#national parks argument is automatic block

[komsomolka]

yankees: our country is evil but did you consider... all those national parks thru which we weaponize green washing colonialism to oppose landback? or... (very exaggerated) Diversity those immigrants from places usa fucked over bring to spice up our white supremacist project of a state?

[96thdayofrage]

Yesterday (March 3) marked 30 years since the infamous beating of Rodney King by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was caught on film for the world to see. Decades before cell phone footage would capture the horrific slaughter of Black Americans such as Philando Castile, Eric Garner, George Floyd and Alton Sterling, a grainy camcorder clip of four LAPD officers hammering King 56 times with batons and kicking him repeatedly, reopened old wounds in a nation that figured itself healed from racially-motivated police violence that seemed to be it at its maximum amid the Civil Rights era.

The following year the four officers who were filmed beating King were acquitted of all criminal charges, sparking the Los Angeles riots of 1992. Black citizens of Los Angeles took out decades of frustration of being over and aggressively policed and racially profiled in a stretch of days that resulted in numerous businesses being vandalized and decimated, and the kind of chaos that ensues when a people’s cries for justice are ignored.

Excessive police violence against Black communities did not dwindle in the decades that separated the beating of Rodney King from the emergence of the movement for Black lives. An evolution in technology would ultimately allow citizens to capture the violence in surround sound and high definition. We have held a bird’s eye view of state-sanctioned executions literally in the palm of our hands. 

Over the past three decades, our community would learn a great deal about how the legal system would find loopholes for these incidents of violence, and be re-introduced to the power of our advocacy. The following are but a few examples of things we have come to know in our fight against police brutality, 30 years after one of the most publicized examples in American history.

Qualified immunity: The phrase “qualified immunity” has been introduced into the vocabulary of social justice advocates over the past several years, as it has been a legal statute that many have fought to eliminate. Qualified immunity protects a government official from lawsuits alleging that the official violated a plaintiff's rights, only allowing suits where officials violated a “clearly established” statutory or constitutional right. The slippery slope for prosecutors in these civil cases is the burden of proof that an officer did indeed violate a victim’s constitutional right. In more instances than not, criminal charges brought against police that kill Black people do not stick, so the families of the (often) deceased only hope of any semblance of justice comes in the form of civil suits.

This is why there’s a consistent push by activists and civil rights attorneys to end qualified immunity. The protection it provides essentially strips grieving families of any chance of seeing the killer of their loved one being held accountable for their actions.

The use of “Reasonable Fear’ as defense: Two landmark Supreme Court decisions, Tennessee v. Garner and Graham v. Connor. established the legal precedent that police officers could lawfully use deadly force if they deemed the situation they encountered to be a ‘reasonable’ threat. This defense has been utilized in some of the most high-profile cases of police violence, as it reinforces the stereotype of Black folk as uncontrollable lawless savages. Whether it was a Black motorist heading home, a Black child playing in a park or a Black son returning from a dentist appointment, the argument of the threatening Black human has been used by individual officers and police unions to justify acts of violence. The LAPD officers involved in the beating of Rodney King used his intoxication and alleged aggressive resistance as their rationale for beating him mercilessly.

In the following decades, defense attorneys for American police have consistently played on a “Birth of a Nation”-inspired fear about unhinged Blackness, specifically as it relates to Black male victims of police violence.

Implicit Bias Training: As conversations around police violence have permeated the national dialogue for the better part of a decade, the concept of officers receiving implicit bias training has been presented as a measure to help curve violent interactions with unarmed Black citizens. Implicit bias describes the automatic association people make between groups of people and stereotypes about those groups and many of these unfair associations have led to police officers discharging their weapons or instituting violent chokeholds that have claimed Black lives.

If we consider the example of George Floyd and Derek Chauvin as a case study in implicit bias, we can completely recognize where this kind of training could potentially be of benefit to the communities served by hyper-aggressive officers. When Chauvin and his fellow Minneapolis officers apprehended George Floyd for allegedly using counterfeit money at a convenience store, the aggression they approached him with was directly connected to their assumption of who he was. They saw a very tall, muscular dark brown Black man wearing a tank top that had just been accused of a crime, and in their minds, he fit the description of a far more nefarious criminal than his alleged crime would suggest.

We cannot say with absolute certainty that implicit bias training would have prevented Derek Chauvin’s predatory hunt and kill of George Floyd as he had a previous history of violence, but what we know is that many police departments around the nation often shirk the very idea of implicit bias training because to incorporate these trainings is to some degree an admission of a need for improvement. And murdering unarmed Black Americans does not constitute a need for improvement.

Turning Protest into Policy: After several months of national (and global) outcry behind the shooting death of Breonna Taylor by Louisville Metro Police, activists in Louisville transformed their pain and protest into legislation. Breonna’s Law was passed by the Louisville metro council three months after she was murdered. The law, which bans no-knock search warrants, was a direct response to the manner Breonna was killed and the byproduct of a community that had endured multiple incidents of the LMPD executing similar invasions that endangered more than just alleged suspects.

The passage of Breonna’s Law was monumental in the movement for Black lives as it debunked the idea that all advocates were good for was chanting, marching and blocking intersections. The law provided a direct correlation between an act of police violence and the advocacy of a community that sought to hold law enforcement responsible for an unnecessary murder. Among other things, the ordinance regulated how search warrants were to be carried out in the future and mandated the use of body cameras during searches.

30 years ago as parts of Los Angeles would eventually go up in flames, Black residents were saddled with angst, grief and an almost impossible resolve to combatting the systemic violence they faced. What the past three decades have taught us all is that the fight against state-sanctioned violence is ongoing, but as we continue to become more versed in the mechanisms that provide cover for unlawful police violence, we can transform our pain into power and utilize every tool at our disposal to topple oppressive regimes.

[wrongfullythinking]

Twitter and the “Public Forum”

There is a very large looming legal question about whether or not social media sites, such as Twitter, are “Public Forums.”  Most would agree that they are not... at least... not yet.�� But the question is... should they be?

First, a look into why it matters.

In a public forum, all First Amendment protections apply.  So you can say any number of very objectionable things (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12634874511090553174) and be protected.  In a private forum, this is not so.  I can kick you out of my house for wearing an Abercrombie shirt, and you have no Free Speech/Expression reason to contest my staggeringly good decision-making.

Second, the public forum cannot be policed for any content that may be stated.  This is why if you go to reserve time at a public park, you don’t have to tell the Parks and Rec department what your event is for.  Just things like how many people, how long the event will last, etc.  This is well-established and well-backed by many years of precedent.

Finally, there is the very serious matter of personal liability.  In certain circumstances, officials can be held personally liable if their policies deliberately and knowingly infringe upon Bill of Rights protections (most often First Amendment protections).  This means that you could literally sue for the property and assets of a person.  (Also, this is why those of us who own either physical property [like a house] or intellectual property [like a book] buy “Umbrella Coverage” from insurances... I recommend State Farm, but that’s totally irrelevant and I’m not getting any kickbacks for that shill =P.)

But hang on... so if the government owns a billboard and rents it out to whomever can pay, can I rent it and post a naked lady?

You could try, and you might win!  What you can’t do is post something obscene.  And yes, whether or not a naked person is obscene is staggeringly controversial.  There’s a 3-part test from the Burger court, a host of vague terms like “average person” and “contemporary community standards,” and “lacks serious artistic/literary/political/scientific value.”  And then there are protections for children, a whole separate piece, as well as child pornography, which is always classified as obscene... except when it is not, like in the cases of naked cherubs in church windows.  So, confused yet?  We’re off topic, but I make this point to explain that even in public forums, where First Amendment rights are fiercely protected, there are still outstanding issues of content censorship.

So, is Twitter / Facebook / Tumblr a public forum?

At this point, the answer is no.  They are privately controlled by companies, not owned by the feds or states or local municipalities, and thus can make almost any policy they want.  The idea here is that the free market dictates the life or death of these platforms... and that idea tends to hold true!  Tumblr itself is a good case-in-point, because it has lost millions of dollars in value due to bad leadership decisions, and at least partially because of censorship.  There are countless examples of others... I remember when Yahoo! was the primary search engine of the internet and Xanga was the biggest blogging platform.  While you can still Yahoo, I’m not sure there are more than a few hundred people on Xanga, if it still exists in any useful format.  So, since places like this are subject to the free market, and thus can die... they should be allowed to make all the good or bad decisions they want about their content.  Or at least, that is how the theory runs.

But really... ARE they subject to the market?  Now we’re getting into the really interesting territory.  If Facebook shut down tomorrow, would it be a problem?  Maybe, but life would continue.  But if Google shut down tomorrow?  Well, millions of schoolchildren are in GoogleClassrooms right now, so that would certainly be a problem.  It would at least cause massive disruption... and Facebook shutting down would cause some disruption.  Likewise, Twitter controls so much speech that instead of publishing headlines from Newspapers, newspapers publish headlines from Twitter!  The 14-year-old looks at that line like “well, duh” and the 44-year old reads that line like “wow, we’ve come a long way,” and the 84-year-old reads that line with just a sad headshake.

So, now we’ve joined one of the most controversial points of the last 20 years... the Fannie Mae “Too Big to Fail” problem.  Basically, a set of banks and big mortgage companies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) made a bunch of bad decisions in about 1995 - 2008.  [As an aside, whether or not Fannie Mae {technically, the “Federal National Mortgage Association”} is actually a company comes up as an issue... it originated as a government program, but is today a publicly-traded company and has been since the late 60s, though it was delisted from NYSE and is only traded off-exchange].  And the government had to step in.  You can read all about that issue at another time, the bottom line is that actually Fannie Mae has paid back more than it borrowed, but there was a ballooning of the debt ceiling by over 800 billion.  Some people care about the national debt, some don’t, and again, not the subject of this commentary.  The point is that it set a very odd precedent, whereas a company could make extremely bad decisions and then the burden would be placed on the taxpayers to fix their decision, because the company itself was a part of so many people’s lives.  Would social media fall under this guidance?  Unlikely, and I think we would all run from state-sponsored social media... but hey, what do I know.

So... get to the point.  Should they be public forums, or not?

My two cents always comes down against censorship, especially censorship by entities that don’t have my best interests at heart... so basically, everybody else.  I think that it is so easy to self-censor the internet at the personal end (for example, by installing filters and blocking services for objectionable content), that companies should not be unilaterally making these decisions, especially if those companies want to be venues for mass public communication.

Let’s go with another example... let’s say you wanted to call up your buddy and have a nice long phonesex session.  Good for you.  Or just chat with them about the latest Dr. Doe video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXgT8WXaPUY), because enthusiasm is important.  Would you be okay with Verizon telling a robot to monitor your call, and then automatically hang up if you said “penis” too much?  Or “Trump”?  Or “Black Lives Matter?”  What about “Nazi,” “Rohypnol,” “Mary Jane,” “negritos” [I’ve got your back, Mr. Cavani], “snowbunny,” or “Insane Clown Posse”?  I think most people would be upset about any of those, and they would rightfully tell Verizon that they will find another provider.  So Verizon doesn’t do that, although it could.  But Twitter does do that.  And the availability of another Twitter is in question.  Will something succeed Twitter?  Absolutely.  But right now, Twitter is under no market pressure, so it is succeeding at taking off its platform any number of conversations that it probably should not be policing.

There’s also a social-justice side of this.  So, let’s say that we all decide Twitter is a bad platform and move to something else.  And that something else costs us 10$ a month.  I wouldn’t notice this fee.  Others would.  So that’s an access issue.  Or, let’s say that some people start migrating to a new platform, and they only tell their friends about it.  That’s okay, right?  Absolutely... but imagine that college student who is trapped at home in a pandemic right now who cannot get any viewpoints outside of what her parents approved of, and previously used Twitter to explore and challenge her upbringing.  If she doesn’t get an invite to the new platform, is she just lost?

And that brings up the Pandemic.  Many, many common public forums have been shut down due to the pandemic.  This alone has caused serious controversy (see: BLM protests on crowded streets where state governors participated, while those same governors implemented executive orders enforcing 6-foot distancing in churches and stores), so the argument for Twitter censorship “but you have many other public forums!” is tough to substantiate during the COVID-era.  And this is a HUGE problem.  Historically, taking away public forums is always an early move of totalitarian regimes.  Taking away rights to assembly and speech follows soon after.  We’re now in Phase 2 there... and our governors keep assuring us it is temporary... while at the same time, encouraging Twitter to take off any viewpoints they don’t like, under the guise of “false or misleading information.”  Soon, they start moving into the schools, and that leads to...

SCIENCE!!!

So, to talk about what rigorous debate means, we need to understand a bit about Science.  And specifically, the philosophy of science, what scientific discourse looks like, and why review and critique are parts of the scientific process.

Point 1: “Scientific consensus” is hogwash.  Yes, we all agree that the Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun itself moves, but beyond that, there isn’t much scientific consensus.  If you see an article that starts with the phrase “Expert say,” you can go ahead and close your browser window right there.  The rest is bull****.

Point 2: The limits of science are boundless.  Any specific scientific paper is, by necessity and the peer review process, very strictly bounded.  “Whether or not a vaccine is efficient” is an entirely different paper than one titled “Whether or not 80-year-olds with lung cancer should get the vaccine,” and both of those are different than “How the US should achieve herd immunity, and if it is even possible for COVID-19 before significant mutations cause current immunizations to be ineffective,” and all three of those are different from “Do we need to vaccinate our cats from COVID in order to reach herd immunity?”

Point 3: There is no “finalized” science.  The answers are never finished.  What is “cutting edge” science today is out-of-date tomorrow, barbaric and backwards by the end of the year, and grounds for an abuse lawsuit by the end of the decade.  The best examples of this are from Psych treatments.

Point 4: I get very worried when anybody starts to censor scientific content... especially those without any qualifications.  Okay, so this one is a personal sentence (note the “I”), but I’m going to go ahead and guess that Twitter robots and interns flagging posts don’t have any idea the difference between sensitivity and specificity, the background as to why the FDA has never approved an mRNA vaccine previously, the difference between statistical and clinical significance, and how to read a limitations section.  The people who are qualified to do so are peer reviewers... and in the case where those fail (which happens!), the rest of the writer’s peers.  And we do that.  Anything published is open to critique, which leads to the final point, that...

Point 5: Critique and Review are THE MOST IMPORTANT PARTS of scientific publishing.  If a piece is published without review, it is called an “opinion” and not science.  Even more worrisome than the censoring of unpopular papers is the censoring of the opinions of scientists on the papers of their peers.  Should someone publish a paper where I believe they overstretched their claims, it is a HUGE part of my job to call that out.  For an agency like Twitter to be able to say “you don’t have the right to say that they overstated their claim, because expressing a concern about a vaccine is against our Terms of Use” is a very big problem for science.

The flipside is that you get into the part where now a company can, through its policy, dictate what science gets done.  For example, lets say I wanted to examine an unpopular question... and I’m a social scientist, so there are plenty of those, but say I wanted to do something semi-controversial but apolitical.  I’ll say my research question is “How do the happiness of those in committed multi-year polyamorous relationships compare to the happiness of people in similar economic and social situations but in closed marriages where additional intimate partnerships would be viewed as grounds for relationship termination?”  There are plenty of ways I could conduct this study and I’ll spare you my methodological musings, but safe to say there are platforms who would not want me to publish my results.  And that’s fine. 

But let’s say that I did publish my results, and a commenter took to Twitter.  And their response was “I read your paper, and I see your conclusion that those in committed multi-year polyamorous relationships score no differently on a happiness scale than those in the closed marriages.  However, I disagree with your use of this scale, because it was tested on populations of retirees, and most of the people in your sample are in their late 20s or early 30s.”

That is an EXCELLENT and VALID critique.  And let’s say that Twitter was heavily into the social justice and had a policy that said “you can’t say negative things about polyamory.”  And they deleted this person’s comment.  Now, Twitter has interfered with the scientific process.  That comment IS PART of the dialogue and that dialogue is part of Science.  Yes, there are other places that those comments could be made, and not be censored... but we should not be encouraging that censorship ANYWHERE.  And Twitter has vastly overstepped the line on this point.  Random Twitter employees have no business removing professional critiques about a study, even if there are other platforms for those critiques.

Other Thoughts

1) Generally, you can’t prohibit meetings in a public forum based on prior behavior.  Thus, “X group was violent in the past” is not a reason to prohibit X group from accessing a public forum for speech.  So there’s no saying “Proud Boys were violent once, so no Proud Boys on Twitter” if it were to be declared a public forum.

2) I’m really not aware of any large precedents for taking a private company and declaring it a public forum.  That may seem redundant (obviously, if there was precedent, this wouldn’t be such a hot-button issue), but it bears specific mention.

[knoxxed]

what light tastes like

( Los Angeles is Jeremy Knox’s frown of concern whenever Jean pushes himself to the point of strain, the delighted grin when Jean surprises him. It’s cat fur being one more reason to stop wearing black. 

 Los Angeles is joining a starting line including but not limited to a kitchen witch, a seer, and a werewolf. It’s Jean never once being asked to confirm or deny who or what he is. 

 Los Angeles takes some getting used to.)

(Urban Fantasy!AU) for Lilly, @crazy-like-a-f0x (it’s not letting me tag you properly, i’m sorry!) for @aftgexchange‘s Summer Exchange 

It comes to Jean in flashes, after.

The realization–Kengo Moriyama is dead. Riko’s hands on his neck, slamming his face into the floor, again, again, again. The white hot bite of a knife. The way his fingers slip on the keys of his cellphone typing out a single message to Renee. Renee. Her face hovering over his, voice gentle, firm, impossible, as she hefts him to his feet.

What he remembers most clearly is the panic in his chest as she guided him outside into the night, into Minyard’s car. The way he protested, begged, half-conscious from pain.

They have it–I can’t–still in there, please–can’t leave, please, Renee–

Renee disappeared from his side for hours, for seconds. When she returned there was a birdcage with no door cradled in her arms; inside was a snow white dove.

Jean clutched it to his aching ribs and sobbed.

Two weeks after Jean flees the Nest, Kevin makes a deal with Jeremy Knox. Three weeks after Jean flees the Nest, Jean is recovering in his bed at Abby’s house. He watches the Trojans lose against the Ravens, watches Knox announce their treason on national television.

Knox says, I spoke to Jean earlier this week, says, He just won’t be back in black, says, I think we have a lot to learn from each other.

Knox says, Next year is going to be amazing, and the world believes him.

Jean sleeps, and he dreams of darkness.

He dreams of birds with burning wings, of glinting knives, of cages submerged in water.

Jean wakes up gasping. The dove at his bedside is thrashing in its cage.

He doesn’t go back to sleep.

Jeremy Knox picks him up from LAX at four in the morning on a Sunday, looking sleep heavy and bundled up in a USC sweatshirt that has seen better days. He’s holding two to-go mugs, the steam swirling in the morning air, and his face lights up when he sees Jean approaching.

“Jean Moreau,” Knox greets, sounding fond for reasons Jean can’t fathom. Jean is reminded of the times he’d had Knox as a mark–the way he was an absolute nightmare to defend against paired with the way he’d smile and seek Jean out at the end of each match. He’s never understood Jeremy Knox, and he doesn’t think that’ll change now that they’re on the same team.  

(Not for the first time Jean thinks he’s made a mistake in coming to LA, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.)

“Knox,” is all Jean says, and follows his new captain out of the terminal.

“It’s good to have you here,” Knox says as they walk through the parking lot; Jean can’t find it in him to agree with him. “I brought you a drink,” he continues, nonplused by Jean’s silence, offering out a cup. Jean takes it automatically, then eyes it warily.

“What is it?”

“Just try it,” Knox says instead of answering, smiling vaguely and rubbing sleep from his eyes, “I think you’ll like it.”

Jean concedes without argument, absurdly figuring Jeremy Knox is near the bottom of the list of people who would willingly poison him.

It’s black tea. Strong but slightly sweet, cut with milk. It’s good, but more than that it’s familiar. A memory is there, edging at the back of his brain–salty air, the smell of baking bread, the sound of his mother humming along to the radio.

Jean is jolted from the memory as they reach Knox’s parking spot. He drives a rusting pickup truck. This, in itself, isn’t out of the ordinary. What’s out of the ordinary is the small cat peering up at Jean from the passenger’s seat.

“Cleo,” Knox scolds as he stores Jean’s bags. He climbs into the truck and reaches across the bench seat to scoop the animal into his arms. “We talked about this,” he mutters exasperatedly into her fur before letting her squirm away into the center seat, curling up against Knox’s thigh. She’s a tiny thing, dusty brown and striped, with large yellow eyes that stare back at Jean with an unnerving intelligence.

“Jean, this is Cleo. Cleo, Jean,” Knox introduces cheerfully when they’re settled, pulling out onto the freeway before abruptly frowning. “Shit. I hope you don’t mind cats.”

Knox confirms Jean’s growing suspicions unprompted a few weeks later.

“She’s my familiar,” Knox says, running a hand through mussed hair that’d be the same color as Cleo’s fur if not lightened by the sun.  

They’re the only two members of the team occupying the USC dorms over the summer, so the weeks leading up to the admission have been filled with getting to know both L.A. and Jeremy Knox–whether Jean likes it to not. The captain’s optimism is almost as overwhelming as his work ethic, and Jean is beginning to understand that once Knox sets his mind to something he doesn’t give up. Jean doesn’t know if he’s relieved or annoyed that this seems to be applied to him as well; Knox hasn’t left him alone, or even seemed like he really wanted to.

“Familiars are more or less supposed to act as guide and protector,” Knox explains between bites of pancake. They’re at a small diner around the block from the dorms, grabbing an early breakfast after their morning run. Jean tends to startle awake from nightmares before the sun even rises these days, and Knox is a naturally early riser (“I grew up on a farm–can’t shake the habit,” he’d explained). This combination had led to an unexpected amount of diner breakfasts with his captain “She mostly just helps with my anxiety, though.”

They’d left Cleo behind, napping in a sunspot on the living room floor. She’d barely twitched her tail when Knox passed a soft hand over her spine in goodbye before they’d left.

“Have you always had her?” Jean finds himself asking, and Knox visibly perks up at his contribution.

“Nah, I wish. I was eleven, I think?” He hums thoughtfully into his cup of tea. “She was just a kitten back then. She found me when I needed her–that’s usually how it works.”

Jean thinks its a bit absurd that a stray cat wandering into his life could have offered Knox any sort of guidance–but he’s not about to tell him that.

To Jean’s surprise, it’s Alvarez who corrects him on his assumption.

“She’s not a cat,” Alvarez snorts into her water bottle when they’re both on the bench, throwing him a judging stare. Her and Laila had come up to L.A. for the weekend, and the four of them had found their way to the practice courts. Jean is still begrudgingly under no-contact restriction, but he’d gotten in a good workout nonetheless. “Seriously, Moreau, haven’t had much exposure to magic, huh?”

Jean levels her a blank stare before turning back to watch Laila and Jeremy where they’re locked in a stalemate of shots and saves across the court. “You could say that.”

Alvarez hums, consideringly. “Okay, let me amend my previous statement: she’s not just a cat. I think the best way to put it is that she’s an extension of Jeremy? Like picture the universe reaching inside of him and taking out a part of his soul–it’s that part that manifested as Cleo.”

Jean doesn’t know what kind of expression is on his face–blank shock? Terror? It must not be too bad because Alvarez just laughs with a levity Jean can’t mirror.

“I know, weird right?” she grins at him, rolling her eyes. “From what I understand, Cleo is basically our beloved captain–plus some wisdom from the universe.” She shrugs. “I’ve kind of just accepted it at this point.”  

The apartment he shares with Knox is covered in plants. They’re lined on every windowsill, clustered in corners on the floor and the table. Knox cares for them all meticulously, watering them each at different intervals with differing amounts, talking quietly all the while. They seem to bloom a little brighter once he’s spoken to them. Knox seems to glow a little brighter once he’s spoken to them.

“You have to give them enough attention,” Knox explains when he catches Jean staring at him over the top of his book. “If they don’t know you believe in them, how can you expect them to grow?”

Jean doesn’t know what he expected his move to the Trojans to be like, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t an apartment filled with plants and sunlight. It wasn’t cups upon cups of tea, each somehow (magically? Jean really doesn’t know) always whichever kind Jean hadn’t known he’d wanted, but did. It wasn’t becoming familiar with Jeremy Knox, with his kindness, or the way that he often laughs at nothing in particular at all–it just happens sometimes, like all the light inside him bubbles over.

Jean didn’t expect these things, but he refuses to dwell on them long enough to discover if he minds.

“He’s a kitchen witch,” Jean admits to Renee a few months later, a declaration that’s met first with silence on the other end of their routine Skype call, and then– “What!”

A muffled bark of laughter and a scramble of feet. Onscreen Renee sighs, but it sounds amused, and suddenly Allison Reynolds is budging into frame.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the dealer says, sounding anything but. The smile on her face is near-predatory. “Did you just say that Jeremy Knox, USC’s patented Sunshine Boy, is, in fact, a kitchen witch?”

His roommate had never come out and said as much, but Jean had put together the pieces. He quirks an eyebrow at Renee and nods in confirmation.

Reynolds practically cackles at that, whipping out her phone. “Oh my god, Kevin’s going to die. It’s all his domestic fantasies come to life.” She stands, typing furiously as she walks offscreen. Jean hears a door shut, laughter fading, and then he and Renee are alone.

“You know,” Renee says after a moment, circumventing the tension that Kevin’s name tends to bring, “I had thought he’d be a werewolf. The Trojans always seemed to run like pack.”

“It was… unexpected,” Jean concedes. “Alvarez is the actual werewolf. There are others on the team as well, but Jeremy is still their alpha.” He sounds confused even to this own ears. (To be fair, it was very nontraditional. Alvarez’s explanation to Jean on the matter when she and Laila were on campus in July had consisted of a brusque, “It doesn’t matter that he’s not a wolf, Moreau, he’s our chosen alpha. We’re living in progressive times here, please.”)

“So he’s Jeremy, now?”

Of course that’s what Renee chose to parse from that explanation. She’s smiling at him, far too knowing, and Jean huffs. “You’re reaching, Walker.”

Renee hums thoughtfully, and it’s something that Jean appreciates: she listens, and when she chooses to reply each word has been fully considered. When she finally speaks it’s with a genuine smile.

“Los Angeles sounds like a wonderful place.”

Los Angeles is many things. Jean has been here six months, and that’s about all he’s been able to solidly conclude.

Los Angeles is no-contact play until mid-July as prescribed by the team physician, months longer than would have been allowed at the Nest. It’s weekly appointments with his therapist stipulated in his contract.

Los Angeles is Jeremy Knox’s frown of concern whenever Jean pushes himself to the point of strain, the delighted grin when Jean surprises him. It’s a shared apartment on the eighth floor, one that’s lined with large windows and filled with plants. It’s cat fur being one more reason to stop wearing black.

Los Angeles is joining a starting line including but not limited to a kitchen witch, a seer, and a werewolf. It’s Jean never once being asked to confirm or deny who or what he is.

Los Angeles takes some getting used to.

Jeremy gives him a cactus for Halloween.

He leaves it on Jean’s side table for him to find when he wakes up from his post-class, pre-practice nap (Because that’s a thing he does now. Naps.). It’s a tiny thing, maybe an inch and a half across, in a blue painted pot. He put a bow on it and everything. Jean squints at it and goes to find his roommate.

Jeremy is entrenched in his thesis work, glasses on, chewing distractedly on a pen–he barely notices Jean approaching until Jean sticks the plant practically under his nose.

“What is this?”

Jeremy blinks up at him owlishly. “A… cactus?” the confusion clears and he frowns. “Wait, don’t you like it?”

Jean sighs and sits on the other end of the couch. “Yes, I–thank you. I meant, why?”

Jeremy just blinks again. “It’s Samhain,” he says, as if that should be obvious.

“It’s what?”

“It’s Halloween!” Jeremy chirps, smiling now.

Jean frowns; he doesn’t think Jeremy is understanding his point. “Yes, but… do people usually give each other gifts on Halloween?” Not that Jean’s celebrated it, but from the way Laila and Alvarez had talked, it seemed like a children’s holiday–or an excuse to dress up in costume and party.

Jeremy leans back on the couch and looks across at Jean. “Not everybody… but we do in my family,” he shrugs. “It’s a bigger deal for some of them, but it’s not like I can really drop by to celebrate so–I dunno. Thought it’d be nice to celebrate with you too.” He smiles at Jean, backlit by the setting sun coming through the window, and he–Jean could swear he was glowing, radiating light.

Jean shakes his head, looking at the cactus in his lap instead. He cups his hands carefully around the pot. “Thank you,” he says, and Jeremy hums happily, turning back to his work.

Jean manages to make it until January without anyone finding out about him, which, honestly, is better than he’d let himself hope. But better doesn’t stop the panic that rises when Jeremy (because yes, he’s Jeremy now) stumbles into their bedroom unawares, back early from errands, breaking off his rant about grocery lines mid-sentence as he notices Jean on the floor.

Cradling a birdcage.

“Jean?” Jeremy asks cautiously, head tipped to the side in curiosity. His eyes are locked on the cage. “Is that–a bird?”

Jean’s mouth is suddenly dry, and he finds himself floundering for words. His grip on the cage goes white-knuckled.

“It’s a dove,” he manages, finally. Obviously. He wants to run but he’s frozen.

“A dove,” Jeremy repeats, leaning against the doorframe to their bedroom. He looks a bit bewildered, considering; Jean finds himself distracted by how Jeremy hasn’t tried to come any closer after finding him. Suddenly Jeremy straightens, a small grin growing on his face.

“Jean Moreau, have you been hiding a familiar?”

It’s said innocently, half in jest. Jean thinks he could take it as an out, thinks that might have been Jeremy’s intention. Jean knows his roommate well enough now to know that if Jean wanted to keep this secret, he could.

Which is why it’s all the more strange and terrifying that he finds himself spilling the truth.  

What he was was human. A cloverhand with the ability to see the fae, to see magic. To his family, this made him valuable. It made him a bartering piece.

What he became was collateral. A prisoner to the game and to the Nest, kept pet to the self-proclaimed Raven King. He was both guard and whipping boy. They broke him, again, again, and still they demanded more. They tore the soul from his body, trapped it in a cage. To instill obedience, they said. Perfect loyalty in a perfect court.

What he is is a gallowglass. Soulless. Even freedom couldn’t change that.

It’s awkward afterward. Of course it is. Jeremy is frozen in the doorway, wide-eyed, hands clutched tight to his sleeves. Jean can’t blame him, because now Jeremy knows. Not everything, no details, but enough. He knows that Jean is soulless, because his soul is sitting in a cage on his lap in the middle of their bedroom.

“Okay,” Jeremy says finally, snapping out of his daze. “Okay.” Jean braces himself for judgement, and–

“This calls for tea.”

Jeremy flees the room for the kitchen, Cleo close on his heels. Jean blinks.

“What.”  

A result of living with a kitchen witch is the way the teakettle water seems to boil in no time at all as Jeremy flits around their small dining area, pulling herbs from various jars on various shelves, pinching and rolling them into two identical teabags.

“Do you want a cup?” Jeremy asks belatedly, distractedly when Jean stumbles into the kitchen after him. He doesn’t wait for Jean to answer before continuing, shaking his head. “No, of course I’ll make you a cup. Tea always makes things better.”

Jeremy doesn’t look at him until they’re seated across from each other at their tiny kitchen table,  knees almost knocking, their steaming, sweet-smelling mugs in hand.

“Okay,” Jeremy starts, taking a big breath. He holds it. Exhales. “Jean.”

Fuck, this is really happening. “Yes?”

“In the cage. That dove is your soul?”

Jean nods, staring down into his tea.

“Okay,” Jeremy repeats, then frowns. “Jean?”

“What?”

“Please don’t tell me you’ve been hiding your soul stuffed under your bed in some box.”

Jean opens his mouth to defend himself, then closes it again because that is exactly what he has been doing.

“Jean,” Jeremy cries, looking stricken. The teakettle begins to heat unbidden, sensing his distress. “The poor thing could’ve suffocated!”

Jean sighs. “It’s not a real bird, Jeremy, it doesn’t need–“

“Damn right it’s not a bird, Jean. That’s your soul! You’ve been keeping your soul stuffed under the bed!” Jeremy exclaims disbelievingly, surprisingly fierce.

Jean frowns. What is there to say? Once more, the perplexity of Jeremy Knox rears its head. It doesn’t take much to get him riled up–but it’s only ever defensive, on behalf of other people. He has no issue standing toe to toe with Jean, but only ever does it for the sake of protecting Jean from himself. So Jean just lowers his eyes and says nothing.

Seeing this, Jeremy deflates.

“Drink your tea, okay? It’ll get cold,” Jeremy says, voice gone gentle. His knee nudges Jean’s under the table.

Neither speaks again until their cups are near-empty.

“Why-” Jeremy starts, then snaps his mouth shut. He says instead, “Can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Jean is wary of what his question could be, but nods anyway.

“You said you got your soul back once Renee got you out of the Nest. You have it with you here, now. If that’s true, why haven’t you… put it back?” Jean is already shaking his head even as Jeremy continues, “I don’t really know how it works, but…”

“I can’t. I’ve tried,” Jean says.

The look on Jeremy’s face is all kinds of devastating, honestly, and Jean isn’t good with sympathy, never having been shown it; he looks away.

“There has to be a way,” Jeremy insists, but Jean just shakes his head again. He keeps his eyes on the row of succulents Jeremy has lined along the kitchen window instead of the kitchen witch himself.

“I’ve tried. Renee has tried,” Jean emphasizes, both of them knowing what a strong witch Renee Walker was known to be. He frowns, frustrated. “There are ways to make a gallowglass, but they can’t be unmade. It’s faerie magic–what’s done can’t simply be undone.”

“Faerie magic,” Jeremy mutters to himself, staring into his tea.

Jean waits for him to reach a verdict: at best, Jean is expecting to be asked to leave, to switch rooms. At worst, he’s expecting to be kicked off the team. The dread is just settling in his stomach when a fluffy bundle pounces into his lap. It turns in a neat circle once, curling up before settling in to nap.

“Cleo,” Jeremy scolds, but he’s half-hiding a smile behind the rim of his mug. The tension is broken and the dread lifts from Jean’s shoulders.

“It’s okay.” Jean surprises himself saying it, because it is. But then a thought strikes him. “Is-is it okay?”

Cleo is Jeremy’s familiar, an extension of himself. His mind makes the connections unbidden, the way it had all those month ago when Alvarez had spelled it out for him. Jeremy to Cleo to Jean to the dove. The cat is a part of Jeremy’s soul, warm and grounding and tucked against Jean’s stomach.

“Of course it’s okay,” Jeremy murmurs. “It’s you.” He’s looking at Jean with clear eyes, fiddling with a teaspoon. Something warm settles in Jean’s chest, a knot loosening as Jeremy smiles at him, gathering his mug and heading to the counter to fix another cup.

Of course, he says. It’s you.

As easy as that.

(“Don’t put it back in the dark,” Jeremy says that night, voice gentle as the touch at Jean’s elbow, anchoring him to their room, to this moment. Jean puts the cage on the dresser instead.

Much later, when nightmares more vicious than usual shatter him awake, Jean hears a dull thump and the patter of feet before Cleo is curling up on the bed next to him. She butts her head against his stomach, and Jean focuses on the way her tiny chest rises and falls with each breath as his shaking slowly subsides.

He lowers a hand to her head, gentles it down her back, and lets the quiet rumble of her purring piece him back to the present.)

Having his soul on display is… incredibly distracting. Which is to say that for the week following Jean can hardly keep his eyes off it when they’re in the same room. He’s self-conscious of it at first, before he notices Jeremy having a similar problem.

Cleo is the giveaway, of course. She’d been obviously curious the first couple days, but a few firm looks from Jeremy had kept her at a distance. Then Jean had come home from class on a Thursday to find Cleo on his dresser, budged right up to the cage and napping in the sunlight.

“She thinks it’s lovely,” Jeremy explains later when they’ve both settled into their beds. Tucked to Jeremy’s stomach, Cleo shifts in protest, letting out a soft chirping rumble. Jeremy rolls his eyes. “The loveliest thing,” he corrects. “I would say, ‘Her words, not mine,’ but I don’t think that excuse works in our case.”

Jeremy grins at him from across the space between their beds. The bedside lamp could be playing tricks on him, but Jean thinks he sees a flush dusting Jeremy’s cheeks.  

From the cage across the room there is a soft flutter of wings.

The thing is, Jeremy talks to the dove.

Jean doesn’t think he’s meant to find out, but he does. It’s an eerie reversal of the night Jeremy saw the dove, but this time it’s Jean almost walking into their room unannounced. He stops himself just in time when he hears Jeremy’s voice.

He’s sitting on the end of Jean’s bed, next to the birdcage… talking. Just talking, almost in the way he does with his plants.

He’s saying, I really want to win this season, for all of us, and I can’t imagine what this year would have been without him, you know?, and I wish you could tell me how to open this cage–I think that would make Jean very happy.

The moment feels soft. Fragile. Jean leaves quietly, before Jeremy can finish, and before he can hear any more.

They’re finishing some late night homework in the living room when Jeremy brings up the idea. Jean is laid across the couch with a lit reading, Cleo curled up by his knee, and Jeremy is sprawled across the floor surrounded by thesis work.

“Hey, what are you doing for Spring Break?” Jeremy asks out of the blue, and Jean cranes his head back to stare at him.

“You think I have plans?” Jean replies, turning back to his book. On the floor, Jeremy huffs a laugh, fidgets. Silence. Then–

“What if you visited Renee? I mentioned it to her, she’d love to see you.”

Jean files away those bits of information, that Jeremy and Renee talk, and that Jeremy and Renee talk about him.

“Okay,” is all he says, and Jeremy looks satisfied, turning back to his work. “I’ll text her.”

It’s no surprise to either of them when he’s on a flight to North Dakota two weeks later.

It’s a good week–Jean is surprised by how good. It’s relaxing, just Renee, Stephanie, and him. He gets daily updates from Laila and Alvarez on their trip to Arizona to see Laila’s family, and the Trojan group chat is as active as ever with everyone sharing whatever outlandish thing they’d done that week. The only oddity is Jeremy–or rather the lack of him.

It’s been complete radio silence from the captain since he’d said goodbye to Jean at the airport drop-off. At first Jean isn’t concerned; Jeremy hadn’t talked about his Spring Break plans, but Jean figures he’s plenty busy spending time with his family. But it’s still weird. Regardless of if Jean replies, Jeremy constantly blows up his phone with Snaps or texts or random links to pictures of cute dogs.

On Wednesday, Jean is watching a movie with Renee in the living room when he gets a text from Alvarez.

8:42 P.M.: have u talked to jer??? we havent heard from him all week

8:43 P.M.: and hes not answering his phone

8:43 P.M.: and like… now that im checking i cant feel him through the pack link?

8:44 P.M.: NOT IN A “HES DEAD” KINDA WAY

8:44 P.M: its just kinda fuzzy. like theres a blur where he should be

Jean feels cold all over, and then the dread start to pool disproportionately in the pit of his stomach. There’s no reason to be worried, Jean assures himself, Jeremy is just busy. And for some reason he’s blocking the pack link. It’s coincidence.

He pulls up Jeremy’s contact and presses call. Jean finds himself holding his breath, but the call doesn’t even ring, just goes straight to voicemail. Jeremy’s cheery answering recording chatters across the line, and Jean hangs up without leaving a message. There is a knot in his chest, tightening with each passing moment. His phone buzzes as Alvarez sends him another message.

8:45 P.M.: were lowkey freaking out jean

8:46 P.M.: jeremy doesnt do this kinda shit

“Jean?” Renee asks, and Jean jumps at her voice. From the open doorway to Jean’s guest room across the room the rattling of metal can be heard. The dove must be agitated, Jean observes absently.  “Jean, are you alright?”

“Alvarez texted,” he says, and a small part of him is surprised at how blank he sounds. “No one’s heard from Jeremy all break. His phone is dead, or off. They’re worried. She said–Alvarez can’t feel him over the pack bond.” His phone buzzes again.

8:49 P.M.: ANSWER YOUR PHONE MOREAU

8:51 P.M.: I haven’t heard from him. His phone went straight to voicemail.

When Jean looks up he expects worry from Renee–surprise, or words of assurance. She is fond of Jeremy Knox (who isn’t?). And when he looks over, the worry is there. But the surprise is suspiciously absent. The shock of that freezes him.

“What?” he chokes. “What do you know?”

Renee takes a deep breath and frowns, folding her hands in her lap as she turns to face Jean head on.

“He didn’t want you to find out,” she starts, and Jean stares at her.

“What did he do, Renee?” Jean repeats, a hollow desperation clawing at his insides like it hadn’t in months. “Where is he?”

“He didn’t say exactly where, but I assumed…”

“Renee.”

“If Alvarez can’t feel him, he’s probably in the Summer Court.”

The dread from before spills over; Jean’s world narrows to a point. He knows firsthand the cruelty of the faerie courts. Even the Summer Court, the most benevolent of them all, is the last place Jean would send Jeremy, and yet he’s gone, unasked, on Jean’s behalf. It’s suicide.

Renee is speaking to him again, but Jean can’t understand her. His phone is buzzing incessantly on his lap. Laila is calling him. He fumbles with it, but manages to answer.

“Jean! What the hell, where have you–“

“I know where he is.”

Staticky silence.

“Oh thank god, where is he?”    

Jean swallows and closes his eyes. “The Summer Court. He–planned it, or something. With Renee, I don’t know. He’s seeking audience with the Faerie Queen.” As soon as he says it he knows it’s true.

He hears Alvarez yelling over the line, and Laila is asking more questions Jean doesn’t know the answer to. As for one, as for why, well. There’s really only one reason it could be.

“He’s–so stupid.” Jean scrubs a hand over his eyes. He’s trembling. “He’s doing it for me, the fucking idiot, if I’d known I would have never…”

Never left California. Never let Jeremy risk this.

Beside him, Renee shifts and says softly, “Don’t you think that’s why he didn’t tell you?”

Jean digs his fingers into his thigh, grounding himself. “Stupid,” he repeats.

“Jeremy has the monopoly on stupidity, Jean,” Laila says, sounding calmer now despite her worry. “We knew that. He cares too much.”

Jean huffs a laugh, a slight choked thing.

“What do we do now?” he asks. Laila is quiet for a while.

“We trust that he knew what he was doing. We trust him. And we wait.”

Renee tells him that the conversation with Jeremy went something like this:

“Hey Renee–would it be okay if Jean came and stayed with you for Spring Break?”

“Of course, he’s always welcome. But, Jeremy–can I ask why you’re the one asking, not him? Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry–didn’t mean to worry you. Jean’s doing really well actually. He seems… happier lately.”

“That’s good. Then why do you need to get him out of California?”

Of course Renee saw right through him. Jeremy was quiet for a long moment, then continued.

“There’s something I need to do. And I don’t think that Jean would approve of me doing it.”

“Will he be safe if you do it?”

“If I do it right, I think it’ll really help him. I just… need some answers.”

“And what about you?”

“Hm?”

“He won’t like it much if you get hurt, Jeremy.”

“Oh!” Jeremy had laughed. “Well I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Jean gets the call four days later.

It’s been six hours since he landed in L.A. It’s been forty-five minutes since a door appeared on the dove’s cage; Jean hasn’t been able to take his eyes off it. He hasn’t dared open it, merely brought it with him to the couch where they’ve been ever since.

The callerID flashes as his phone begins to buzz. Jean answers on the first ring.

“Knox,” Jean says, and he doesn’t want to imagine what he sounds like. Awed, angry, concerned, fond. Jeremy had done it. Somehow, he had.

“Jean,” Jeremy says, his voice warm, tired. Jean could collapse under the weight of it.

“You’re back then.” His fingers clutch at the phone, and he wills his voice to remain steady.

“I am.”

Jean wants to ask him, wants to say, What have you done? What did you give them? Nothing comes without a price. What comes out is: “Where are you?” Somehow that feels more important at the moment.

“Um… about an hour outside Fresno? I think. I’m looking for where I left the truck.”

Jean doesn’t reply, and the silence hangs on the line.

“Jean, I’m–“ Jeremy starts, and Jean cuts him off because he can’t hear apologies from Jeremy right now. Not about this.

“Is Cleo with you?” There’s a moment, and then Jeremy laughs. Jean can hear his exhaustion, but it still warms him to his core.

(He could have been dead, he could have been gone, but he’s here, he’s on the other end of the line– )

“Yeah, she’s here.” A soft of sort relief settles over Jean’s bones. “She’s missed you.”

There are many things that Jean wants to say in that moment.

(I missed her, too.

You’re such a fucking idiot.

Please tell me you’re alright.

I never expected anything like you.)

What he says is: “Come home.”

The first thing Jean does when Jeremy walks through the door is hand him a cup of tea. Jeremy blinks at him, then at the cup, eyes lidded with sleep. He takes it, smiling, and Jean can finally breathe again.

At his feet there is Cleo, rubbing up against his calf, butting her head against him, meowing impatiently until he picks her up. She settles instantly, tucked in the crook of his arm.

“What did you give them?” Jean asks, because in the end that’s what it comes down to. But Jeremy just shakes his head, dismissive.

“Did it work?” he counters, eyes wide, and Jean gestures to the living room.

“Go see for yourself.” Jeremy does.

“There’s a door,” he says, quietly, knelt in front of the cage. He looks up at Jean, elated. “There’s actually a door!”

“Did you think there wouldn’t be?” Jean asks, sitting on the couch; Cleo jumps out of his arms to curl up on a cushion. Jean knows if there was even a chance he hadn’t succeeded, Jeremy wouldn’t have come back.

Jeremy moves to sit next to him, the cage between them. “Well no, but… they weren’t very specific with the how of it. Just that it would.”

“Jeremy,” Jean says after a moment on silence. “Faeries only work in equal exchange. What did you give them?”

“Nothing.” Jeremy looks suddenly frustrated, shifting to face him. “Nothing, Jean, I didn’t give them anything because there was nothing to exchange. It’s your soul. It’s yours.” Jeremy breathes deeply to calm himself down, and slumps back against the couch. “I just reminded them who they were dealing with.”

Jean is still, blinking at Jeremy’s vehemence. Then the wording strikes him.

“Who–who they’re dealing with?” Jean looks at the boy next to him, eyes glinting, practically alight in his frustration, in the name of protecting Jean. “Who are they dealing with?”

Immediately Jeremy’s eyes widen and he looks away. “I…” He chews his lip then sighs a long breath, resigned. “I never really told you, did I…? What I am.”

“You’re a witch. A kitchen witch,” Jean says, but Jeremy is shaking his head. Jean frowns, not understanding. “But you have a familiar. And the tea, and your plants…” he trails off, watching Jeremy carefully.

“My gram,” Jeremy starts, staring resolutely across the room. “My great, great, great grandmother–was a cloverhand. Like you.” He pauses, lets that sink in. “She caught the eye of one of the daoine sídhe, the fae. He was disguised as human, under glamour probably, but she saw through him instantly. She chose to let him court her, met him every step of the way… and eventually she became one of them.

“He wasn’t the Summer King at the time, but… A couple hundred years later, and he was. And she is Queen. And all of this is to say,” Jeremy takes a deep breath, finally looking at Jean. “That I have faerie blood, and a claim to the Court if I ever wanted it.” Jean’s eyes widen at that, and Jeremy quickly continues, hands held placatingly. “I don’t! I don’t want that, I already have the Trojan Court.”

Jean is silent as his brain scrambles to process this new information. Jeremy isn’t a witch–he’d never been a witch, Jean had just assumed. Jeremy is part fae, with a claim to the Summer Court. He’d used that influence to give Jean a chance.

When Jean doesn’t say anything Jeremy begins to fidget nervously. “Look, you’re probably freaking out, or like–like reading too much into it? But honestly I didn’t do anything, I just told them what they should already fucking know, because it’s your soul, Jean, like what the fuck–“

“Jeremy,” Jean tries to interrupt before the other boy can get too worked up–he was well on his way already.

“Yeah?” Jeremy is looking at him, nervous, and Jean wants to ask him why. Jean wants a lot of things lately, more than he’d ever thought possible–he wonders when that happened.

“Thank you,” is what he says instead.

And Jeremy smiles.

Jean doesn’t open the cage that night, or the night after that, or anytime in the week following. When he finally does it feels almost… too normal. It’s after practice on a Friday; they have no game that weekend, so there’s two days free to themselves. It’s a novel concept, one he never could have foreseen a year ago.

Jeremy is napping on the couch, Cleo snoozing on his stomach. Jean had left them out there to do some work at his desk, but found himself too distracted to get much done. His eyes keep straying to the cage on his desk, on the door and the dove behind it.

Almost before he realizes it he’s crossed the room, fingers twisting the latch; the door springs free. The dove is watching him cautiously, wings fluttering. Jean reaches inside, his hands gently cupped around its wings as he pulls it from the cage. His heart is pounding in his ears. The dove is shaking in his hands, warm and vividly alive. He brings it to his chest and presses it close.

One moment the dove is there, the next Jean’s palms are pressed empty to his chest. He’s notices he’s gasping, knees trembling. It feels like the first breath of air you take when you step outside in winter, like falling back asleep in the morning when there’s nothing to call you out of bed. Jean feels overwhelmed, he feels light, he feels… happy.

“Jean?” he hears Jeremy call sleepily from the living room, and then padded footsteps approach. “I’m sorry,” Jeremy says, rubbing sleepily at his eyes, “I fell asleep in the middle of our conversation, didn’t I? Thesis is just kicking my ass, and with playoffs coming up…” he trails off, noticing the sight in front of him: Jean shaking, the cage open and empty in front of him.

“You did it,” Jeremy whispers, eyes wide. “You did it!” he cheers, rushing forward, throwing an arm across his shoulders, and then Jean is turning into him, hands gripping at his waist and they’re hugging, gripping each other tight. Jeremy is laughing in his ear, and Jean–

Jean holds on.

(on ao3 here)

[djriter]

#Supergirl #AlexDanvers #MaggieSawyer #Sanvers #SavingAlex #Episode19 EPISODE 19 - Saving Alex-A Supergirl fanfic

Like most Supergirl and Alex Danvers fans, my imagination has been running away with since first hearing about upcoming Episode 19 in which Kara and Maggie must team up to save Alex. I have a whole story plotted out in my head as to how I envision this might unfold tomorrow night. So, for the first time since I wrote fanfic for Lois and Clark, I decided to write my story down and share it. Unfortunately, it’s only partially finished due to a run in with a broken tooth and having to have a tooth pulled. As I said I have a complete story plotted and will complete it soon, in the meantime please enjoy what I’ve written so far. Feel free to share with friends. 

EPISODE 19-Saving Alex - 

The warmth of the morning sun shining through the blinds woke Alex Danvers. She rolled over and smiled at the figure softly snoring beside her. How her life had changed in the nine months since this woman had come into her life. And through it all, besides her sister, one person had been by her side. Maggie. Maggie had been there for her through all the recent changes in her life, when she’d discovered the truth about herself and when her father had returned then betrayed everyone. Alex decided maybe it was time for one more change.

“You’re thinking too loud, Danvers. It’s our day off, go back to sleep,” Maggie mumbled without opening her eyes.

Alex chuckled and leaned over to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. Maggie opened her eyes and smiled.

“Well, now that’s a nice way to wake up.”

“You know, you could wake up that way every morning, I mean if you wanted to. You’re already here most nights anyway, and…”

Fully awake now, Maggie sat up, “Alex?”

She always called her Alex in their more intimate moments, “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

Alex hesitated, rushing and stumbling over her words as she often did when she got nervous with Maggie. “Well, only if you wanted to, I mean, if you don’t think it’s too soon.”

“You want me to move in before we’ve even said….” Maggie started before being interrupted by Alex’s phone ringing.

Alex took a quick glance at the phone, even though it was her day off it wasn’t unusual to get called in to the DEO.  But it wasn’t.

“It’s Kara, I’m sorry I’ll be quick, we’re supposed to have a sister’s lunch today to catch up since we’ve both been so busy lately, maybe she’s finally decided,” she said, before sitting up against the headboard of the bed.

Maggie grinned, “Your sister and her food.”

“Kara, hey, where are we going for lunch? Oh, ok. I guess so. No, no, it’s okay we’ll go another time. Good luck.”

Disappointment clearly showing on her face, she turned to Maggie, “She canceled, she has to meet someone about a possible lead on a job, now where were we…before we even said what?”

Just as Maggie was about to answer, the text notification on Alex’s phone chimed.

“Know you were disappointed about lunch, pushed meeting back, time for late breakfast at Noonan’s before meeting. Meet me there, 30 minutes? Bring Maggie.”

Alex showed Maggie the text and asked, “Want to come?”

Maggie shook her head, “No this is your sister time, we’ll all have plenty of time together later. You go, enjoy, I’ll run by the station and catch up on my DD5’s and other paperwork my captain’s been complaining about, then I’ll meet you later at the DEO because I know you want to check in on that experiment in your lab and we can finish our conversation.”

“Promise?” Alex asks.

“Promise, go meet your sister.”

With a quick kiss, a smiling Alex hopped out of bed to dress, “What would I do without you?”

 An hour later Maggie was parking her bike in her spot at NCPD headquarters when the department’s SWAT team van came roaring up to the entrance. The SWAT Team, lead be Sergeant Carruthers rushed out in full tactical gear and headed toward the van.

Carruthers spotted Maggie crossing the parking lot.

“Sawyer! With us!”

Maggie rushed over to him, asking, “What’s up?”

“Silent alarm triggered at First National City Bank, four armed suspects, at least one ID’d as alien. They’ve already killed the bank guard, and are still inside the bank.”

Maggie hopped in the van without question.  Ballsy, Maggie thought as the van raced through the city streets. First National City Bank was just six blocks from police headquarters.

A short time later the van screeched to a halt in next to the squad cars that had already arrived on scene. Carruthers and his men took their strategic positions and Maggie jumped out to take a position behind the unit closest to the bank doors.

They didn’t have long to wait.

Four heavily armed men, wearing combat gear, came out of the bank shooting. Three were of average size Maggie noted, carrying automatic weapons, but the fourth was definitely alien. A massive hulk, close to 7 feet, carrying a nasty looking alien weapon.

“NCPD, freeze! You’re surrounded, put down your weapons and surrender,” Carruthers commanded through a bullhorn.

They all stopped, but the 7-foot alien scanned the scene as if looking for someone, he stopped when he spotted Maggie.

“Detective Maggie Sawyer!” he bellowed.

Her weapon drawn and pointed at the alien, Maggie stood. The alien began walking toward her.

“Stop, or I will shoot!” Maggie commanded.

The alien kept coming, “You’re not going to shoot, detective. In fact, you’re going tell all these officers to stand down and let us go.”

“And why would I do something crazy like that?”

He stopped just in front of Maggie and reached into a pocket on his sleeve, he dangled what he had in his pocket in front of Maggie’s face.

“Because if you don’t, she dies.”

Maggie blanched and lowered her weapon. She snatched the item from his hand and turned to the officers, “Stand down, everyone, stand down, let them go.”

“Sawyer, are you crazy? Nobody move!” Carruthers bellowed.

“I said Everyone stand down and stand down NOW!” Maggie screamed. She turned to Carruthers and held out the item the alien had tormented her with, the bloodied ID badge of DEO Agent Alex Danvers.

“They have a hostage.”

Carruthers took one look at Maggie’s face and the badge she gripped in her shaking hand and nodded at his officers to stand down.

The gang scrambled from the scene into a waiting panel van, the alien paused a moment.

“A pleasure, Detective Sawyer.”

“If you hurt her…,” Maggie growled.

“She’ll live, as long as the NCPD, and Agent Danvers associates at the DEO, oh and their pet alien Supergirl don’t interfere while my associates and I conduct more business while we’re in town.”

He got into the passenger side of the van, stopping long enough to taunt Maggie one last time, “We’ll be in touch Detective.”

Stunned, Maggie could only stand and watch as they drove away.

 Following a heated argument with Carruthers that resulted in the NCPD staying at the bank to gather evidence in hopes of identifying the kidnapping bank robbers, Maggie raced to the DEO to fill J’onn, Winn and the others in as to what was happening.

She paced, like a caged tiger ready to pounce, as Winn tapped in to the security cameras at Alex’s apartment to see if they could pinpoint when she was taken, but there was nothing, just a seemingly happy Alex coming out of the building to get on her bike and leave. They’d had no luck tracking Alex’s phone, which Winn deduced meant they were dealing with someone who had some technological savvy.

He tapped into the security feed outside of Noonan’s. They watched in horror as they witnessed the three human goons from the bank surround Alex as she got off her bike behind Noonan’s where she usually parked. Alex didn’t go quietly, putting up a fierce battle and almost escaping when the 7-foot alien stepped in and knocked her out with a wicked right cross. Winn clenched and unclenched his fists, and J’onn’s Martian eyes began to grow red in anger as they watched the alien then rip Alex’s ID from her belt and then viciously kick the unconscious woman in the ribs twice before instructing the goons to pick her up. One of the goons draped the limp Alex over his shoulder like a potato sack.

Maggie watched stoically, growing dangerously quieter and they disappeared down the alley and out of sight of the video camera.

Which is when Kara strolled in, nonchalantly calling, “Hi, guys, what’s up?”

That’s when Maggie unleashed the tiger. She stormed across the room and shoved Kara, actually managing to knock the Girl of Steel off balance.

“Where the HELL were you?” Maggie screamed, the tears she’d been fighting to hold back finally streaming down her face. “Why didn’t you stop it? You’re supposed to protect her? Don’t you even give a damn about her anymore?”

Confused, Kara gently pushed Maggie away.

“Stop what? Care about who, Alex? J’onn? What’s going on?”

J’onn stepped up and put a reassuring arm on Maggie’s shoulder, “Easy, Maggie. Kara, a word, we need to talk.”

Winn turned from his console and handed Maggie the phone she’d dropped when she’d charged after Kara. She hadn’t even noticed the phone had rung while she was yelling at Kara.

“Maggie, it’s Carruthers, he needs to speak to you.”

Maggie fought to gather herself then nodded at Winn and stepped away to take the call.

“Sawyer,” she answered.

Kara then took note of the palpable tension in the room and it didn’t escape her notice there was one person missing. Her heart was in her throat.

“J’onn, what’s happened to my sister?”

DEO Director Henshaw steps back and Kara and Alex’s adoptive dad, J’onn Jonzz took Kara by the arm and led her up the steps to the balcony overlooking the city.

Kara was really beginning to get scared.

“J’onn? Where’s Alex?”

“We don’t know. Apparently early this morning she was taken hostage by a part human/part alien team of bank robbers. When Maggie and the police arrived, they convinced them to let them go by showing Maggie this.”

He handed her Alex’s blood-stained  DEO badge.

Kara could barely breathe, her eyes locked on the blood smears on the badge.

“Is that her….?”

J’onn nodded and with a slight smirk, “You know Alex, she didn’t go quietly.”

He used the tablet in his hand to show Kara the security footage from Noonan’s. Kara fought to control herself wanting to fly off the balcony to find her sister, but knew she had to be smart, that’s what Alex would want her to do.

J’onn continued, “They told Maggie, Alex would stay alive as long as the police and the DEO….AND Supergirl didn’t interfere with whatever business he and his team were conducting in town.”

“But I don’t understand what was Alex doing at Noonan’s? We were going to meet there for lunch, but I called her this morning and canceled because I had a lead on a job.”

“Maggie told us that, then she said Alex got a text from you asking her to meet you for breakfast.”

“Text, what text? I never sent her a text!” Kara said becoming more agitated by the moment.

“They must have had someone hack her phone and used your number to text her to draw her out.”

Kara started stripping out of her outfit to reveal her Supergirl costume.

“Maggie’s right, this is all my fault! If I hadn’t canceled, I would’ve been with her, I could have stopped this. I’ve got to go find her!”

“Kara, wait!”

“No, J’onn, that’s my sister, I’m going to find her, she needs me, I love her!”

J’onn stops her from flying off the balcony with a simple, “You’re not the only one who loves her. Someone else needs your strength right now.”

He nodded down to the floor of the DEO where Kara watched a distraught Maggie pacing back and forth while talking animatedly to someone on her phone.

“She loves her, too.”

Kara shook her head, “I know she cares about Alex, but love? She’s never said anything.”

J’onn nodded, “Look again, trust me. Alex would want you to take care of Maggie.”

Watching Maggie finish her phone call and then after, making sure no one was looking, seemingly fall into herself with grief, Kara realized J’onn was right. Maggie loved her sister too.

Kara hurried down the stairs.

“Maggie?”

With tear stained eyes, Maggie looked up at Kara. And as Supergirl embraced the detective, they both said, “I’m sorry, this is my fault.”

Kara pulled back, “No, Maggie, this is my fault, if I hadn’t canceled lunch, I would have been with her.”

Maggie shook her head, “But you sent her a text to meet you.”

“No, I didn’t” Kara handed Maggie her phone, there was no text sent from it.

J’onn joined them and said, “We think they somehow hacked into Alex’s phone and were listening in to her calls then sent the text.”

A light bulb went off in Maggie’s brain, “Bring Maggie!”

“What?”

Maggie was excited, maybe they’d gotten their first real break.

“The text said, Bring Maggie! It makes sense now! That was the SWAT team leader on the phone, they ID’d one of the goons from the bank by a stray fingerprint he left when he grabbed a donut from the bank’s courtesy bar. And through that, we think we know who the alien is! They weren’t after Alex, it was a trap, to get me!!!”

Being able to start putting the pieces together seemed to help Maggie regain her calm, “Apparently kidnapping someone to use for leverage is this gang’s MO, National City is the third city they’ve hit in the last year. The leader is a Caldorian by the name of Drago. What they’ve done in the past is kidnap a high-profile police officer with each city’s police department and use them as leverage to keep police from interfering in their robberies. They usually pull three high dollar jobs, then leave usually within 24 hours, they were targeting me, the text said Bring Maggie, and I didn’t go, so when just Alex showed up they must have decided to take her to keep the police AND Supergirl out of their hair, this is all my fault, I should have gone with her!”

“Then they might have taken both of you! It’s not your fault Maggie,” Kara said, but she could tell there was something more.

“What happened to the hostages?”

Looking more frightened than Kara had ever seen her Maggie said, “They killed them, all of them, they’ve had Alex nearly 6 hours, she doesn’t have much time left!”

Kara put a reassuring arm around Maggie, “We’ll find her Maggie, together.”

 Behind them, an agent came up to J’onn and handed him a small package wrapped in plain brown paper.

After a brief conversation, he turned and held out the package.

“Detective Sawyer,” he said softly, “it’s addressed to you.”

Steeling herself, Maggie reached out for the package and tore it open, inside was a cell phone with a cracked screen, on the screen was taped a message, “Play video.”

Supergirl gasped, “That’s Alex’s phone.”

Maggie held the phone up in a shaking hand, “How the hell do I see this video?”

Winn gently took the phone from her, “Let me.”

He sat down at his terminal and hooked the phone up to his computer. A first a snowy image appeared,

then it cleared to show a darkened room, and in a single spotlight is a person, a black hood over their head slumped over in a chair, their arms tied behind their back.

Maggie’s heart raced, she stepped behind Winn to get a closer look, Supergirl and J’onn close on her heels.

Before they could make out if the person in the chair, they knew it was Alex but didn’t want to admit it, was alive or injured, Drago’s alien profile appeared in the frame. The camera shifted so they could see both him and the person in the chair.

“Detective Sawyer,” he began smugly, “I’m sure by now you know who I am, and what I am doing in your fair city. Just so we are very clear about what I want, I thought a little demonstration of what happens when people defy me were in order.”

He gave a slight nod, and behind him, two of the other men from the bank robbery grabbed the arms of the figure in the chair. One yanked the hood off to reveal a now awakened and very angry Alex Danvers. She fought against them and their bonds.

“Alex!” Maggie said, stepping even closer to Winn’s screen. Supergirl slid in next to her, putting one arm around Maggie’s shoulder, the other gripping the metal desk the screen sat on.

“She’s alive, Maggie,” Supergirl whispered to her, “and fighting.”    

Maggie gave her a slight nod. She couldn’t speak, her heart was in her throat, her eyes transfixed of the image on the screen, Alex, her Alex, her brave Alex, not a shred of fear in her eyes.

A third man appeared on and slid a table with a large tub of water on it in front of Alex’s chair.

From behind them, Maggie and Supergirl heard J’onn mutter, “Dear God, those bastards.”

“Now,” Drago continued, “my associates and I will be making a couple of more withdrawals within the next 24 hours. There will be no interference whatsoever, from the NCPD, the DEO, and especially you Supergirl. And don’t bother trying to find our location. I’ve done my homework on you Supergirl, where we are can’t be seen by your x-ray vision and I’ve also had it soundproofed. So remember, any interference, from any of you, and this is just a sample of what will happen to Agent Danvers.”

With another wave of his hand, Drago stepped out of frame.

Maggie, Supergirl, J’onn and Winn watched in horror as the third man grabbed Alex by the back of her hair and shoved her head, face first, down into the water and held it there as Alex struggled. After what seemed an eternity he pulled her head out of the water.

Drago stepped back into frame but addressed Alex, “Tell them, Agent Danvers, tell them to not interfere.”

Water dripping from her face, a gasping Alex looked Drago square in the eyes and defiantly said, “Go to hell.”

Then she directed a determined gaze directly at the camera lens, “You’ll find me, get him!”

Drago laughed and nodded. The man holding Alex’s head pushed it down into the water again, holding it under even longer this time.

Maggie didn’t breathe this time until the thug pulled Alex’s head from the water a second time, and watched her gasp for air. She felt Supergirl tighten her grip on her shoulder and honestly, she was thankful to have the support standing, she was barely hanging on. Maggie marveled at how the superhero was maintaining control. The arm she had around her shoulder was firm but gentle, but there was now a Supergirl sized impression where the hand gripping the edge of Winn’s desk had crushed the metal like paper.

No one else said a word, but she could see from J’onn tense posture and Winn fighting back tears that she and Supergirl weren’t the only ones this affected. Alex was special to all of them.

Her own eyes brimming with tears, Maggie turned to Supergirl and the others and declared, “When we find her…. he’s a dead man.”

Afraid of breaking down in front of everyone she stalked off.

Supergirl started after her, but J’onn stopped her, “Give her a minute.”

 Maggie stumbled through the halls of the DEO finally finding her way to one of the empty sparring rooms. She closed the door behind her and stalked over the sparring dummy. She hauled back and hit the dummy, letting loose the fury building in her.

“Dammit!”

She hit the dummy again.

“Dammit!” She hit the dummy twice.

“Dammit!” She unleashed a flurry of hits and kicks, there was no finesse to her moves, just raw rage, and somewhere in the middle of her physical release, came the tears streaming down her face. She couldn’t lose her, she couldn’t lose Alex now. Not after this morning, not when she realized what she had and hadn’t said to Alex. What she still needed to say.

Tears streaming down her face she cursing the sparring dummy, punching and kicking it until she fell against it, drained and slid down to the floor to her knees. That’s where Supergirl found her, on her knees sobbing.

Supergirl got to her knees next to her, putting a hand gently on the sobbing detective’s shoulder.

“Maggie?”

Maggie looked up with a start and hurriedly tried to brush the tears from her eyes. She’d never let anyone see her cry, not since the night her father had thrown her out.

“Did you find something?

Supergirl shook her head, “No, I’m sorry. J’onn and Winn are going over her phone to see if they can find anything. I just came check on you. It’s what she, it’s what Alex, would want me to do. To take care of you.”

Maggie shook her head, “Always taking care of everyone else, that sounds like Danvers, that sounds like Alex.”

Suddenly, the girl of steel grabbed Maggie in a tight hug, dissolving into tears.

“What if we can’t find her in time?”

Maggie took her by the shoulders and looking her square in the eye said, “We will, we’ve got our orders, from her. So, why aren’t you flying around out there looking for her?”

Supergirl shook her head.

“I can’t. I’m scared Maggie, I couldn’t bear it if someone hurt her like that again…or worse if they saw me out there looking.”

“That’s not what she’d want, Kara. She’s already told them to go to hell, and she told US to find her. We have to be strong, we have to be brave.”

Supergirl shook her head, “Alex is the strong one, the brave one.”

Maggie got up and held out her hand, “Then we’ll have to help each other be strong, for Alex. Isn’t it about time someone started taking care of her?”

Supergirl was reaching out to take Maggie’s hand when Winn burst in the room.

“Silent alarm just went off at the National City Diamond Exchange, 4 armed gunmen reported, one of them alien.”

“That’s them,” Supergirl said leaping to her feet.

“That’s not all, NCPD has units and the SWAT team on their way to the scene!”

“No!” Maggie shouted, “We’ve got to stop…”

Before she could finish her statement, Supergirl dashed from the room.

[thegloober]

How “False Expertise” Can Damage Your Business—and How to Protect It

When I last checked, there were 987,119 “thought leaders” on LinkedIn. Soon, there’ll be more than a million. How many of those do you trust?

“False expertise” is misidentified competence: We perceive expertise where there is none or evaluate expertise based on irrelevant factors.

False experts include legions of self-appointed “gurus” and “visionaries” who saturate social media with bad advice. But they’re not the only sources.

Our brains are hardwired to take shortcuts that bias our identification of expertise, helping charlatans thrive and warping our decision-making.

Why are we so bad at this?

Why we fall for false expertise

1. We’re bad at making rational decisions. Thinking, Fast and Slow, the seminal book by Nobel Prize–winning economist Daniel Kahneman, makes a clear case for human vulnerability in decision-making.

We like to think that we make rational, “slow” decisions. Most of the time, however, we’re using our much faster, less rational system to choose. It’s one reason we continue to fall for false expertise.

2. We want to validate our own perspective. Khalil Smith, the Practice Lead for Diversity and Inclusion at the NeuroLeadership Institute, summarizes the biases that lead us toward false expertise:

Similarity. “People like me are better than people who aren’t like me.”

Experience. “My perceptions of the world must be accurate.”

Expedience. “If it feels right, it must be true.”

Because of those biases, explains University of Utah Professor Bryan Bonner, we focus on “proxies of expertise” rather than expertise itself.

Those proxies can be anything from height (we tend to elect the taller political candidate) to gregariousness in a meeting or the extracurricular activities on a resume.

3. We fall victim to the Halo Effect. Even if we initially judge someone based on real expertise, we often overextend that evaluation—a cognitive bias known as the Halo Effect.

E. L. Thorndike first demonstrated the Halo Effect in the military by showing the high correlation among soldiers’ ratings for physique, intelligence, leadership, and character.

The Halo Effect falsely extends our perception of someone’s expertise to areas beyond it.

In the modern office, if someone has great creative ideas, the Halo Effect makes us more likely to admire that same person’s copywriting or management skills.

4. We overestimate our knowledge. Some people knowingly claim expertise they don’t have. Others aren’t aware of their deficiencies. The Dunning-Kruger effect highlights how those with the least knowledge are also the least capable of recognizing their ignorance, but subtler aspects of self-assessment affect perceived expertise, too.

How much do you know about Philadelphia, Pennsylvania? What about Acadia National Park? Or Monroe, Montana? If you’re familiar with all three, you’re not alone. But you’re also mistaken: There is no Monroe, Montana.

Researchers have shown that a higher self-assessment of topic knowledge leads to a greater likelihood that we’ll claim false expertise (like knowing about a city that doesn’t exist.)

Not every motivation is malevolent—our brains may work harder to find any connection for topics we know well. But it’s nonetheless a cautionary tale about the “illusion of knowledge” or “overclaiming,” a condition to which experts are particularly vulnerable.

5. Traditional barriers to expertise have diminished. It costs less than $100 per year to run a website, and—unlike the print publishing era—no reputable editor or printing costs stand in the way of immediate, uncensored, worldwide distribution.

A conspiracy theorist may have a better-looking website (or larger Twitter following) than a renowned academic, and it’s left to the consumer to push aside those proxies.

Twitter verification adds credibility to blatant falsehoods.

The digital era also tempts us, David C. Baker writes, to engage in “expertise of convenience.” It takes only a few minutes to create a new webpage that targets a subset of your market, even if that market is outside of your wheelhouse.

Marketing campaigns, Baker argues, are now chalkboard specials: readily changeable menus of expertise that require no long-term commitment—unlike the 20-foot neon sign above a restaurant.

The result of these vulnerabilities is that we hire the wrong candidates, listen to the wrong people, and fail to differentiate our businesses.

How false expertise leads us to hire the wrong people

Resumes are noisy:

The name at the top may suggest gender and ethnicity.

A college choice may betray class status.

Extracurriculars may create a bond—or distance—between you and a candidate.

And none of those elements has anything to do with how well that person can do the job.

Research confirms our focus on “looking glass merit,” which results from interviewers—most of whom have minimal training—judging a candidate based on similarity. In short, we seek to validate our own characteristics: Hiring someone who’s like us reinforces our own value.

Familiarity, in particular, has dangers. One of our cognitive system’s favorite shortcuts is “familiar = safe.” The “mere exposure” effect helps explain why we continue to push similar songs to the top of the Billboard charts and why high-level brand awareness can ultimately lead to a sale.

In hiring, it means that our strongest biases exist where we least expect them—with characteristics so familiar as to seem standard. Just as our brain’s craving for familiarity swings wide the door for underqualified candidates, it also blocks pathways for those from different backgrounds.

(If individual hiring biases remind you of those demonstrated by prospects during a proposal process, they should.)

Mitigating the impact of false expertise on hiring

“Blind auditions” reduced the noise in orchestra auditions.

Reduce the noise. The implementation of “blind auditions” for leading orchestras—where applicants were heard but not seen—increased female membership from just 6% to 21% in a little over two decades.

Microsoft rolled out an “Inclusive Hiring” effort that’s tailored to those who would never make it through a traditional hiring process, like exceptional coders on the autism spectrum who may not have linear employment histories or engaging interview skills.

Other companies, like Blendoor, have developed technology platforms that automatically strip out some of the “noisiest” parts of resumes.

Strengthen the signal. Reducing the noise also increases the signal. And honing that signal, Smith explains, requires advance preparation. In the case of hiring, it means asking, “What is it that we’re actually hiring for?”

Smith concedes that no single process can help organizations answer that question, but he outlined a loose order of operations that, simple as it may be, is too often ignored:

First, define the skills and characteristics that are essential for job performance.

Then identify the questions that you need to ask potential employees.

Even with the right people in an organization, false expertise remains a daily threat.

How false expertise elevates bad opinions and strategies

Managers and employees encounter false expertise in three ways:

Promotions

Meetings

Strategy

The issues associated with promotions parallel those for hiring—an unstructured promotion process risks greater deference to false expertise.

The other sources of false expertise, however, bring their own challenges.

Meetings: Being the expert doesn’t mean you’ll be heard

Groups are superior to individuals in recognizing an answer as correct when it comes up. But when everybody in a group is susceptible to similar biases, groups are inferior to individuals, because groups tend to be more extreme than individuals. – Daniel Kahneman

As Kahneman explained in an interview, groups are overly optimistic and suppress individual dissent. (He cites the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 as a classic example.) That can lead to a “risky shift”—a polarized consensus based on false expertise, or, as it’s known more commonly, groupthink.

What makes opinions stand out in a meeting? The research is divided. One study demonstrated that even when meeting attendees recognize expertise (i.e. the group knows who the most knowledgeable person is), groups take the expert-recommended path just 62% of the time.

In other words, the problem is not simply recognizing expertise but also deferring to it. How often (or loudly or persuasively) someone speaks may serve as the proxy for expertise. As Smith cautioned: “Volubility is not trust.”

In contrast, a study that reviewed audio recordings from NASA meetings found that the amount of “air time” affected the perceived influence more than the actual influence, which usually deferred to “real” expertise.

Ways to focus meetings on real expertise

The push and pull between research on System 1 (fast) and System 2 (slow) thinking won’t resolve soon. Nonetheless, there are ways to combat the impact of a particularly charismatic meeting attendee:

Set up “if-then” plans. According to Smith, if you’re agreeing with a dominant personality (or a beautiful slide deck), then get a quieter person to paraphrase the same message after the meeting (or review the argument in plain-text notes). Is it still as persuasive?

There are other strategies, too, such as one put forth by Utah’s Bonner:

Anonymize ideation. Write out ideas on index cards or in shared documents, then review them anonymously. You’ll judge them only on the strength of the idea, not the person pitching it.

In some ways, reducing false expertise in hiring and meeting management is easier—these are decisions and processes that happen over and over again.

It’s far harder to limit the impact of false expertise on one-time strategic decisions.

Strategy: Adding accountability to decision-making

Even if you could neutralize false expertise entirely, strategic decisions would still be wrong from time to time. Business climates change rapidly. Unexpected events occur.

More likely, you’ll fail to notice a bias, or recognize one but not know how to remove it. Strategic decisions are some of the largest decisions your organizations makes, but because each one is unique, it’s more difficult to defend them against false expertise.

Ways to focus strategic decisions on real expertise

At the very least, Smith offers, document your current decision-making to make it easier to review mistakes in the future:

Detail your process. Write out an explicit thought process: “We decided X, which led us to conclude Y, which is why we’re going with strategy Z.”

Incentivize awareness. Celebrate moments when team members identify flawed thinking or decision-making—encourage people to identify bias.

Slow it down. Take a short break before making a big decision. It increases the chances of making a “slow,” System 2 decision.

Host a “pre-mortem.” Assume your planned decision was wrong and work backward to understand why. You may uncover current biases.

The right people and right processes are critical components to take on the most challenging work—differentiating your business from those who are all too happy to claim unwarranted authority.

How to differentiate yourself in an ocean of false experts

Hiring and management are internal challenges. But the most frustrating aspect of false expertise may be its elevation of undeserving people and businesses to the top of the industry.

Differentiating your business depends on understanding how the hucksters got there and to how to fight them off.

The big business of “thought leadership”

We’ve poisoned the well. Political scientist Daniel Drezner argues that our society traded skeptical, analytical “public intellectuals” for simplistic, rah-rah “thought leaders.”

In the words of Matthew Stewart, author of The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting It Wrong, we’ve fallen for “corporate mysticism.” Why have thought leaders run amok? Because being a “thought leader” has become incredibly lucrative.

Certainly, in digital marketing, it’s a shortcut to success. Consumers don’t know a good agency from a bad one, so social media presence or a major speaking gig becomes an easy proxy.

PR professionals and marketers have recognized the potential value of that proxy and shoved their leaders into the spotlight. Some CEOs join Twitter, in other words, not because they engage honestly and regularly but because it generates leads or boosts stock prices.

When marketing goals are the primary motivator—not real expertise or a desire to share it—Minimum Viable Expertise proliferates.

How an obsession with “growth” blunts expertise

In Baker’s The Business of Expertise, he outlines a path for the development of “hard-won, noninterchangeable expertise.” Baker sees a continuum: on the left is specialization; on the right is general knowledge.

Expertise grows as you move to the left, but the number of potential clients increases as you move to the right. For example, a social media marketing agency for credit unions (Baker’s example) has tremendous expertise but limited market appeal. A generic “digital marketing agency,” on the other hand, can pitch any client but has no niche.

The biggest mistake that many make, he contends, is drawing a massive circle around all experience so that no opportunities fall outside. As Baker argues, you must have the courage to specialize to differentiate yourself and justify a price premium.

That means declining bad-fit opportunities for client work, which, in the near term, slows business growth. The challenge, of course, is that industry publications continue to laud the fastest growing companies—they hand the biggest microphone to those with the least expertise.

Here’s how to keep that from happening.

How to establish expertise for your business

1. Credentials will not rescue you.

In his book, Matthew Stewart highlights the proliferation of MBAs and laments the shallowness of course offerings. (McKinsey admitted that its MBA-less employees “are at least as successful” as those with credentials.) As Stewart argues, an MBA is training; experience is education.

Smith carried the point forward: Credentials can become part of the false expertise marketplace—a degree doesn’t guarantee job performance and, in some cases (like an obsession with Ivy League grads), may be a distraction.

For marketing, in particular, credentials are lacking. Credentials successfully separated doctors from snake-oil salesmen, but, as Smith noted, that process took decades, and the stakes for marketing likely will never justify such a rigorous framework.

2. Focus on process, not just results.

Does your website highlight thinking or implementation? Baker asks the same question in his book. After all, in the marketing world, what website doesn’t have case studies with triple-digit growth or a stack of impressive client logos below the fold?

“The past is not always a great predictor,” noted Smith. “You have to show your work.” That commitment to detailing process, not just results, is key to separating real experts from false ones.

“There’s a world of difference between experienced UX designers and people who read a blog post about it,” explained DePalma Studios’ Zach Watson. “One of the most important is having a proven research process.” (You can find ours here.)

“However,” Watson continued, “Most of our target market doesn’t understand this, so we’ve made it a huge part of our content strategy. By educating our audience on the critical nature of user research, we’re putting distance between us and other agencies that use graphic designers to do UX work.”

3. Challenge false expertise.

“You have an opportunity to draw a distinction between bad operators and what you do,” Smith explained. How? Educate and undermine. It’s not enough to share best practices—you must also call out false expertise.

As Smith envisioned, “Whether you buy from us or not, let’s educate you with what ‘good’ looks like. I may not get your business right now, but you’ll understand that I’m doing this for your benefit and my benefit. It’s mutually beneficial.”

It’s also the long play: To push experts forward and bury its false prophets, you must change consumer thinking about your entire industry.

4. Establish authority first.

Widespread false expertise can also undermine preferred marketing strategies. Dr. Nicole Prause, a neuroscience researcher, has continually battled an array of pseudo-science that plagues her field of sexual physiology.

For her company, Liberos, she abandoned a preferred, casual tone (such as using her first name) to keep signals of expertise at the forefront. Prause also focuses on outreach to credible media sources and cites media interviews on her website—a typically unnecessary approach for a neuroscience laboratory engaged in academic research.

Conclusion

Rooting out false expertise can improve the hiring process by reducing the “noise” of resumes. In meeting management, anonymous ideation or post-meeting fact-checking can diminish the influence of a persuasive presentation. And a pre-mortem on strategic decisions can spot biases you’ve so far ignored.

Improvements in each of those areas make it easier for you to hone your real expertise and differentiate your business from the hundreds (or thousands) of “thought leaders” whose haphazard growth, they believe, conveys expertise.

When I spoke with Smith, he was waiting on a flight at Dulles. He relayed an example unfolding before him. In this instance, the “experts” were potential security threats: “TSA is constantly trying to read behavior. But are they looking for a certain demographic or style? The way someone looks or sounds? Are they doing due diligence?”

Combating false expertise—in your head or others’—isn’t easy. “You can’t do this kind of rigorous decision-making for everything,” conceded Smith. If you’re hungry, he implored, just pick a restaurant.

“But do the hard work and avoid lazy decisions.”

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Source: https://bloghyped.com/how-false-expertise-can-damage-your-business-and-how-to-protect-it/