prefer to keep things alfresco and it’s a tradition they’ve kept all these years; this is their idea of a perfectly fun vacation

Page 26: Cover Story -- Hollywood’s Best and Worst Bosses -- who’s great to work for and who makes employees’ lives a misery -- Jennifer Hudson -- best

Page 27: Jennifer Lopez -- worst, Rihanna -- best, Kenny Chesney -- best, Mariah Carey -- worst, Gwyneth Paltrow -- worst 

Page 28: Keanu Reeves -- best, Sandra Bullock -- best, Emma Watson -- worst 

Page 29: George Clooney -- best, Ellen DeGeneres -- worst, Guess the Bad Boss 

Page 30: Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell: Man on a Mission -- amid all the tension on the set of Mission: Impossible 7 Tom has been pursuing his costar Hayley to be his next girlfriend and it seems to be working -- Tom has become very active with the U.K. Scientology Branch and is very taken with English women like Hayley and he’d like to make the U.K. his home base -- handcuffed to each other for several scenes in M:I7 Hayley and Tom were also spotted holding hands when the cameras weren’t rolling 

Page 32: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s very L.A. Christmas -- the prince spends the holidays 5000 miles away from the royal family but Meghan’s mom Doria Ragland was on hand for the festivities -- the couple were intending to call Queen Elizabeth on Christmas morning otherwise they were happy to celebrate a low-key holiday 

Page 38: Entertainment 

Page 48: Parting Shot -- Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas suited up to hit the slopes stopping by a local store to pick up goodies before changing into warmer gear in Mammoth Lakes in California -- the couple are familiar faces in the ski town and looking forward they will be able to plan even more snowy getaways now that they’ve listed their NYC apartment for $5.9 million and moved full-time to Encino 

[ozymandiasdirge]

i saw emilys post earlier and remembered that i was 17 before i realized that not every family had mob hunting/being the mob stories so here’s an incomplete list of mine

my uncle invited a convicted murderer who had just been released from san quentin to my eighth grade graduation because they grew up in the same neighborhood. he got me a forever 21 gift card.

my family only lives in this country from sicily because my great grandfather luigi came to san francisco to revenge kill the mob boss who had murdered his father.

my grandfather’s mother fully wore black to his wedding to my grandmother because they came from a slightly more northern region that my grandmother. that isn’t criminal but its very funny even though she really liked mussolini which :/. 

the one time i met her she kept saying “son of a bitch, i should-a be dead” in a very heavy italian accent, goat.

my grandmother’s mother went to federal prison twice for fraud and also got into the san francisco chronicle for lying about my great aunt’s age in beauty pageants and being banned for life.

her cousins were also fully in the mob but instead of using them for crimes, she just made them try and convince my great grandfather to live with them. even though he had literally fled this side of the country to avoid her because she was full on psychotic. 

one of my dad’s cousins louie (he has 5 and also a brother named louie) hit on a girl who was married to the head hell’s angel in the bay area and they framed him for murder and went to jail for ten years.

his older brother frankie tried to get the dirt and get him released and he got murdered by the hell’s angels and left on a park bench in san francisco

the cousin louie also only got pardoned and released because the guy who framed him’s wife turned witsec and narced. he’s also been married eight times and has a p*ssy cabal at the retirement community he lives at in napa valley.

one of my great aunts had a disputed will when she died so, one of her kid’s husband got his friends (who are also hells angels) to beat the shit out of his nephew with a bat because he got to keep the house.

my mom broke her arm in a bar fight because the bouncer punched my dad’s brother and her little 5′5 100 pound ass jumped on him and punched him in the head

[nalgenewhore]

Too Late To Turn Back Now - Two

masterlist - ao3 - last chapter - next chapter 

Elide Lochan has been living and working in Doranelle for years. Unknowingly, she let her visa expire and now must leave the country for a year - including losing her position as Crown Counsel. Without thinking, she ropes her associate, Lorcan Salvaterre, into her scheme to let her stay in Doranelle and announces that they are to be wed. As they fumble their way through their new relationship dynamics while visiting Lorcan’s family deep in Doranelle’s northern isles, they must keep up pretenses while their intentions change, all under the watchful eye of the immigration bureau.

+*+*+*+*+*+*

an: just a quick lil thing! so, i headcanon lorcan to be native and the nation i use for inspiration is the Lakota tribe, this will be more apparent in the following chapters, but just wanted to let yall know! happy reading 💛

+*+*+*+*+*+*

“Lorcan? Did you hear me?”

He hadn’t said a word in the past five minutes and Elide was getting worried. Finally, he opened his mouth, “I quit.”

Elide scoffed and rolled her eyes, “You can’t quit.”

Without another word, Lorcan stood and walked out, passing the rows of cubicles as Elide walked quickly after him, trying not to cause a scene. “Lorcan. Lorcan,” she hissed, her heels click-clicking on the marble floor of the building.

She followed him into the elevator and he pushed a random floor button, glaring at the paneling as if it had somehow grossly insulted him as he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. Elide tracked the way his jaw ticked and his nostrils flared, his eyes ablaze. Sooner than she could react, he slammed the emergency stop button and whirled on her. “You told them we’re getting married? Elide, you’re a fucking prosecutor, do you even understand that’s a crime? Like, punishable by the law.”

“They’ll never figure out it was a scam and besides, you can’t quit.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have the power to ruin your career and make sure you never get a job practicing on the continent and you know it.”

He did know it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Lorcan fumed silently and said, expertly calculated, “Fine. Say I say yes to this. I have some conditions.”

“Naturally.”

Lorcan shoved the urge to snap her neck down down down and breathed deeply, “First of all, a fifty percent pay raise, effective immediately. Secondly, after I finish articling, I get Cairn’s job with an added thirty percent pay raise after the first raise. And I want your office.” The last one he threw in for fun, knowing she would fight tooth and nail to keep her coveted corner office.

Elide seethed silently, tapping her foot on the floor, glaring up at him. Gods, she was an itty-bitty woman and he’d never been more terrified by anyone. “Thirty-ten percent raise. Promotion, Cairn’s office.”

“Eighty-sixty. Promotion, your office.”

Elide spoke through gritted teeth, “Forty-five-thirty, promotion and your choice of office besides mine.”

“Deal,” he said, holding his hand and they shook on it. “I’ll get the necessary documents.”

“Really?”

“Nope.”

Elide muttered something in her first language that he chose to ignore as he restarted the elevator and they traveled back to their floor. News sure traveled fast because the moment they stepped out, everyone was staring at them with semi-horrified expressions.

She pretended not to notice while Lorcan stared ahead, stony-faced. As he stopped at his desk, Elide informed him they’d be leaving in fifteen for the immigrations office. Lorcan groaned and hit his head on his desk, wondering just what he’d done to deserve this.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Elide’s pert nose wrinkled as they stepped into the crowded office and she took in the long line up. With a sigh, she snapped her fingers at Lorcan and bypassed the line. “Elide, you can’t do that,” he said, trying to get her to stop and wait her turn, like everyone else.

Of course, she dutifully paid him no heed and slid in front of the person who was stepping up to the counter, “Hi, I’m sorry, do you mind if I just? No? Good.” She plastered on her case-winning smile as she put her papers down. The tired man keeping the desk looked at her unimpressed as she said, “I have a marriage visa I need processed.”

She tapped her sharp nail on the folder and the man gave her a dirty look before he picked up her papers and moved to the back to process them. Elide blinked and turned to Lorcan, “Rude.”

Lorcan bit his tongue and ushered her into an empty seat as they waited for their fraud to be processed. A few minutes later, their names were called and Elide stood up excitedly, clapping her hands before she tucked her hand in his elbow and tugged him back to the front desk. “Hi, thank you so much-“

“Ms. Lochan, Mr. Salvaterre, if you two would just follow me please,” a serious looking man said, clearly no time for any games as they walked at a brusque pace to a dreary little office in the back. They both sat in the uncomfortable chairs, hands clasped on their laps.

“Is something the matter?” Elide inquired, a picture-perfect air of innocence on her stunning face. Though Lorcan loathed her most of the time, he wasn’t blind. Her high cheekbones and angular, uptilted eyes paired with a button nose and round, bee-stung lips made for a breathtaking image, especially with her molten brown eyes and hair that was black as a starless night.

Her figure wasn’t bad either, sinful curves in all the right places, lean legs that looked like they went on for miles and miles – Elide would be exactly Lorcan’s type, if only she wasn’t like this.

The man looked up from their file, his dark eyes lingering on Elide too long before flicking to Lorcan and sliding right back to the petite woman. He addressed her breasts as he spoke, “I am Agent Benson and it’s come to our attention through anonymous tip that this wedding might be a scam so that Ms. Lochan can keep her position as Crown Counsel.”

Elide tensed as his gaze never dropped and Lorcan reached over, gently taking her hand in his before she could commit yet another crime, one that she would never see the sun again for. She gave him an almost grateful smile and turned to Benson, “Mr. Benson, did this anonymous tip come from a man named Cairn Beinn, by any chance?” The agent hesitated to answer and inadvertently showed his hand. Elide chuckled and shook her head, “Mr. Beinn is nothing more than a disgruntled former employee. It’s merely a coincidence, nothing to worry about.”

Lorcan nodded, squeezing her hand once. Benson looked unconvinced and rose a brow, flipping through their papers once more. “Five years in federal prison and a fine of two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars.”

“What?”

“When I find out you’re lying, Mr. Salvaterre here will go to prison for five years and you’ll both pay the fine. Ms. Lochan, you will be deported and never allowed in the country again.”

“I guess it’s a good thing we aren’t lying then,” Lorcan said, pulling Elide’s chair closer. She squeaked in surprise at the sudden movement. “Ain’t that right, sweetie?”

She smiled uncomfortably and he subtly shook his head, nodding as her smile grew more natural. “You know it.”

Benson sighed and leaned his elbows on his desk, “Let me explain what's going to unfold. Step one will be a scheduled interview. You’ll be put in separate rooms and I’ll ask you each and every question a real couple would know about each other. Next, I dig a little deeper, start going through phone records, emails, interview your friends and families. If your answers don’t match up at any point, it’s over.”

Neither of them said a word and he pressed again, “So, which one of you is going to tell me the truth?” Elide refused to break and leveled him with a cool look. Benson turned to Lorcan. “Well?” 

“Mr. Benson, the truth is that we started dating six months ago and kept it from our coworkers and friends. We fell in love and we’re getting married. That’s it.” Lorcan gripped Elide’s knee and she gave him a loved-up smile she’d seen her parents give each other all those years ago. “We weren’t supposed to fall, but we did. Nothing we could do about it.”

“Hm. Have you kids told your parents about your… love?”

Elide said bluntly, staring with deadened eyes, “My parents were murdered when I was seven, so no.”

“How convenient.” She sucked in a breath and Lorcan squeezed her knee harder as Benson turned to him, “How about yours? Your parents dead too?”

“My mom, very much alive. Don’t know about my dad, haven’t seen him since I was eleven so.”

Elide cut in, “We’re telling her this weekend.” Lorcan choked on his breath and coughed, growing red. Elide patted his back and went on, “Yeah, it’s his sisters’ birthday, so we’re making the trip and letting everyone know. We thought it’d be a nice surprise, the whole family’s coming together.”

“And, uh, where’s this taking place?”

“Lorcan’s mom’s place.”

“And where might that be?”

Elide laughed coyly, “It’s Lorcan’s mom, why are you asking me? Come on, darling, jump in.”

Finally, he had his breath back and said, “Otȟúŋwahe*.”

“Otȟúŋwahe,” Elide repeated, nodding. She hadn’t stopped rubbing his back and Lorcan realized it was rather soothing in the situation, her long nails scratching over the material of his suit jacket.

“Northern Isles.”

“Yup, Norther-ern Isles?”

“You’re going to the Northern Isles this weekend?”

Elide and Lorcan nodded along, the former trying to control her look of utter fear. “Mm-hmm. Cause that’s, that’s where Lorcan’s from. The Northern Isles.”

The agent just laughed humourlessly, “Fine. If that’s how you want to play it, fine.”

“Perfect,” Elide said, “my fiancé and I will see you then.”

She turned primly and walked out of the office, holding herself as though she had done nothing wrong and doing the interview would be an inordinate waste of her time.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Elide was tapping away on her phone when Lorcan came out of the building and walked right past her. “Lorcan, excuse me, Lorcan!”

He slowly turned around and looked down at her with an extremely displeased look in his eyes. “Yes, dear?”

“Funny, anyway, we need to talk about what’s going to happen when we get up to Oto- Ota-“

“Otȟúŋwahe.” The fact that she couldn’t remember, despite having a near photographic memory made what he was going to demand of her so much sweeter.

“That. So, I’m thinking, we play girlfriend-boyfriend, tell your family we’re engaged-“

“Ask me nicely.”

She arched a brow, looking up from her phone, “’Ask you nicely’ what?”

Lorcan smiled and batted his eyelashes. “Ask me nicely to marry you, Elide.”

Elide made a face and gestured vaguely, “What does that even mean?”

He tilted his head to the side, a strand of his hair falling over his harsh cheekbone. “You heard me. On one knee and everything.”

Elide glared at him and he glared right back, not budging an inch, so Elide tucked her phone in her purse and held out her hand. Lorcan took it and helped her down to her knees, her dress not allowing for anything but a two-kneed approach. “Is this good?”

Lorcan swallowed his laugh and nodded, “Mm-hmm, I like you like this.”

Scowling up at him for the implication, Elide rudely asked, “Will you marry me.”

“Mmm, nope. Try again, baby.”

“Don’t call me that,” she spat before closing her eyes and breathing in deeply. Her gaze was true and deep when she swept her eyes open, smiling serenely up at him, “My darling Lorcan?”

“Yes?”

“If you would, please, do me the greatest honour of any woman’s life, and marry me? Please, with a cherry on top?”

“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm, but fine. See you at the airport tomorrow.” With that, he left, leaving Elide to fend for herself on the pavement.

+*+*+*+*+*+*+

*Otȟúŋwahe is Lakota for town! 

@mythicaitt @tinywolfofeyllwe @schmlip-scribble @the-regal-warrior @westofmoon @empire-of-wildfire @rhysands-highlady @city-of-fae @shyvioletcat @alifletcher2012 @tangledraysofsunshine @ttakeitbacknoww @tswaney17 @ourbooksuniverse @flora-and-fae @thesirenwashere e @queenofxhearts @maastrash @superspiritfestival @yikesitsmaddie @flowerspringsea @queen-of-glass @sleeping-and-books s @b00kworm @bat-wing-rhys​ @poisonous00​ let me know if you want to be added/taken off the tag list! 

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #230: THE LAST FAREWELL!

April, 1983

“Yellowjacket no more!”

Aw, dang! Hank got raptured!

Captain America, Thor, and Hawkeye is a weird collection of characters to be staring forlornly at the empty Yellowjacket uniform.

Thor hasn’t really expressed much about the Yellowjacket situation in comparison. You think they could squeeze Wasp into the shot. Just her ex-husband is all. She’s just the team leader is all.

Put Wasp on the cover, you cowards.

So last times on Avengers: Hank Pym got himself kicked out of the Avengers and out of his marriage and pretty much deserved it. He was tricked into committing treason by his arch-nemesis Egghead and sent to jail. He sat in jail for, like, a really long time. The wheels really spun on the arc.

He was kicked out of the Avengers/walked before he could be kicked out in #213. He was arrested at the end of issue #217. His trial was in issue #228.

He was kidnapped from his trial by the Masters of Evil. Then in #229, he turned the tables on them all in quite a satisfying manner and slugged Egghead in the egg head.

Then Hawkeye manslaughtered him. He’s dead.

Hawkeye arrowed the science gun to stop Egghead from shooting Hank in the back and then the science gun backfired and microwaved that egg.

This makes Hank’s victory a little bittersweet for him.

Hank Pym: “I defeated the Masters of Evil single-handed... but more than anything, I wanted to bring Egghead to justice. He was a thorn in my side for so many years. I was never able to defeat him for long, not when I was Ant-Man... and not even after I became Giant-Man! He bedeviled me in every identity I assumed. He did me the greatest wrong when I was Yellowjacket. I’d already ruined my Avengers career, when he tricked me into committing a federal crime!”

Hawkeye too is set to thinking by what happened. Maybe humming a bit of Bohemian Rhapsody to himself too.

Hawkeye: “This is unreal! I’ve never killed a man before! I never planned on anything like this happening! Yeah, but I can’t feel sorry for Egghead! If anyone deserved this, he did! My brother Barney bought the farm, stopping Egghead from killing the Avengers. And if I hadn’t acted when I did, Hank Pym would be dead! If I had to do it again... I would!”

Hawkeye: ‘Eh, fuck ‘em!’

hah.

But Hank laments that with Egghead dead, so goes his chance of proving his innocence by turning him over to the law.

Hank Pym: “Egghead was always getting away from me, Hawkeye. It’s almost as if he’s pulled the ultimate escape!”

Fun fact: There doesn’t seem to be an Ultimate Egghead! Why would there need to be? Even more than in the 616, Ultimate Hank Pym is by far his own worst enemy.

Hawkeye basically tells Hank to buck up and that there’s basically incriminating evidence lying all over the place.

He doesn’t say it but even Egghead’s dead deceased corpse is kind of like evidence. Evidence that he wasn’t dead until recently.

Captain Marvel shows up because someone finally came looking for Hawkeye.

Hank is surprised, much like others have been that this is Captain Marvel. He knew the old guy, the super saiyan. And I guess he didn’t hear there was a new one.

Hawkeye: “We’ve had a few changes since you went in the slammer, Hank. C.M. is an Avenger in training.”

Huh. Captain Marvel doesn’t even react to the dead body. Then again, there’s a lot of bodies lying all around the place.

And while Hawkeye is introducing the new Captain Marvel to Hank, one of those bodies stirs.

Moonstone has regained consciousness and assesses the situation. She could blast Hank, Captain Marvel, and Hawkeye with her coherent light pew pew but that’d just weaken her.

Like in the previous issue, Moonstone is one of the few supervillains who knows when to fold ‘em.

So she decides to skeedaddle while the getting is good but whoops.

Getting wasn’t good.

The rest of the Avengers have shown up and cornered her while she was pondering.

So Moonstone decides ‘eh fuck it’ and promises to spill all the beans if it gets her a lighter sentence.

So days later, the mostly off-screen trial of Hank Pym finally ends.

A loooot of new evidence suddenly popping up led the prosecution to withdraw all charges.

The lead prosecution witness, Trish Starr, suddenly reversing her testimony after putting on Tony Stark’s magical mental-scan helmet kind of tanked the case, really.

Wait, they really did just admit the use of the helmet in the trial when its new, unsubstantiated technology whose inventor disappeared?

Damn, I knew the Marvel legal system was wild (considering comic books as legal documents as explored in Dan Slott’s run on the character) but still!

Although it makes sense. Egghead got Trish to incriminate Hank by using the bionic arm to alter her memories. The helmet Tony invented undoes that kind of alteration. This connects the dots quite reasonably. Glad Stern was paying attention when preparing to finish this arc.

Moonstone and Beetle confirming that Egghead was using Hank as a tool also helps.

In fact, not only did the prosecution drop all their charges, the judge also dismissed all the charges. Which feels redundant? I dunno much about law, really. Just the She-Hulk version of law. Which, again, uses comic books as legal documents.

Apparently happening at around the same time, Hawkeye also had his day in court.

Literally a day.

It wasn’t a trial, just a hearing to investigate whether he was guilty of wrong-doing in the death of Egghead.

Newsman with a newsplan: “Though he was threatened with contempt-of-court charges a number of times -- Hawkeye was found innocent of any wrong-doing in the death of Dr. Elihas Starr -- the self-styled Egghead.”

Yeah, I bet Hawkeye was threatened with contempt-of-court a bunch. And I bet you anything that at least one of the times he rejoined with “No, you’re out of order! This whole damn courtroom is out of order!”

And then the judge probably just sighed.

I mean, look at that unbelievable Hawkeye in the bottom left panel.

Anyway, I think Stern must have felt a little pent up having to start his Avengers run finishing off someone else’s story, especially having to devote a recap issue to it since the plot had been interspersed with fill-ins.

Because in the middle of concluding this arc, he throws in two plot beats that I have to assume are to set up stuff of his own.

A day after the trial, the Beetle is being escorted to a cell in a Western Pennsylvanian federal maximum security prison when he bumps into another prisoner.

What neither the Beetle or the guard notices is that the bump to “Sam Smithers” has peeled off some skin on his arm and revealed THAT HE IS ACTUALLY MADE OF WOOD!

Suspect possibly a living puppet.

And elsewhere but samewhen, IN SPACE, specifically on Saturn’s moon Titan, Thanos’ brother Eros is basically complaining about being bored.

When Captain Mar-vell died of having a lot of cancer, he asked Eros to look after Mar-vell’s... uh... -google- robot girlfriend?? Elysius.

Eventual mom to Genis and Phyla-Vells.

Soooooo, Eros has done as Mar-vell’s deathbed wish was and spent an agonizing several consecutive months hanging out in Titan’s beautiful inside forests and just having a real hard time caring about one thing for such a long period of time.

I’m not even being unfair to him.

Eros: “This is the first time in ages that I’ve spent so many consecutive months on Titan! I have ever been a wanderer! I’ve sought out adventure across the wide cosmos. Frankly, I have known romance on more worlds than most sentient beings could imagine. That’s part of the problem. Our friendship has been wonderful, but I’m having a hard time adjusting to it. My previous relationships have all been of a fleeting nature.”

‘Look its not you, its me’ except for attempting to dump someone as a friend, instead of romantically.

Not dump, even. He just kind of wants to ditch her and is asking in a roundabout way if she’s emotionally stable enough to ditch.

She goes, yeah sure, go off and have fun. And maybe she’s getting tired of his company too.

Elysius: “Look... you’ve been a great comfort to me these last few months, but now I need to be alone for a while with my thoughts.”

Geez, how clingy has he been this whole time while desperately wanting to be anywhere else?

Anyway, since she’s fine with him fucking off, he does fuck off. Right to the Hall of Science.

Where Eros’ dad is like ‘oh ffs’ when Eros tells him that he needs to use the LIVING COMPUTER Isaac to look up planets with the highest adventure potential.

Mentor of Titan is a man deeply disappointed in both of his sons for very different reasons.

Anyway, would you really be surprised if I told you that Earth was in the Top 3 planets in known space for adventure?

You wouldn’t, right?

Meanwhile, back at the plot, Hank Pym is on a boat with Trish Starr.

She wants to apologize for that time she incriminated him but Hank isn’t going to blame her for being as much a pawn in Egghead’s scheme as he was.

Trish: “Yes, uncle was like that all of his life. I think he really enjoyed using people.”

And she remembers the first time they met in Marvel Feature #5, where Egghead tried to drain her mind to power his machines. Because. Batteries hadn’t been invented? Because he’s just not happy unless he’s screwing over someone else?

Second one sounds likeliest.

She also remembers the time he car bombed her car but siphoned out most of the gas first.

Trish: “He didn’t want to kill me... only maim me. Nice guy, my uncle.”

Yeah. Its stories like that why its only Trish and Hank also Fred Sloan on a boat at Egghead’s funeral. Yeah, by the way, this is basically Egghead’s funeral.

Fred is only here for Trish.

Hank reacts to Fred so I wondered if he’s important in some way or if Hank recognized him but I checked the wiki and his main importance seems to be... this issue? So I don’t know why Hank reacts to the guy.

So Fred is just here for Trish. Trish is here out of duty, since she was Egghead’s only known family. And Hank is also only here out of duty but more archnemesis ‘can’t believe that asshole is dead and I don’t even get to feel good about it’ duty. I assume.

Hank even gets the honor (?) of laying Egghead to rest. By dumping his ashes into New York harbor.

Mostly because it doesn’t seem like Trish wants to?

So Hank quotes some Mark Twain and dumps the ashes.

Hank Pym: “‘Death... the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all -- the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.’ Farewell, Egghead.”

Trish: “It’s awful to say this -- but I can’t find it in myself to be sorry. I think I’m glad he’s dead.”

And that’s Egghead’s legacy. Mourned by no one. And his death is only not cheered because the only people that cared feel shitty about feeling glad he’s dead.

ANYWAY, there’s some other loose ends to tie up.

So Hank takes a taxi to the Avengers Mansion and I guess finally explicitly explains why the mansion has seemed to change positions over time?

Hank Pym: “I never thought I’d be coming here again. The place has certainly changed since the day Jan and I met here with Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk to draft the Avengers charter and by-laws. And I still recall the time Iron Man and Thor moved the mansion back from the street to give us more privacy. What a project that was!”

Sounds like a heck of a noodle incident, Hank.

... Why just Thor and Iron Man? Did they... did they literally just shove the mansion back from the street? ... There’s... basements and caves under there. How does that work? That seems like a massive architectural project.

Hank, pls, I need to know more details. You can’t just drop that information and casually stroll away. HANK!

Captain Marvel meets Hank at the door and escorts him inside, captain marveling at how calm Hank is despite everything he’s been through.

Hank shows up to the Avengers meeting and-

Oh god, She-Hulk looks like she wants to punch the suppressed emotions right out of Jan. She-Hulk, pls.

So, Wasp is super formal, calling Hank Dr. Pym and telling him that they want to use the mento-scan helmet to see if he was under outside influence when he did all the very bad things he did.

All of the Avengers are harboring their own concerns.

She-Hulk: “I’ve read legal briefs that were more informal! She’s cool on the surface, but inside -- ! Jannie, why are you doing this to yourself?!”

Are you guys already at the cute nickname stage of your friendship or is that just the way She-Hulk be?

Cap is worried that this is rough on Jan but that she’s doing what she needs to do as the Avengers chairwoman. But he’s more worried about the absence of Iron Man who is still missing and who ignored three calls to assemble.

Thor is just internally like ‘just do the helmet, my dude.’

Hawkeye is literally biting his lip at the tension.

Hawkeye: “Jan divorced Hank after his last breakdown. If we find out that he wasn’t to blame, what’s it gonna do to the both of ‘em? I hate this! That stupid court hearing was a breeze in comparison.”

Huh, Hawkeye has a point. Even if outside influence is proven, its not as straightforward as Jan and Hank instantly getting back together, no harm no foul. There was harm. And the problems with their relationship were deeper than one incident. But it would also create this possible expectation that they should get back together because the specific incident wasn’t Hank’s fault.

And Captain Marvel is still looking at this from an outsiders’ perspective.

Captain Marvel: “They’re really hurting over this... all of them! They all care so very, very much. If I ever become a fully active Avenger, I pray that I can live up to their example.”

So Hank very calmly agrees to use the helmet. But...

Hank Pym: “Sorry... no outside influences. It would have changed a lot of things if there had been, wouldn’t it? But no, I made my own mistakes... and I have to live with them.”

Thiiiiis was the best decision for the story arc. It may seem, in retrospect, the worst decision in the long run, but I can respect the story for standing by what it has done and standing by the growth Hank has had as a result of everything that happened.

I think a lot of more modern marvel comics have gone a little wild with letting the heroes do all kinds of dubious things and also die because it can be easily undone. It was a Skrull, they were being mind-controlled, it was an AU Nazi version of them created by a cosmic cube child. Or by giving the hero some big redemptive moment like Iron Man wiping his mind to make up for doing Civil War. Or Iron Man dying to make up for Civil War 2. You can explore whatever scenarios you want without worrying about dealing with the consequences long-term.

But in this era of Marvel, they were concerned with the long-term. Not to say that there weren’t cop-outs back in this day too. But since books were expected to keep going indefinitely instead of being cancelled and relaunched, there’s less of a sense of ‘this thing is only here to play with for a little while.’ If you wrote a thing, another writer was expected to follow up on it.

And I miss that a little.

So not giving a cop-out bullshit thing that undoes Hank’s actions was bad in the long run for his image as a character. But that’s a long way from now problem, exacerbated by writers like Chuck Austin and Mark Millar who wanted to wallow in it.

For an arc where Hank fell from grace and proved himself again, taking ownership of what a garbage fire his life can be was necessary.

One among many reasons I probably won’t like the Crossing when I get to it, haha.

With Hank’s actions proven as being Hank’s actions, Hank says there’s one more loose end that he wants to help tie off.

He wants to participate as witness when the Avengers hold a court of inquiry for Hawkeye killing Egghead.

This comes as an absolute surprise to Hawkeye, who I guess never read the bylaws. Which honestly, is very in-character for him.

But it being brought up, he insists that all he has to do is enter the findings of the state judge and be done with it.

Hank insists he participate though.

Hank Pym: “Hawkeye is faced with charges because he acted in my defense. It’s only right that I act in his.”

So, the Avengers go to the first floor library, which is apparently the court of inquiry room. I feel like we’re suddenly getting a lot of details about the layout of the Avengers Mansion in recent issues.

So Wasp convenes the court all formal style, so formal style that Hawkeye thinks that stickler Cap(tain America) couldn’t have done a better job. The purpose of the court of inquiry is to determine the validity of the charge of “unreasonable use of deadly force” and determine what if any proper disciplinary action should be taken.

I think Hawkeye is annoyed at having to go through with this (read the bylaws, my dude) because when Wasp asks if he has anything to add to his claim of innocence of the charge, he says he already gave the court copies of the court transcript that cleared him of the same charge, but also decides to speechify a little, because he wasn’t accused of contempt of court enough today.

Hawkeye: “I have already given the chair copies of the transcript of a hearing of the state courts... a hearing which found me not guilty of the same charge. And I have something else to say as well!”

“I don’t deny that my actions caused the death of Egghead. But in no way did I use undue force! I found Hank Pym in mortal danger, and I used the necessary means to save him... period. After all, we are supposed to be the Avengers, right?”

Luckily for Hawkeye, the Avengers are more willing to put up with him than a state court so Jan just goes ‘ok, noted.’

Captain Marvel also has a minor change of heart on Hawkeye. I don’t think we’ve gotten her in-depth feelings on him before (although he did get pissy about her joining the team, we didn’t see her response to that) but she’s impressed because she thought he had more wind than conviction but is seeing that isn’t so. And she’s also impressed by Serious Mode Jan who she thought was kind of flighty.

Captain Monica Marvel seeing all kinds of new sides of the Avengers lately.

Also, this isn’t important and you won’t be able to see what I mean unless I included more caps than I wanted to, but in the panel establishing the court of inquiry, Monica is just standing off to the side. But in the next panel she appears in, she’s moved over to sit on a couch instead.

I think its a framing thing but its still kind of funny to imagine her going ‘wait why am I standing up’ and heading for the comfy couch.

With Hawkeye’s statement given, Wasp invites Hank Pym to speak his piece.

And Hank gets up and gives an entirely unnecessary but probably appreciated defense of Hawkeye.

Hank Pym: “Ladies and gentlemen... I have not always been on the friendliest of terms with Hawkeye. Point of fact, we nearly came to blows a number of times... back in the days when I was an Avenger. But in all the time I’ve known him, Hawkeye has never used undue force.”

“I realize that this inquiry is little more than a formality. I have no doubt that you will find in his behalf. He did, as he said, act only in my defense. Unlike my own recent case before you, there is not the slightest hint of misconduct or negligence. The only thing Hawkeye is guilty of is being a good Avenger.”

“When I last spoke before this body, at my court-martial, I was not in a rational state of mind. I was unfit to be an Avenger. You wisely expelled me. I never expected to speak before you again. And now, I can think of no finer final statement than this... It has been my sincere honor to have known Hawkeye’s fellowship... as it has to have known yours.”

Okay. So. Half a defense of Hawkeye. And half... just a general good-bye and a demonstration that he actually does know how to deliver a defense at a court-martial. Cool.

I imagine if he had a mic, he would have dropped it.

Probably not, actually. Hank isn’t that exact blend of cool and inconsiderate for a mic drop.

Jarvis intercepts Hank on his way out and asks that he come with him to the second floor study. Jarvis has taken the liberty of gathering up the personal items Hank just kind of left in the mansion and packing them for him.

One suitcase has a bunch of Hank’s clothes that he had stashed in the mansion over the years. Including some wacky ties for wacky tie Fridays and a shirt that Hank had just plumb lost.

The other suitcase is a spare Yellowjacket outfit. In case Hank ever needs it.

Then Hank and Jarvis shake hands, Hank thanking Jarvis for everything that he’s done for him and the Avengers. He asks Jarvis to take care of himself because he knows he doesn’t have to ask him to take care of the Avengers.

This is a very touching scene. Its so touching that Jarvis excuses himself to go get misty eyed.

This is a Jarvis appreciation blog because I appreciate Jarvis as well.

Then, as Hank heads back down the staircase, he is intercepted by Thor, Captain America, and Hawkeye.

Yeah, the court of inquiry resolved off-screen because of how forgone a conclusion it was.

The three Avengers basically fall all over themselves to pat Hank on the back. Hank actually looks somewhat panicked by the positive affirmation.

That’s some mixture of funny and sad that I can’t identify.

Hawkeye tells Hank how much he appreciated his unnecessary defense. Thor clasps Hank’s shoulder and tells him he’s a class act, but in Thor-y words. And Cap extends an offer for whatever the Avengers can do to help Hank get back on his feet.

Hank thanks him for the offer but he’s already received an offer from a small research foundation in the Midwest.

Seems like getting exonerated of a treason charge is the best resume of all. That and Hank’s actual impressive resume.

But Cap has some stuff to work out re: Hank because he starts off on the stuff he put on the back burner back in that Ghost Rider issue.

Cap(tain America): “Hank... I know Iron Man would agree, if he were here, that we’re all sorry about the way things worked out. We should have realized the pressures you’d been under, prior to your breakdown. I was group leader at the time! I should have -- !”

Hank Pym: “Hold it right there, Cap! What I did, I did to myself! If I could have admitted that my problems existed... If I’d been willing to open up to you folks... Well, ‘if’ can be a big word sometimes. The fact of the matter is, I screwed up. And you did the only thing you could do! I don’t blame any of you.”

Hank has boarded the personal responsibility train and goddammit he’s riding it to the end of the line!

Good for him. Good clarity for the arc to have in its last issue.

But having started to slightly shout at the Avengers that he’s taking responsibility dammit! (he looks a bit pissed when he’s responding to Cap) Hank awkwardly excuses himself.

Cap tries to stop Hank from leaving because he has reached the bargaining stage of grief, I guess.

Cap: “Hank, wait! It doesn’t have to end like this! We could make a special amendment to the by-laws! We could reinstate you as an Avenger! You could be a special reservist -- !”

Hank: “Thanks, Cap. But no thanks. Trying to play super hero was the biggest mistake I ever made with my life! I was only fooling myself in ever thinking otherwise. But if you ever really think you might need a Yellowjacket again some day...”

He hands Cap the Yellowjacket suitcase.

Hank: “... Here! All you need is a good man and what’s in this case!”

I would hope, anyway. It’s going to be awkward if he opens it up later and its full of wacky ties.

The funny thing, although not really funny ha ha, is that Yellowjacket is the one codename of Hank’s that never really catches on outside of him.

You have multiple Ant-Men, a couple Goliaths, at least one other Giant-Man. There was a second Yellowjacket, eventually. But she didn’t make a big splash.

Despite Hank’s attempt here to pass the torch, Yellowjacket is a codename that remains inextricably tied to him. Which might be the problem. If there were another, more successful or at least more endearing Yellowjacket, Hank’s infamy in the role would not stand out so much.

Alas.

She-Hulk and Captain Marvel try next to intercept Hank. They don’t know him very well but they wanted to say their goodbyes too, despite not really knowing him that well.

Its the thought that definitely counts, probably.

But Hawkeye has some social awareness for a change and draws their attention to Wasp who is hanging back, but who clearly wants to talk to Hank.

So the rest of the Avengers quickly vacate to let Hank and Jan finally have closure. Or re-closure. “I want a divorce and to never see you again” is a kind of closure.

The situation has changed, however.

They both try to apologize to each other and then laugh at the awkwardness.

Hank: “Janet van Dyne, you are one in a million! After all that I put you through, you want to tell me that you’re sorry?”

Wasp: “I think we both made some mistakes along the way, but there were some good times... weren’t there?”

Hank: “Yes. But you can’t base a marriage on just a few good times. I fell for the young lady who reminded me of my first wife... and you thought you’d found the strong, silent hero. But I was never that strong, Jan. You know that now.”

Wasp: “Uh-huh.”

Damn, his prison time really did bring Hank a lot of clarity. That or the pile of therapists Tony kept throwing at him.

Hank also kind of talks over Jan here. Or at least steers the conversation. I don’t know what Jan would have said because Hank tells her that they both have other lives to lead and tells her to take care of herself.

Maybe its for the best, if, like Cap, she was going to try to shoulder all the blame for Hank’s bad decisions.

Hank walks out the door and finds Trish and Fred from the boat waiting to give him a ride to the airport. And then he is gone.

Like in the final image of the COURT-MARTIAL issue, Jan watches at the window.

“The last time Henry Pym left these walls, Janet felt like crying... but couldn’t find any tears. Today, at last, she has found the tears... for her former husband... for her team... for herself. Today, there is pain and remorse and release. There will be time enough for joy and hope tomorrow.”

Emotional catharsis can be like that.

In that the book kept going ‘Jan is really holding her emotions in and that’s probably not overall great for her’ its good that she can let it out now.

Kind of laughing at Captain Marvel and She-Hulk who only recently just met Jan being the ones going there there while the men she has known for years are just awkwardly standing in the background.

And that’s the fall and rise of Hank Pym. Apparently collected in trade as The Trial of Yellowjacket, which is a decent enough name too.

Overall, a good arc. That is kind of hampered by the need for filler and a writer change near the end. But honestly, Stern catches the ball and runs with it. He concludes the arc just as good as Shooter would’ve.

This arc is all kinds of iconic for Hank, although, unfortunately, most people are only aware of the beginning and maybe have a hazy understanding of what the ending does.

Although. This is a really good send-off for Hank. A really, really good send-off that would have worked best if he did like he said and quit superheroing forever.

That’s not to be, obviously, not in a perpetual narrative machine like Marvel. But it feels like it could have been and maybe should have been the last word on his character.

I enjoy Hank in Busiek’s Avengers and in Avengers Academy. And also, conceptually, Hank telling Reed “it’s on, bitch.” I very don’t enjoy Ultimate Hank Pym. So its a balancing act. The perfect exit for the character vs but I like some stuff when they brought him back.

Anyway.

After this, Stern gets to move on to his own material. Which he already planted the seeds for in this issue.

That’s a pun.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because of my bad puns. Also like and reblog, if you like to reblog.

[of-wrens-and-whirlwinds-blog]

Cyrano Who?

Commissioned by the fantastic @likearumchocolatesouffle! Commission info is here!

~

“He doesn’t like me,” Rabiya muttered, bouncing her tennis ball off the wall.

“So?” James asked, scribbling in his notebook and glancing at her often. He was still having trouble describing her eyes.

“So… I feel like he should.” Rabiya threw the ball extra hard and dented her wall.

“Hey, easy!” James protested, reaching out to touch her arm. Rabiya stopped and turned to look at him sullenly. “Do you even like him back?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes,” she replied forcefully, frowning. “I mean… I think I do. He’s nice, and handsome, and rich, and mom and dad like him...”

She sounded utterly unconvinced. That hurt, but James didn’t say that. If Rabiya wasn’t attracted to Geoff, who was quite a few things besides nice, handsome, and rich, then what could she see in James, who was depressing, ugly, and poor?

“Maybe you just have to get his attention,” James suggested, a little weakly. “Do something that will interest him.”

“Like what?” Rabiya snapped. “He’s at the same law office as me, he reads the same books as us, and that’s it.”

James frowned, wracking his brain. The best he had ever done to attract a lady’s favor had been… “Write poetry?”

Rabiya finally laughed and punched James’ arm. “That’s your answer to everything!”

“Sometimes it works!” James protested.

“True, true.” Rabiya stopped laughing, and stared into the middle distance, thinking. James knew better than to interrupt her thoughts. Instead he listed every brown gemstone he could think of, trying to match her eyes. Sweet Rabiya, with her beautiful brown eyes and brown skin and her favorite shimmering purple hijab…

Suddenly, her face lit up, and she whirled on her cushion to grin at James. The gleam in her eyes scattered his thoughts, and instead of longing, he felt the excited dread he usually felt when she had a grand scheme.

“You write the poems,” she told James.

He blinked at her. “What?”

“You write them! We’ll say they’re from me, but you’ll be the writer! You’re better anyway.”

“Rabi, you know I can’t write poems about guys!” James protested, feeling his face flush. She was the only one who knew he was bi—and also the only one who knew he was worse at talking to guys than he was with girls. “And I don’t know him.”

“Ah!” Rabiya raised her hand, holding up one finger as she grinned. “But you will know him. You’re going to the company picnic with me, aren’t you?”

“Well… yes...”

“And Geoff has said he will be there, with his sister!”

“Rabi, I think I know where you’re going with this...”

“Get on her good side. Use your Adorable Face. We both know girls are suckers for your Adorable Face. Talk to her, be friendly, ask about her relationship with her brother, and glean as much info as you can. Geoff told me she’s talkative; all you have to do is encourage her and ask questions!”

Put that way, it sounded relatively simple. James swallowed hard. The pure glee on Rabiya’s face made him long to write another poem about her. Finally, he sighed. Anything for her. “Alright, fine. When do you want me to start writing?”

~

The first poem was insipid and lacked depth, but Rabiya said it was perfect and slipped it to Geoff the day before the picnic.

The picnic itself was… well, stressful. A bunch of mature adults in mature clothing, teenagers in mature clothing that they were obviously uncomfortable in, and small children in comfortable clothes perfect for playing in the dirt and woodchips. The adults spoke—whined, really—about youngsters these days and the cost of champagne and politics. The teenagers talked about school, teen drama, and politics. The children just ran around on the playground shrieking and laughing.

James felt even more uncomfortable than the teenagers. He was only twenty-one, but that was too old to talk to seventeen year olds. It was also too young to be taken seriously by the older adults. And his one nice outfit was a little tight and he couldn’t help adjusting it constantly. He knew he should’ve begged his mother for a new shirt at the very least.

Rabiya was cool and effortless, chatting with lawyers and doctors and CEOs as if she’d been doing so for years, despite also only being twenty-one. It was probably because she was tall, and looked damn good in a dark purple suit and an even darker hijab. James felt severely outshined, which wasn’t unusual.

Geoff and his sister were standing at the other end of the veranda, also looking out of place. Geoff’s locs were pulled back in a ponytail, and his face was set in a pleasant smile, but from the way he fiddled with his cup, James guessed he was bored, or nervous. Seeing the glazed eyes, James chose bored.

Geoff’s sister was not dressed like the other women. Her hair was wrapped in a bright yellow-and-red scarf, and her dress was of a fluttery fabric in red, yellow, and green. She stood out, proud and bright, lounging on the veranda pillar with a champagne flute. No pastels or jewel-tones there. James found himself thinking immediately of how the warm colors gave a rosy tint to her dark skin, how the green on her dress suggested ever-present life in the fires of the universe, how—

They both saw him staring. He looked away quickly, blushing furiously. There was nowhere to run, though. He had a drink, nonalcoholic punch; he had already had a few snacks, he didn’t want anyone to glare at him for going back to the snack table; and Rabiya was so engrossed in a conversation about private versus federal prisons that she barely noticed him.

James felt very alone and forgotten.

Someone tapped his shoulder. He jumped and spun, and the hand gripped his bicep to keep him upright.

“Hey, hey, sorry about that,” Geoff said, smiling. He had a very nice smile, his hand firm and warm as James steadied. His voice was nice, too; soft and smoky and still with a Jamaican accent. “You look a little bored. I’m Geoff.” He held out his hand to shake, and James returned the favor.

“I’m James,” he answered, ignoring how his hair flopped in his eye. Again. He really should’ve gotten it cut a while ago. “Um. I came with Rabiya.”

He didn’t know if that was the right thing to say, but Geoff’s face lit up anyway. “Oh, Rabiya! Yes, I know her. She’s fantastic. If you came with her, you must be her friend the poet.”

James blushed. “Yeah,” he said softly.

“Do you want to hang out with me and my sister? We’re both tired of talking to the old people.” Geoff made a face, and James smiled. Well… maybe he could write a few poems easily enough.

Geoff’s sister hadn’t moved an inch, but when Geoff introduced James, she smiled and shook James’ hand. “Nice to meet you,” she said, her voice lighter than James had expected. “I’m Marie. Want some champagne?”

“No thank you,” James replied. “I don’t drink.”

“Good,” she said cheerfully, “’Cause this stuff tastes like pi—”

“Company,” Geoff interrupted. Marie stuck her tongue out at him.

It was actually quite nice, how quickly James relaxed with these two. They were funny, and kind, and Marie teased Geoff constantly. They had both read plenty of work by Maya Angelou, who was the only poet allowed in James’ parents’ home, and Marie had plenty of recommendations for Jamaican poets that James eagerly noted in his phone.

“My dad is pretty bad with poetry,” he admitted in a small voice, “And my mom can’t read English very well. I translate the English orders usually.”

Geoff and Marie nodded in understanding, and didn’t push the issue with the usual questions that made James feel small and sick.

He didn’t need to use his Adorable Face. The conversation was so natural that he picked up plenty of information without even meaning to. Then all three of them went on Facebook on their phones, and the siblings sent James friend requests. He accepted them so fast Marie laughed, but instead of feeling embarrassed, James just felt relieved. Hopefully they wouldn’t mind his daily haikus.

Rabiya glided over, and all three of them greeted her with pleasure. The catering had come and gone and everyone else was eating by the time they realized that several hours had passed. There was only one open spot big enough for the four of them, close to a table of loud children. James felt terrible upon seeing the spread of food, and only took one ham-and-cheese sandwich and a scoop of potato salad, while Rabiya, Geoff, and Marie loaded their plates. They all took their seats, and before any of them could take a bite, one small child leapt up from his seat, pointed right at James, and started making squealing noises like a pig.

The other small children laughed. James blushed so hard his face hurt, and he didn’t touch his food, even when the boy’s mother snarled at him about manners. Rabiya said softly, “James, really, it’s okay,” but he just shook his head and mushed his potato salad around. He hadn’t been hungry, anyway.

Around 8PM, the picnic broke up. James was glad. The small children had continued making pig-noises at him, no matter how many times parents or his friends told them off sharply. He felt sick and tired and the more he realized what bad company he was being, over something small like kids being kids, the more guilty he was.

When he and Rabiya climbed into Rabiya’s car, he was close to tears. Rabiya hugged him, and said quietly, fury in her voice, “Those fucking spoiled-ass brats. I’ll get you a smoothie. We can play Mario Kart for a bit before you go home.”

James nodded because if he refused, Rabiya would be sad, and he didn’t want her to be sad.

The smoothie helped, and he realized with another pang of guilt that most of his being upset was because he actually had been hungry. Rabiya’s parents were having another shouting match and didn’t notice them slip upstairs to her room.

James felt better after playing Mario Kart and telling Rabiya everything he’d learned. She teased him when he went on at length about how well-read Geoff was, but this kind of teasing he was used to. He could smile and pretend it didn’t hurt.

When he got home, his father was drunk and asleep, and his mother was painting again, some of James’ poems. They hugged, she gave him some soup, and he went to bed.

~

Poetry is hard.

James was used to filling up pages and pages trying to describe nature or emotions or Rabiya, but trying to write about a guy he barely knew was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Finally he decided to write about his voice. It had been a lovely voice. Very sexy. James emailed the poem to Rabiya, she printed it out and doodled some hearts and flowers, and then she slipped it to Geoff.

This was the point where James realized Rabiya actually wasn’t interested in Geoff.

He’d read her poetry. It was fantastic. Her love-poems were moving and her prose was spectacular. But… she could not draw up the emotion to write one of these poems for Geoff.

“I told my parents I was sending Geoff poems, because they were badgering me about marriage again,” she told James heavily over the phone. “They seemed pleased.”

“Are you pleased?” James asked.

She sighed. “James, let’s not go there. I’m tired of discussing it.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

The more James forced himself to consider Geoff and write up as many passionate poems as he could, the more baffled James was. How could Rabiya not be interested in Geoff? It was very confusing.

One night, James was on Facebook, scrolling through some of the poetry groups he’d joined, when someone messaged him. Thinking it was Rabiya, or maybe Carl back in California, James opened the message without reading the name.

It was Geoff.

Hey, James! I have a conundrum and I was hoping you could help me. I keep getting these poems in my mailbox at work and I think they’re from Rabiya.

James’ stomach dropped.

I like them a lot, she’s an awesome poet. But I was hoping, can you help me write back to her? I’m not good with poetry. I’ll pay you if you’d like!

James took a deep breath, swallowed hard, wondered why he felt so anxious and sad, and answered.

No payment necessary! If it’s Rabiya, I’ll definitely help you out.

I insist. What’s your Paypal?

When they had negotiated the terms (which was really just Geoff wearing him down and offering him ten dollars a poem), James wrote up a poem to Rabiya’s lovely writing skills and emailed it to Geoff. Geoff thanked him, paid him, and they talked about other things until midnight. James was sorry to stop talking to Geoff.

The next day, James was finishing up his latest editing gig when Rabiya called him.

“Someone put a poem in my box at work!” she started right off with, sounding panicked. Not excited, not gleeful: truly frightened. “I swear I thought no one saw me put one in Geoff’s!”

“Hey, hey, chill a bit,” James cut in, trying for a soothing tone. “I’m sure it’s fine. What did the poem say?”

Rabiya recited it, but her frightened tone sucked all the warmth out of it. James felt awful all of a sudden. She was scared—of reciprocation? Of it being so soon? Why? He didn’t know if he should ask.

“Do you want me to stop writing poems to him?” James asked, startled to realize he didn’t want to.

Harsh breathing on the other end of the phone, and a hard swallow, then Rabiya replied shakily, “No. No. This is fine. This is fine, this what we were aiming for. God, James, I’m sorry, I’m just… I don’t know why, but I started crying, and it wasn’t happy-cry. I was genuinely scared, and I don’t know why, and that scared me more. He shouldn’t know yet.”

“Who else would put poems in his box about how wonderful he is?” James replied. “You’re the only nice person there.”

“Melody is nicer,” Rabiya retorted, uncertainly.

“But does she have access to his box?”

“No. She’s also seventy and has grandkids.”

“So you’re the most likely person.”

“I… yes.”

“So it probably wasn’t hard. It’s okay, Rabiya, we can stop if you’re scared.”

A whimper, and then she said, her voice almost a wail, “I hate this! I hate trying to make people like me! Why can’t I live alone and be a boss-ass bitch lawyer?! I don’t want love!”

James blinked, and stared at the poem on his wall that his mom had painted and illustrated. Not one of his; one by his grandfather, who was actually a published and renowned author back in China. Almost a prayer, asking for strength and heart and freedom. James had needed it often in high school, and he suspected he needed it now, because he really didn’t understand—but he had to. For Rabiya.

“Then… you don’t need it,” he said slowly, trying to think past his own bewilderment. “If you don’t want love, and it scares you, then you don’t need it. You don’t even need to get married.”

“My parents,” she sniffled, and James saw the second biggest facet to the problem. “They want me married off, fast. But I don’t want to. We’re still kids, James. We have legal responsibilities, but we’re kids.”

James frowned worriedly. “Could you… marry someone you at least get along with? Not me,” he added hastily, startling himself. “I do want love. But you could, I dunno, sift through some people and agree to marry and you can keep it open. Your parents will be happy, and won’t be after you about it, but you’ll be happy too, because it’ll be more business than love.”

The sniffling was quieter. Then Rabiya asked softly, “Do you think that would work?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“...Do you have the next poem ready?”

~

Six months later, James realized he was well and truly fucked.

Rabiya had insisted on tapering off the poems a few weeks after her scare; James had agreed. Geoff had called him, and asked worriedly if Rabiya was alright, and if he should stop commissioning poems for her; James soothed him and said she was just going through a rough patch, and that probably all sympathy should be kept to a minimum, because Rabiya was just like that. Geoff had sighed, thanked him, hesitated, then asked James about his work. So they’d talked on the phone for a few hours, and James had found himself laughing, and being sad that they had to hang up.

Loving Rabiya didn’t feel like this. Loving Rabiya felt like passionate despair and pained yearning, knowing she was too good for him and if he confessed, she wouldn’t want to be his friend. Talking to Geoff felt… nice. Like something he could do every day.

Marie messaged James on Facebook to say, If you break my brother’s heart, I’ll break your nose.

What? It’s not like that! He doesn’t like me like that!

Hmph.

And she’d logged off.

But now, every few days, James and Geoff would meet up, and hang out. Sometimes Marie came along, and James was happy to see and speak with her, but he couldn’t help being a little grumpy, because Geoff was less candid around his sister. When it was just the two of them, they talked about all kinds of things. Movies, visiting family in other countries, books, video games, work. Geoff liked to knit; James sewed a lot of his own clothes. It was… enjoyable, to spend time with him.

He told himself he was researching for his next poem. He knew that wasn’t it.

Rabiya was getting jumpy. They would go out to movies or clubs or their favorite frozen yogurt shop, and one minute she’d be laughing and talking easily, and then the next she’d be tense and fidgeting. James couldn’t figure out what was wrong. It hurt, that she wasn’t comfortable around him anymore.

Finally, one day after playing Mario Kart, she asked him abruptly, “Do you like Geoff?”

“Yes,” James replied, puzzled. “He’s a great guy.”

“No, I mean do you like-like him?”

James opened his mouth to say no, then closed it. His face began to burn. Rabiya sighed—in relief.

“Oh, thank god,” she said, and patted his arm. “Then you won’t mind if I marry him and you come live with us.”

“What!” James squeaked, looking at her in horror. “What, that’s—what do you mean?!”

Rabiya snorted. “You told me once to think of marriage as a business transaction,” she reminded him. “So, I talked to Geoff about it.”

“When?!”

“Oh, a couple months ago.”

Months. James’ stomach dropped. Months. He’d been blissfully unaware, falling in love with Geoff and writing poems for them both, and they’d been talking about this for months.

Rabiya looked at him, and her face clearly showed sudden guilt. “Oh, James,” she said, and tried to hug him. But James didn’t want to be hugged, he didn’t want to be—comforted. He felt—betrayed, and he wasn’t sure why or by who. So he stood up and walked away, still staring at her, shocked.

“Months?” he said, quietly, and his voice was shaking.

Rabiya’s arms were still outstretched, and now she looked just as upset as he felt. “James—I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you—we both did. But it didn’t seem right. We both love you, okay? Just—you’re my best friend, and he loves you like you love him.”

“I don’t love him.” But it was weak and shaky and he still felt cold and alone.

Rabiya stood too, slowly, her arms falling to her sides. He didn’t want to look at her anymore. He didn’t want to see her guilt. He’d start wanting to forgive her, and that just wasn’t right. He looked down instead. He was hugging himself. He hadn’t realized. God, he just wanted to disappear. This was just too much. The two people he loved most, letting him believe this fiction of them both trying to woo the other, while they plan a marriage, and just like that, she drops it like a bombshell and breaks his heart.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, and she sounded like she was trying not to cry.

James couldn’t think of a response. So he left.

~

Geoff called him three times that week, leaving voicemails that got more and more frantic, until the last one sounded like he was crying. Marie sent James a message on Facebook saying she was so sorry, she hadn’t known, she’d yelled at Geoff and he really was sorry. James didn’t reply to her.

He sat in his room, quietly, staring at the poem on his wall.

Mom left him dinner outside his room. He took showers when he knew his parents were asleep. He refused to talk to anyone until he had thought this through completely.

About ten days after Rabiya had told him that, James sent both her and Geoff an email asking them to meet him at the diner that all three of them used to go to. He got agreement from both of them within minutes. He tried to feel something about that, but he was already feeling a lot of things.

Fear. He was afraid. And hurt. But he’d thought about it. And he thought he knew what to say and do.

He got to the diner first, and sat in a booth at the back, precisely placed so neither of them would sit with him. They arrived together. He only knew because, since he was staring at his glass of water, he didn’t see until they both slid into the seat across from him.

He raised his head and looked at them both. Neither of them looked like they’d slept well. Rabiya’s eyes were red. Geoff’s hair wasn’t as neat as usual. They both looked scared, and hopeful.

James would’ve cried, but he’d already thought it all out, and he no longer had tears for this.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, deciding to get the hardest question out of the way first.

“Because it… it didn’t feel right,” Geoff answered, haltingly. His voice was rough, like his throat hurt. “I figured it out after the first few poems you sent me to give to Rabiya. You have a really distinct style, and… and I didn’t know what to do. Marie has already smacked me for not just asking either of you. And then we started hanging out, and...” He blushed and looked down at the table.

“I wasn’t thinking about the love part,” Rabiya admitted softly. “Because it just… didn’t seem important. I thought, well, hey, you two loved each other, if we did this then you two would be happy and everything would be fine. I didn’t think about if it would hurt you. I’m sorry, James.” Her lip trembled and two tears escaped her, as she stared at him. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

James nodded, and went back to staring at his water. That made sense. Rabiya didn’t know that he loved her, and he had been the one to suggest the business line of approach. She was one of those people who was so focused on the goal (get married and get her parents off her back) that she sometimes forgot about others on the way (like James). And Geoff… well, Geoff was hesitant. Didn’t like to make the first move until he’d thought about it hard, and then sometimes it was too late. He had told James, and demonstrated, that he was the opposite of impulsive.

And James was a fool for thinking they wouldn’t team up behind his back.

But they had considered him. They had decided that they would make room for him. It was just Rabiya’s poor word choice, bad timing, and James’ own fear that had made the moment a botch.

“You should have asked,” he told them both.

“Yes,” Geoff said simply. “We should have. And we are sorry.”

Rabiya swallowed hard, and asked softly, “Can we try again, James? Please?”

James had already known the answer to that. He reached out both hands, and Geoff and Rabiya grabbed one each, tightly. “Yeah,” he said, raising his head and managing a smile. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

~

The wedding was great, and James just smiled softly as Geoff and Rabiya led the dancing. It had been about a year since their talk in the diner, and he sometimes worried that he would, at any moment, be thrown to the wayside.

But that hadn’t happened. They’d all three moved into an apartment together, and James had found out that Geoff was an excellent kisser. Rabiya had made obnoxious kissy noises at them until James threw a crumpled piece of newspaper at her. They might all have been drunk.

Ostensibly, the master bedroom was for the engaged couple, and James had the smaller one. In reality, Rabiya had shoved them both towards the bigger room and told them to “work out which side of the bed is whose”. James still felt a little odd, sharing a room, but cuddling in bed was great, and sometimes Rabiya would come in and drape herself over them and eat rice crackers while they all three watched She-Ra or The Last Airbender or even just some crime drama that Rabiya and Geoff would thoroughly eviscerate from a legal standpoint. James loved those days.

Geoff was very much his mother’s child, in that he insisted that James stop skipping meals out of shame. Since the meals were uniformly delicious, James found it easier to accept this new rule. When cuddling, Geoff would sometimes end up with his face smooshed against James’ soft tummy, and James could never help feeling such a strong surge of love that he almost cried. After years and years of people taunting him, there was someone who appreciated him—all of him.

So James watched the wedding from the sidelines, and didn’t even care when people gave him their fake condolences that the woman he loved was getting swept away by someone else—by a better man, though they didn’t say that.

He just smiled and thanked them and drank his soda contentedly.

After the wedding, when they made it back to their apartment and divested themselves of their wedding finery, Rabiya called, “Dibs on first shower!”, grabbed a towel, and darted into the bathroom. James shrugged and Geoff sighed morosely. There was glitter on his face.

“You knew what you signed up for,” James teased gently, putting his arm around Geoff’s waist. Geoff grinned and wound his arms around James.

“Yes, I certainly did. May I have this dance?”

Swaying to Geoff’s lazy humming, they danced slowly in the living room. Their wedding dance. James wondered if anyone had ever been as happy as him in this moment.

[hope-for-olicity]

Fabulous Olicity Fanfic Friday - September 7th, 2018

Happy Friday! So this is my attempt to both thank awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and offer my recommendations to anyone who is interested. Here are the fantastic fanfic stories I read this week! They are posted in the order I read them.

And So The Adventure Begins multi-chapter WIP by @mindramblingsfics - Felicity spent her first year of college focused solely on her studies. In year two, with the convincing of her best friends Iris and Sara, she lets her hair down a bit. Oliver spent his first year partying with his wingman Tommy and living up to the status that came with his last name. He realizes he should buckle down focus on the most important part: actual school. Oliver and Felicity meet, and even though they are on different ends of the spectrum, they don't realize that they can each bring out hidden parts of one another. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15800025/chapters/36771018

Pieces of Always multi-chapter WIP by @so-caffeinated and @dust2dust34 - Life continues after Forever is Composed of Nows. Ongoing non-linear collection of family moments for the Queens. http://archiveofourown.org/works/8220479/chapters/18840356

10 Rules of Rebounding multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - Oliver and Felicity start a sex relationship as rebounds for each other. What’s supposed to be just fun, soon gets complicated when it turns out that their work lives collide, Robert Queen fears their sexual relationship could threaten his company and an ex comes back into the play. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15403404/chapters/35749620

Let's Make a Plan by who_seeks_shall_find - Felicity had a stalker when Oliver was in prison. The crazy person sent awful messages and made weird phone calls. After another letter Felicity and John were talking about how to caught the person. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15817560

Deep Water multi-chapter WIP by @it-was-a-red-heeler - A Season 7 Speculation fic. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15081917/chapters/34968092

Lonely With You multi-chapter WIP by @smoaking-greenarrow - Felicity meets Oliver at a frat party in college and interrupts him from making a big mistake. Oliver is intrigued by the dark haired, beautiful genius with a tough exterior. Felicity is charmed by the broody jock that everyone seems to be a little bit afraid of. Feelings, angst, fluff, and all that goooooood stuff. College AU because it's the week to celebrate this trope on tumblr with our Trope-tastic Awards ;) https://archiveofourown.org/works/15706710/chapters/36505428

P.S. Hong Kong: Was it Real?!? multi-chapter WIP by @cruzrogue for Olicity trope-tastic award: Fake Marriage - This is off season 3 Flashbacks. When Tommy goes to Hong Kong he doesn’t go alone he takes his friend Felicity as the best information system being to help him locate Oliver Queen. Tommy may leave empty handed but Felicity gets to be a bride… https://archiveofourown.org/works/15025697/chapters/34832747

Soulmates multi-chapter WIP by @bri206 - What happens when Oliver and Felicity wake up in the past with no idea how they got there? They will have to relive their past lives and maybe find an ally or two to get back to their present. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15466416/chapters/35903511

Plan B by who_seeks_shall_find - Felicity's stalker is caught although Oliver doesn't like the way everything plays out. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15828210

Home To You multi-chapter WIP by @the-shy-and-anxious-fangirl - Oliver Queen has never done what his family expected of him. He took a gap year after high school instead of going to college right away. He quit his fraternity sophomore year to join the student newspaper, switching his major from business to journalism. He became a photojournalist for a wire service instead of taking a place at Queen Consolidated. He went missing after six months instead of coming home for his sister’s twenty-first birthday. He survived five years of captivity in a war zone when everyone thought he was dead. He came home. But home didn’t have a place for him in it anymore. His parents were both dead, casualties of their own mistakes and a city they had turned against them. His sister was all grown up, the CEO of Queen Consolidated with a fiancé and a dog and a life of her own. Oliver didn’t belong in his old life, but there was nowhere else for him to go. He was a man without a home, without any way of finding one, until he stopped by the IT department of his sister’s company to get files off an old, battered memory card, and found a woman with curly blonde hair and bright, intelligent eyes chewing on a bright red pen and swearing at a computer screen. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12613188/chapters/28734552

Queen vs Queen multi-chapter WIP by @muslimsmoak - Felicity Mignonette Renaldi Smoak has been handling being a princess pretty well so far. After all, she did only find out at the ripe young age of 15. Now, she is 21 and ready to take the throne of Genovia after being under the tutelage of her aunt. But there’s only one thing in her way, wait, actually two. Two things in her way: Oliver Queen, the hot young bachelor she danced with the night of her homecoming ball, who neglected to mention that he’s after her crown alongside his uncle Malcolm Merlyn, and the fact that she has to marry within 30 days if she wants to be Queen. Ray Palmer, Duke of Keystone is sweet, sensitive, intelligent and kind and seems like the perfect choice. But marrying and falling in love are two different things. A Princess Diaries AU  https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808065/chapters/36794172

She's Not Here by who_seeks_shall_find - Felicity hated to see William crying. He's scared of forgetting his biological mom. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15837069

I'm Worried by who_seeks_shall_find - Felicity and Oliver have a lot to talk about. It's time for a late-night conversation. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15626976

Wasted Time Part 2 by @lostolicityscenes - Very sexy Olicity times!  https://lostolicityscenes.tumblr.com/post/177546910441/wasted-time-part-2

I See the Light by @smkkbert - After being grounded for dyeing her hair pink, Felicity cannot to go the fair and see the fireworks at the annual fair in Starling City. For Sara Diggle it’s a clear case! Magic hair that got her locked up and doesn’t allow her to see the lights? - That’s the story of Rapunzel, and someone has to free her from the witch’s tower. http://smkkbert.tumblr.com/post/177561036750/i-see-the-light

Finding Felicity multi-chapter WIP by @lynn8828 - After Lian Yu blew, Oliver searches for his friends and loved ones on the island. This is an AU versions of what happened when Oliver found everyone after the explosions. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15538641/chapters/36071301

The Queen's Mage multi-chapter WIP by @the-shy-and-anxious-fangirl - Words have power, and mages, those with the aptitude to draw on that power, are few in number. Thus, their services are highly sought after by anyone who has exhausted all mundane means of solving whatever problem is plaguing them. Felicity is reminded of this fact the hard way when she is hired by Moira Queen, the Lady Starling, to find and return to her son Oliver, who fled his family home five years ago following the death of his father. With a threat hanging over her should she return without Robert Queen's heir, Felicity begins her search. When she finds Oliver, and ends up joining his vigilante crusade while she waits for him to decide whether to return home, the last thing she expects to do is fall in love with him. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14617068/chapters/33781269

Too Much or Not Enough by @allimariexf - He waited for her to acknowledge him. When she looked up, though, his stomach dropped at her cool expression. “Hey.” She looked away after having met his eyes for a bare moment. Oliver blinked at her in confusion, watching her face for signs, but she continued her research as if he weren’t sitting there. He huffed out an uncomfortable laugh. “Felicity….”She wrenched her eyes away from her monitor and met his gaze with calm equilibrium. “Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Queen?” https://archiveofourown.org/works/15859746

Elizabeth Grace Smoak multi-chapter WIP by @lynn8828 - What if Felicity and Oliver briefly had met before he got on the Gambit? Despite her best efforts, Felicity was unable to get in contact with the famous Oliver Queen after having a one night stand with him and getting pregnant with his child. After raising their child for five years after finding out that Oliver died on the Gambit, she finds out he is alive and knows that she needs to tell him about their daughter. But will he believe her? AMAZING STORY!! http://archiveofourown.org/works/13639371/chapters/31322715

Life's All About Changes multi-chapter WIP by Crazyreader2468 - After agreeing to plead guilty to being the Green Arrow in order to get FBI assistance in capturing Diaz, Oliver finds himself in a supermax, a maximum security federal prison, serving a life sentence. As he struggles to become accustomed to life in prison, his family, friends, and teammates struggle to live without him, as well as continually attempting to find a way to get him pardoned. Will they succeed in obtaining a pardon and will Oliver survive until they do? Mostly AU from right before the ending of episode 6 x 22 and after most of 6 x 23. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14936172

I Want You To Be Happy by who_seeks_shall_find - William asks his dad if he wants to give his mantle to his son. Oliver doesn't know what to answer. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15871896

The Paths We Take multi-chapter WIP by griever11 - Rival CEOs AU. Felicity Smoak, CEO and founder of her own company, is trying to prove herself in the cutthroat world of the technology industry among the other bigwigs in the game. Oliver Queen, recently back from the dead is trying to prove to the world that he's no longer the same man-child who went down on the Queen's Gambit and is finally worthy of his family's legacy. Both equally formidable names in the corporate world. And both with a long, complicated history with each other that no one but themselves are privy to. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314133/chapters/35530296

The Two of You Are My Life by who_seeks_shall_find - Felicity has been in Vegas to visit her mother. She is excited to come back to her boys. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15873093

A Series of Dates multi-chapter WIP by @alexiablackbriar13 - Oliver Queen is in love with Felicity Smoak. Felicity Smoak is in love with Oliver Queen. It takes four dates, and the help of Oliver's loyal service dog, Hunter, for them to realise that they're forever destined to be something more than just friends. https://archiveofourown.org/works/13130304/chapters/30036912

Hi, Dad by who_seeks_shall_find - Felicity makes a phone call to her dad. She needs someone to talk to and she thinks her dad is going to understand. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15875026

And I Wonder (If You Wonder About Me Too) multi-chapter complete by @charlie-leau - When Felicity was eight years old, her father tucked her to bed. He read her a bedtime story and bid her goodnight. When she woke up the next day, he was gone. She never heard from him again. Heartbroken, Felicity decided not to let anyone in, ever again. She just couldn’t bring herself to trust anyone. That was until she met Ray Palmer. She fell for him, he fell for her but she still expected him to leave her. He didn’t. They got married and they were happy for a while. But deep down, she still expected him to leave her. Little did she know that she’d be the one leaving him in the end. https://archiveofourown.org/works/5899057/chapters/13599040

Arrow: Mastering a Legacy multi-chapter WIP -  An alternative season six featuring romance, family, OTA, the expanded team, the expected Star City chaos, and a few new villains. Chapter 1: Eye of the Hurricane by @bowssmoakandarrow https://archiveofourown.org/works/14695197/chapters/37018383#workskin

It's Not True by who_seeks_shall_find - Oliver knows something is bothering William. Felicity encourages Oliver to talk to his son. Finally, William brings up something that he hasn't told his parents yet. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15626916

Whiskey and Romance multi-chapter WIP by @mindramblingsfics - Felicity Smoak gets the opportunity of a lifetime to compete for the hand of Prince Tommy Merlyn. She is taken from her normal mundane Vegas life and is soon swept up into a lifestyle full of nobles, drama, obligations and chaos. All the while trying to stay afloat, someone else begins to win her heart, Tommy’s best friend, Oliver Queen. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14441952/chapters/33357156

They Shouldn't Have Been There by who_seeks_shall_find - When Oliver came back from prison, the press started harassing his family even more eagerly than before. Oliver is ready to take actions when paparazzi harass William at school. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15897414

My Thoughts on You multi-chapter WIP by rachelrenalove -Felicity Smoak is sure of 3 things: 1. She's a badass and she is damn good at what she does. 2. She hates the man in the green hood. 3. Oliver Queen is a pain in her ass and she cannot wait until the day she can quit her job at Queen Consolidated. Or Felicity Smoak goes undercover at Queen Consolidated and meets Oliver Queen. She quickly realizes that she doesn't like him and wishes she was never chosen for this mission. Outside of QC, she is dealing with her hatred towards the man in the green hood that has found out exactly which buttons of hers to press in order to piss her off. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15089954/chapters/34989344

If I Tremble multi-chapter WIP by @smoaking-greenarrow - A collection of prompts and ficlets, with all the smut! Olicity sexy times are the best times. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15409122/chapters/35762643

I'll Be Your Daydream multi-chapter WIP by @beinmyheart - Snapshots of moments and conversations between Felicity and Oliver in Hide Away 'Verse https://archiveofourown.org/works/15882867/chapters/37008999

Oliver the (Divorce) Lawyer multi-chapter WIP @someonesaidcake - Black tie, white shirt, grey suit... when Oliver put them on that chilly December morning, he hadn't planned on meeting her. 'Her' being Felicity Smoak, the sassy dark haired college student and daughter of his (only) client. This should be fun... https://archiveofourown.org/works/14823708/chapters/34304472

Killer Frost Smoak multi-chapter Complete by @tdgal1 - Felicity is with Barry during the particle accelerator and becomes Killer Frost. How does she handle this and does she tell Oliver? http://archiveofourown.org/works/8654356/chapters/19846777

Time for a Story multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - This fic shows Olicity and their life as a (married) couple with family. Although Olicity (and their kids) are the protagonists, other characters of Arrow and Flash make appearances. YOU NEED THIS STORY IN YOUR LIFE. http://archiveofourown.org/works/3912157/chapters/8757172

A Parenting Manual by who_seeks_shall_find - Sometimes bribery and making your son feel guilty are needed to keep him at home. Oliver and Felicity want to spend time with their son although William has other plans. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15907647

In Starling Green multi-chapter WIP by @writewithurheart - Robin Hood AU. Lord Oliver Queen has spent the last ten years in self-imposed exile, fighting in the Holy Wars. Finally at peace with himself, he returns home with his squire, Roy Harper, at his side, but the home he remembers is not the one he finds. Oliver must find a way to reorient himself within Nottingham and Starling before he gets himself into trouble, the kind of trouble that takes the shape of some starving villagers and a beautiful blonde with a big heart. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11132355/chapters/24843060

Arrow: Mastering a Legacy multi-chapter WIP -  An alternative season six featuring romance, family, OTA, the expanded team, the expected Star City chaos, and a few new villains. Chapter 2: Take Me Out to the Ball Game by @olicitysmoaky https://archiveofourown.org/works/14695197/chapters/37018383#workskin

The Donor multi-chapter WIP by @spaztronautwriter - Felicity Smoak has always dreamed of being a mother and she isn't going to let a little thing like men stop her from making that dream come true. Having a baby by herself might just be biting off a little more than she can chew, but one way or the other it's about to change her whole life. LOVE THIS SO MUCH! http://archiveofourown.org/works/11099361

// @emmaamelia95 // @mel-loves-all // @oliverfel4 // @green-arrows-of-karamel // @coal000 // @miriam1779 // @memcjo// @captainolicitysbedroom // @tdgal1 // @spaztronautwriter // @lalawo1// @quiveringbunny // @wrongshipper // @thebookjumper // @vaelisamaza // @myhauntedblacksoul // @lovelycssefan // @laurabelle2930 //

[daomings-blog]

      hi my new friends ! i thought i was gonna copy and paste this intro from an old group i was in, but i love Torture and thus... rewrote the whole thing with a couple of new tiny details ! i’m jai, 21, she/they, and from the eastern timezone ! uh... this is my first time being in a krp and i kinda recently got into kpop as a whole i’m biased to got7 if you haven’t noticed Yeet, so pls take it easy on me, i’m trying my best ! and.... i hate to be That Person, but discord/ooc chats make me anxious & overwhelmed so i won’t always be in the chat but just know like ... i’m there in spirit. anywhomst, what you do guys say to me introducing you guys to kang while i wait to see if my spanish professor cancels class tomorrow, shall we ?

let’s introduce you to DAO MING ‘KANG’ FENG MIAN, they are a TWENTY EIGHT year old WANG JACKSON lookalike living in HOTEL YONGSAN. this particular CISMALE has been living in Seoul for TWO AND A HALF YEARS and has gained the title of being THE INTANGIBLE CONCEPT during that time, which is probably because of their SCRUPULOUS, OBSERVANT yet DOMINEERING, AGGRESSIVE tendencies. not to mention HE currently works as a RESTAURANT OWNER & HEIR, and can been seen hanging around DONGMAEMUN DESIGN PLAZA in their free time. 

MINI MENTIONS OF ASSAULT AND MISCARRIAGE, BUT I DON’T GO INTO DETAIL.

right off the bat, kang’s real name is feng mian but literally no one calls him that now other than his grumpy grandfather. he introduces himself as kang and likes to be addressed as such.

he was born in shanghai to zhang wei ( ceo and director of the london headquarters of the dao ming corp. ) and jinghua ( a former international high fashion model and current cookbook author ). kang doesn’t have any siblings, so he grew up close to his cousins.

the dao ming family business is the dao ming corporation, which is the largest family owned corporation in shanghai and makes the dao ming family the wealthiest in china, with an estimated net worth of $58.9b, and it constantly rises everyday.

the dao ming corporation mostly focuses on financials, luxury real estate, and construction. the current ceo and director is kang’s grandfather, but when he passes away, then kang’s father will take over the company as a whole and kang will lead the london headquarters.

jinghua had a pretty difficult pregnancy with kang ( which is why he’s an only child ), and it was expected that she would have a miscarriage, but kang ended up coming a few weeks earlier than his due date. her pregnancy had already been a public spectacle since their relationship & marriage was already followed and scrutinized, so jinghua and zhang wei decided to raise kang in london. he was 3 when they made the move.

the family settled in the affluent hampstead, london village and kang grew up pretty spoiled. his parents always got him whatever he wanted, but they also weren’t the kind of parents to pass their son off on nannies. despite their own busy careers, zhang wei and jinghua were always there for important events, to tell him goodnight, and greet him when he came home from school.

during his teenage years, as most do, kang went through his rebellious stage. he started not listening and being an overall little dick, but he made sure to bring home the best grades. he knew from a young age that he’d someday be doing his father’s job, and kang hates feeling like a failure, so he always did his best.

when he was sixteen, kang was gifted with a porsche 911 that he would always use to hotbox with his friends. kang got into smoking as a way to calm his nerves ( since he does have generalized anxiety disorder ), but he also liked to do it with his friends because that was their way of hanging out with one another.

fast forward and kang went off to the university of cambridge thanks to his incredible grades on his a-levels ( i hope i got that right i’m a dumb american ), and three and a half years later, kang graduated early and was gifted with the car that would ruin his life for a couple of years: a snow white bentley bentayga.

it’s the summer following kang’s graduation and he goes to a manchester united game with his friends. of course, kang had been drinking ( don’t worry, he wasn’t driving ), but they drove his car to the game. when leaving, kang’s car had been scraped badly by someone who was backing out of his parking space. instead of kang just exchanging insurance info and going to get his car fixed .... he ended up getting into a really bad fight with the stranger.

his friends attempted to get him to stop, and once the police arrived, kang turned his drunken assault on the police. thus, kang was arrested. he was originally charged with public intoxication, assault and battery, and assault on a police officer, but thanks to his fancy pants lawyers and his parents, it was talked down to two years on the charges of assault and assault on an officer.

so, kang spent two years in federal prison.

following his release, kang returned home, but his grandfather saw kang as nothing more than a huge, huge disappointment. he wanted zhang wei and jinghua to cut kang off financially from the family, but they weren’t going to do that to their son. kang spent about three months at home, and during that time he decided he wanted to open a restaurant in seoul.

his parents were supportive, and kang had always loved to cook, so he figured that the restaurant would keep him out of trouble and keep him busy until it was time for him to take over his dad’s portion of the family business.

once he got soba up and running, kang made the move to seoul full time two and a half years ago. over the course of those two years, kang settled into the presidential suite of hotel yongsan and slowly started getting tattoos. he currently has a full sleeve on his left arm, and for now he’s finished, but that’s mostly bc his mom smacked tf out of the back of his head when she saw it for the first time.

PERSONALITY

so, kang’s a momma’s boy even if he doesn’t want to admit it. you know that tumblr post about the boy who cursed really loud, his phone rang and like a second later, in the softest voice he said “hi mama”? that’s kang in a nutshell.

overall, though, he’s a really antagonistic guy. he’s content with being alone, and he doesn’t really like when people play games or joke around too much. all in all, he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t handle his emotions well and he doesn’t really like to have his emotions played with, so just.. don’t press his buttons.

positively, he’s really into a routines and having things in order, so he might panic if something falls out of whack and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

whenever he’s really upset, though, kang will completely shut people out and either spend his time in the kitchen at soba or he’ll shut himself off in his suitte. he likes to give himself time to be alone and it’s kind of his way of managing his anger -- sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. it all truly depends on how angry he was at that moment.

he swears a lot, skips breakfast all the time, and has a bad habit of stress eating amongst other habits. he can be really sarcastic and he doesn’t like letting people in, so good luck getting his can of worms open ! uh, he barely sleeps and wakes up at sunrise, but somehow manages to not look like a zombie so that’s we’re at fam !

as for plots, i’m pretty much open to anything ! best friends, friends with benefits, ex friends with benefits, ex friends, enemies, rivals, family friends, squad, strictly hookups, one night stand, two night stand, hateship, work friends, drunken hookup, flirtationship, ex fling, current fling, ex bf/gf, on and off again, almost gf/bf, workout buddies, neighbors, and literally anything else we could think of ! also, kang doesn’t label his sexuality AT ALL so that’s a lil thing to know when plotting ok !

[vespaertine]

shit my groupchat has said - an ask meme

this ask meme is very long, and very nsfw! there are currently 88 starter sentences, and more may be added. apparently, when you scroll up in discord far enough, your computer will lay down and die. anyway, have fun with this, and feel free to change things up or add your own to the list!

“that’s so southern of you.”

“we’re close enough friends that i can just post tit pics and it’s no big deal.”

“i’ve become she-woman man-fucker.”

“why would i want to fuck him? he looks like a thumb.”

“the highlight of that trip was having very loud sex at a family resort.”

“do you ever just read something and immediately wish the hag would come of of her cave and just kill you?”

“i have a feeling that you aren’t about that, judging by the spaghetti dog.”

“your mom is the ultimate wing man.”

“her dress looked like a fancy latex sex dungeon get up.”

“she looks like a raw squid.”

“i’ve got 20 barrels of grog and some bombs.”

“my brand of romance is accidentally meme-ing while nearly sexting.”

“...the rest of the brain is devoted to stupid, ape stuff. like eating.”

“you’re the soft butch we all need in our lives.”

“bobby flay better not fuck my grandma.”

“fucking help me fend off the straight boys.”

“i’m attracted to the fish prince.”

“can you girlfriend her and have her send me some edibles? thanks.”

“this is the world’s okayest pie crust.”

“i’m proof that aquarians have god complexes.”

“i just realized that it’s a full moon AND mercury is in retrograde.”

“we all fuckin’ weebs.”

“i just need lobster when i get to the east coast, and then i’ll be gucci.”

“we all just wanna get topped and loaded like a bacon cheese baked potato.”

“fucking. unicorn skin armor.”

“war ... playing with anime tiddies.”

“you’re out here making me gayer than i already am.”

“he had a dirty foot kink and it kind of made me want to die.”

“i’m getting a bad dragon soon. i’ve waited all year for tax returns.”

“you look like the butch of my dreams.”

“Ayyee our periods are aligned!”

“i don’t have enough alcohol in my system for this.”

“it’s awkward when an ex of yours likes your nudes.”

“somehow golden showers came up in the radio room yesterday.”

“this is why you should keep multiple boyfriends.”

“i want him to kick me out of bed and into a wall.”

“cannonballing a dick would hurt so bad.”

“you’re not a real gamer unless you’ve eaten todd howard’s ass, thanking him for his 6th release of skyrim.”

“i’m not into that, but i’ve got an open mind.”

“the sparkle dog community is wild.”

“no offense but i want all of the aliens to raw me.”

“i don’t need a man. i need a swamp demon from the bayou.”

“as a furry, i have seen dark things that no man should see.”

“shut up i’m pissing. fuck i actually really have to pee.”

“that boi got the entire trans-alaskan oil pipeline in his shorts.”

“i would have fucked him, but then i heard him use the word ‘bro’ unironically in a phone conversation.”

“accept the granite.”

“my panties have been destroyed. vanquished.”

“apparently social justice summons me.”

“take a swig of some 90% isopropyl alcohol. down the hatch.”

“i always get my way ... except for the times i don’t.”

“i think i saw him have a mini funeral with his pot stuff over the trash can.”

“i die when the cornbread is in me.”

“mothman seems like the type of cryptid who waits until marriage and just wants to take you out for ice cream.”

“i’m a bowser fucker.”

“this candle is rainbow for gay intent.”

“you can catch me spooning sangria right out of the pitcher.”

“i see absolutely no downsides to prison.”

“if you decide to go with tax evasion, you get sent to a fancy federal prison.”

“do you want to see something galactically stupid?”

“hog tie me in the middle of the target wine isle.”

“i sucked his dick and he nutted in 2 minutes flat.”

“if you want the puss you’ve gotta, like, do something.”

“i went to the gym with a bottle of water, and returned home with a bag of chips and a coke.”

“i’m here, i’m queer, and i’m a little bit sad.”

“i feel like at this point we need to move out into the middle of the forest, dump everyone, and start a coven.”

“these are naturally flavored ranch chips. as opposed to unnaturally flavored.”

“i’ve had panera once and i don’t even remember the experience.”

“no, i don’t smoke pot. it’s for the aesthetic.”

“who knew that raccoons and walruses were so closely related via dick bone.”

“the aura of that google docs is so cursed, my internet went offline for a minute when i tried to open it.”

“ye olde condom and nutella life hacks.”

“can you hold on to a bull with a rope tied around its nuts for 8 seconds? i don’t think so.”

“he ain’t allowed in my vuvuzela.”

“get your applesauce injected intravenously.”

“we’re the sister wives, without the husband.”

“somehow i ended up listening to three days grace and this lyric video is done in comic sans.”

“if you can find andy warhol’s diary, he legit talks about having pubic lice for like five or six pages.”

“you had me at ‘victorian lesbians’.”

“there’s something so romantic and quaint about letters, my dude.”

“i love how decadently filthy this is.”

“just let my sad, writhing, angry body glide through space for eternity.”

“tell him to try dipping his nuts in milk.”

“welcome to the femslash fun swamp.”

“i just got like 8% more gay.”

“not gonna lie ... i wanna date mothman.”

“i just read a discussion talking about getting trapped in the fairy realm after having a fairy nut in your mouth.”

“four dads at home depot? no. four moms in a sunroom of a suburban home having an orgy.”

[canaryatlaw]

lol okay let’s go. today was fine, though the first part was boring. I woke up at 9:45 to my alarm to log on for my 10 am court date (9 am central time, as always) and that took until almost noon to get into the courtroom, and that case took like 2 minutes, and then got kicked back into the waiting room because I had another case set for noon (11 central) which didn’t end up getting heard until like 1:30, at which point I really wanted to bang my head against the wall, and of course once we got in there it took like 2 minutes and I barely got a word in edgewise. ugh. but whatever, that was done. I was kinda miffed because I had to miss the virtual service for our family friend’s aunt who just passed (had a heart attack and died on Christmas of all days, talk about trauma for her poor two kids) and I mean we knew her well and also referred to her as “aunt” like they did. it was just so sad for her two kids (in their twenties) because earlier this year within a week they had their grandpa pass, and then their scumbag dad got arrested in a fucking FBI raid on charges of trafficking and like fucking kidnapping (the trafficked individuals) so he’s in federal prison somewhere and trying to convince everybody he’s innocent, and as much of a proponent of innocent until proven guilty as I am, that’s a load of shit and he’s guilty as sin. so they effectively lost both of their parents, and god my heart just breaks for them. it’s good though that they’re very close with our family friends and I’m sure will basically be adopted by them for all intents and purposes, because they’re the great kind of people who wouldn’t hesitate to do that. it’s all just so fucking depressing. the son who I’m close with and did theatre with apparently sang I can only imagine, which is the quintessential Christian funeral song choice (I sang it at my grandpa’s funeral back in 2009, though I’m convinced they only asked me to because he lived alone in Arizona and it wasn’t like they knew anybody in the area who could do it, and it also gave me mixed feelings because when my grandma had passed in 2007, who to be fair I was considerably closer with given that she’d been living with us for several years at that point, they didn’t want me to sing because they didn’t think I could get through it without crying, but they asked me for my grandpa which kinda made me feel like they thought I wouldn’t have that issue with my grandpa since we weren’t very close...and I mean they ended up being right...sigh, this has been  a pointless rant brought to you by my unresolved teenage emotions on the matter) so I’m sure that was nice. anyway. once I finished with court I went with my mom to first get bagels and then go to the apple store, we had a coupon for some deal on a dozen bagels (which is the general amount one usually buys) but since it was mid-afternoon at that point they didn’t have a very good selection left, so we just went with one buttered bagel today and come back on Saturday before I leave on Sunday so I can shove a bunch of them in my suitcase like I’ve done the last few times, lol. so I got my buttered cinnamon raisin bagel and bottle of snapple half and half (as in half ice tea half lemonade...I don’t know if it’s strictly a NY thing but I don’t find it by me in Chi) (when my sister was younger when someone would ask her what her favorite drink was she’d just say “half and half” because that’s how they refer to it at bagel shops/delis here and I had to be like babe, you can’t just say that 😂) and went to the mall from there, which I haven’t been to since the pandemic started. they had two lines outside the apple store, one for express pickup and one for genius bar reservations, with like three desks set up at the front of the store and no actual customers inside, and apparently they wanted everyone to buy their stuff online and just pick it up at the store, so I went online and pulled up what I wanted, but it was unavailable for pick up at the mall and we talked to the guy there who was basically just like yeah we can’t do anything here then so we went home lol and I ordered it from there. I went with the same 13 inch macbook pro I have now but of course with new features and all, I did go with the one with less storage than I have now, and I do have more storage used now than I’d have room for but it’s probably because I have a bunch of useless shit I can load onto the cloud and I didn’t want to pay another $200 for more storage I didn’t actually need. the good part though is they were offering credit if you turn in your old macbook, and when I went through everything they were going to give me $650 for my current laptop, which brought the total price down to like $600 for the new one, which is a lot better than like $1250, and my mom had agreed to pay for half, so that only puts me out $300 instead of nearly $1300 (with tax and shit) like I was expecting, so that was a very good thing (my mom was ready to pay for half if it was $600, but I would’ve felt bad because the income situation is not super stable right now, mostly relying on my older brother, which I feel guilty about anyway, but it’s not like I have money to spare really). the only catch though among the requirements for the trade in is it has to be in good physical shape, which mine is overwhelmingly, but one of the parts of that was that all the keys are in the right place, and I currently have *one* missing key, but I know exactly where in my apartment it got lost, so I just have to tear that entire section of the pantry apart and I’m confident I’ll find it, lol. they had you pay the full price upfront, and when they deliver the new one it comes with a send back kit, at which point they’ll credit your account with it, and the delivery was expected for Jan. 12th, so I have a little while at least to find it, lol. but yeah, rest of the afternoon was low key, watched some hgtv with my mom and had some pasta for dinner, then my mom went upstairs to do a phone meeting with her prayer group, so I watched a few episodes of Chicago Med for the rest of the night and ended up finishing season 2, pretty good. and yeah, once I finished the last episode I headed upstairs and got in the shower, and now here I am and it’s past 3:30 am so that makes it an excellent time for me to go to bed now. Goodnight loves. Stay wonderful.

[melissagarcia8]

And the winner is….

I know you all have been eagerly waiting to hear who has won my round the world giveaway…and today, the wait is over.

We got thousands of entries and it was really hard to narrow it down. It took me a lot longer to read the entries than I originally thought and it took even longer to narrow down a winner. There were a lot of good submissions but, in the end, there can be only one and I had to pick a winner.

And that winner is…

Heather T. from California.

Heather, 26, attended Carnegie Mellon University as a Materials Science and Engineering major and currently works as a Senior Consultant for IBM. Inspired by the life and death of her mother, she decided to start treating her life with urgency. Heather filled her free time with singing, salsa dancing, scuba diving, amazing friends, and as many adventures as she could fit in. At twenty-six, she’s recently applied to grad school so that one day, hopefully, she’ll be making a difference with an advanced degree in Public Policy.

In her own words, here are ten facts about her:

I’m a scuba diver

My sister is 10 months younger than me. For one month, every year we are *technically* the same age.

I make homemade artisan ice cream in flavors like sour cream, mango jalapeño, and sweet potato.

I earned my degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University before taking a job in Business.

I’m used to moving around a lot. I’ve moved more than 20 times (I’ve lost count). I went to 5 elementary schools 1 middle school, 2 high schools and three colleges.

I’m learning Spanish. I’ve always loved the language. Growing up in LA I was surrounded by it and always wanted to learn. I’ve been taking lessons but I’m excited for more hands on experience!

I’m extremely allergic to cats and strongly dislike them. Technically allergic to dogs too but I’m a dog lover so I don’t mind so much!

I haven’t eaten fast food since I was 16. I saw Super Size me in high school and gave it up instantly. Soda too.

I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart.

I have a huge family. My dad is one of 5 and my mom was one of 14. And I have 9 siblings.

She’ll be leaving next month and we’ll be getting updates from her journey. Heather will be starting in South America before heading over to Africa then Southeast Asia and looping back to Europe before grad school! I’ll feature her each month to share what she’s been up to!

Here is her winning essay:

At 16, after 10 years of separation, I met my mother. She had previously been incarcerated in federal prison and I barely remembered her.

My mother was wild and warm. One time, she picked me up wearing bright green shoes, blue pants, a red top, and her hair newly dyed purple at the roots. Puzzled, we stared at her.

“Mom, what are you wearing?!” we asked.

“What? My shoes match my pants, my pants match my top, and my top matches my hair.”

In January 2015, she was given 3 months to live when she was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer that had metastasized to both breasts, lungs, liver, bones, spine and brain. My mother was tough, so she lasted 8 months. I saw the pang of regret in her eyes that only comes from a life unlived. She always waited, believing there would be more time to fulfill her life.

My mother had the power to make anyone laugh and she could talk anyone into almost anything. She taught me to live more and take risks. Over the 7 years we shared, she became my best friend. We talked every day. She completed a part of me I never knew was missing. She was the most remarkable person I’ve ever known. Even after all the pain in her life, she knew how to find joy in life and she taught me to do the same. I am so thankful every day that she found me and saved me from who I was becoming.

I feel cheated most days over the short time I had with her. When she passed, something awoke in me. Six months after she passed, I took my first trip abroad. I visited Spain with my sister. Four months later I spontaneously traveled to Iceland and got scuba certified so I could dive between the continents in 0°C water. Two months later, I got an unexpected break from work, so I traveled to London, Paris and Geneva on a whim. 5 countries in one year. I was on a roll. Earlier this year, I took a solo trip to Colombia and in a month, I am headed to Berlin, Prague and Budapest. Travelling is now my favorite hobby, especially solo travel, which gives me the opportunity to break out of my shell.

Each day I feel chained to the job that I worked so hard to earn. I dream about taking off and travelling for an extended period of time. This trip would be the perfect opportunity to do so. I would share my adventures through travel blogging and photography. I think my perspective as a single female black traveler is largely missing from the travel blogging domain.

Life is short and beautiful and I want to make the most of it. I would much rather have my mother here on this earth, but in her absence, I’m glad to have learned how lucky I am to have the adventures in front of me.

(Heather and her mother)

****Thank you to everyone who entered. I wish I could have picked you all but, sadly, I didn’t invest in Bitcoin or any other weird cryptocurrency, so I’m can’t!

I hope this contest inspired you to take action, plan a trip, and dream big. I wish you well on your future travels and hope my book How to Travel the World on $50 a Day helps you learn how to travel cheaper, better, and smarter!

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

As this is the last post of the year, see you in 2018!

– Matt

P.S. – I’m hosting a meet-up in Bangkok on Christmas Day! Let’s grab drinks and talk travel Follow the Facebook event for updates.

The post And the winner is…. appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

from Traveling News https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/contest-winner/

[vidovicart]

And the winner is….

I know you all have been eagerly waiting to hear who has won my round the world giveaway…and today, the wait is over.

We got thousands of entries and it was really hard to narrow it down. It took me a lot longer to read the entries than I originally thought and it took even longer to narrow down a winner. There were a lot of good submissions but, in the end, there can be only one and I had to pick a winner.

And that winner is…

Heather T. from California.

Heather, 26, attended Carnegie Mellon University as a Materials Science and Engineering major and currently works as a Senior Consultant for IBM. Inspired by the life and death of her mother, she decided to start treating her life with urgency. Heather filled her free time with singing, salsa dancing, scuba diving, amazing friends, and as many adventures as she could fit in. At twenty-six, she’s recently applied to grad school so that one day, hopefully, she’ll be making a difference with an advanced degree in Public Policy.

In her own words, here are ten facts about her:

I’m a scuba diver

My sister is 10 months younger than me. For one month, every year we are *technically* the same age.

I make homemade artisan ice cream in flavors like sour cream, mango jalapeño, and sweet potato.

I earned my degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University before taking a job in Business.

I’m used to moving around a lot. I’ve moved more than 20 times (I’ve lost count). I went to 5 elementary schools 1 middle school, 2 high schools and three colleges.

I’m learning Spanish. I’ve always loved the language. Growing up in LA I was surrounded by it and always wanted to learn. I’ve been taking lessons but I’m excited for more hands on experience!

I’m extremely allergic to cats and strongly dislike them. Technically allergic to dogs too but I’m a dog lover so I don’t mind so much!

I haven’t eaten fast food since I was 16. I saw Super Size me in high school and gave it up instantly. Soda too.

I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart.

I have a huge family. My dad is one of 5 and my mom was one of 14. And I have 9 siblings.

She’ll be leaving next month and we’ll be getting updates from her journey. Heather will be starting in South America before heading over to Africa then Southeast Asia and looping back to Europe before grad school! I’ll feature her each month to share what she’s been up to!

Here is her winning essay:

At 16, after 10 years of separation, I met my mother. She had previously been incarcerated in federal prison and I barely remembered her.

My mother was wild and warm. One time, she picked me up wearing bright green shoes, blue pants, a red top, and her hair newly dyed purple at the roots. Puzzled, we stared at her.

“Mom, what are you wearing?!” we asked.

“What? My shoes match my pants, my pants match my top, and my top matches my hair.”

In January 2015, she was given 3 months to live when she was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer that had metastasized to both breasts, lungs, liver, bones, spine and brain. My mother was tough, so she lasted 8 months. I saw the pang of regret in her eyes that only comes from a life unlived. She always waited, believing there would be more time to fulfill her life.

My mother had the power to make anyone laugh and she could talk anyone into almost anything. She taught me to live more and take risks. Over the 7 years we shared, she became my best friend. We talked every day. She completed a part of me I never knew was missing. She was the most remarkable person I’ve ever known. Even after all the pain in her life, she knew how to find joy in life and she taught me to do the same. I am so thankful every day that she found me and saved me from who I was becoming.

I feel cheated most days over the short time I had with her. When she passed, something awoke in me. Six months after she passed, I took my first trip abroad. I visited Spain with my sister. Four months later I spontaneously traveled to Iceland and got scuba certified so I could dive between the continents in 0°C water. Two months later, I got an unexpected break from work, so I traveled to London, Paris and Geneva on a whim. 5 countries in one year. I was on a roll. Earlier this year, I took a solo trip to Colombia and in a month, I am headed to Berlin, Prague and Budapest. Travelling is now my favorite hobby, especially solo travel, which gives me the opportunity to break out of my shell.

Each day I feel chained to the job that I worked so hard to earn. I dream about taking off and travelling for an extended period of time. This trip would be the perfect opportunity to do so. I would share my adventures through travel blogging and photography. I think my perspective as a single female black traveler is largely missing from the travel blogging domain.

Life is short and beautiful and I want to make the most of it. I would much rather have my mother here on this earth, but in her absence, I’m glad to have learned how lucky I am to have the adventures in front of me.

(Heather and her mother)

****Thank you to everyone who entered. I wish I could have picked you all but, sadly, I didn’t invest in Bitcoin or any other weird cryptocurrency, so I’m can’t!

I hope this contest inspired you to take action, plan a trip, and dream big. I wish you well on your future travels and hope my book How to Travel the World on $50 a Day helps you learn how to travel cheaper, better, and smarter!

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

As this is the last post of the year, see you in 2018!

– Matt

P.S. – I’m hosting a meet-up in Bangkok on Christmas Day! Let’s grab drinks and talk travel Follow the Facebook event for updates.

The post And the winner is…. appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

[tabloidtoc]

National Enquirer, August 31

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Ghislaine Maxwell’s private photo album -- Martha Stewart, Elon Musk, Michael Bolton 

Page 2: Queen Latifah shows off her belly while golfing on a Beverly Hills course 

Page 3: Simon Cowell is facing a brutal recovery and fighting to walk again after a catastrophic bike accident left him with a broken back that needed a delicate six-hour surgery -- his back was shattered in a number of places when he was hurled from the back of his powerful $20,000 EB-01 electric bike after he popped a huge wheelie outside his Malibu home 

Page 4: Surgery-obsessed Khloe Kardashian can’t stop tweaking her nose and now pals are terrified her honker will wind up like Michael Jackson’s sorry schnozz -- Khloe’s nose has been pruned to the point where it looks odd on her face, Rachael Ray and husband John Cusimano survived a devastating fire that gutted their beloved home in Upstate New York and she’s planning to rebuild an even better house and make it 100% fireproof 

Page 5: Ben Affleck’s girlfriend Ana de Armas has stepped into a bigger role of playing surrogate mom to Ben’s son Samuel -- she has not only assumed larger parenting duties with the eight-year-old she’s also giving Sam the warmth that burly Ben finds touch to provide but Sam’s mom Jennifer Garner isn’t thrilled with their kids spending so much time away from her 

Page 6: Once beautiful Sarah Ferguson has ruined her face with too much sun -- after examining recent photos of the duchess medical experts said she looks more than a decade older than her 60 years -- years of stress following her divorce from now-disgraced Prince Andrew and virtual banishment from the royal family after embarrassing photos of Texas millionaire John Bryan sucking her toes were released have ravaged the duchess 

Page 7: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have secretly bought their first home together which is a $10 million California home but they didn’t pay for it themselves -- Harry’s dad Prince Charles dipped into his personal fortune for the property in upscale Santa Barbara but Charles’ generosity has sparked a bitter new royal rift -- Prince William is furious at Charles for bailing Harry and Meghan out again and feels Charles is rewarding them for abandoning the royal family 

Page 8: Chip and Joanna Gaines are reviving their hit Fixer Upper series after a two-year hiatus but it’s putting a fresh strain on their marriage -- they’ve been bickering about it ever since Chip agreed to the deal which puts the show on their own Magnolia Network and Joanna is unhappy because Chip made the decision without her forgetting why they wanted a break in the first place which was to focus on their five kids and their Magnolia-brand empire, John Legend hit a sour note with longtime pal and presidential candidate Kanye West after saying that anyone who votes for the rapper is reckless and uninformed -- it’s pissed Kanye off to the point where he can’t see straight and he’s extra enraged because their wives Kim Kardashian and Chrissy Teigen have been good friends for years 

Page 9: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s seemingly endless divorce and custody war has cost them more than $20 million and there’s no end in sight -- the exes have coughed up wads of cash for lawyers and court fees and arbitration expenses -- although Brad’s attorneys have repeatedly tried to negotiate shared custody Angie has instructed her legal team to accept nothing less than full custody of her five youngest kids Pax and Zahara and Shiloh and Vivienne and Knox and she doesn’t care how much it will cost 

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Paunchy Sylvester Stallone in Malibu, Brooke Burke at the beach in Malibu, Kaia Gerber gets in a workout 

Page 11: Late-night rivals Jimmy Fallon and Conan O’Brien are waging a feud behind the scenes -- in public they act like pals but they’re competitive as hell and bad-mouth each other when the cameras are off -- Jimmy has always felt that Conan has kept him at arm’s length while buddying up to Stephen Colbert

Page 12: Straight Shuter -- Lauren “Pumpkin” Shannon tumbled off an e-scooter (picture), The Real Housewives of New York City will get two new Black cast members, even before season 16 of The Bachelorette started Clare Crawley left for former NFL star Dale Moss but he’s fame-hungry, Howard Stern plans to retire when his SiriusXM deal expires and although Sirius will try to get him to stay Andy Cohen is pushing himself as a replacement, 90 Day Fiance cast members are demanding a raise and although several cast members think getting attention on social media and being recognized in their hometowns makes them the new Kardashians but every single one of them is replaceable 

Page 13: Mom-to-be Bindi Irwin is already prepping her little one to join the family business by playing recorded crocodile growls for the baby in her womb

Page 14: True Crime 

Page 15: Former jailbird Amanda Knox’s worst nightmare is coming true now that the man convicted of murdering her roommate Rudy Guede is threatening to pen a tell-all book, convicted Bill Cosby is making a new bid to get out of prison because he refuses to die in a cage -- his lawyers have lodged an appeal because Cosby is scared he will get COVID-19 and die behind bars 

Page 16: Jeffrey Epstein’s accused madam Ghislaine Maxwell hobnobbed with the rich and famous for years and she’s now mortified those A-listers could be dragged into her legal troubles -- the disgraced British heiress is currently rotting in a New York jail awaiting trial in 2021 on six federal charges related to trafficking minors for sex but before her stunning fall Ghislaine rubbed shoulders with a who’s who of royalty and the business world and the entertainment industry -- pictures include Ghislaine with Epstein and Michael Bolton, Prince Andrew, Martha Stewart, Calvin Klein, Harvey Weinstein, Simon Hammerstein and Josh Lucas, Jessica Capshaw and Denise Richards, Heidi Klum 

Page 18: Country rocker Hank Williams Jr. has been left reeling after his daughter Katherine died in a car accident and his son Sam went off the rails -- Katie was only 27 when she was killed in a single-vehicle crash in Tennessee and now 23-year-old Sam is selling gifts from his dad like expensive jewelry and spending up a storm and boozing and fighting with his siblings 

Page 19: Rogue investigators framed Ethel Kennedy’s troubled nephew Michael Skakel for the murder of Connecticut teen Martha Moxley in a bid to get the Kennedy clan -- now a private investigator involved with the Moxley case for decades says the crime scene was contaminated and the Greenwich police did a horrible job -- Skakel’s lawyer revealed hairs found on Martha’s body may be linked to a suspect convicted of a similiar attack in the area in 1977 and being held in a California prison 

Page 20: Real Life

Page 22: Health Watch 

Page 28: Violent protests and gun battles and the politics of hate [by President Donald Trump] have brought America to the brink of a new civil war 

Page 32: What your dreams really mean 

Page 34: A brave Jeffrey Epstein survivor only known to the public as Kiki Doe has revealed how she was lured into the late sex creep’s perverted world and detailing the horrific encounter she claims derailed her life for more than 15 years 

Page 36: Former pro wrestler Marty Jannetty has found himself tangled in a murder probe after boasting that he made a sicko child molester who attacked him disappear 

Page 38: One year into their whirlwind romance Zooey Deschanel and Jonathan Scott of Property Brothers are heading toward a post-pandemic wedding, Hollywood Hookups -- Conor McGregor has proposed to the mother of his children Dee Devlin, The Bachelor star Vanessa Grimaldi and Josh Wolfe engaged, Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz engaged 

Page 40: Mariah Carey’s estranged sister Alison has made a bizarre series of claims she was sexually abused as a child during satanic sex rituals she was forced into by her own mother 

Page 42: Red Carpet Stars -- Kristen Stewart in Chanel 

Page 45: Spot the Differences -- Ray Liotta working out with a personal trainer outside Gold’s Gym in Los Angeles 

Page 47: Odd List 

[fact2know-com]

A foster dad home-schooling 10 North Korean boys

Image copyright Kim Tae-hoon

Image caption Seven of the lads on a contemporary box travel

The coronavirus disaster manner tens of millions of fogeys all over the world are grappling with the problem of home-schooling. But one guy in Seoul has a specifically difficult job.

Kim Tae-hoon, 45, properties 10 North Korean boys who defected from the repressive state with out their oldsters. The youngest is simply 10 years previous, the oldest 22.

Usually they might be in class, or college – when it comes to 22-year-old Gun-seong – however remaining month South Korean students began online lessons instead.

On the primary morning of far flung education, Kim, chatting with the BBC by way of video hyperlink, shepherds the lads to a big desk on the second one ground, the place the wifi is at its most powerful.

“I think you’d better put your earphones on because the sounds might get all mixed up during the morning assembly,” he tells them.

As could be anticipated, there are teething issues. Grappling with unfamiliar on-line techniques by way of tech gadgets rented from the native schooling administrative center is considered one of them.

The log-ins of 2 of the lads who’re in the similar grade had been combined up, and 15-year-old Geum-seong, who most effective defected from North Korean a 12 months in the past, understandably wishes extra lend a hand than the others. He’s now not used to filing assignments on-line.

Meanwhile, Jun-seong, the youngest of the circle of relatives, is scolded for gazing YouTube on his pill.

Image copyright Kim Tae-hoon

But simply two days later, Kim says the lads have settled into their new regimen beneath his watchful eye.

Eight of Kim’s fees defected with out adults, both on my own or with siblings, and haven’t any different circle of relatives ties within the South. There are more than a few causes for simply kids leaving North Korea, together with dwelling most effective with grandparents too aged to accompany them, or having oldsters who are living aside and can not organise for the entire circle of relatives to make the tricky adventure.

“They send their child to South Korea to find a better life. If the kids are too young, they even escape from the North on the broker’s back,” Kim explains.

According to the Ministry of Unification, there have been 33,658 North Korean defectors within the South as of March 2020, of which round 15% have been 19 years or beneath.

And as of 2017, the federal government reported it was once acutely aware of 96 kids who had arrived within the South with out their oldsters, in line with media experiences.

Kim by no means imagined that he would transform the lads’ carer.

Fifteen years in the past he was once running in publishing. He spent his spare time volunteering for Hanawon, a government-run resettlement facility in Seoul the place all North Korean defectors are living for 3 months, taking a route to organize them for integration into society within the South.

He met a tender boy known as Ha-ryong, who had just lately left the centre together with his mom. She had controlled to get a task but it surely was once far from domestic and he or she needed to depart her son domestic on my own.

Ha-ryong, 10 years previous on the time, requested Kim to be his babysitter, a job which he ended up taking up completely.

Kim’s oldsters totally disapproved and lower all ties with him for a number of years.

He went on to soak up extra North Korean kids, one at a time. The boy who has lived with him the longest of the ones nonetheless with him is Cheol-gwang. He arrived within the South on Christmas Eve 2012 elderly simply 11 years previous. He and his sister had to start with attempted to flee with their mom however have been stuck through guards and detained. He was once launched on my own, and his sister was once freed 3 months later. But his mum by no means reappeared.

Eventually Cheol-gwang and his sister succeeded in escaping to the South on my own.

Image caption Cheol-gwang, who left North Korea together with his sister 8 years in the past

As his circle of relatives grew, Kim registered with the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare to shape what’s referred to as a “Group Home” – the smallest type of establishment within the nation which is able to be offering kids with out oldsters or guardians another circle of relatives environment.

“But my kids think of it as a real home, not a facility,” Kim says. And his oldsters have in the end authorised his choice and are actually his maximum ardent supporters, treating the lads as their adoptive grandsons.

Geum-seong admits that he was once scared of Kim in the beginning.

“When I first saw him, I thought he was a bad guy. Because a man with a big belly in North Korea is usually a high-ranking official,” he says shyly, his accessory nonetheless very it seems that North Korean.

Kim says the logistics are difficult, however he does all of the chores himself.

“The hardest part is grocery shopping. As they are growing boys, they eat like horses. I load up my cart with huge amounts of food, but it’s frustrating because it’ll all be gone in just a day,” he says.

The meals is unpacked into six refrigerators. Two washing machines run continuous each day. Kim must vacuum the home continuously.

But he says he does not ask the lads for lend a hand, arguing that an important factor is that they’re nurtured.

“I don’t ask them for anything other than to grow up with decent manners… That’s how I was raised by my parents.”

It is such a lot paintings that Kim is not able to carry down an ordinary activity, however he’s eligible for some authorities advantages and company support.

He says he does not really feel comfy taking monetary lend a hand, then again, and so just lately he has opened a small cafe in an try to achieve some financial independence.

Image copyright Kim Tae-hoon

Image caption Two washing machines run all day lengthy

But it isn’t simply monetary demanding situations that Kim and his foster circle of relatives have to conquer.

There is substantial prejudice towards North Korean defectors within the South.

Kim to start with needed to transfer space relatively steadily because of emerging hire or the will for more room as he took in additional boys. He says each time he did so there can be unwelcome consideration.

“Whenever we moved, neighbours would somehow find out… Some even sent me a message to warn me that defectors should live discreetly.”

On one instance Kim’s family was once even visited through police. A fellow student of considered one of Kim’s foster kids had claimed his classmate was once a secret agent for North Korea.

This was once an excessive case, however however the lads are occasionally taunted, in most cases once they first sign up for a brand new faculty, known as names akin to “war-causing bastard.”

“When South Koreans hear that someone is from North Korea, they tend to look down on them, and some even show hostility. It’s so sad because my kids are still teenagers. They shouldn’t be viewed politically,” Kim says.

In truth many younger North Korean defectors drop out of mainstream colleges because of this.

“I’m not saying alternative schools are bad. We just don’t need it because I can fully support my children from home. I believe having [South Korean] friends and creating memories at regular schools will be a big asset to these children,” he says.

Seven years in the past, one of the vital boys, Jin-beom, determined to run for pupil president.

His instructor rang Kim to mention he was once frightened the revel in would turn out irritating for the boy. Kim mentioned Jin-beom can be much more harm if he knew his instructor had made the decision. Despite this, he was once voted in through the scholars.

Image caption Jin-beom

Every 12 months the circle of relatives chooses a mission to do in combination. Sometimes it’s an artwork exhibition, occasionally a musical. Most just lately it was once a shuttle ebook showcasing footage the lads had taken of South Korean surroundings.

“My boys said that they were curious about two things when they were in Hanawon before entering Korean society,” says Kim.

“One was what [South] Korea looks like… and the other was what if South Koreans don’t like me?” he mentioned. “So we decided to document Korean scenery while travelling around.”

The concept is to donate copies of the ebook to kids in Hanawon to lend a hand them lose their concern of the unknown.

Image copyright Kim Tae-hoon

Image caption Art paintings through the lads depicting North Korea from a prior circle of relatives exhibition

As for Kim’s fees, they’re enthusiastic about their futures in South Korea. Their ambitions these days come with comedian ebook writing, structure and athletics. Ha-ryong, the little boy he first took in, has already left, and is in his ultimate 12 months of college the place he’s finding out sociology.

But no matter occurs someday, Kim says his doorways will all the time be open.

“We will still be a family,” he says.

Image copyright Kim Tae-hoon

Read more on leaving North Korea: ‘The prisoner who escaped with her guard’

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Elliot, an alcoholic, asked his parole officer for help. She sent him back to prison

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Elliot, an alcoholic, asked his parole officer for help. She sent him back to prison

Elliot Hudson found the box on his first afternoon home from prison.

He’d gone up to his old bedroom in his parents’ Ottawa house to unpack some of the clothes his father tidied away while Elliot had been incarcerated. He pulled out the old crock-pot box with “recovery stuff” Sharpied on the side. Inside there were maybe six or seven leather-bound journals, dating back to 2012.

Elliot, a contemplative 37-year-old man with an occasionally destructive tendency to get trapped in his own mind, couldn’t resist flipping through. It was disheartening.

The dates scrawled in the corners changed but the story didn’t. He read one page: I’m back in recovery… I’m super committed… I’ve been to five AA meetings in the last five days… I’m really grateful to be sober. This is it.

Then he’d flip ahead two weeks or two months: I’ve relapsed again and I feel terrible about it… I’m so ashamed. I’m so broken… What’s wrong with me?

“I saw the progression of how this illness has just decimated my life,” Elliot says. Family, friends, work, financial stability, emotional stability —

“There’s not a single area of my life that (addiction) hasn’t touched.”

Elliot Hudson writes in a journal he found inside an old crock-pot box. The journal chronicles his struggles with addiction and relapse over the course of several years.

Jane Gerster/Global News

To be sober and fresh out of jail on that day, Oct. 24, 2019, doesn’t feel all that different from being sober and “super committed” to staying that way in 2012, 2013 or 2014. A little more humbling, sure, with a list of court-ordered restrictions meant to encourage sobriety vis-à-vis the threat of more jail. But if his brain, already well aware that alcohol was ruining his life, couldn’t keep him sober then, what’s to say it will succeed now, rubber-stamped rules or no?

At Alcoholics Anonymous meetings they tell you that alcohol is “cunning, baffling and powerful,” but that if you acknowledge that, and admit your wrongs and are willing to make amends and put your life in the hands of a higher power, you will recover.

It’s an enticing thought, almost like if you know enough about the disease you can protect yourself from it — appealing to a thinker like Elliot. And yet, as two doctors wrote in a March 1993 review of addiction in the Psychiatric Clinics of North America medical journal, “the potential for relapse… persists indefinitely.”

Elliot thumbs through his old journals.

I’m back in recovery… I’m super committed… I’ve relapsed again… What’s wrong with me?

“My first priority is staying sober,” he says. “If I don’t do that, I can’t do anything else.”

***

For many people, addiction rolls off the tongue a little too easily. It’s, oh, I’m addicted to these little scones at the bakery down the street, or this new show on Netflix that I can’t. Stop. Watching. But the reality is that you probably can stop. Or at least, you can stop watching long enough to go to work or to your dinner reservations or to walk your dog.

Many experts, including the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), rely on the four Cs to differentiate addiction as a catchall term for finding it hard to say no and an actual substance use disorder. The four Cs are: craving, loss of control of amount or frequency of use, compulsion to use and using despite the consequences. Elliot knows that last one well.

Often, addiction stories double as sobriety narratives. We like that story, says Dr. Raj Bhatla, the chief of staff and psychiatrist-in-chief at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, where Elliot has received help in the past, because it’s simple.

Elliot had his first drink at 13, showed up drunk repeatedly throughout high school and graduated to drugs in his mid-20s.

Provided

We don’t like to look at the way social factors and individual people’s thoughts and behaviours interconnect. We don’t like to think about how housing, finances and abuse can each help push someone down the path of addiction.

“Addiction is a complex condition, a complex interaction between human beings and their environments,” wrote Dr. Gabor Maté in In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a book about addiction. It’s a book that makes Elliot feel seen.

“Addiction has biological, chemical, neurological, psychological, medical, emotional, social, political, economic, and spiritual underpinnings — and perhaps others I haven’t thought about,” Maté wrote.

“To get anywhere near a complete picture we must keep shaking the kaleidoscope to see what other patterns emerge.”

That’s a big ask. Bhatla explains we’ve simplified things as a society because it’s easier to form conclusions.

“We should be more sophisticated as a society and we should be less judgmental.”

***

The first time Elliot had a drink he was 13 years old and a friend had stolen a mickey of whisky from her dad’s basement.

He’d grown up with a mother who struggled with addiction. So while he knew the effects of someone’s addiction — how they could be selfish, inadvertently cruel with cravings or wreck your plans to go camping or to a movie with their hangover — he hadn’t really placed a mickey of whisky on the spectrum to a lifetime of struggle.

In the backyard, the two friends mixed whisky with Pepsi and drank until Elliot was giddy and a little bit dizzy.

Elliot lay back on the grass.

Wow, he thought, no wonder my mom likes this stuff. This is incredible. I want to feel like this all the time. For a moment, he was content. He looked at his friend and asked, “When can we do this again?”

He didn’t think twice about asking; he felt wonderful and he wanted to feel wonderful all the time. She gave him a funny look, like, why are you already thinking about next time? Why aren’t you just enjoying this moment?

“The problem with substance abuse is that it works,” Elliot says. “Up to that point I had been so full of fear and uncomfortable emotions and in that moment, they just disappeared.”

Clockwise from top left: Elliot as a baby with his mother, Elliot as a toddler with his younger sister and Elliot as a young boy.

Provided

Elliot started showing up tipsy, then drunk to high school events. He wrote an exam hammered. He ignored the lectures: alcohol is bad! Drugs are bad! Don’t you dare use!

It was an easy out from dealing with physical abuse in a home that revolved around addiction, and an incident where he was sexually abused as a teenager. Drunken Elliot appeared so frequently that the school reached out to his parents to intervene. They set up a meeting with an addiction counsellor.

The counsellor was the first person Elliot met who scratched at the surface of why he drank.

Elliot told him the truth: I drink because it makes me feel good and normal, I become a teenager who can actually connect with his friends instead of feeling anxious and isolated in my own brain.

It was as Maté wrote: “Drugs have the power to make the painful tolerable and the humdrum worth living for.

“Like patterns in a tapestry, recurring themes emerge in my interviews with addicts,” Maté wrote.

“The drug as emotional anaesthetic; as an antidote to a frightful feeling of emptiness; as a tonic against fatigue, boredom, alienation, and a sense of personal inadequacy; as stress reliever and social lubricant.”

Elliot went back to the counsellor half a dozen times. He didn’t stop drinking, but he did find himself devoting a little more headspace to why he was drinking.

***

Addiction is a brain-warping disease, but is it a crime?

The desire to see drug use treated as a health issue rather than a criminal one is behind the push for decriminalizing illicit drugs for personal use, an idea that’s come up repeatedly in recent years as a result of the opioid crisis, which claimed nearly 14,000 lives across Canada between January 2016 and June 2019.

In July 2018, Toronto’s board of health asked the federal government to decriminalize drugs and in April 2019, B.C.’s chief health officer asked the provincial government to do the same. So far, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has resisted, preferring to focus on other harm reduction efforts.

Canada has a huge mental health and addiction crisis in prison. Federally, 70 per cent of inmates used alcohol or drugs in problematic ways in the year leading up to their incarceration, per a fact sheet compiled by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. More than half of inmates serving time have a problem with alcohol, while nearly half have had problems with drugs.

Substance use and abuse is a prominent factor underlying criminal behaviour, and not just in obvious ways like impaired driving. Substance use plays a direct or indirect role for people serving time federally for assault (69 per cent), theft (66 per cent), murder (58 per cent) and break and enter and robbery (56 per cent), per the centre’s research.

And the people for whom addiction and mental health disproportionately leads to jail time are some of Canada’s most marginalized residents — Black people, Indigenous people, people who are grappling with the ongoing impacts of intergenerational trauma.

Last month, Canada’s prison ombudsman warned of the “Indigenization of Canada’s prison population” now that the proportion of people in federal prison who are Indigenous has reached more than 30 per cent, despite Indigenous people making up only five per cent of the country’s total population. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of Black people behind bars has grown by 69 per cent, so while they make up roughly three per cent of the Canadian population, they now represent more than eight per cent of the population behind bars.

Elliot, who is white, knows he has privilege. Sometimes it’s hard to acknowledge while shame spiralling after another relapse, but he fights to remind himself. An estimated six million Canadians will meet the criteria (those four Cs) for substance use disorder in their lifetime. Elliot wants to use his experience to help them.

Elliot with his mother and father circa 2009.

Provided

People don’t get the help they need when our society focuses on individual choice and responsibility, says Justin Piché, an associate criminology professor at the University of Ottawa and co-founder of the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project.

We wind up “setting aside our collective responsibilities to each other and to the people,” he says.

Economic, social, racial and gender inequality is well documented in Canada. And so, Piché says, “we live in a society where people experience a great deal of trauma quite frequently.

“We need to be making a gradual shift towards a more compassionate and caring society, while at the same time trying to address the harms that exist now,” he says.

“That’s not easy work, to work towards a just transition, but we need one.”

***

On Jan. 18, 2018, Elliot made a weapon out of a prison regulation deodorant canister and a sock and attacked a guard at the Central East Jail in Lindsay, Ont. He grabbed her by the shirt collar and threatened her.

He would later acknowledge he must have looked terrifying — big and burly, sporting a beard — and want to apologize. But in the moment he felt desperate. He’d been in prison a few months, still waiting to be sentenced and still using. He wasn’t getting the treatment he needed and he had just come out of isolation.

His mother had recently died.

“I was a mess,” Elliot says.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services says it is its “firm belief that when someone is given the chance to address the personal and socioeconomic issues that drive their criminal activity, everyone benefits.”

She acknowledged that “crime, violence, mental health and addictions are complex issues that cannot be solved overnight or by the provincial government alone.”

Elliot Hudson is pictured in the family visiting room at St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre on Sept. 24, 2019.

Brent Rose/Global News

Elliot worked in audio engineering throughout his 20s, where booze and drugs were normal and nobody batted an eye when he was drunk or high — or both.

Elliot felt functional until he wasn’t. At some point, he realized that once he started drinking, he couldn’t stop.

Then he missed his best friend’s wedding. It was time to get sober.

With a clear head — and liver — Elliot’s world opened up.

He wanted to help open up other people’s worlds, too. He got a diploma in addiction counselling and spent a few years as a peer support worker. In 2015, he was accepted into the social work program at Carleton University. He wanted his thesis to be about the criminalization of addiction.

READ MORE: Ramadan behind bars — How one inmate’s fight to fast highlights oversight concerns

The war on drugs, which was initiated more than four decades ago, “has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” wrote a panel of experts in the 2011 Global Commission on Drug Policy report.

It led to the mass incarceration of people with addictions and didn’t even curb drug use. In fact, United Nations estimates show that drug consumption has actually gone up. Opiate use jumped by more than 34 per cent from 1998 to 2008, when it was estimated that 17.35 million people were using. Similarly, cocaine use jumped by 27 per cent to 17 million and cannabis use jumped by 8.5 per cent to 160 million.

“End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others,” recommended the Global Commission.

“One of the research topics I was interested in was the criminalization of addiction,” wrote Elliot Hudson in his first letter to Global News on Aug. 21, 2018. “How sadly ironic that I should end up incarcerated for an addiction-related crime.”

Global News

It’s a huge topic; one so big that Elliot’s thesis advisor dissuaded him from pursuing it. And so Elliot winnowed it to access to addiction treatment in Ontario.

Having a purpose didn’t make Elliot’s stressors disappear. After all, logic doesn’t stop emotion. When the anxiety and cravings are overwhelming, it’s easy to seek relief in one sip that becomes two drinks, then 10.

Elliot finished his first year of school in spring 2016. He relapsed in the fall and took a mental health leave. By October he was facing charges for drunkenly assaulting his parents. He was released on conditions to not drink or do drugs. He was arrested again six months later for drunkenly damaging two windows at an ex-girlfriend’s home and failing to comply with the court condition that he stay sober.

Elliot tried to go back to school in the fall, but he was still drinking and using. He was bouncing between shelters. All his money went to alcohol and drugs. He started to shoplift from the liquor store when he couldn’t scrounge up the cash.

“It’s hard to remember what it felt like to be that desperate,” Elliot says. “It’s almost like your brain’s been hijacked.”

By the fall of 2017, Elliot had dropped out of school and was driven only by how to get the next bottle, his next fix.

On Oct. 10, he robbed a store. On Oct. 14, he robbed a gas station. Both times he threatened the cashier, although he had no weapons. The Ottawa police spread his image far and wide after the gas station robbery. Elliot turned himself in.

“Obviously, alcohol has led you down this path at this point and it’s time to deal with it,” Justice C.S. Dorval said during his sentencing on Feb. 5, 2018. He added six months for attacking the prison guard.

READ MORE: The Liberals promise to expand drug treatment courts — but will this reduce harm?

“The mental health issues, you can always get assistance. The addiction, you need to want it, you know, want to deal with it and it’s difficult until you get to the point where you want to be sober every single day,” the judge said.

Dorval encouraged corrections to help Elliot.

Substance abuse cost Canada $38.4 billion, or roughly $1,000 per person regardless of age, in 2014, according to a report from the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. About $14.6 billion was attributed to alcohol abuse alone.

But is jail the right place for treatment?

Most addiction experts say no.

As Ontario auditor general Bonnie Lysyk noted in her December 2019 report on Ontario prisons, they are not equipped to deal with the rising number of inmates who have mental health issues.

The report found frontline staff don’t have the training required to de-escalate situations that arise because of mental health. In a review of internal investigations done in response to prison incidents in Toronto and Thunder Bay, the auditor general found that 57 per cent of inmates who tried to harm themselves or others had a mental health alert on their file.

Per the auditor general’s report, enhanced training provided by CAMH is due to be rolled out across the province this year. A spokesperson for the ministry said the program officially launched in January and includes “more job-specific case studies and scenario-based learning, as well as an emphasis on communication and de-escalation skills.”

And yet, there’s a culture clash between health care and justice.

It’s inevitable, Dr. Raj Bhatla says. While both health-care providers and corrections staff value community safety, he says the health-care side is more focused on treatment — “it’s a different paradigm.”

READ MORE: How Trevor died — Why prison offers a ‘golden opportunity’ to help solve the opioid crisis

That means it can be harder to rehabilitate people in prison, says Dr. Lori Regenstreif, an assistant professor at McMaster University who also works with the rapid access to addiction medicine clinic at St. Joe’s Hospital and the Shelter Health Network.

In Ontario, the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services makes decisions about prison health care instead of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Corrections’ focus winds up being “what’s legal versus illegal on the inside,” Regenstreif says.

In other words, the ministry will be concerned about the safety risk of inmates sharing the drugs Regenstrief prescribes with one another. However, Regenstrief, who prescribes buprenorphine, an opioid medication like methadone that’s used to treat addiction, would rather them share. The drug isn’t very dangerous and won’t get a person high, she says, but it could help them a lot. A spokesperson for the ministry says policies and procedures are in place for delivering health care behind bars and that “decisions are between inmates and medical professionals.”

More than 250,000 people are sent to prisons in Canada every year, which means one in 250 people. It has serious impacts on their health. Researchers in Ontario followed provincial inmates, such as Elliot, for 12 years beginning in 2000 and published their results in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2016.

Those inmates were four times more likely to die than the general population. Their deaths were largely due to preventable and treatable causes, including overdose, heart disease and suicide. Inmates also died younger — men’s life expectancy was 4.2 years shorter compared with the general population while women’s declined by 10.6 years.

For Elliot, already feeling desperate in jail, just hearing the judge say he would get help to treat his mental health and addiction was a positive step forward.

Some of the many letters Elliot Hudson exchanged with Global News reporter Jane Gerster while he was incarcerated.

Global News

Except, nothing happened. Elliot stayed in maximum security at the Lindsay jail. When he asked about treatment, he says he was brushed off and told to put in a form to request a meeting with a social worker. The social worker told him it might take months. A spokesperson for the ministry says it works with staff as well as health and social service agencies to make sure inmates get the supports they need.

There was a lot of drug use on his range that the guards ignored so long as there weren’t any fights, Elliot says. A spokesperson for the ministry says it takes the health and safety of staff and inmates “very seriously” and that staff are “trained to be vigilant” with respect to contraband.

Frustrated and overwhelmed, Elliot kept using. What was the point?

“There was already despondency on my part,” he says. “Can I do this? Can I have a good life? Is there any point?”

Using felt like the path of least resistance.

***

“I’m one of the fortunate ones from where I’m sitting,” Elliot said in the family visitation room at St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre in December 2018.

He was transferred to the centre that summer and was finally receiving the treatment he’d envisioned during his sentencing. It was the first time in a long time he felt hope.

The St. Lawrence facility is solely for men, a special prison operated in conjunction with the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group for inmates with serious mental illness. It provides specialized treatment for a number of issues, including sex offending, trauma disorders and dysfunctional anger. Roughly 100 inmates receive treatment at a time and according to a ministry spokesperson, there are currently four inmates on a waitlist to get in.

Elliot was eloquent and cheerful. He also acknowledged his privilege, even behind bars. So many of the men he’d met in jail had been in and out of prison since they were teenagers. They had no easily employable skills, no stable housing and no further education. Many would have to return to neighbourhoods where there were strong ties to crime, trauma and what landed them behind bars in the first place.

Elliot often found himself reflecting on just how different his life would be if he’d been caught up in the justice system at a young age instead of planted in front of an addictions counsellor who probed into the why of his disorder.

“It helps me have empathy for the suffering that these guys are enduring because a lot of them haven’t had a chance,” he says.

It’s a tough trajectory to put numbers on, says Bhatla, because it’s multi-faceted and you can’t blame just one thing. Correctional treatment programs like St. Lawrence Valley are important, he says, but not the sole solution.

“We need to do a much better job in catching people earlier, prior to them ending up in the correctional system.”

Many people with addiction and mental health issues have adverse childhood experiences, he says.

“We put them in a position where, from a psychosocial point of view, that’s the pathway.”

Growing up, some people experience emotional, physical or sexual abuse, emotional or physical neglect, domestic abuse, parental separation or divorce, mental illness at home, substance abuse at home, or an incarcerated household member.

READ MORE: Is poor health a problem you can fix by yourself? Not when you don’t have money

Each one increases the likelihood that a person will start using illicit drugs at a young age and use for life between two- and four-fold, according to a 2003 study published in the Pediatrics medical journal looking at more than 8,600 illicit drugs users. Of those surveyed, more than 30 per cent grew up in homes where someone abused substances, like Elliot did, and 25 per cent grew up in homes with mental illness.

“Children and adolescents, who are exposed to the types of childhood experiences that we examined, may have feelings of helplessness, chaos, and importance and may have problems self-regulating affective states,” according to the study.

“Thus, illicit drug use may serve as an avenue to escape or disassociate from the immediate emotional pain, anxiety, and anger that likely accompany such experiences.”

At the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre, Elliot was optimistic about the possibility of a parole hearing. He had plans to get out, stay with his father until he could lease his own apartment, and work in construction to make money to return to school.

“I feel incredibly fortunate.”

***

On March 7, 2019, Elliot’s dad drove to pick him up from the prison in Brockville. Right away, Elliot says it felt wrong, “like a fantasy movie that didn’t match up to what was happening in real life.”

He’d spent months planning his first meal free — a diner breakfast with real eggs and real sausages instead of the airplane-style pre-packaged meals he’d been fed in prison — but the restaurant he wanted to go to was closed. The backup restaurant was only so-so.

He was excited to sleep in a real bed with lights he could turn all the way off, but he couldn’t sleep. Every time he dozed off, he’d wake up disoriented by the dark and unsure of where he was.

“I got out thinking, ‘Oh, this is no big deal, this will be easy,’” Elliot says. “It turns out it was very, very difficult.”

Elliot’s anxiety was like a living, breathing entity he couldn’t dislodge from his back.

He’d gone from a regimented prison schedule to the freedom to wake up when he wanted and eat when he wanted and do whatever he wanted so long as he stayed stone-cold sober. And while Ontario prisons are required to assist in discharge planning, connecting people like Elliot to reintegration resources, Elliot says he didn’t get that when it came to parole. A ministry spokesperson did not respond to Elliot’s specific case, but said there are support options for inmates being released on parole.

“I felt like I had to make 1,000 decisions a day,” he wrote in a letter.

There was alcohol at the LCBO at the street corner, in the beer commercials during a hockey game, and in the vodka ad on the side of the bus station.

Alcohol was everywhere.

“FREEDOM!!!” The first email Elliot Hudson sent to Global News after being released on parole.

Global News

He made a to-do list, put his head down, and tried to will his anxiety to pass. As he crossed things off — bank, dentist — there were more to add on.

“I never felt like I was getting ahead so I started becoming very kind of manic about it,” Elliot says.

His dad told him to slow down but he didn’t listen.

Five days after being released on parole, Elliot went to get his hair cut. He sat there, silently battling his anxiety, while the barber trimmed his hair.

He talks about his anxiety as if it is another person inhabiting his brain, deceptively reminding him that there is one nearly instantaneous relief.

“Hey Elliot,” it tells him, “I know how to get rid of this anxiety. Why don’t we have a few drinks?”

Elliot took an Uber from the hairdresser to a bar at 11 a.m. and started to drink. The first sip tasted like relief.

“Many people have watched themselves helplessly as they began to do something they knew would be unhelpful or self-defeating,” Dr. Gabor Maté explains in his book.

“That’s the experience of brain lock: the clutch is stuck, so nothing can be done to stop the motor of ‘doing’ from engaging.”

Elliot drank until they cut him off around 3 p.m. Then, he went somewhere else — too drunk now for specifics — and drank through the night. It was a direct violation of his parole.

He woke up hungover and scared. He worried he wouldn’t be able to stop drinking again, so he called his parole officer to come clean. He thought she might be able to steer him towards a detox centre or some sort of community-based treatment.

She issued a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest.

“Her hands were tied as soon as she found out I was drinking,” Elliot says. “I fault the system.”

Addiction is a disease, says Bhatla: “It’s a relapsing illness.”

“Many parts of our society see (addiction) as a social weakness or an individual weakness and that’s not OK.”

***

The Criminalization and Punishment Education Project, which Piché co-founded, runs a jail accountability and information hotline. It’s for people incarcerated at the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre and their loved ones to report human rights issues and try to get help staying out of jail.

Elliot’s story — a slip, a plea for help, and an uncompromising system — sounds an awful lot like those calls, Piché says.

Two extreme examples made waves this month after a justice of the peace in Nunavut blasted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for separately arresting two victims of domestic violence. The women had called the police for help with abuse, but wound up arrested because they had both been drinking contrary to sober bail conditions in place prior to the domestic violence for which they asked for help.

“It is troubling,” wrote justice of the peace Joseph Murdoch-Flowers of the RCMP’s decision.

“The police and the Crown must guard against what I would characterize as ‘institutional indifference.’ They must be sensitive to the big picture, and they must not allow legal papers to get in the way of decency and common sense.”

A ministry spokesperson says it’s modernizing health-care delivery for inmates and working to better identify those who have mental health needs.

“The ministry works to ensure those in its custody are treated fairly, respectfully and with the access to health care services that aligns with those in the community,” she says.

But the system is the problem, Piché says.

“We need a (criminal justice system) that actually makes common sense, that provides people care, not cages.”

Back in the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre, Elliot felt demoralized. He pictured his life being married with kids and a career.

“I’m approaching 40 and I don’t really have much to show for myself.”

One of the guys on Elliot’s range offered to help with the depression. Elliot got him some money and spent his first week back in jail high on opiates.

***

At the end of March, Elliot wrote a letter to Global News from the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre.

“I’m trying to figure out where I went wrong,” he wrote. “All I can say is that getting out was WAY more overwhelming than I could have anticipated. My anxiety was through the roof.”

Elliot intended to push for release again when he went before the parole board on April 2.

“I basically explained to them that my problem is not criminal behaviour, my problem is substances and I just need to figure out a way to stay away from substances,” Elliot said that afternoon. “I politely begged them for a second chance.”

They revoked his parole.

St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre, the secure prison in Ontario for inmates with serious mental health issues where Elliot Hudson was incarcerated for the better part of a year.

Global News

“6 months, 180 days till Freedom version 2.0,” he wrote on April 25. He’d decided to recommit himself to recovery and had been sober again for a few weeks.

Elliot was back at St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre.

As good as it felt to be sober and in daily treatment again, it also didn’t feel real. Elliot looked ahead to release, wondering how he could avoid the revolving door of prison and wishing he could focus instead on his health and sobriety.

“What the hospital thinks is best and what corrections thinks is best aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

***

Oct. 24, 2019 marked two-thirds of his sentence and so his release; another car ride back to Ottawa with his dad. Elliot does not want to go back to jail and he no longer believes he can outsmart his disease. It means he is living with opposing realities: that he must fight to stay sober while bracing for relapse.

The hardest part is the shame, he says.

“When you relapse there’s so much shame and guilt that just perpetuates more using and it creates a cycle that’s very, very difficult to get out of.”

On his last morning in prison, Elliot’s psychiatrist took a moment to remind him that relapse happens. Don’t drink and don’t use, he told him, but if you do, don’t make it a bigger deal than it has to be. You don’t have to throw your life away just because you have a slip.

To Elliot, that means don’t let the shame of having a beer or two turn into an all-night cocaine bender.

One big metal gate opens and shuts, then the second opens.

Is this real? He spent a moment in the car with his father, just thinking. Yeah, it’s real. Two years. I’m done. I’m free.

***

Less than a week after Elliot got out of jail, he sat at his father’s kitchen table in Kanata, an Ottawa suburb, wearing a button-down with more colours than you’d ever see on an inmate.

He was anxious but not forlorn. He sounded like a person who knew a lot about addiction, trauma and relapse and really, really wanted to stay sober.

“Today’s the fifth day,” Elliot said. “I feel much more calm.”

Elliot Hudson is pictured at his father’s Ottawa home in October 2019, just five days after being released from prison.

Jane Gerster/Global News

On the sixth, the Tuesday, Elliot went to a meeting with the John Howard Society to talk about finding him his own lease in Ottawa. It’s too easy to hide away in Kanata, he said, “I don’t want to isolate myself.”

He’d woken up anxious, lonely and full of fear.

Just after 4 p.m., Elliot sent a text about his day. The meeting went well, he wrote. He got bus tickets and $20 in Giant Tiger gift cards.

A pause. Another text: “I woke up today feeling terrified. I’m having a few drinks right now alone but I don’t want to talk about it on camera.”

Relapsing on probation rather than parole is superior in one way: there’s no condition not to drink. Sure, Elliot wants to be sober, but this time an alcohol slip doesn’t automatically mean a return to jail.

Still, November was hard and December was harder. Elliot drank and used drugs. He went to detox twice, although it made him panicky because it reminded him too much of being locked up.

“I need to learn how to live in the world sober and hiding away in a rehab for 28 days is not necessarily going to do that,” he says. “It sort of breaks the pattern of drinking or using, but it’s not teaching me how to integrate back into society.”

The tricky part was sticking to a routine, not hiding away.

He was looking forward to visiting a friend who’d stuck by him when he was incarcerated. She had two kids, a loyal Lab and an exuberant new puppy.

***

The kids wake up at 7:45 a.m. Breakfast, meds and teeth brushing takes until 8:30 a.m. and then they’re off to school. After school, they get two hours of video games and YouTube followed by one hour of homework and then another hour of games. Then, it’s meds, teeth brushing and lights out.

The routine is for Elliot’s friend’s two kids, who he moved in with just before Christmas. And yet, Elliot says, it’s really helped him cement his own routine. “Addicts are selfish,” Elliot says, but kids demand time and attention in a way that distracts from addiction and makes Elliot feel useful.

Add in the dogs — a Lab named Honey and a pug puppy named Lola — that demand pets and walks and love to wrestle, and his days are full with less time to overthink.

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Elliot is also sober. He marks one month on Jan. 17, 2020. It is a relief. He spent November and early December drinking and using. He went to detox twice. He buried his cousin from an overdose, a cruel reminder of addiction’s end game.

“I woke up clean and sober this morning. I have no intentions of using today, and hopefully I go to bed the same way,” he says. “Rinse and repeat.”

He’s seeing a psychiatrist now who’s made a huge difference. She told him to always come, but to let her know when he’s been drinking so she can adjust her therapy plan. That takes off some of the pressure and shame.

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Elliot’s also on new medications: clonidine for stress and naltrexone for his cravings. The last time he drank was the first time he took naltrexone. It’s supposed to trick the pleasure centre of your brain, he says, and — ever-curious — Elliot tested it out by having a few beers. He felt no relief, just bloat.

“It sounds kind of dramatic but it was a bit of a goodbye ceremony for me,” he says.

“Alcohol’s been hurting me for years. It’s destroyed every important relationship in my life and it’s time to say goodbye.”

Elliot slips later that month. He is admitted to the Royal Ottawa Hospital for inpatient treatment for substance use on Feb. 12.

***

The hospital program is good, “really good,” Elliot says after a few days, but he’s emotional. Right now, he’s listening to Blackbird by Shake Shake Go a lot: Imagine if it all goes wrong / One day I know it must come / But nothing’s gonna change my love for you, for you.

— with files from Abigail Bimman

Jane.Gerster@globalnews.ca

Follow @Jane_Gerster

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