#nothing like reading a bunch of essays in quick succession to turn me into the meanest version of myself

[t4tbruharvey]

tame lacklustre and predictable essay on bisexuality and the 1975 hit classic jaws that's keeping me from what is no doubt about to be the second best essay i've ever read about the wolfman

[yudrein-aile]

I have reached ch 400 of turning. Kinda obsessed with the difference between the two timelines Kishiyu... Yudrain is like. Young! And doesn't understand politics that well. And there's so much baggage. And meanwhile Yuder is like. 30. He's constantly like "ah these young kids". There's still baggage but he is so much older and experienced and Kishiar responds to that differently than he did + different circumstances (like. Ch 400. Full info not yet revealed). Anyway I came to !!! Because idk who else to !!! At about this

Please !!! here any time, I love hearing your thoughts! sorry you're getting a whole god damn essay reply i had to put a read more.

Yuder is, and continues to be, incredibly harsh on his younger self, especially at the start, some of it is deserved - calling his younger self arrogant and quick to anger - but a lot of it, I think, is also just colored by how much was asked of him vs. how much he could do.

Yuder judges immediately in the first chapter that joining the Cavalry seemed "like a chance for dazzling success and thrilling adventures" as he had not "outgrown his boyishness". In the same paragraph he also judges that he didn't know anything about the intrigues and politics he'd find himself in, "that everything comes with a price, and that he was not well-suited for such pursuits".

In chapter 3 he straight up calls his twenty-year-old self "a poor country bumpkin with a gloomy expression".

So like, the impression we get of twenty-year-old Yuder, to me, is that of a 20 year old kid, who's not really socialized because his grandfather died seven years ago and he's been on his own ever since, and thinks that maybe getting to meet others like him, measuring his powers against them, would be fun.

Generally spekaing, the vibes I got from Yuder is that if he could, he would've done nothing but train all day. He's not interested in leadership, but then he's made Cavalry Commander. In chapter 2, he points out this rise in status himself:

"The previous Yuder had held a great deal of power and influence as the Cavalry commander of the Empire, but now he was nothing more than a young newcomer from the countryside. Who would actually listen to someone like that?"

Think back on the literary lessons - most Cavalry members couldn't even read or write when they joined the Cavalry. Yuder could read, but not really write well. Imagine that, he's twenty, he just learned how to write properly, Kishiar manages to mcfuck himself up during the Red Stone Retrieval Mission and decides "yes, that one will be my successor".

Like to Yuder, even ten years later, it seemed like Kishiar pretty quickly and decisively decided to make Yuder his successor.

Why did Kishiar La Orr pass the position of leader to Yuder at that time? And without any hesitation, as if it had been planned from the beginning.

And it's mentioned at times - a lot more later when Yuder knows what's up - we learn also that Yuder received proper lessons from Kishiar (and Nathan) and probably a whole bunch of other people to prep him for his work as Commander. Because Yuder does do well. The Cavalry is thriving, outpacing every other organization withing years. Sure, he's an interpersonal nightmare, but he did also pay for like parties if it was requested or so. And again, he went from semi literate commoner to Count and, argueably, one of the Emperor's most trusted men. That's insane.

And now in the second timeline, Yuder takes that knowledge with him. He knows what to expect, what he learned by trial and error. Just think about the second gender manifestations that go well. Heck, his own, I'd argue, is his turning (ha) point. The first 150ish chapters really do feel like Yuder's only in survival mode, but after his own second gender manifestation, the thing that IMO definitely fucked up his and Kishiar's relationship in the first timeline (mutual non-con my beloved trope <3), it's like an awakening (sorry full of bad puns today).

And for their relationship in the 2nd timeline!! Kishiar and Nathan both pick up that Yuder's more skilled than he should be. In chapter 17 we have this exchange:

"Nathan." "Yes." After Yuder left, Kishiar, staring at the chilled teacup on the opposite side, opened his mouth. Kishiar's cup was empty, but the one on the other side remained untouched, just as it had been from the start. "What do you think of that guy?" It was an unusual question. Nathan pondered for a moment before answering. "If I hadn't heard of his background beforehand, I would never have guessed he was a commoner." He was unmistakably a commoner, an orphan, barely twenty, yet he did not falter in front of Nathan, let alone in front of the noble duke who was as esteemed as the heavens.

And in chapter 59 we got:

Ever since first meeting him, Nathan Zuckerman had been continually investigating Yuder Aile's background. But just as his lord had predicted, there was nothing to find. His past was impeccably clean.

People regularly are in genuine awe of Kishiar because of the whole sun god thing, and I'd say in the first timeline, while also annoyed with Kishiar, to a degree did treat him according to station before he was made Commander and was even more annoyed with Kishiar.

And now here comes second timeline Yuder who had like. meals with the Emperor and knows Kishiar, to a degree at least.

And Kishiar very much picks up on this. He's got a prodigy on his hands who's not afraid to say what he means - not because of arrogance, but because he's straightfroward and correct. He's fascinated with Yuder to the point of propositioning him to figure out what he's on. (rip to Nathan hope you never learn of this).

Like, man if I have to put it into words, I think 2nd TL Kishiar falls in love because he's fascinated and interested by Yuder and wants to know him wholeheartedly, while for Yuder it hmm feels a lot more like hmm devotion/dedication to an ideal? Which makes Kishiar's genuine joy when he learns a small thing about Yuder a delight to read and vice versa when Yuder realizses why Kishiar acts in a certain way.

Like in 199 we got Kishiar saying , "I was merely asking out of curiosity. Isn't it a natural human tendency to want to know more about a subject of interest?"

(Also love how in 200 Yuder is like "Kishiar is so smart and skilled it's only a question of time until he manages to seduce me" babygirl what the FUCK is that thought process. can't you just say he's hot and charming and you both have a competency kink)

uuh. i think i lost the plot a little replying to your ask but like. yes. i love how the different circumstances shape their experience and attraction to each other,

[dimonds456]

What was “A Picture Perfect Hollywood Heartbreak” Really About?

What was Zach Callison’s A Picture Perfect Hollywood Heartbreak really about?

Hey all you people out there! How are you surviving quarantine? I had a bunch of spare time, and so I decided to write an essay that focuses on Zach Callison’s album, A Picture Perfect Hollywood Heartbreak. The album has been out for a while, but most people either only know Interlude IV or are really confused about the story it tells. I think I’ve finally got an answer, and I wanted to share it with you all.

If you’re only here to better understand Interlude IV, you can skip down there if you want, but you’ll still be pretty confused. Besides, you should listen to the rest of the album. The whole thing bops. 

Personal favorite song is Phantom Love, but I’m pretty sure no one cares about that.

Anyways, on to the show! One song at a time, in order.

WARNING: REALLY, REALLY LONG POST UNDER THE CUT!!

Phantom Love

Phantom Love sets up the whole story for us. Juanita is Zach’s old GF, who appears to only have dated him so she could get ideas for a music album she was writing. However, she had no ideas and/or is a masochist, and so wanted to get Zach to either break up with her, do something horrible to her, or just create drama in general she could write about. Whatever happens happens, and she is successful. 

Juanita seems to be suffering from some form of depression, but whether that’s actually the case or she, again, just wanted something to write about is up for debate. But either way, it’s hinted at several times that she slit her wrists and other self-harm-inducing activities. 

Many people follow her- she seems to be popular enough (which makes sense, due to the album being about two celebrities dating each other, just like Zach’s irl relationship). However, she has two different faces- her showbiz the-cameras-are-on face and her real face. Zach seems to have the same thing, as hinted at in She Don’t Know, but we’re not there yet. Point is, Juanita used Zach to try and get a tragedy out of the whole deal.

It was a phantom love- it never existed. 

“Made me promise I would never break your heart

How was I to know that’s what you wanted from the start?”

Both people got into Hollywood from a young age and grew up with it, and so were surrounded by drama constantly. This takes a toll on Zach, but he tries to deal with it whereas Juanita actively wants to partake in it. She causes drama- little triggers to get him to snap- until one day, he does.

Interlude I - Frantically

This one is pretty straight-forward. After the two break up, it’s the perfect excuse for Juanita to start spreading rumors and stirring tension. She’s quick to make Zach out to be the bad guy, when in actuality, he was the one who was being loyal in their relationship.

We’re clued in that these rumors aren’t true from one line: “I heard he got fired from that cartoon he does. (Nooo wayyy…)” We, as the audience, know for a fact he didn’t, but things get shaky as we realize that some of them are also true. 

“I heard he does coke now and, like, screams a lot.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

[laughter]

Zach overhears them talking about them and runs away, going off somewhere to be alone. Once he’s alone, we get the disturbing audio of him sniffing some drugs, implying that he actually does, indeed, do coke.

DISCLAIMER: Irl Zach Callison did NOT turn to drugs! It’s a metaphor for how many people he knows who have decided to do so, and so he;s aware of what it does to one’s mind. Don’t worry; Zach is okay in that department.

She Don't Know

After gaining the following knowledge, this song is easier to understand. Zach really did love Juanita, and he misses her, even though he knows at this point that she used and abused him. 

“There ain’t no drug in all the world like loving you

Cocaine and cigarettes will have to do

Won’t somebody save me? My heart’s beating outta m’ chest

I just wanna hold you with those hands I once possessed.”

Juanita isn’t aware of the effect she had on him, and he laments this quite strongly (hence the title). Once she had her heartbreak, she ran off, leaving a broken lover behind. 

Trigger warning: there are hints of suicidal thoughts in this song. They get more prominent as the album goes on, which becomes important later. This is where we really start seeing them, though.

“F***ed up on my bedroom floor

And my first thought’s ‘let’s do some more’

They say it all kills for thrills

And I hope it does!

Can you hear me, love?”

He speaks about “where did I go” later on, meaning that he is losing himself/doesn’t feel like himself. He still wants to be with her, and her absence has utterly destroyed him. He’s still in love with her, and wants her to know that. However, Juanita doesn’t give a bat of the eye in his direction, only caring that she now had the material she needed to write her album.

Interlude II - Christie Only Knows

Here, we are introduced to Zach’s make-believe sister, Christie. Only she is aware that he is going through this, and we find out quickly that she isn’t supportive.

“It’s getting late now, but to me, it’s just beginning

‘Cuz life’s tearing me to pieces and I know I’ve been defeated

Oh, no

And Christie only knows.

Never seen someone like this before

An eight-ball power on the floor

And I’m staring at the ceiling 

Wondering if the reaper’s close

But Christie only knows

That there ain’t no drug in all the world like being you

\Glory on the silver screen just had to do

Won’t somebody save me? I am screaming out of breath

And my shadow, he’s holding a gun…

With those hands that I once possessed…”

This is the only time I’ll put all the lyrics in here, I swear. However, this one is important as it paves the way to Nightmare, bridging the gap between the two moods. She Don’t Know is angry, stressed, unsure, and frustrated, whereas Nightmare is just… depression. Interlude II is the middle ground, showing us that once Zach got all that off his chest, he feels… numb. He doesn’t know what to do. 

Now, who exactly is Christie? I don’t think she really exists, in the context of the album, that is. I believe that Christie is someone he’s hallucinating, an embodiment of all his most negative thoughts, sugarcoated into something pretty and worth listening to. We’ll explore her character later on in Interlude IV - Showtime, but for now, what you need to know is that his suicidal thoughts are getting more and more intense now that she’s here.

A sister is someone who you’re bonded to, whether it be in blood, relationship, or cause. In this case, I think it’s more relationship. She is telling him to let go, to accept that things are this way and won’t get better. It’d be easier to end it. And Zach is listening to her. We know this because of the line “And my shadow, he’s holding a gun with those hands that I once possessed…” He is seriously thinking about it, and the fact that it’s his shadow shows that the thought is always in the back of his mind. The same thoughts that led him to love Juanita are now ready to kill him- those same, once-steady hands he used to hold her with. And he’s done. He’s holding on by a thread.

Nightmare

This song is told in the 3rd person as Zach really explains what he’s been going through each and every day that lead him to this fateful decision to end it. He is done. He’s decided it. 

Every day, he cries. He hates himself, he hates looking at himself, he hates all of it. 

“Prosecutor at his own trial, 

The floor below him becomes so fertile 

by his very own vile, Nile, and exile source 

By the pitter-patter of his tears on the bathroom tile… 

...you’re nothing more than your feelings 

from your floors to your ceilings 

and out the all-bloodshot ocular faucets… 

Boy vs brain, white noise vs the sane, 

always vs the same, cries for help exclaim 

that he’s beyond repair. He’ll swear, he’ll despair, he’ll stare 

straight ahead in the mirror at the source of his waking nightmare.”

There’s an instrumental break, during which he says “Are you writing this down, Christie? Yeah…” This shows that he’s lamenting to himself, as again, Christie doesn’t really exist. He’s venting to her, jotting down everything that’s wrong with him.

This tells me that he’s writing a note. He is telling someone where he’s going and why he did what he’s about to do. Remember, Christie is in Zach’s head, and so if she is writing this down, that means that Zach is writing this down. His worst, most negative thoughts are writing all this down, showing him that this was the right decision. This will end all his suffering, and whoever reads the note will understand and be happy for him. This was his solution.

“He’s standing on a bluff overlooking the city

The city’s biggest bluff is making itself look so pretty

He tells himself to be tough, isolated and gritty

But gritty’s kinda hard when his brain’s run by committee”

This is how he decides to die. Now with a gunshot like Interlude II hinted at. He is willing to jump for it.

Look at the album cover. Did he go for it? I don’t think so, but we’ll get to that.

The song concludes with him saying this:

“So who do I speak of and why is he grey?

He rejects all his love, see the prices he pays

To his vices he caves, in a crisis of fates

No tragic history, only a mystery 

So I say to you, ‘who?’

Why don't’cha tell me?”

This is him confirming to us, the audience, that this is Zach’s character speaking about himself. He’s been hinting and clueing at us to this song all along, and now he is making sure that we know what’s going on in his head. He’s ready to end it. 

His love for Juanita broke his heart so severely that it left him broken and bruised beyond repair. And if you can’t fix it, it’s time to throw it away.

So he heads back out to the bluff to jump.

Interlude III - Second Thoughts

He’s standing on a bluff overlooking the city. The bluff’s height is making itself not so pretty. Is this being tough? Or just being petty? But petty’s not likely, it’s a selfish, single entity…

Doe she really want to do this? Looking down, Zach thinks about what made him come here. The drugs? They’re messing him up. He’s aware of it, he’s been aware of it. Would jumping be giving in to their influence? Or Juanita’s? 

“We put his record on until he’s bleeding on the needle

And he’s weeping in the street

Cut down on his curtain call

That’s where he’s gonna sleep.”

Standing on top of the bluff now, he looks down onto the road. He can see that there is where he could die, but he’s suddenly not so sure. The idea just slammed into him, reality slapping him in the face. “Do you really want to do this?” 

“Take aim with these hands he once possessed

A dozen roses on the pavement laid the rest

Oh, my dear sister Christie, will I feel some remorse?

She says ‘no, pull the trigger, ‘cuz he’s left us no recourse.

His brain has a sickness, so kill it at the source.’”

He steps closer. He can see, in his mind, the image of his dead body lying on the road, forever resting. But, was that the right call? To just throw in the towel like that? So, in true metaphorical fashion, he turns and asks Christie. His inner demons. They’ve been straight with him before, right? And, of course, they say “yes, go for it.”

But Zach still isn’t sure.

I believe he backs off for now, leading the way to Curtain Call.

Curtain Call

This is where it really starts to get difficult when it comes to dissecting this album, and from here on out, I guarantee that I got things wrong. However, stay with me, because I’m open to and want to discuss what everyone else thinks it all could mean. I’m going to share my ideas, and if you have a better one, tell me and I can either agree or argue it with you. Point is, like English class (in high school), if you have the evidence to back it up, you’re not wrong. Let’s have a serious discussion about this.

On with the show! Now, it appears as though Zach is arguing with himself in this one, one wanting to show people that he’s hurt so he can get help- the side that wants to live- but on the other hand, his other half knows that there’s nothing they can do if he does. He’d just weigh them all down. Because all of him agrees that he’s useless and hopeless. 

He sends up a prayer (I think Zach is Christian, so this makes sense), asking for, basically, karma of some kind. He’s done feeling this way, and wants it to stop. So he asks for “some price to pay,” hoping that there’s a solution, but knowing that the solution isn’t going to be handed to him on a silver platter. He’d need to work to get better, and this is him saying that he’s willing to do that. He WANTS to live, but he’s just not sure he can anymore. And that’s his main argument. Can he do this? Was it even worth it?

Obviously, with Zach being a famous actor (both irl and in the album), he has a double life. One is bringing joy to others, while the other is a constant internal struggle. The world is a stage, and at this point, Zach is basically admitting- through metaphors- that he has been acting. Pretending. 

Consider this lyric, put there- side by side- very intentionally:

“I find that I’m anything but fine.

No, I’m okay. Oh please just look away!”

It’s all a mask. And it’s one he’s tired of wearing. Notice how tired he sounds when he sings those lines. He’s done. He’s been done.

“Bourbon to kill my pain

Curtains to hold my shame

No, they can’t look away

Cannot contain my rage…”

These lines are telling us that people around Zach have started to notice that he’s off, but he wants to believe that he’s okay, that he’ll be okay. So he continues his career (“curtains to hold my shame”), even though it’s hurting him to do so at that point. And people are starting to notice. And that’s making him frustrated. At himself. At them. He’s tired. Let him rest. He just wants to rest and forget. Bourbon, alcohol, kill the pain. Make it go away so they can’t see. But they already see. The mask is old and withering in decay.

Towards the end, Zach’s voice becomes more echoey and distant (discluding the Italian that I have no hope of understanding, which is why I’ve yet to mention it). This shows that he’s distancing himself, running away, if you will.

Running back to the bluff.

And this time, he jumps.

Interlude IV - Showtime

Okay, meme time. This is the one everyone knows. However, we are not going to be talking about a Connverse fight that honestly makes no sense given the limited context of the song (as cool as those animatics are). We will be talking about, however, Zach facing and challenging his inner demons. Christie does not exist. Why should she rule over his life?

Let’s break this one down, since this one is the hardest to fit into the story.

He jumps, but survives the fall. Maybe dazed, maybe broken. Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe this song IS the dream. We can’t be sure. Everything is metaphorical in this one. Perhaps he didn’t jump at all. We can’t be sure.

Christie congratulates him. She tells him that he’s free. He did the right thing, and now it was just the two of them. They could do whatever they wanted without feeling so weighed down!

Zach disagrees, coming to a realization.

He jumped. Christie had said that it’d make everything okay again, that it’d be bliss. Well, he jumped, and it wasn’t. It was worse. He felt anger and fear, and this leads him to finally, for once, counter her. 

“The world is ours!”

“No it isn’t.”

“Get in the car.”

“This isn’t finished.”

“...What?”

She’s shocked that Zach openly argues with her, and as their bickering goes on (which I’m sure a lot of you reading this can hear perfectly in your heads, so I won’t write the exact lyrics down), Zach gains more confidence. He accuses her of murdering him. “And they’ll all think that it was suicide, but Christie, I know that it was you inside.” Remember, she’s not real and therefore didn’t really “kill” him, but he blames her as he allowed her to control and manipulate him. 

Christie is shocked, stating that everything she did, she did to comfort him. ”I saved him! I held him ‘til the moment he [Zach’s “innocence”] died!”) However, Zach realizes what she really is now, and decides that enough is enough. (“You choked him out of his goddamn mind! Promised the world to him, a goddamn lie!”) He knows what she is, and won’t let himself be manipulated by her again. 

Now, the whole time, they’re talking about someone who is dead. Who is that someone? Zach. However, it’s all a metaphor. When Zach jumped, a part of him died. The last of his humanity? His sanity? I think his “innocence,” which I say in quotes because I’m sure there’s a better word for it out there somewhere. He’s done being blind to the truth, blindly following Christie around. The part of him that was naive enough to do that, to listen to her influence and complain about the world, is gone. He’s dead.

And that means Zach isn’t taking anymore s***. 

C: “I won’t help you take [Juanita] down.”

Z: “Fine. I’LL DO IT BY MYSELF!”

C: “You don’t need it!”

Z: “Oh, I know that I need it.”

C: “She’s been gone for years, I know you can beat it!”

Z: “Oh, look in the mirror, you know we both fear her…

But you let me kill him, you’re WORSE than Juanita!”

Juanita herself never killed him. She never physically harmed him, not in any way that counts here. However, Christie did. She pushed and pushed him, taking a fragile boy and breaking him even more. Zach is now his own worst enemy, not Juanita, and this is him realizing it. But he doesn’t want to be his own enemy.

C: “I won’t help you take her down.”

Christie doesn’t want Zach to face her, because she knows that that would be him really facing his demons and starting down the path to healing. Juanita is Zach’s biggest obstacle, aside from himself. He has to face himself first, and that’s why this song is so powerful. Zach is taking a step back and realizing what he has to do, who he is, and why things are like this.

Z: “Oh, look in the mirror, you know we both fear her. 

We’re one and the same, we’re afraid to be near her!”

There’s that mirror metaphor again, except that he’s not looking at himself with hatred; he’s looking at himself with understanding (and a side of hatred). He’s ready to face her. He’s ready to get everything to stop.

“1, 2, 3, 4

Is this what love is really for? 

Is this all I get for being yours?

The kid in front of me in blood and gore?”

The kid is, again, Zach’s “innocence.” He understands, he’s ready to not only move on, but also confront her.

5, 6, 7, 8

Years left to waste for all I hate

They’ll all know Juanita’s fate!

Show’s about to start; don’t be late.”

He knows that it’s going to be a showdown, a big, epic throw down. And Christie isn’t coming with him. He’s leaving her behind. He’s leaving his demons behind, breaking free from them and moving on.

War!

The ultimate throw down begins!

“A wise man once said, ‘time is money’

So how much money did I lose to you, honey?

Find it kinda funny you wanna keep this feud runnin’

But I’m glad I’m on your mind, keep that canon fire coming, woah!”

This is 100% a diss track. Zach confronts Juanita in front of a lot of her friends (we hear multiple girls go “huh?” as they realize that Zach’s here and he’s ANGRY), and immediately starts in. No introductions, no “hey it’s nice to see you again”s, nothing. He’s here to make a statement, and he’s gonna do so.

He realizes Juanita for who she is now, and she has done so many horrible things to him. Spreading rumors and lies to ruin his life, after dating him just to get a story to write about. He’s sick of it and done. He calls her out, and it’s important that he does this in front of other people so they see what she’s really done. He’s hurt, he’s been hurt, and it’s because of Juanita, this amazing person a lot of people looked up to and liked (“I know, Juanita deserves so much more [Interlude I]”. “Step inside the life of the men weak enough to follow you [Phantom Love]). 

Juanita also appears to be dating someone else by this time. This is really important, because now due to context clues we got from before, the only reason Juanita dates is to get a heartbreak out of it so she can have the motivation and drive to write her own album. That’s why she dated Zach. So, if she’s dating again, that means she either lost the motivation and drive again, or she never had it in the first place since it wasn’t a real love between them. She didn’t truly experience a heartbreak at all. This is further backed up by the claim that “we’ve been waiting on your album for ages, no traces, and baby, we’ve already run out of patience!” She’s only dating to get that experience again.

This means that, at least in Zach’s eyes, she hasn’t changed. “To your new boy, let he be warned: you’re her new toy for blood and gore! What, you didn’t know?” She is going to destroy him emotionally, and he’s going to go down the same path as Zach, ending in death- blood on the pavement. The gore part is to emphasize how horrific the whole ordeal was.

“Sit down with me and sign this armistice

Get your big proboscis outta my s***, miss”

A proboscis is the butterfly equivalent of a tongue. They use it for sucking nectar out of flowers. So, what he’s saying here is that they need to settle this between them (“sign this armistice”), and that she needs to mind her own business. By her talking about Zach like that, she ruined his life and he’s sick of it. She literally sucked the joy out of him like nectar. 

“Welcome to the new me!

Paint your nails black and unscrew me

But that’s okay, Juanita

Know my business is booming”

His business is a reference to his own album, the very one you’re listening to. His music career took off now because of her and the fact that she broke his heart, not the other way around. Juanita can never understand that because she “only loves to be broken [Phantom Love].” 

“That’s alright, that’s okay!

You barely wrote them anyway

Half your songs got thrown away

Like ballets on voting day

All my ballads had more to say

Like a bullet through a motorcade”

In a twist, Zach got the story Juanita had wanted. He experienced a heartbreak, while she never really did. So he writes an album instead of her. It’s a cool kind of karma that Zach- or, at least, his character- can’t resist. 

The whole song ends with him forcing her/her friends to sing along with him, repeating her name, then yelling. She screams, and it cuts out. 

I think he’s lost his sanity (or again, his “innocence”) here. He gets carried away, and either attacks her or makes like he’s about to. I think he makes like he’s about to, but stops. This is the final song; if Zach killed her, there would more than likely be another song depicting the consequences and an Interlude V to show the aftermath of the incident. But because he stopped himself, he’s satisfied. Juanita learned her lesson, Zach got everything off his chest, and the people around them know the truth. 

That’s all he’s wanted for longer than we can possibly know.

Final Observations

Zach Callison has gone on record to say that “Juanita” has finally published an album of her own, but that happened months later. I don’t have any specific dates for anything, though. No one knows who the real-life “Juanita” is, which in my opinion, is noble of Zach. He had a lot of anger to get out, but unlike her, he wasn’t going to ruin her life to try and get something out there. He can make a statement without ruining someone else along the way.

With that knowledge, let us all stand and clap for this man.

Not only is the album just a really good listen, but each song tells a cohesive story. The tones each song sets, as well as the far under-appreciated interludes (or over-appreciated in terms of Showtime), really shows how his emotional state changes. Phantom Love is a lament, She Don’t Know is a classic “I’m sad bc my gf broke up with me :(“ which is how Zach perceives that incident at that point in time, whereas Nightmare is him falling into depression stronger than anything he’s ever felt before. Curtain Call is him arguing with himself about whether or not he should even live anymore, and it all comes back around with the upbeat, heavy-rock literal song of War!. The interludes take the tone of the next song and combine it with the lyrics of the previous to show that smooth transition between emotions as he grapples with his mental state, the only exception really being Interlude I, as it has an overall bouncy tone to it.

Zach not only made every single song enjoyable, but also unique and heartfelt. Just listen to how his voice shakes during Christie Only Knows. He is genuinely upset and lost, and because of this, he’s better able to convey the HUGE emotion dump that was his album.

Do I recommend it? Yes. I think there’s something in there for everyone, even if you only enjoy one of the songs. However, doing a review is going to be an entire post in and of itself.

Thanks for reading, guys. Now go listen to the album and tell me your thoughts. Does my explanation make sense? Do you have a better idea? Let me know. I want to have a real discussion about it with other people who have listened to the whole thing, not just Interlude IV.

If you haven’t listened to it yet, it’s on YouTube and ITunes. Do yourself a favor and check it out. The whole thing is ~45 minutes long.

Have a link to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n1rA_1uUBtxoATot0ixiTgvdEHhj3lAn4

[heart-of-gold-outlaw]

A Smile is Something to Be Cherished, Dear: an Arthur Morgan x Modern!Reader Fanfic

"If I have to chop one more piece of firewood," you say as you brandish your axe, "Imma start wearing flannel. Y'all can call me Lumber Jack. Or maybe Jack Lumber. Or Lack Jumber. Or--"

"For chrissakes," Micah snarls. He's sharpening his knife at a nearby table. "We get it, Y/N."

You shrug and bring the axe down hard, splitting a piece of wood clean in two with one swing. "I pretended it was your head."

To give him credit, Micah doesn't do or say much of anything in retalition. Instead, he just sighs, mutters to himself, and leaves. You're glad to see him go. Over the last few weeks, ever since Arthur found you in the Grizzlies, freezing and terrified, you've decided Micah Bell is your least favorite out of the bunch. Something about him just screams "psychopath." You're surprised that Dutch, for all his intelligence, can't see it.

You've only been with the Van Der Linde gang for a little while. Honestly, you're not too sure what to make of all them. Hosea seems nice enough, and Dutch treats you fair, which is all you can ask for. They may not be the most conventional people, but they're trying their best to do right by you. The whole thing makes your head spin. A few weeks ago, you were in your living room, screaming through a twelve-page essay due the next day. Now? Now you're a hundred and thirty-ish years in the past... and running with a bunch of outlaws at that.

Yeah. Not exactly the life you thought you'd live. But hey: at least you're not dead.

You finish chopping firewood and set the axe aside. Nobody really says for sure that you have to do chores, but you don't like feeling useless. And besides: everybody in the Van Der Linde gang does their part. Why should you be the only exception?

A few of the girls--Tilly, Karen, and Mary-Beth, if you've got their names down--lounge by one of the wagons when you approach. They look up and offer you what seem like genuine smiles. You give one of your own and plop yourself in the grass next to them.

"How're you holdin' up, Y/N?" The blonde one--Karen, you think--asks. "I know this all must be pretty strange."

"Yeah," Tilly murmurs. "We just wanna make sure you're doin' okay."

You blink, then immediately switch gears. They didn't catch you off-guard. Nosiree. "I'm okay." You shrug one shoulder. "Beats what I was doing back in my time."

Mary-Beth leans forward excitedly, and you briefly think she's going to grab your hand. You get ready to pull away, just in case.

"Must be quite the experience, time travel and all," she says, practically vibrating. "What's the future like, Y/N?"

"Mary-Beth," Karen admonishes with a roll of her eyes, "don't ask them that. Haven't they been through enough?"

"Oh lay off." Mary-Beth swats her away with a mischeivous grin. You can practically see the gears turning in her head. "I'm just askin' what everybody's thinkin'."

Your heart hammers in your chest as you think overtime about what to say. You're still not sure how this whole thing works, if there are things you shouldn't say, things that might prove catastrophic to the timeline and whatnot. Every science fiction movie you've ever seen suddenly plays in your head. And even though they all vary in success, one thing's clear: time is messy. Space-time is even messier. Travel through both? Might as well call it a goddamn hurricane.

Thankfully, Tilly notices your discomfort and gives Mary-Beth a hard look. "Y/N doesn't have to answer all your questions, y'know." She shifts into a glare. "Maybe give them some time to get used to everything first, okay?"

Bless Tilly Jackson, you decide. The only voice of reason in the bunch.

You're about to thank her, or maybe you're about to change the subject, when Uncle comes tearing up to your little group, that wild smile on his face you've learned means trouble. Still, when he mentions going to a small livestock town, you all but jump at the offer. You've been meaning to see what ordinary life looks like in the past. Maybe this is the perfect opportunity.

And no, you tagging along has nothing to do with the fact that Arthur's going to be there, too.  

// // // // // //

The journey into Valentine is pretty uneventful, save for a broken wagon... and someone getting kicked to death by their own horse. The girls scream when they see it, and Uncle jumps a little. Even Arthur mutters a soft "shit" under his breath. You, though, just stare. It isn't the first dead body you've seen. Probably won't be the last, either, if you have to guess.

"God, I wish that were me," you find yourself saying, thinking of the internet back in your time, of the dark humor, and how it's used as a coping mechanism.

Five heads immediately swivel your way. Tilly, Mary-Beth, and Karen stare at you with their mouths agape, while Uncle watches you like you've grown a third arm out of your chest. Arthur eyes you with a look you can't read, and you briefly wonder what's wrong. Then, it hits you like a sledgehammer and you internally groan.

Right, you think. Generational gaps.

"I'm joking," you explain. "It's how we cope in my time."

Luckily, Arthur chooses that moment to urge the horses forward, and the wagon starts toward Valentine again. The incident quickly fades, and the girls are soon buzzing with excitement. You can't help but feel a little anxious. Adjusting to the Van Der Linde gang has been tough; you don't want to be overwhelmed by everything once you get into town. With that in mind, you decide to stick close to Arthur. Just since he found you, that's all. It's the familiarity, you tell yourself. Nothing else.

Valentine isn't the most glamorous of places, but it's not too shabby, either. Immediately, you're in awe. A frontier town. An actual frontier town in the 1890's. The history nerd in you threatens to explode as you pass by the shops, the saloon, and the stables. Arthur stops the wagon in a little clearing just after the general store. You barely notice.

"Alright," he says, low and firm. "Remember: keep a low profile, but try an' find some leads. No trouble now, ya hear?"

The girls murmur various replies, then hop out of the wagon, dashing off like little dogs to sniff out something interesting.  You watch them go, then look back to Arthur, silently waiting for him to send you off on your own. He watches you for a moment, as if debating with himself, before he sighs and starts shoving Uncle out of the wagon.

"Go make yourself useful, old man."

Uncle grumbles something under his breath, but ultimately does as he's told. After a few seconds, he disappears into the general store. You're left alone with Arthur. Not that you particularly mind. It's better than any alternative you can think of. As you climb to the ground, legs cramped from the ride, you take a moment to look around. The town isn't really anything special. Oddly enough, you think of the time your best friend dragged you to a rodeo in the middle of Wyoming. Valentine looks something similar to that.

"Holding up okay?" Arthur says, startling you out of your thoughts. You can't help but jump a little when you turn around and find him right behind you. He gives you a look, then sighs and motions toward the stables with his head. "C'mon."

He starts off in their direction. You practically have to jog to keep up with him, but you don't really care about that. Honestly, the thrill of being in a different place (and the past at that) is enough to make you forgive just about anything.

"What d'ya think we'll find?" You ask, almost bouncing up and down with excitement. "Are we gonna--" You break off and lower your voice. "Are we gonna steal some horses?"

Arthur glances down at you and huffs out a laugh... well, half of one, for that matter. "You ain't stealin' anything for a while, Y/N."

"Oh." You don't even try to hide your disappointment. "No horses, then?"

He shakes his head, laughing again when you pout. Briefly, you think of sticking out your foot and tripping him, but something tells you that wouldn't end well. You don't want a six-foot-something, pissed off outlaw chasing you around... especially when he's your ride home.

The two of you reach the stables, and Arthur holds the door for you. You skip past him, stopping dead when you catch sight of the rows and rows of stalls. The horses are absolutely beautiful. Almost instantly, your eyes zero in on a Appaloosa gelding, and before you know what you're doing, you're walking over and gently touching the tip of his nose. He whinnies softly, nuzzling your hand a few seconds later. And as you stare at him, absently stroking the side of his face, you realize Arthur's moved to stand beside you.

"I think he likes me," you say. You brush the horse's mane back from his forehead. "Always wanted a horse."

The corners of Arthur's lips twitch, but he doesn't smile. Instead, he looks at the stall--at the price--and shakes his head.

"Maybe next time, Y/N." He gently steers you away. "Why don't you check on Uncle, make sure he ain't dead. I'll finish up here."

You sigh and head out of the stables, narrowly missing a pile of horse manure. A quick peek at the general store reveals Uncle's passed out cold in the front. You shake your head with a small grin. At least you don't have to worry about him causing any trouble.

As you start to head toward him, you catch sight of Tilly. You can tell by the look on her face that something's wrong, awfully wrong, and almost on cue, an angry-looking man grabs her arm and hauls her toward an alley. You feel your breath hitch. Still, you're practically running their way before you can stop and think about a better approach. You have no ideas, no plan other than go go go. Not that it matters. From what it looks like, Tilly needs somebody there--right now.

You round the corner and see her pressed against the wall, the angry man's face close to hers. Neither one of them seems to know you're there. Good. Taking those blessed extra seconds, you spy a rock on the ground and quickly pick it up. It's decent in size. Won't kill a man, but it'll hurt like hell. That's all you need.

With aim that's really more luck than skill, you hurl the rock at the man with all the force you can muster. It strikes him square on the side of the head. Solid. A great hit. He stumbles to the side a little as Tilly's wild, frightened eyes find yours. Something about them makes you more brazen than before, and you take a few steps toward the man, hands clenched into fists.

"Back off," you hiss. "Now."

The man, who unfortunately looks like he's recovered from his shock, glares at you. Then, before you can even track him, he's barreling toward you, grabbing your shoulders and pinning you against the side of the alley. You feel the breath leave your lungs in one big gust.

"You made a helluva mistake," he snarls, putrid breath wafting over your face.

You gag and try to get a knee or a leg or something up to hit him, but there's no use. He's got you trapped. Dimly, you're aware that Tilly's gone, and you have a brief moment of triumph. Smart girl. The last thing you need is for her to get hurt, too.

"My entire life's a mistake," you gasp out between gulps for air. "... Why don't you add this to the list?"

Whether that was the right thing to say or not, you'll never know. In the next few seconds, just as you're certain the guy's reeling his fist back for a punch, his weight's suddenly gone and you're slumping to the ground. You can hear shouting, cursing, and words you really don't want to repeat. And through it all--one thing is constant.

Arthur's here.

Several seconds later (or maybe it's minutes; you honestly lose track of time), strong, warm hands are hauling you upright. They're also surprisingly gentle. Calloused and slightly bloody, but gentle.

"Easy, Y/N," Arthur soothes when your breathing becomes frantic. "You're alright."

Somehow, you find the courage to look up at him. He's watching you, concern in his eyes, and you hate that you're the cause of it. Still, you've never been more glad to see him.

"I thought he was gonna kill me," you find yourself saying. Then--you start to laugh. Hysterical, unstoppable chortles that come from no rational part of your mind. "Oh man, I looked the Devil in the eye and walked backwards into hell, didn't I?"

Arthur frowns, then glances around. You're suddenly aware that a crowd's gathering... and that it's probably a good idea to get the hell out of town.

"C'mon," he says, carefully leading you back to the wagon. "I think that's enough excitement for one day."

Finally got around to writing my Arthur Morgan x Modern!Reader multi-chapter fic. Y’know... the one I promised ages and ages ago. Hope ya enjoyed! I’ll also be posting this to AO3 under the username Nopride4531, so if ya wanna leave a comment or a kudos, feel free!

Likes, reblogs, and comments are much appreciated! Take care y’all!

Next Chapter: Lionheart

Inspired Playlist Track: Panic! At the Disco -- “High Hopes”

[docholligay]

Smoke and Ashes

This is a fic I wrote mostly for me for once but also for @rosepetalrevolution and anyone else who is interested in These Western Fucks, namely Yael, McCree, and Ashe. You can find it in the timeline: here. 3,300 words I would love to know if you enjoy it!! 

“Please don’t!” Tears ran down his face. “For Christ’s sake, please!”

“Wrong audience, motherfucker.” Yael cocked her gun, and fired, an impressive spray of blood spackling across McCree’s boots.

He looked down at them and frowned. “I just polished these, Yael.” He picked some of the brass off the ground. “That was quick.”

“Easy when it’s a bunch a little boys pissin their pants.” She knelt down and rifled through the dead man’s pockets, “Jacinta! You done over there? Quit bein’ so fuckin’ dramatic.”

The echoing fire of a gun was the reply, and Jacinta walked around the end of the truck. “I would think you’d appreciate lingering on this a little bit.”

“It’s not about enjoying the job, it’s a practical matter,” Yael took the cigarettes out of the dead man’s jacket, tapping one out of the pack and lighting it, taking a long drag as she leaned her elbows back onto the dead man’s chest, “Though I don’t hate it. Goddamn, even their cigarettes are terrible, Jesus fucking wept.”

She sat up and put the cigarette out in his cheek.

“Nice cache a weapons, though.” McCree set an AK to the side of the truck.

“Welp,” Yael slapped her knee, “Alls well that ends well, then.” She gave a chuckle and slapped McCree on the shoulder. “We’ll eat good tonight, tell you what. Already have a buyer.”

“Didn’t you,” McCree pushed the brim of his hat back a touch, “Specifically tell me, more n once, not to sell anything you ain’t got in hand?”

“Yael thinks the rules don’t apply to her.” Jacinta put a crate of ammo into the back of the truck, “Thinks she is special.”

“You’d know.” Yael grinned.

Jacinta tried to scowl, but smiled anyhow, as she checked a rifle for a round. “You are not cute.”

“Yael you ever think that the people we sell these to, are gonna go back and sell em to these poor fucks again?” McCree had said it quite without meaning to.

Yael’s internal compass was its own creature, and McCree could never quite puzzle it out. She was happy enough to take the boxes of illegal arms from these people, but the suppliers they sold to probably didn’t exactly ask for an essay on intercultural exchange before they sold them. It’d just fall back, that they’d be back where they started.

“Not those poor fucks,” she tipped her head to the one on the ground, his head split open, flies buzzing around his brains, “cleared that right up.”

And that would be the end of the debate, McCree knew, in the way he knew he’d never stop thinking it. There were certain things, rhythms, in the gang, that flowed through everything they did like a bends of a river, and McCree knew how to point his canoe by now.

McCree had come to them three years ago, but it might as well have been a lifetime. Cody Stenslund was an old man with a scraggy group of hungry young kids, and a smaller band of old men like him. It was the assumption they’d picked up these kids to pass the torch to someone, and it had proved successful, and he hadn’t wanted McCree. No one seemed to, back then.

But Yael was clever, and she was a connoisseur of people who survived when they weren’t meant to, and she’d stood for him. He’d been with them ever since, through his own training and scrapes and Cody’s retirement, and he couldn’t see leaving. Yael was Yael about near everything, but McCree never worried about where he was going to go, what he was going to eat, and the drifting tumbleweed decided this was a fine fence to be caught upon.

Besides that, he’d reflected at Jacinta and Yael’s wedding, it was a kind of a family, and McCree needed all of that he could get.

Carey loaded on an unopened crate to the back of the truck, and flipped up the tailgate, leaning against the back of it and giving McCree a grin, the soft green of his eyes flickering with excitement.  

“Yael said beers are on her tonight.” He tapped out two cigarettes, and offered McCree one, which he gratefully accepted.

“Better be,” he lit the smoke and took a deep drag, “much as she’s had us all runnin around Hell out here.”

Carey chuckled softly. He was a few years older than McCree, like most of the gang, tall and thin, his dark brown hair clipped neatly. He had no idea about McCree. McCree barely had any idea about McCree, even when he thought about walking over to Carey’s bunk in the night and kissing him as the moonlight streamed through the window.

There was nothing for McCree to be ashamed of, and he knew that, but somehow he still couldn’t bring himself to say the words. Yael had done it. No one questioned her or so much as said boo about it.

But the rules didn’t apply to Yael, you know.

“Well boys,” Yael circled around and tossed the keys to Carey, who caught them handily, “let’s get to gettin.”

_____

Ashe stood outside the bar, adjusting the collar of her shirt and trying to get the right angle of the hat on her head. She’d known the Deadlock Gang was going to be here, it was an open secret that they protected this bar and the bar did the same to them, a scrappy outpost at the edge of the world that no one seemed to much care about and that seemed fine to everyone inside.

She walked in the door, the dark and agining place exactly as she’d imagined it, and found the gang immediately. The leader was just as she’d read, when she decided this was the career path she wanted to take, when she got sick of everything her parents expected for her, tired of being a show pony and ready to take it on her own. She was a scary story to tell in the dark as much as she was a person, and Ashe wanted that for herself.

She strode confidently to where she sat, and a lean, green-eyed man to Yael’s right put his hand on a gun.

But Yael just watched, leaned forward onto her elbows, as Ashe approached.

“Yael Rabin?” She cleared her throat, puffing her chest out.  “Been looking for you. “I’m here to join the Deadlock Gang.”

No one said anything for a moment, and Ashe wondered if the entire concept of sound had gone from her, the chatter and music fading away from the space and leaving only Ashe, standing there.

Then Yael drummed her fingers on the table.

“You just looking for trouble in alphabetical order or somethin’? Barstow Boys turn you down already?”  Yael picked up a toothpick from the holder and on the table and placed it between her teeth as she studied Ashe.

It was the sort of look Ashe had not yet become accustomed to, though she would learn it for herself, in time. It was a look that scanned over every inch of her, that took the information and made conclusions, and locked it away until it was needed. It was the searing eye of a hawk setting on a rabbit, and Ashe squirmed underneath despite herself.

“Nice boots you got there, Tex.” A sly smile crept across her face and her collected gang spit out hoots of laughter.

Ashe didn’t give her the satisfaction of looking down, but she noticed the beaten and scuffed hat Yael wore, the way her shirt had faded in rings from being pushed up to her elbows in the sun, and had a sudden moment of realization that the same things she wore that impressed the folks when she did barrel were a mistake here.

Didn’t matter. She was a trick of a rider, she could shoot a gun, and Ashe knew, above anything else, that the infamous Deadlock Gang could only profit by adding her to the group, even if they did make fun of her bright silver buckles.

“Name’s Ashe.” She jutted out her chin and extended her hand.

“Sure it is.” Yael chuckled and leaned back in her chair, and Ashe crossed her arms, her mouth forming into an angry twist, which Yael handily ignored, “You even old enough to be in here? Go home, kid, I ain’t got time to play dolls.”

“How old’s he?” She motioned her chin to the man at her left, though it was hardly fair to call him man, not yet filled in, still gangly with the edge of teenagerhood.

“Jesse?” She turned to him and smiled, “I dunno, how old are you?”

“Forty five this July.” He took a drink of his beer.

“That’s about what I thought, why, thank you Jesse.” she picked up her own beer, “Well, there you have it.”

Ashe popped like a corn kernel.

“You were younger than me, sixteen! When you joined the Deadlock Gang, and now you’re only afraid--”

“I ain’t afraid of shit,” Yael laughed, “You think you can compare yourself to me, Tex? What’s the worst thing ever happened to you, Daddy tell you no new pony this year? Shiiiit.” She chuckled again. “Swear to god, they get stupider every year.” She stood up. “You ain’t hungry enough. You don’t need it enough. You got a net, girl, and we perform without one.” She turned back briefly to her gang. “Gonna go find Jaci and have a smoke.”

She turned her back to Ashe as she left, completely unafraid of anything Ashe could do, and all she could do is stand stock-still, fuming and furious and embarrassed and ashamed and hungrier than Yael could ever know.

___

McCree didn’t ask too many questions, at this time in his life.

It would sound stupid to say it out loud, as he heard the dogs barking in the distance outside the shitty honky tonk, the party having briefly broken up from their reverie, but the last three years had been the most stable in his life since his mother had died. It wasn’t much of a life, rolling along the backroads and still-quiet ways that barely seemed to exist except as corridors anymore, but it was his, and it was consistent, and he knew what he was meant to do and why, and what he brought.

He wasn’t interested in shaking up the flow he’d come to understand in his life, and he wasn’t sure what someone so rich would want with the Deadlock Gang anyhow. Could be that she was an agent trying to infiltrate, but McCree hoped they’d send someone a little better than some little blonde thing fresh out of the ranchwear store. Maybe that was the trick, that they thought it was so stupid Yael’d fall for it.

They didn’t know her very well.

Ashe breezed by him after Yael, having had a few moments to think to herself and still not giving up, and he chuckled. She had plenty of sand, that much was sure, and if he was going to be so stupid as to tell Yael her business, he’d say that a sparrow who’s willing to chase after a hawk with no fear of nothing wasn’t the stupidest idea for the gang. Yael had a kill count that rivaled a small army, and there was no way Ashe didn’t know that. It just didn’t seem to matter. She had an idea of what she wanted, and maybe Yael would have to shoot her to get her to find another one.

They didn’t usually meet people like this, who wouldn’t take Yael’s no for an answer. Yael was particular about her crew, even at the best of times, and though she’d help other hard up folks set up complimentary organizations, or reinstall them their lives back home on their farms and ranches and wilds, her Deadlock Gang was a tightly closed group, only people she would happily sleep with her back to. And this girl was in no way Yael’s kind of people. This was all more stuff she should’ve known but didn’t seem to care much about.

There was a part of McCree that respected that.

Carey walked up next to him and sipped his beer. “What’s the over under on Yael shootin her where she stands?”

McCree smiled over at him. “She’s had, what, three beers? Say ten minutes.”

“You’re a regular optimist, Jess,” Carey clapped him on the shoulder, and McCree looked away from him into the night, “say that much for ya.”

McCree wasn’t sure he’d call himself that, but there was something that told him this girl who called herself Ashe was gonna be a thorn in everyone’s side for a long time.

___

Yael didn’t seem to be listening to her, just walking along and tapping out a cigarette as she looked up at the half-clouded moon.

“You don’t know what I can do!” Ashe spat, the injustice of the situation, the hopelessness of it, drilling into her head.

“But I do know that it’s my gang, and, I don’t like you.” She put the cigarette to her lips and flicked her lighter, shielding it from the wind. “Don’t need no prissy little rich girls whose daddies bought em their titles.”

What Yael needed and what Yael ended up getting could be very different indeed.

“Elizabeth Ashe?” A voice came out of the darkness, and Ashe’s hair stood up at the sound of her name.

She turned around and her eyes met with dark brown ones, ones she did not know but clearly knew her. It was not a question so much as a confirmation, but whatever it was, it furrowed Yael’s brow.

“You know her, Jacinta?” Yael stood up from where she leaned against the beam.

Jacinta took her eyes off Ashe for a moment, meeting Yael’s gaze, and let out an exclamation of rapid-fire Spanish, which Ashe suddenly wished she had opted to take in all of her private schooling.

“Huh,” was all Yael said by way of hint, before asking Jacinta a question Ashe could not understand, and receiving an answer Ashe wished she could know. “I dunno, Jaci, bad idea to me.”

Her ears perked at the English, and she looked back to Jacinta, wondering where she could possibly know her from. She was a handsome woman, dark with glossy in a low, tightly wound bun at her neck, but Ashe could not quite place her name, or where they might have seen each other.

Yael walked over to where she and Jacinta stood, and waved Ashe off. “Git.”

It was the first command of Yael’s Ashe would obey, and it would not be the last, and at her hand she would learn how to give a command so it never seemed like a request, to men twice her size, but right now all she could do was back up until she nearly hit the two young men who had been sitting beside Yael in the bar.

Carey shrugged at her. “Jaci’s your best chance, rich girl.”

Ashe fumed, but didn’t say a word. There was someone, for whatever reason, who was fighting for her, and the argument seemed to be growing more heated, Yael shaking her head, her eyebrows in a knot as she looked to Jacinta, who waved a hand in fury even as she tried to cross her arms in front of her.

“If she wants you,” McCree drawled, “well, Jaci’s the only one Yael’l ever listen to.”

“I don’t know why she does.” Ashe hadn’t meant to say it, but it had slipped out, her thoughts as to all the reasons why filling the space in her head meant for a tough showing.

McCree looked over to her, a brief recognition of her inability to understand that made her blood boil, and chuckled. “Best not to.”

Yael threw her arms in the air and kicked the dip bucket by the side of the back porch, spraying wet tobacco across the wood. Jacinta seemed unimpressed.

“¡Bueno! Christ,” She took her hat off and nearly threw it into the dirt before reconsidering. “You win, alright?”

Ashe felt a swirl of excitement rise in her chest, and pride. She was going to be a member of the Deadlock Gang, the kind of gang that people whispered about, the kind of gang that even someone like the Barstow Boys held in high regard. And she would be, in no time, she was sure, be at the right hand of the hawk, Ashe, a legend in her own right.

These fantasies of her own grandeur were quickly brought back into the reality of the situation as Yael walked up to her and grabbed her by the collar, almost pressing their faces together. Yael and Ashe were nearly the same size, but Ashe was shocked by the sheer strength of her, the grip of her claw next to Ashe’s neck.

“Now listen here. This is against my better judgement or will, Tex, so I want you to take very careful notice of what I’m bout to say.” Ashe nodded as Yael stared deep into her eyes, but she did not break her gaze or let her lip quiver, “You want to be a part of this gang, you’ll come to find there’s work to be done that ain’t all in the papers and glory, and when I say jump, the only thing I wanna hear out of your goddamn mouth is how high. I will teach you to be a gunslinger and an arms runner and every terrible thing you wanna be, and you had better pay me back with your unending goddamn loyalty or I’ll shoot you myself.”

She let go of Ashe’s collar and half-tossed her back into Carey and McCree, who caught her gently by the shoulders.

“Married life’s a whole thing, ain’t it, Yael?” Carey laughed good naturedly.

“Carey, I will leave you in the ditch I found you in.” But she sighed, seemingly forcing herself to make peace with the new, shiny-booted, crisp shirted, silver trimmed reality in her life.

“You won’t regret it, I promise.” Ashe tugged at her shirt, rolling her shoulders back.

“And I ain’t callin you Ashe, so best get used to that idea.” She grinned, and her voice turned sickly-sweet, “Elizabeth Caledonia, pretty little miss of the Texas debutante set. Jesse!”

“Yeah?” he took off his hat and ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair before looking back to Yael.

“You’re off smoker duty tonight, other’n showin Bitsy here how to scrub it.” She waved her hand to McCree, “God knows you’ve earned it. And God knows you will, us having to teach her an honest day’s work.”

“She’s alright once you get used to her.” Carey gave his usual casual grin and shrugged. “Give her a year or two to warm up. Carey.” He gave a tip of his hat.

“Jesse.” He nodded to her.

She gave a snort, jutted her chin out, and looked at the two men who were now her teammates.

“Ashe.”

Carey chuckled as he turned to go. “S’not what Yael said.”

Ashe crossed her arms across her chest in frustration. When she had planned out the life she was going to create for herself, the infamous legend and outlaw she was going to become, this was not how she’d seen her first day on the team. She would learn, at Yael’s hand, how to scramble, how to deal, how to play a low card, but now she was a frustrated trainee.

“Welcome to the team,” McCree said, tipping his hat, “Come on then.”

Ashe gave the smallest smile, and she remembered she had won a victory today. It didn’t matter if she were Tex or Bitsy or whatever Yael wanted to call her today, because she had to call her one very important thing.

A member of the Deadlock Gang.

[authormitchel-blog]

P.O.A: Part 6

Professor Lupin was back at work. It certainly looked as though he had been ill. His old robes were hanging more loosely on him and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes; nevertheless; he smiled at the class as they took their seats, Nott waved at him.

            “I’m glad you’re back, sir,” said Nott.

“Me too, Theodore, thank you for the get well note, it was very appreciated.”

            “You’re welcome, sir,” said Nott. “Ah, Mrs. Davis,” Professor Lupin acknowledged her raised hand.

            “Um, Professor about the paper Professor Snape assigned us, I didn’t….”

            “It’s okay,” Professor Lupin said. “You don’t have to worry about the essay, but,” he said looking at Malfoy. “If you have already done it, I will count it to you as extra credit.”

            When class ended Lupin called after Harry. “I’d like a word, if you don’t mind Harry.”

“Sure,” Harry nodded. “Are you all right?” said Harry, sitting on the couch. “I’m fine, Professor.”

            Lupin smiled at him, letting the lie lay. “Sir, it was the dementors.”

“Yes, I don’t think any of us have seen Professor Dumbledore that angry. They have been growing restless for some time…furious at his refusal to let them inside the grounds.”

            “Yes,” said Harry. “But why? Why do they affect me like that? Am I just….”

“It has nothing to do with weakness,” said Professor Lupin sharply, as though he had read Harry’s mind. “The dementors affect you worse than others because there are horrors in your past that the others don’t have. Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places and glory in decay. They drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Muggles can feel them, they just can’t see them. If it can, the dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself…soulless and evil. The leave you with nothing but your worst experiences. And what happened to you Harry, that’s enough to hurt anyone. You have nothing to feel ashamed of.”

            Harry started at Lupin’s desk, his throat tight.

“When they get near me I can hear Voldemort. I can hear him murdering my mum.”                                  Lupin reached out and squeezed Harry’s shoulder. He pulled back.

“Why did they come to the match?”

            “They’re getting hungry. Dumbledore won’t let them into the school, so their supply of human prey has dried up. I don’t think they could resist the large crowd around the pitch. All that excitement, emotions running high….it was their idea of a feast.”

            “Azkaban must be horrible,” Harry muttered. Lupin nodded firmly. “The fortress is set on a tiny island, way out to sea but they don’t need walls when their prisoners are all trapped inside their own heads incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most of them go mad within weeks.”

            “But Sirius Black escaped from them. He got away.”

Lupin’s briefcase slipped from the desk; he had to stoop quickly to catch it. “Yes, Black must have found a way to fight them. I wouldn’t have believed…. Dementors are supposed to drain a wizard of their power if they are too long in their presence.”

            “But you…” started Harry. “On the train..”

            “Yes, there are certain defenses one can use.”

Then Lupin seemed to study him again, his tie and the cut on his cheek that he hadn’t bothered to get healed.

            “I could teach you?” Lupin offered.

“Really?” asked Harry.

            “I don’t pretend to be an expert at fighting dementors, Harry, quite the contrary, but…” The man seemed to stop and think.

            “But you need to be able to defend yourself so if you want to lear….”

“I want to learn,” interrupted Harry. “When can we start?”

            Professor Lupin seemed to consider him.

“It’ll have to be after the holidays. It seems as if I have chosen a very inconvenient time to fall ill.”   

            What with the promise of anti-dementor lessons from Lupin, the thought that he might never have to hear his mother’s death again, and the fact that Ravenclaw flattened Hufflepuff in their Quidditch match at the end of November, Harry’s mood took a definite upturn even if he still wasn’t allowed to visit Hogsmeade.

            On the Saturday morning of the Hogsmeade trip, Harry bid good-bye to his friends, then turned up the marble staircase alone, and headed back to the dungeons. Snow had started to fall outside the window, and the castle was very still and quiet.

            “Psst…. Harry!”

He turned, hallway along the third-floor corridor, to see Fred and George, peering out at him from behind a statue of a humpbacked, one-eyed witch.

            “What are you doing?” said Harry curiously. “How come you’re not going to Hogsmeade?”

            “We’ve come to give you a bit of festive cheer before we go,” said Fred, with a mysterious wink. “Come in here….”

            He nodded toward an empty classroom to the left of the one-eyed witch. Harry followed Fred and George inside. George closed the door quietly and then turned, beaming, to look at Harry.

            “Early Christmas present for you, Harry,” he said.

Fred pulled something from inside his cloak with a flourish and laid it one of the desks. It was a large, square, and very worn piece of parchment with nothing written on it. Harry, suspecting one of Fred and George’s jokes, stared at it.

            “What’s that supposed to be?”

“This, Harry, is the secret of our success,” said George, patting the parchment fondly.

            “It’s a wrench, giving it to you,” said Fred. “, but we decided last night, your need is greater than ours.”

            “Anyway we know it by heart,” said George. “We bequeath it to you, Harry. We don’t really need it anymore.”

            “And what do I need with an old bit of parchment?” said Harry.

“A bit of old parchment!” said Fred, closing his eyes with a grimace as though Harry had mortally offended him. “Explain, George.”

            “Well….when we were in our first year, Harry, young, carefree, and innocent..”

            Harry snorted. He doubted whether Fred and George had ever been innocent.

“Well, more innocent than we are now, we got into a bit of bother with Filch..”

            “We let off a Dungbomb in the corridor, and it upset him for some reason….”

“So he hauled us off to his office and started threatening us with the usual….”

            “Detention.”

“Disembowelment.”

            “And after noticing a drawer marked Confiscated and Highly Dangerous.”

“Well, what would you’ve done?” said Fred.

            Fred then held out the parchment.

He took out his wand, touched the parchment lightly, and said, “I solemnly swear that I up to no good.”

            And at once, thin ink lines began to spread like a spider’s web from the point that George’s wand had touched. They joined each other, they crisscrossed, they fanned into every corner of the parchment; then words began to blossom across the top, great, curly green words, that proclaimed.

Messers. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present

The Marauders Map

            It was map showing every detail of the Hogwarts castle and grounds. But the truly remarkable thing were the tiny ink dots moving around it, each labeled with a name in minuscule writing. Astounded, Harry bent over it. He saw Dumbledore and Mrs. Norris. Everyone in the castle.

            This map showed a set of passages he had never entered. And many of them seemed to lead….

            “To Hogsmeade,” said Fred, tracing one of them with his finger. “There are seven in all.” They then laid out all the passageways. The ones that Filch knew about and the ones that only they knew about. Including one that led right into Honeyduke’s cellar.

            “Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs,” sighed George, like he was lovesick. “We owe them so much.”

            “Noble men, working tirelessly to help a new generation of lawbreakers,” said Fred solemnly.

            “Right,” said George briskly. “Don’t forget to wipe it after you’ve used it…”

            “or anyone can read it,” Fred said warningly.

“Just tap it and say, ‘Mischief Managed!’ And it’ll go blank.”

            “So, young Harry,” said Fred, in an uncanny impersonation of Percy, “mind you behave yourself.”

            “See you in Honeydukes,” said George winking.

They left the room, both smirking in a satisfied sort of way.

            Harry found the passageway easy enough, with the help of the map and his invisibility cloak and was in Hosgmeade before he knew it.

            He found Hermione, Ron, and Neville in Zonkos, and Millicent and Blaise in the Stationary shop. He had to side step Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy to get to them, but it was worth it. He sidestepped Crabbe, causing him to bump into Malfoy who dumped a whole vial of ink down his front. Harry followed it with the quick dry charm that he uses on his homework then fought to stifle his laughter as Malfoy was told he would have to pay for the solid gold vial of ink, not that he couldn’t afford it.

“Shall we go for a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks?” Ron asked, pulling his hands to his mouth to puff warm air on them.

            Harry was more than willing; the wind was fierce and his hands were freezing, so they crossed the road, and in a few minutes were entering the tiny inn.

            It was extremely crowded, noisy, warm, and smoky. A curvy sort of woman with a pretty face was serving a bunch of warlocks at the bar. Ron offered to go get their drinks as Millicent and Hermine shared a knowing look.

            They made their way to the back of the room toward a small vacant table. “Merry Christmas!” said Ron happily, handing them their butterbeers.

            Harry drank deeply. It was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted and it seemed to warm every bit of him from the inside.

            A sudden breeze ruffled his hair. The door of the Three Broomsticks had opened again. Harry looked over the rim of his tankard and choked.

            Professor McGonagall and Flitwick had just entered the pub with a flurry of snowflakes, shortly followed by Hagrid, who was deep in conversation with a portly man in a lime-green bowler hat and a pinstriped cloak, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic.

            Millicent and Blaise seemed to work together to usher Harry out of sight, underneath the table.

            Next, he saw another pair of feet, wearing sparkly turquoise high heels, and heard a woman’s voice.

            “A small gillywater….”

“Mine,” said Professor McGonagall’s voice.

            “Four pints of mulled mead…”

“Ta, Rosmerta,” said Hagrid.

            “A cherry syrup and soda with ice and umbrella…”

“Mmm!” said Professor Flitwich, smacking his lips.

            “So you’ll be the red currant rum, Minister…”

“Thank you, Rosmerta, m’dear,” said Fudge’s voice. “Lovely to see you again, I must saw. Have one yourself, won’t you? Come and join us….”

            “Well, thank you very much, Minister. So, what brings you to this neck o the woods, Minister?” came Madam Rosmerta’s voice after a moment.

            Harry saw the lower part of Fudge’s thick body twist in his chair as though he were checking for eavesdroppers. Then he said in a quiet voice. “What else, m’dear, but Sirius Black? I daresay you heard what happened up at the school at Halloween?”

            “I did hear a rumor,” admitted Madam Rosmerta.

“Did you tell the whole pub, Hagrid?” said Professor McGonagall exasperatedly.

            “Do you think Black’s still in the area, Minister?” whispered Madam Rosmerta.

            “I’m sure of it,” said Fudge shortly.

“Do you know I still have trouble believing it,” said Madam Rosmerta thoughtfully. “Of all the people to go over to the Dark Side, Sirius Black was the last I’d have thought… I mean, I remember him when he was a boy at Hogwarts. If you’d told me then what he was going to become, I’d have said you’d had too much mead.”

            “You don’t know the half of it, Rosmerta,” said Fudge gruffly. “The worst he did isn’t widely known.”

            “The worst?” said Madam Rosmerta, her voice alive with curiosity. “Worse than murdering all those poor people, you mean?”

            “I certainly do,” said Fudge.

“I can’t believe that.”

            “You say you remember him at Hogwarts, Rosmerta,” murmured Professor McGonagall. “Do you remember who his best friend was?”      

            “Naturally,” said Madam Rosmerta, with a small fond laugh. “Never saw one without the other, did you? The number of times I had them in here…ooh, they used to make me laugh. Quite the double act, Sirius Black and James Potter!”

            Harry nearly dropped his tankard with a loud clank.

“Precisely,” said Professor McGonagall. “Black and Potter. Ringleaders of their little gang. Both very bright, of course, exceptionally bright, in fact, but I don’t think we’ve ever had such a pair of troublemakers….”    

            “I dunno,” chuckled Hagrid. “Fred and George Weasley could give ‘em a run for their money.”

            “You would have thought Black and Potter were brothers!” chimed in Professor Flitwick. “Inseparable!”

            “Of course they were,” said Fudge. “Potter trusted Black beyond all his other friends. Nothing changed when they left school. Black was best man when James married Lily Then they named him godfather to Harry. Harry has no idea, of course. You can imagine how the idea would torment him.”

            “Because Black turned out to be in league with You-Know-Who?” whispered Madam Rosmerta.

            “Worse even than that, m’dear….” Fudge dropped his voice and proceeded in a sort of low rumble. “Not many people are aware that the Potters knew You-Know-Who was after them. Dumbledore, who was of course working tirelessly against You-Know-Who, had a number of useful spies. One of them tipped him off, and he alerted James and Lily at once. He advised them to go into hiding. Well, of course, You-Know-Who wasn’t an easy person to hide from. Dumbledore told them their best chance was the Fidelus Charm.”

            “How does it work?” said Madam Rosmerta.

Professor Flitwick cleared his throat. “An immensely complex spell, involving the magical concealment of a secret inside a single, living soul. The information is hidden inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to find, unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge it. As long as the Secret Keeper refused to speak, You-Know-Who could search the village where Lily and James were staying for years and never find them, not even if he had his nose pressed against their sitting room window!”

            “So, Black was the Potter’s secret keeper?” said Madam Rosmerta.

“Naturally,” said Professor McGonagall. “James Potter told Dumbledore that Black would die rather than tell where they were, that Black was planning to go into hiding himself… and yet, Dumbledore remained worried. I remember him offering to be the Potter’s Secret-Keeper himself.”

            “He suspected Black?” gasped Madam Rosmerta.

“He was sure that somebody close to the Potters had been keeping You-Know-Who informed of their movements,” said Professor McGonagall darkly. “Indeed, he had suspected for some time that someone on our side had turned traitor and was passing a lot of information to You-Know-Who.”

            “But James Potter insisted on using Black?”

“He did,” said Fudge heavily. “And then, barely a week after the Fidelius Charm had been performed….”

            “Black betrayed them?” breathed Madam Rosmerta.

“He did indeed. Black was tired of his double-agent role, he was ready to declare his support openly for You-Know-Who, and he seems to have planned this for the moment of the Potters’ death. But, as we all know, You-Know-Who met his downfall in little Harry Potter. Powers gone, horribly weakened, he fled. And this left Black in a very nasty position indeed. His master had fallen at the very moment when he, Black, had shown his true colors as a traitor. He had no choice but to run for it..”

            “Filthy, stinkin’ turncoat!” Hagrid said, so loudly that half the bar went quiet.

“Shhh!” said Professor McGonagall.

            “I met him!” growled Hagrid. “I musta bin the last ter see him before he killed all them people! It was me what rescued Harry from Lily an’ James’s house after they was killed! Jus’ got him outta the ruins, poor little thing, with a great slash acorss his forehead, an’ his parents dead….an’ Sirius Black turns up, on that flyin’ motorbike he used ter ride. Never occurred ter me what he was doin’ there. I didn’ know he’d bin Lily an’ James’s Secret-Keeper. Thought he’d jus’ heard the news o’ You-Know-Who’s attack an’ come ter see what he could do. White an’ shakin’ he was. An’ yeh know what I did? I COMFORTED THE MURDERIN’ TRAITOR!” Hagrid roared.

            “Hagrid, please!” said Professor McGonagall, but Harry felt even warmer toward his friend then he thought possible. “Keep your voice down!”

            “How was I ter know he wasn’ upset about’ Lily an’ James?” It was You-Know-Who he cared about’! An’ then he says, “Give Harry ter me, Hagrid, I’m his godfather, I’ll look after him…. ;Ha! But I’d had me orders from Dumbledore, an’ I told Black no, Dumbledore said Harry was ter go ter his aunt an’ uncles’s. Black argued, but in the end he gave in. Told me ter take his motorbike ter get Harry there. ‘I won’t need it anymore,’ he says.

            “I shoulda known there was something’ fishy goin’ on then. He loved that motorbike, what was he givin’ it ter me for? Why wouldn’ he need it anymore? Fact was, it was too easy ter trace. Dumbledore knew he’d bin the Potter’s Secret-Keeper. Black knew he was goin’ ter have ter run fer it that night, knew it was a matter o’ hours before the Ministry was after him.”

            “But what if I’d given Harry to him, eh? I bet he’d’ve pitched him off the bike halfway out ter sea. His bes’ friends son! But when a wizard goes over ter the dark Side, there’s nothing, and no one that matters to ‘em anymore….”

            A long silence followed Hagrid’s story. Then Madam Rosmerta said with some satisfaction, “But he didn’t manage to disappear did he? The Ministry of Magic caught up with him next day!”

            “Alas, if only we had,” said Fudge bitterly. “It was not we who found him. It was little Peter Pettigrew, another of Potter’s friends. Maddened by grief, no doubt, and knowing that Black had been the Secret-Keeper, he went after Black himself.”

            “Pettigrew, that fat little boy who was always taggin around after them at Hogwarts?” said Madam Rosmerta.

            “Hero-worshipped Black and Potter,” said Professor McGonagall. “Never quite in their league, talent-wise. I was often rather sharp with him. You can imagine how I…how I regret that now….” She sounded as though she had a sudden head cold.        

            “There, now, Minerva,” said Fudge kindly, “Pettigrew died a hero’s death. Eyewitnesses, Muggles, of course, we wiped their memories later, told us how Pettigrew cornered Black. They say he was sobbing, ‘Lily and James, Sirius! How could you?’ And then he went for his wand. Well, of course, Black was quicker. Blew Pettigrew to smithereens…..”

            Professor McGonagall blew her nose and said thickly, “Stupid boy…foolish boy… he was always hopeless at dueling…should have left it to the Ministry…”

            “I tell yeh, if I’d got ter Black before little Pettigrew did, I would’t’ve messed around with wands, I’d’ve ripped him limb from limb…” growled Hagrid.

            “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Hagrid,” said Fudge sharply. “Nobody but trained Hit Wizards from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad would have stood a chance against Black once he was cornered. I was a Junior Minister in the Department of Magical Catastrophes at the time, and I was one of the first on the scene after Black murdered all those people… I will never forget it. I still dream about it sometimes. A crater in the middle of the street, so deep it had cracked the sewer below. Bodies everywhere. Muggle screaming. And Black standing there laughing, with what was left of Pettigrew in front of him… a heap of bloodstained robes and a few….few fragments.”

            Fudge’s voice stopped abruptly. There was the sound of five noses being blown.

“Well, there you have it, Rosmerta,” said Fudge thickly. “Black was taken away by twenty members of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad and Pettigrew received the Order of Merlin, First Class, which I think was some comfort to his poor mother. Black’s been in Azkaban ever since.”

            Madam Rosmerta let out a long sigh.

“Is it true he’s mad, Minister?”

            “I wish I could say that he was,” said Fudge slowly. “I certainly believe his master’s defeat unhinged him for a while. The murder of Pettigrew and all those Muggles was the action of a cornered and desperate man…cruel…pointless. Yet I met Black on my last inspection of Azkaban. You know, most of the prisoners in there sit muttering to themselves in the dark; there’s no sense in them…but I was shocked at how normal Black seemed. He spoke quite rationally to me. It was unnerving. You’d have thought he was merely bored…asked if I’d finished with my newspaper, cool as you please, said he missed doing the crossword. Yes, I was astounded at how little effect the dementors seemed to be having on him…and he was one of the most heavily guarded in the place, you know, Dementors outside his door day and night.”

            “But what do you think he’s broken out to do?” said Madam Rosmerta. “Good gracious, Minister, he isn’t trying to rejoin You-Know-Who, is he?”

            “I daresay that is his…er. Eventual plan,” said Fudge evasively. “But we hope to catch Black long before that. I must say, You-Know-Who alone and friendless is one thing…but give him back his most devoted servant, and I shudder to think how quickly he’ll rise again…”

            There was a small chink of glass on wood. Someone had set down their glass. Professor McGonagall and the rest rose from the table, bid goodbye to Madam Rosmerta and left, but Harry barely registered it.

            Harry rushed back to Honeydukes, through the cellar, and went straight toward his dormitory. He had stared at the photo hundreds of times, but if he didn’t know he would never have guessed that they were the same person. He opened the album, and stopped on a picture of his parent’s wedding day. There was his father waving up at him, beaming, the untidy black hair Harry had inherited standing up in all directions. There was his mother, alight with happiness, arm in arm with his dad. And there…that must be him. Their best man… Harry had never given him a thought before.

            His face wasn’t sunken and waxy, but handsome, full of laughter. Had he already been working for Voldemort when this picture had been taken? Was he already planning the deaths of the two people next to him? Did he realize he was facing twelve years in Azkaban, twelve years that would make him unrecognizable?

            But the dementors don’t affect him, Harry thought, staring into the handsome, laughing face. He doesn’t have to hear my mom screaming if they get to close….

            Harry slammed the album shut, reached over and stuffed it back into his cabinet, took off his robe and glasses and got into bed, making sure the hangings were hiding him from view. Then he heard the dormitory doors open.

            “Potter?” It was Millicent.

Then, “We’ll help you.”

            Harry opened his curtains.

“What?” he said.

            Millicent and Blaise stood there. “We’ll help you, find Black, take him out, whatever.”

“What?” Harry repeated again.

            Blaise stepped forward.

“Remember that we don’t think it’s the brightest thing to do, but we’re here for you no matter what.”     

            Harry nodded. “But we’ll be smart,” added Millicent. “There will be no barging around and knocking things over like the Gryffindors do, you heard what McGonagall said as well as we did. Black is smart, one of the cleverest boys in their year, and that means that we have to use all the cunning we can to catch him.”

            “He killed my parents,” said Harry. “He betrayed them. Did you know?”

He had already worked out that Malfoy knew. What he said in potions that day clicked with what he knew now, but he wondered if his friends knew anything about it.

            “I knew that Pettigrew’s mother only got to bury a finger after his duel with Black, but all it’s ever been is speculation, a legend that we were always too young to know the whole of, but Draco’s father,” said Millicent.

            “It was always rumored that Draco’s father,” Blaise whispered. “was in league with You-Know-Who.”

            The day only got worse when he received a letter from Hagrid. Buckbeak was being put on trial for what had happened with Malfoy, and from what Hermione could dig up, it didn’t seem as if he had the best chances.

            Harry wrote to Hagrid saying that he would try to help in any way that he could. If only helping meant that he could strangle Malfoy then he’d only be too willing to oblige.

            On Christmas morning, Harry woke and went to open his presents. It was still a novel experience, considering what he had lived with before, and he was thankful for every one, though at times he still thought he would wake up to an empty tree.

            He was just eyeing a present from Mrs.Weasley when something caught his eyes.

“What’s that?” said Blaise, looking over a rather large box of his own.

            “Dunno…”

            Harry ripped the parcel open and gaped as a magnificent gleaming broomstick rolled out onto his bedspread. Blaise dropped his package and jumped off his bed for a closer look.

            “That’s a Firebolt,” he said incredulously.

It’s handle glittered as he picked it up. He could feel it vibrating and let go; it hung in midair, unsupported, at exactly the right height for him to mount it. His eyes moved from the golden registration number at the top of the handle, right down to the perfectly smooth, streamlined birch twigs that made up the tail.

            “Who sent it to you?” said Blaise.

Harry look, but there was no card to be found.

            “It has to be Dumbledore,” said Blaise, and Harry found himself agreeing. In no universe would it have been from the Dursleys, and Harry highly doubted that Professor Lupin would have the funds, and as much as Professor McGonagall liked him, he did play for an opposing team. Maybe it came from Snape, he thought wryly before laughing a little at that absurd idea.

            “We should show it to Millicent,” Blaise suggested.

Millicent took one look at the broom and instantly said, “It’s jinxed.”

            “What?” Harry asked.

“It’s jinxed, it has to be,” she said. “No note, no return to sender. You get a random package with a madman on the loose, and you automatically think that what, it’s a gift from Merlin?”

            “Well, what do you want to do with it? Take it to Snape?”

Millicent shook her head.

            “You can’t be serious,” Harry said incredulously, clutching the beauty of a broom to his chest.

            “Snape will know what’s wrong with it, if anything, but he’ll want you to be able to use it,”

“He hates me,” said Harry.

            “Maybe,” said Blaise, “but he does love winning. And this is an international standard broom. You’ll be able to knock them all out of the sky.”

            “What about Lupin?” Harry thought suddenly.

“I don’t care with whom you share your broomstick, Potter, as long as you don’t get knocked off it again this year.”

            “Hey,” shouted Harry. “That happened what?”

“Two years running,” Blaise said, eyes rolling.

            “Right,” said Harry. “Fine, I’ll take it to Lupin.”

            Classes started after Christmas soon enough, and Harry was quick to catch up with Lupin about his promise of anti-dementor lessons.

            “Ah yes,” said Lupin, when Harry reminded him of his promise at the end of class. “Let me see….how about eight o’clock on Thursday evening? The History of Magic classroom should be large enough.”

            “Still looks ill, doesn’t he?” said Millicent as they walked down the corridor, heading to dinner. “I wonder what’s wrong with him.”

            At eight o’clock on Thursday evening, Harry left Gryffindor Tower for the History of Magic classroom. It was dark and empty when he arrived, but he lit the lamps with his wand and had waited only five minutes, when Professor Lupin turned up, carrying a large packing case, which he heaved onto Professor Binns’ desk.

            “What’s that?” said Harry.

“Another boggart,” said Lupin, stripping off his cloak. “I’ve been combing the castle ever since Tuesday, and very luckily, I found this one lurking inside Mr. Filch’s filing cabinet. It’s the nearest we’ll get to a real dementor. The boggart will turn into a dementor when he sees you, so we’ll be able to practice on him. I can store him in my office when we’re not using him; there’s a cupboard under my desk he’ll like.”

            “Okay,” said Harry, trying to sound as though he wasn’t apprehensive at all and merely glad that Lupin had found such a good substitute for a real dementor.

            “So….” Professor Lupin had taken out his wand, and indicated that Harry should do the same. “The spell I am going to try and teach you is highly advanced magic, Harry. It is well beyond Ordinary Wizarding Level. It is called the Patronus Charm.”

            “How does it work?” said Harry nervously.

“Well, when it works correctly, it conjures up a Patronus,” said Lupin, “which is a kind of anti-dementor, a guardian that acts as a shield between you and the dementor.”

            Harry had a sudden vision of himself crouching behind a Hagrid sized figure holding a large club. Professor Lupin continued, “The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the dementor feeds upon, hope, happiness, the desire to survive, but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the dementors can’t hurt it. But I must warn you, Harry, that the charm might be too advanced for you. Many qualified wizards have difficulty with it.”

            “What does a Patronus look like?”

“Each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it, and you conjure it with an incantation, which will only work if you are concentrating with all your might on a single, very happy memory.”

            Harry cast his mind for a happy memory then inspired by the firebolt, decided on the first time that he ever rode a broomstick.

            “Right,” he said, trying to recall as exactly as possible the wonderful, soaring sensation of his stomach.

            “The incantation,” said Professor Lupin. “is Expecto Patronum!”

“Expecto Patronum,” Harry repeated under his breath. “Expecto Patronum.”

            “Concentrating on your happy memory?”

“Yeah,” said Harry, quickly forcing his thoughts back to that first broom ride. “Expecto Patronum….Expecto Patronum…Expecto Patronum…”

            Something whooshed suddenly out the end of his wand; it looked like a wisp of silvery gas.

            “Did you see that?” said Harry excitedly. “Something happened.”

“Very good,” said Lupin, smiling. “Right, then, ready to try it on a dementor?”

            “Yes,” Harry said, gripping his wand very tightly, and moving into the middle of the deserted classroom. He tried to keep his mind on flying, but something else kept intruding…..Any second now, he might hear his mother again…but he shouldn’t think that, or he would hear her again, and he didn’t want to…..did he?

            Lupin grasped the lid of the packing case and pulled.

            A dementor rose slowly from the box, its hooded face turned toward Harry, one glistening, scabbed hand gripping its cloak. The lamps around the classroom flickered and went out. The dementor stepped from the box and started to sweep silently toward Harry, drawing a deep, rattling breath. A wave of piercing cold broke over him…..

            “Expecto Patronum!” Harry yelled. “Expecto Patronum! Expecto Pa….”

            But the classroom and the dementor were dissolving….Harry was falling again through thick white fog, and his mother’s voice was louder than ever, echoing inside his head….”Not Harry! Not Harry! Please, I’ll do anything….”

            “Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!”

“Harry?”

            Harry jerked back to life. He was lying flat on his back on the floor. The classroom lamps were alight again. He didn’t have to ask what had happened.

            “Sorry,” he mumbled, sitting up and feeling cold sweat trickling down behind his glasses.

“Are you all right?” said Lupin.

            “Yes…..” Harry pulled himself up on one of the desks and leaned against it.

“Here….” Lupin handed him a Chocolate Frog. “Eat this before we try again. I didn’t expect you to do it your first time; in fact, I would have been astounded if you had.”

            “It’s getting worse,” Harry muttered, biting off the Frog’s head. “I could hear her louder that time, and him….Voldemort.”

            Lupin looked paler than normal.

            “Harry, if you don’t want to continue, I will more than understand.”

“I do!” said Harry fiercely, stuffing the rest of the Chocolate Frog inside his mouth. “I’ve got too. What if the dementors turn up at one of our matches? I can’t afford to fall off again.”

            “All right then,” said Lupin. “You might want to select another memory, a happy memory, I mean, to concentrate on…That one doesn’t seem to have been strong enough…”

            Harry thought hard and decided on his first Christmas at Hogwarts. Playing in the snow with the Weasleys, getting presents, getting whipped in chess by Millicent.

            “Okay, I’m ready,”

Harry cast the incantation again. “Expecto Patronum….Expecto Patron…..”

            White fog obscured his senses…big, blurred shapes were moving around him…then came a new voice, a man’s voice, shouting, panicking….

            “Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off….”

The sounds of someone stumbling from a room…. A door bursting open….a cackle of high-pitched laughter….

            “Harry! Harry…wake up…”

Lupin was tapping Harry hard on the face. This time it was a minute before Harry understood why he was lying on a dusty classroom floor.

            Harry heaved a breath.

“I heard my dad,” Harry felt like he couldn’t breathe. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him, that I’ve ever heard his voice….he tried to take on Voldemort himself, to give my mum time to run for it….”

            Harry suddenly realized that there were tears on his face mingling with the sweat. He bent his face as low as possible, wiping them off on his robes, pretending to do up his shoelace, so that Lupin wouldn’t see.

            “You heard James?” said Lupin in a strange voice.

“Yeah…” Face dry, Harry looked up. “Why? Did you, did you know my dad?”

            “I….I did, as a matter of fact,” said Lupin. “We were friends at Hogwarts. Listen, Harry, perhaps we should leave it here for tonight. This charm is ridiculously advanced….I shouldn’t have even suggested this.”

            “No!” said Harry. He got up again. “I’ll have one more go! I’m not thinking happy enough things, that’s what it is….Hang on…”

            He racked his brains. A really, really happy memory…one that he could turn into a good, strong Patronus. Then Harry thought of what it felt like to finally leave the Dursleys for Hogwarts.

            Lupin made sure he was ready, then pulled the lid of the case open.

“EXPECTO PATRONUM!” Harry bellowed. “EXPECTO PATRONUM! EXPECTO PATRONUM!

            The screaming inside Harry’s head had started again, except this time, it sounded as though it were coming from a badly tuned radio, softer and louder and softer again, and he could still see the dementor. It had halted, and then a huge, silver shadow came bursting out of the end of Harry’s wand, to hover between them and the dementor, and though Harry’s legs felt like water, he was still on his feet, though for how much longer he wasn’t sure.

            “Riddikulus!” roared Lupin, springing forward.

There was a loud crack, and Harry’s cloudy Patronus vanished along with the dementor; he sank into a chair, feeling as exhausted as if he’d just run a mile, and felt his legs shaking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Professor Lupin forcing the boggart back into the packing case with his wand, once again a silvery orb.

            “Excellent!” Lupin said, striding over to where Harry sat. “Excellent, Harry! That was definitely a start.”

            “Can we have another go? Just one more?”

“Not now,” said Lupin firmly. “You’ve had enough for one night. Here….”

            He handed Harry some more chocolate.

“Eat the lot, or Madam Pomfrey will be after my blood. Same time next week?”

            “Okay,” said Harry. He took a bite of chocolate and watched Lupin move to extinguish the lamps, he thought of how to ask his next question.

            “Professor Lupin?” he said. “If you knew my dad, you must’ve known Sirius Black as well.”

            Lupin turned very quickly.

“What gives you that idea?” he said sharply.

            “Nothing… I mean, I just knew they were friends at Hogwarts too…..”

Lupin’s face relaxed.

            “Yes, I knew him,” he said shortly. “Or I thought I did. You’d better be off, Harry, it’s getting late.”

            Harry gathered his things. Lupin clearly didn’t want to talk about it, but Harry did. “I’m getting better, I think,” he said as they walked toward the door.

            “Do you think, Professor, that when I can cast a Patronus properly, I mean, that I won’t be able to hear them anymore?”

            Lupin stopped in his tracks, a horrible look on his face that he couldn’t wipe away fast enough.

            “I don’t know, Harry, I don’t know.”

[thedeadshotnetwork]

The father of virtual reality sounds off on the changing culture of Silicon Valley, the impending #MeToo backlash, and why he left Google for Microsoft BI Getty Images Widely recognized as the father of virtual reality, Jaron Lanier has been hugely influential in shaping the technology of today. Lanier's work is considered foundational to the field of VR; he's spurred developments in immersive avatars, VR headsets and accessories, and was involved in early advancements in medical imaging and surgical simulator techniques. He's also credited with coining the phrase "virtual reality." In addition to his work as a programmer and inventor, Lanier is a prolific author and celebrated tech critic. His most recent book, 'Dawn of the New Everything,' explores his upbringing in New Mexico, his years pioneering virtual reality in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, and his experiences working with pre-eminent scholars, critics, scientists, and developers. Lanier sat down with Business Insider's Zoë Bernard and Steven Tweedie to chat about his latest book, the current debate over the impacts of social media, his decision to join Microsoft after working at Google, and whether or not artificial intelligence will eventually wreak havoc on humanity. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Steven Tweedie : In the last year, we've seen an adjustment to expectations when it comes to the consumer market for virtual reality and the hype around VR in general. What would you say to those skeptical of whether or not it will take off? Wikimedia/Evan Amos Jaron Lanier : Let’s break this down just a little bit. First of all, there’s one side of VR which is the industrial side, not the consumer side, that’s been a total success. I’ll give you a very personal story from my life that’s an example of it. In the book, you’ll read about the surgical simulator, which dates back to the ‘80s. I did that with a few people, Dr. Joe Rosen, for example, who is a Stanford Med guy. In the last couple of years, my wife has been battling cancer and she had a bunch of operations. She’s post-cancer now, but one of her surgeons for the most difficult operation was a student of a student of Joe Rosen’s, and he used a procedure that was designed in the surgical simulator that evolved from the original one and trained in one. Since I’ve worked more on that side of things than the consumer end, I don’t have any doubts about whether or not VR is going to happen. For me, it’s been great. I think this is an established technology. I’m really proud of what we’ve done. But I’ve also played around with the consumer side a lot, starting with the Power Glove which a lot of people still have a bit of fondness for, which charms me. Business Insider By the way, I was supposed to be interviewed by Leonard Lopate on WNYC in the morning, and I just got this email that he’s been fired for sexual misconduct, 'so we’re finding another host to interview you.' The same thing happened to my interview with Charlie Rose last week. It’s hard to promote a book right now because all of the people who are supposed to interview me keep getting outed for sexual misconduct. Tweedie : Yep, it's been non-stop — our Entertainment team has been quite busy for the past month or two. So on the consumer side of the VR market, Sony's PlayStation VR headset is leading the pack when it comes to sales, and there seems to be genuine interest in the gaming side of VR and augmented reality (AR) — what are your thoughts on how those markets will evolve? Lanier : Sony has found some success with headsets, there has been some pretty good adoption of the phone and holder for things like news clips — The New York Times has been a pioneer in that. And Pokémon Go needs to be mentioned. Pokémon Go was super crude, barely over the line of usability, and yet there it was and it engaged a lot of people and that gave us a taste of mixed reality in a wide area. People like it, it makes sense. I feel like we’re doing fine, actually. For me, this is what a new market looks like. I don’t know what people are expecting. Do you know what it is? Everybody is still in this weird post-Steve Jobs period where they want that big thrill of the iPhone intro, and those things just don’t happen a lot. Tweedie: You've been involved with Microsoft's HoloLens headset, so I have to ask you about one of its competitors, Magic Leap, which one investor compared to the first time he experienced multi-touch technology, a key selling point of the iPhone. What's your opinion on Magic Leap? Lanier : I want nothing more than for Magic Leap to ship and thrive. I think it would be really good for everybody, and I really hope they do, I think it’d be great. I don’t know if they will, but I hope they do. You can’t just have a single vendor in something. You can have a most innovative vendor, you can have a vendor who's ahead, but you can’t just have a single vendor. That’s not a market. Getty Tweedie : You've been at Microsoft for around a decade, is that right? How'd that come about? Lanier : Well, it depends on how you count it. Never in a million years would have expected that I would have worked at Microsoft Labs, but it’s been a brilliant, amazing thing which I wouldn’t really have expected. I was a critic of Microsoft in the ‘90s, and I’ve always a bit of a radical purist, and Microsoft was the punching bag for people like me for a long time. Business Insider How I ended up at Microsoft is really simple. Sergey [Brin] told me, “We don’t want people writing all of these controversial essays,” because I’ve been writing tech criticism for a long time. I’ve been worried about tech turning us into evil zombies for a long time, and Sergey said, “Well, Google people can’t be doing that.” And I was like, really? And then I was talking to Bill Gates and he said, “You can’t possibly say anything else bad about us that you haven’t said. We don’t care. Why don’t you come look at our labs? They’re really cool.” And I thought, well that sounds great. So I went and looked, and I was like, yeah, this is actually really great. Zoe Bernard : I wanted to ask you about Silicon Valley. You’re living very close to there, in Berkeley. What is your perception of how the culture has changed? Lanier : Well, the tech world has such incredible stories of quick money, quick power, and quick status, that I think it’s made people a little drunk and crazy, and also a little shallow, and that makes me a little sad . The amazing thing about the old days was that you could have some people in a room from early Silicon Valley, and one of them might be a billionaire, one of them might be living out of a car, and what it was all about was how much you could do. We respected technical ability over money, and I think that was a really healthy and interesting culture . And now it’s gone. Sure, broadly speaking, in the whole world, hacker culture still exists, but Silicon Valley and San Francisco have both become so intense. For one thing, you can’t afford to live there unless you’re doing really well, so a lot of people have been priced out. And I’m not down on anybody, I mean, I live there. But if you’re asking me how it’s changed, that’s how. There’s this thing that happened which is that the re’s more diversity of ethnicity and background perhaps, but less diversity of cognitive style. If you have a certain kind of nerdy, quantitative problem-solving oriented cognitive style, that will get you more friends, and that will get you along better than if you have a more contemplative, aesthetic center. Bernard : You mentioned the lack of cognitive diversity in Silicon Valley. Do you think that this lack of cognitive diversity plays an influence in the technologies being created there? Lanier : Sometimes I do. A lot of the tools we have tend to be more usable by people who are similar to the engineers who made the tools. It’s not always true, but in general it’s a principle that seems to take hold. E ngineers are designing things that work better for people who are similar to the engineers, and that turns into a social effect that favors and disfavors certain classes of people. Tweedie : It seems like that would just lead to more isolated communities and some people thinking they're smarter than others. Business Insider Lanier : This is an ongoing conversation and argument that goes back for years. If I’m in an environment with a bunch of technical men, and I say, you know, we’re doing this thing that excludes people, they’ll say, “What are you complaining about? At least you’re on the good side of it.” And my response is, “Actually, from a purely selfish point of view, it does hurt me because I’m in this weird echo chamber where I’m being told ‘you're a hacker, you’re a technical man, you’re a white man’” and it becomes this ongoing reinforcement where you’re that thing — but the thing is this total artificial bullshit classification that just happens to rise from the resonance of this stupid tool. So while I’m on the beneficial side of it, in some ways, it forces me into this box. I think this kind of thinking hurts everyone, even the people who appear to be the beneficiaries of it. They’re forced into a place where they can’t reach their full potential. Bernard : In your first book, 'You Are Not a Gadget,' you wrote about how technology is doing us a disservice, and that computers are not yet worthy to represent people. You wrote that almost ten years ago — have your views changed at all? Lanier : I like to think that my views are always changing. I’m always interested in re-examining my stuff and seeing if I can find some way to make it better. But that general principle — that we’re not treating people well enough with digital systems — still bothers me. I do still think that is very true. Bernard : What do you think about programmers using consciously addicting techniques to keep people hooked to their products? Lanier : This was an open secret for a long time. Maureen Dowd published an interview with me in The New York Times that talked a little bit about it, and then the next day, Sean Parker, who I used to know, admitted to it and said, “Yeah, we did that.” There’s a long and interesting history that goes back to the 19th century, with the science of Behaviorism that arose to study living things as though they were machines . Behaviorists had this feeling that I think might be a little like this godlike feeling that overcomes some hackers these days, where they feel totally godlike as though they have the keys to everything and can control people. So if you zoom ahead to the 1950s or so, Norbert Wiener, one of the founders of computer science after Alan Turing and Jon van Neumann, wrote a book called 'The Human Use of Human Beings,' and in that book he points out that a computer (which at that time was a very new and exotic device that only existed in a few laboratories) could take the role of the human researcher in one of these experiments. So, if you had a computer that was reading information about what a person did and then providing stimulus, you could condition that person and change their behavior in a predictable way. He was saying that computers could turn out to have incredible social consequences. There’s an astonishing passage at the end of 'The Human Use of Human Beings' in which he says, “The thing about this book is that this hypothetical might seem scary, but in order for it to happen, there’d have to be some sort of global computing capacity with wireless links to every single person on earth who keeps some kind of device on their person all the time and obviously this is impossible.” Getty Images The behaviorists got pretty far in understanding the kinds of algorithms that can change people. They found that noisy feedback works better than consistent feedback. That means that if you’re pressing the button to get your treat, and once in a while it doesn’t work, it actually engages your mind even more — it makes you more obsessive, whether you’re a rat, or a dog, or a person. And the reason why is that the brain wants to understand the world and if there’s this thing that isn't quite working, your brain just keeps on trying to get it and wants to figure out how to build a better model. So you can really grab the brain that way. The results from the behaviorists’ research transformed the gambling industry and made it what it is today — an algorithmic, person-manipulation industry. People are driven by emotions and some emotions are cheaper, more efficient ways to engage us. Negative emotions get you first. Fear, anger, resentment, jealousy, insecurity, grab you, and it’s easier to renew them and keep you grabbed than positive things like nurturing, adoration, appreciation of beauty. Those emotions are softer. They’re easier to kill and harder to nurture in an audience. There’s an unfortunate imbalance. So, according to Sean Parker, these types of programming were put in intentionally [in Facebook’s design]. I wasn’t in the middle of Facebook, but my memory of those days — how people were talking and what was going on — is a little different. I don’t think that it’s so much that people were evil geniuses saying, “Let’s take the worst of behaviorism and manipulate the entire world.” I think what they were doing was: let’s maximize the efficiencies of our algorithms for a purpose. Tweedie: That purpose being engagement? Lanier : Well, this is maybe the greatest tragedy in the history of computing, and it goes like this: there was a well-intentioned, sweet movement in the ‘80s to try to make everything online free. And it started with free software and then it was free music, free news, and other free services. But, at the same time, it's not like people were clamoring for the government to do it or some sort of socialist solution. If you say, well, we want to have entrepreneurship and capitalism, but we also want it to be free, those two things are somewhat in conflict, and there’s only one way to bridge that gap, and it’s through the advertising model. And advertising became the model of online information, which is kind of crazy. But here’s the problem: if you start out with advertising, if you start out by saying what I’m going to do is place an ad for a car or whatever, gradually, not because of any evil plan — just because they’re trying to make their algorithms work as well as possible and maximize their shareholders value and because computers are getting faster and faster and more effective algorithms — what starts out as advertising morphs into behavior modification. It morphs into the very thing Weiner was warning about. Getty Images A second issue is that people who participate in a system of this time, since everything is free since it’s all being monetized, what reward can you get? Ultimately, this system creates assholes, because if being an asshole gets you attention, that’s exactly what you’re going to do. Because there’s a bias for negative emotions to work better in engagement, because the attention economy brings out the asshole in a lot of other people, the people who want to disrupt and destroy get a lot more efficiency for their spend than the people who might be trying to build up and preserve and improve. T here used to be this sense of an arc in history in which, if there was something that seemed like an injustice in society and people worked to improve it, there might be some backlash, but gradually it would improve. Now, what happens is that the backlash is greater than the original thing, and in some ways worse. For instance, the Arab Spring, driven by social media, turned into networks of terrorists. A few women trying to improve their place in the gaming world turned into Gamergate, which, in turn, became a prototype for the alt-right. Black Lives Matter is followed by a rise of white supremacy and neo-fascism which would have been inconceivable until recently. Now, I’m just waiting to see what happens with the #MeToo movement, because the same thing always happens with these moments that are social media-centric. That good energy becomes fuel for a system that is routed to annoy another group of people who are introduced to each other, and then get riled up and that becomes even more powerful, because the system inherently supports the negative people more than the positive people. My prediction, which I hate and which I’m sorry for, is that the #MeToo backlash will be far more powerful than the #MeToo movement. And that’s because the backlash from all these other movements was more powerful than the original. And I’d say that social media driven by the so-called advertising media is fundamentally incapable of doing anything positive for society as it stands. Bernard : What do you think that #MeToo backlash would look like? Lanier : It’s unpredictable. It will be algorithmic. As long as it’s really annoyed and mean-spirited, that’s the thing that will count, because that would be the most engaging thing. We can’t predict what it will be, but it will be mean, and it might take on a surprising character, but it will happen. People don’t understand that #MeToo will inevitably lead to a negative outcome because of the way that things are figured structurally right now. I find that it takes about a year for it to cycle through the system, for the good stuff to turn into the bad stuff. Business Insider I try to draw a certain line, and it’s a difficult line to draw. I don’t want to become a judgmental, middle-aged person. If we can identify a particular process that’s doing damage and draw a circle around it and say, “This is it,” then I think we have to talk about it. I don’t think it’s possible for us to do better unless we change the incentive structure. Right now, of the big five tech companies, three of them don’t rely on that [advertising] model. Whatever you think of Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, they’re selling goods and services primarily. In terms of big companies, it’s really Google and Facebook. It’s not even the whole tech industry, it’s really kind of narrow. I’ m totally convinced if companies like Google and Facebook can shift to a more monetized economy, then things will get better, simply because people participating will have some incentive to add to the attention economy, where they at least have something else to do, rather than just be assholes. Bernard : So the model you’re presenting is that you would like to see users get paid for the data they contribute rather than have Facebook and Google give that money to advertisers? Lanier . Yeah. The way I imagine it is that you’d pay a small fee to use Facebook. We pay for all kinds of things we like, so don’t freak out. Netflix proves that this can work. Look at what happens when people pay their Netflix bills, we suddenly have peak TV. People say “I’ll pay for this,” and suddenly better stuff is there. I really reject this zero-sum idea where we should volunteer because there’s no way we can be better anyway. So Facebook would charge a fee. I’m sympathetic to a lot of people who say that young people or people in poverty couldn't afford it. And sure, make some accommodation for that. But i n general, people will pay a small fee, but then they’d also have a chance to earn money. I f someone is a super-contributor to a social network, if they’re really adding a lot of content, they should get paid for it. Like, what Google is doing now is communist central control. They’re saying that certain YouTube personalities should be paid because they like them, but not others. That’s ridiculous. It should be a market. It should be a gradual curve, it shouldn’t be some arbitrary rule where everything is free except for this designated group. It should be universal . I think it will make things better because it will give people a different game to play in addition to seeking attention. Sometimes people come to me and say, “You don’t make any sense,” because on the one hand I’m a tech critic and I say that tech is turning us into zombies and destroying the world. But, on the other hand, I love virtual reality and I'm promoting it. But there’s no contradiction — it’s all true at once. There’s zero contradiction. We can afford to be honest. If we’re going to look at the good side of tech, it's good enough that it’s not going to kill us to also look at the bad side and be fearful of it. I don’t think there is any inconsistency in looking at the whole spectrum. Business Insider Bernard : You have an eleven-year-old daughter. Do you monitor her interactions with technology? Lanier : I’ve had extraordinary good fortune in that I was the one that made my daughter get a smartphone. I’m in this wonderful position where the problem took care of itself. I don’t have a problem with her being too into technology. Sometimes you get lucky. There does seem to be a correlation, though. The more a parent is involved in the technology industry, the more cautious they seem to be about their kids’ interactions with it. A lot of parents in Silicon Valley purposefully seek out anti-tech environments for their kids, like Waldorf Schools. I hope we won’t have to go there. Bernard : I’m interested in what you think the future of technology looks like. From reading your new book, I got the sense that you’re slightly anxious, but that you also have a sense of optimism about the future. What do you think is in store? Lanier : I’m optimistic for many reasons, one reason is that it’s dysfunctional not to be. If you look at history, people have been through horrible things in the past, including very confusing things. The world has seen horrifying mass phenomenon. Somehow, we seem to be able to find our way through, and I do believe in an arc of history. I believe that as technology improves, it gives us more opportunities to learn to be decent. I think in the big picture, I am optimistic. Bernard : Do you think that there’s a problem with people becoming progressively addicted to technology or growing too reliant on it? Lanier : It’s all in the details. Using a technology a lot is not necessarily a bad thing, people use books a lot too. The mere use of it is not bad. When we talk about addiction, we should make it specific, and in the case of behavioral addiction, it’s really a noisy feedback loop. I do believe that these noisy feedback loops are dysfunctional, and they should not exist. Bernard: There’s also been so many differing perspectives regarding artificial intelligence (AI). Some people, like Elon Musk, think that we should be more skeptical because it could end up controlling us, while others, like Mark Zuckerberg, seem to think it’s less insidious. Where do you fall in the spectrum of that debate? Lanier : I have a position that is both unusual and yet entirely correct. From my perspective, there isn’t any AI. AI is just computer engineering that we do. If you take any number of different algorithms and say, “Oh, this isn’t just some program that I’m engineering to do something, this is a person, it’s a separate entity,” it’s a story you’re telling. That fantasy really attracts a lot of people. And then you call it AI. As soon as you do that, it changes the story, it’s like you’re creating life. It’s like you’re God or something. I think it makes you a worse engineer, because if you’re saying that you’re creating this being, you have to defer to that being. You have to respect it, instead of treating it as a tool that you want to make as good as possible on your terms. The actual work of AI, the math and the actuators and sensors in robots, that stuff fascinates me, and I’ve contributed to it. I’m really interested in that stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the mythology that’s creepy. Tweedie : In your book, you describe AI as a wrapping paper that we apply to the things we build. Lanier : Yeah, you could say that. AI is a fantasy that you apply to things. The issue with AI is that we’re giving these artifacts we build so much respect that we’re not taking responsibility for them and designing them as well as possible. Business Insider The origin of this idea is with Alan Turing, and understanding Turing’s life is important to understanding that idea about AI because he came up with this notion of AI and the Turing test in the final weeks of his life, just before he killed himself while he was undergoing torture for his sexual identity. I don’t want to presume to know what was going on in Turing’s head, but it seems to me that if there’s this person who is being forced by the state to take these hormones that are essentially a form of torture, he’s probably already contemplating suicide or knows that he’ll commit suicide. And then he publishes this thing about how maybe computers and people are the same and puts it in the form of this Victorian parlor game. You look at it, and it's a psycho-sexual drama, it's a statement, a plea for help, a form of escape or a dream of a world where sexuality doesn’t matter so much, where you can just be . There are many ways to interpret it, but it’s clearly not just a straightforward, technical statement. For Turing, my sense is that his theory was a form of anguish. For other people, maybe it’s more like religion. If you change the words, you have the Catholic church again. The singularity is the rapture, you’re supposed to be a true believer, and if you’re not, you’re going to miss the boat and so on. I think our responsibility as engineers is to engineer as well as possible, and to engineer as well as possible, you have to treat the thing you’re engineering as a product. You can’t respect it in a deified way. It goes in the reverse. We’ve been talking about the behaviorist approach to people, and manipulating people with addictive loops as we currently do with online systems. In this case, you’re treating people as objects. It’s the flipside of treating machines as people, as AI does. They go together. Both of them are mistakes. Jaron Lanier's latest book, "Dawn of the New Everything," is on sale now. NOW WATCH: France's $21 billion nuclear fusion reactor is now halfway complete December 16, 2017 at 02:18PM