#so real of her to have a pride flag at her station

[spocks-kaathyra]

I was watching TOS and...

happy pride month to uhura and her fellow lesbians!

[canmom]

more relevantly to my actual life...

today I went down to the shipbuilding museum in Govan, on the site of the old Fairfields Shipyard. in Victorian times and much of the 20th century, this area was a massive industrial hub, a huge line of shipyards that built all kinds of ships from ocean liners to warships and oil tankers. the industrial history - how they built the ships, how it shaped the local architecture that includes the house I live in today, who these people like John Elder in the statues were, was pretty fascinating. but the broader narrative was a curious one.

Govan's history has a curious intertwining of political philosophies. Scotland has a certain degree of sectarianism, albeit not Northern Ireland bad, and Govan falls into the box of being a loyalist area, which still manifests in various traditions like the 'Pride of Govan' parade (which I encountered mostly as a loud clattering sound). there is a string of nationalist pride in the history told by the museum, when they talk about warships and so on, how at one point two-thirds of the world's ships were built in Britain and many of them right here.

but equally, it's a very working class area and it has a real socialist history. sure, I don't have to walk too far to find a statue of John Elder, the industrialist, and another of his wife who set up the park opposite the shipyard - but at the train station there is also a statue of local hero Mary Barbour, who led a successful rent strike during the First World War's crackdown on labour, and she too gets her space in the museum. some of the museum exhibits concerned the sort of labour history of the place - the strict seven-minute toilet breaks and history of lethal accidents.

the Fairfield company did not survive the second half of the 20th century, and went under a few decades back, leaving the shipyard facilities to change hands a few times. most recently, after having its future be in question for many years, the Fairfields shipyard was taken over by BAE Systems to make naval ships, such as destroyers, patrol boats and segments of aircraft carriers. at the museum this mostly seems to be treated as a good thing, part of the story of the 2010s economic revitalisation of the area. and I can imagine this shipyard does, in fact, employ a lot of people. the hangar-like building they've just erected there (to build some sort of ship) is a looming symbol of the military-industrial complex that I see whenever I am out in Govan.

and yet, it is also not something that seems to sit easily with people here. a local newsletter reported on a Palestine protest outside the shipyard and the harsh police response, in terms that heavily favoured the protestors. even if the shipyard employs a lot of people for the sake of the country's 'interests' (seriously they put that on the big recruitment poster), I don't get the impression I'm surrounded by nationalists.

actually pretty much all the people I have met in Glasgow have been awesome. there's all sorts of little social spaces and music groups and libraries and independent film festivals and so on around here, and so much nerd and weeb shit over in the city centre. I feel like I might be able to develop a sense of being part of a place that I never really managed to find in London (more on me than the Londoners, really).

come to think of it, there is also plentiful graffiti around town - most of it is of course tags, there is a really thriving tagging culture - but here are there are political ones, in most cases actually about Israel and Palestine. the 'free palestine' ones are not surprising and a welcome sight, but I do scratch my head at the one local (I assume) who went round drawing Israel's flag in blue pen and writing 'IDF' on surfaces, which seems off-message insofar as it comes off a lot more like a gang symbol than a reference to a nice clean professional military...

I still haven't managed to see the Govan Stones, the other big piece of History in Govan. the old church is closed, and won't reoopen until the summer. still, it's really cool that this museum exists, and I definitely recommend swinging by (entry is free). they have see some huge model ships, insane amounts of videos, and a pretty cool 3D visualisation of the evolution of the area, and the attendant was really keen to chat with me and my friend and tell us about the exhibits lmao

[satelliterayne]

Eddie is so ‘dad shaped’ as May likes to remind him and he denies it until the day that Hen leaves the station and they have a new probie and the new kid starts and she’s barely 21 and graduated from highschool a year early and has a degree in conservation and biology of all things and Eddie looks at her and immediately picks up on the small rainbow tattooed on her hand. He’s spent 30 years of his life repressed, sue him if he likes knowing that the generations after him are safer to be out and proud about it. He also can see that shes anxiously pulling her long sleeves down as if to cover it and so he goes over and shows her his home screen which is of course him and Buck and Chris at LA pride last year and the watery smile she gives him makes it worth it when he notices at lunch that her sleeves are pulled up to her elbows. After that it just accidentally becomes a ThingTM anytime someone enters the firehouse thats even a little bit gay Eddie just… adopts them (Ravi insists he was the first queer that Eddie adopted but Buck maintains that its just misplaced Stockholm syndrome from when Eddie saved Ravi from a chainsaw wielding Buck). He doesn’t do it on purpose, he just aches sometimes, imagining them coming into the firehouse and not knowing for sure if they will be accepted or just tolerated.

Jay comes into the firehouse just after Cora and they immediately gravitate towards Eddie, soon his weekends off are filled with wine nights at Karen and Hen’s that have grown to include Cora and her girlfriend and Jay complaining about their crush on Dylan who works at the 136 with Lena and then May starts coming and then it just spirals from there. There is a groupchat used to coordinate babysitting for date nights and wine nights and memes. so so so many memes.(Eddie is out of his comfort zone and why the fuck does Cora keep sending raccoon memes that are mildly concerning) 

Jay’s little brother who’s Christophers age hangs out at the firehouse to do his homework ONE TIME and Eddie learns that Jay was “asked to find another place to live” after coming out and that their little brother followed after announcing he was bisexual. Eddie aches for them and on his next 48 off he ropes Buck into making dinner and he invites Jay and Blake over for a family dinner and pretends to not notice when Jay thanks Buck for their first real homecooked meal in years, from that day forward there is a standing invitation for the siblings and Buck teaches them both how to cook.  Cora ends up spending the night on his couch after her first real fight with her girlfriend, he wakes up the following morning to the sound of Chris practicing his speech for his sophomore AP english class and Cora listening so intently and giving such good pointers that it makes Eddie joke about her being the big sister Chris has always wanted before pulling her into a hug before she leaves (he also ends up officiating her wedding and cries. Buck has proof). May comes over before she introduces her girlfriend to Athena and Bobby for the first time and Ravi just comes over whenever he wants to complain about how gay panic inducing it is for hot guys to live in his apartment complex and work out at the same time as him. 

Eddie has moved on from being nicknamed 8-pack and is now dubbed mother duck because “Eddie you adopted us like fucked up trauma ducklings and now we follow you around” said by a very deadpan Jay. (Eddie does NOT cry when Chris and Blake go to senior prom together.) Even farther into the future, when he becomes captain of the 118 he prides himself on having the queerest shift in the LAFD, he keeps a pride flag in his office, next a framed picture of him and Buck on their wedding day, Chris and Blake’s wedding invitations and 7 rubber ducks, all signed by his original crew of adopted ducklings.

Idk man I just really need to see Eddie cope with Chris growing up by adopting traumatized queer firefighters on accident. 

[lesbianandstressing]

maya bishop and carina deluca relationship headcanons

first of all this is now my new favorite gif

carina loves to tease maya about how short she is

maya doesn’t think she’s that short (she is)

maya practically drops to the floor when carina speaks italian

she finds it so hot

carina tried to teach maya italian and it did not go well

she had to stop for the sake of her own sanity

when they have kids, maya would be called mommy and carina would be called mama

they go to pride every year with the whole station

carina helps decorate the engine and ladder

have the bisexual flag and the rainbow flag hanging in their living room

after maya and her mom reconcile, carina develops a close relationship with katherine

she lost her mom years ago and hasn’t had a real mother figure in her life since then

except for miranda bailey but bailey doesn’t know this

maya loves the relationship her mom and carina developed but hates that her mom shows carina embarrassing photos of maya as a child

carina loves it

they love to snuggle. they usually switch off between who is the big spoon and little spoon

take showers together to “save water”

we all know the real reason though 😏

maya instigates tickle fights

and always wins

carina wins pillow fights though

the team always teases maya for how sappy and in love she is

but they are very happy for her

carina has become super close with the team, especially vic and travis

vic once told maya she would take carina’s side if they broke up

maya was super offended and carina was laughing

carina is not a morning person

if maya even attempts to wake her up before nine a.m., maya will be sleeping on the couch for the night

the only exception for this is work shifts or christmas

maya is literally in complete awe when she watches carina work

she falls in love with her all over again, and carina is so glad someone appreciates her work

the team threw carina a party after she was made head of the ob department at grey sloan

she definitely cried

maya and carina host movie nights weekly at their house

the whole team comes over and they never let jack pick the movie because he has trashy taste

he took offense to this

andy very frequently has sleepovers in maya and carina’s bed, with carina in it

carina really can’t say no, she loves andy and the relationship she has with maya

anyways i can’t survive until 2024 without them

[canonickero]

Hello fellow Shellington fan!

Obviously I know who your favorite member of the Octonauts is, but I have another question.

Who is your favorite character besides Shellington? And why do you like them?

Best fishes,

Finch

I like a few. In the main Octonauts, I like Inkling for a lot of the same reasons I like Shellington. He's just cool. He also looks like he'd unironically say "gee willikers" or some shit

He gives aroace and he's so real for that

Inkling also is proud of himself and his achievements and he's very confident in his few abilities and he isn't afraid to do things he knows he needs to do to help his friends, family, and other creatures as an Octonaut.

---

For Octoagents, I like Natquik and Ranger Marsh. They're just traumatized old people who ended up as parents somehow. Marsh is very confident in Tweak and seems like the type of dad to go out and buy as many pride things as he can find because his kid just came out to him. He's going to Spencer's and slamming one of everything on the counter, panting because he carried it all at once. He's got all of the lesbian flag items he could possibly find and he comes back later in the day and goes up to Tweak, throwing pride flags and pins at her one by one.

Natquik is also very traumatized and I love the way he talks. He needs more screen time. I like how he talks about not having cocoa with the same urgency as his research station and only piece of shelter and civilization and work falling into an ice chasm.

[nysocboy]

Gemstones Episode 3.5: A pukka shell necklace, a stolen ring, castration anxiety, and Y2K

Episode 3.4 concludes with the family in disarray. Both BJ and Keefe have broken up with their partners in the aftermath of a betrayal, Jesse and Pontius are sparring, and the Montgomery Boys are secretly planning a violent retribution. 

Judy's Back Story: Rogers High School, 2000.  High school-aged Judy tries to flirt with her crush, art student Trent (Braxton Alexander), by throwing her hair over his desk.  He asks her to stop several times, but she says "You know you like it, Stud," embarrassing him in front of the class.  Finally he gets even by cutting her hair. Wait -- why isn't the super-rich Judy in private school?

She doesn't notice until the girls in the restroom laugh at her.  Then she storms into band practice and smashes his saxophone, yelling "I liked you, asshole!  I loved you!"

Some fans wonder whether Trent is gay.  Of course, lots of straight guys would reject Judy's vulgar come-ons, but Trent wears a pukka shell necklace: according to my research, around 2000, that was a queer code, a way to identify other gay people while leaving the straights oblivious. Plus he's an artist and a musician.  "Artistic" and "musical" are  often code for "gay."

Y2K is Real:  Remember the Y2K panic that Eli and his wife Aimee-Leigh profited from?  A reporter from Time Magazine shows Eli the commercial, telling folks that God wanted them to buy Gemstone Brand survival buckets, first aid kits, commode liners, and so on.  "So...do you think it's ethical to scare people and then benefit from that fear-mongering?" 

Kelvin's Little Tiny Doll Pecker: College-age Jesse brings his girlfriend Amber home to meet the family. Is she pregnant?  Gideon is going to be born in a year or less.

At dinner, Judy criticizes her for coming from a poor family.   Jesse says "Suck my dick!", and she responds "I want a meal, not a snack."  

Kelvin laughs: "That was good.  She means you have a tiny little titi" (pronouncced tih-tee).  Jesse then criticizes Kelvin's "tiny little doll pecker."  It is probably perfectly normal for a prepubescent boy, but Kelvin doesn't know that.

The Snake Handler. After a scene where Judy bullies Amber and steals her ring, setting up their squabbles in the present, we cut to a service at Peter Montgomery's Pentecostal-like snake-handling church.  Actually, he's the only one playing with a snake, while his sons play the guitar and violin, and his wife May-May goes into a filled-with-the-Spirit ecstasy. 

Background note: Snake-handling, based upon the injunction to "take up serpents" in Mark 16:17, was introduced by the Church of God with Signs Following during the Great Depression, and spread throughout Appalachia.  Today the practice is illegal in most Southern states, including South Carolina, and there are no more than 100 snake-handling churches left.  

In Them That Follow (2019), Walton Goggins (Baby Billy) plays the pastor of a snake-handling church.

Gemstone-Montgomery Tensions: At the Gemstone Compound,  May-May complains about having to identify herself at the security station, just to put flowers on her father's grave. "You can visit the grave whenever you want," Aimee-Leigh assures her. "We'll have security flag you right on through." But she's not satisfied. Geez, he's been dead since 1995. Haven't you figured out the visitation schedule by now?

Later she bosses Peter around and rejects every effort of Aimee-Leigh to be friendly, suggesting a long-standing feud.  We can see parallels in Amber and Judy in the present.

The Gay Pride Shirt: Continuing her harassment, May-May criticizes any idiot who believed that Y2K was real.  Peter looks nervous. Uh-oh, did he sink his money into Gemstone Brand survival supplies? 

Yep -- later, he tells Eli that he spent the family's life savings on a warehouse full of Y2K buckets to sell after the world ended, but the world didn't end, and now no one will by them. So you criticize Eli for profiting from the Y2K panic, but you were planning the same thing.  

Eli offers to buy his stock back.

Meanwhile, the Gemstone and Montgomery kids ride four-wheelers, then watch Jesse smash stuff with his Redeemer.  Wait -- the swingset -- this is the site of the Season 3 finale, coming up in a few episodes!

Kelvin is wearing a t-shirt with a row of multicolored hibiscus flowers, a flowered shirt, and a pukka-shell necklace similar to Trent's.  Some fans suggest that his shirt features a pride rainbow, but in-universe, his mother or a professional buyer is picking out his clothes at this point, and they would hardly be thinking of LGBTQ Pride.  Costumer designer Christina Flannery wanted to subtly suggest that Kelvin is gay, not imply that he is self-aware.

Castration Anxiety: There are dozens of protesters at the Salvation Center, claiming that Eli and Aimee-Leigh grifted them, and demanding their money back. Geez, what's the problem?  That stuff could be used as general survival supplies or even camping gear. Aimee-Leigh offers a lackluster non-apology.

Meanwhile, Kelvin cheers as Jesse drives the Redeemer: "That is the coolest thing ever!"  Jesse calls it "the moist maker," referencing lady parts, but Kelvin doesn't understand. Well, he's only eleven.  I didn't know about lady parts getting moist until I started watching this show.  

Uh-oh, Amber's ring is missing.  Kelvin thinks that Judy stole it: she steals a lot of things, dragging him to the mall to distract the salesclerk while she shoplifts. She threatens to cut "his private off" if he tells their parents.  It's not enough to make fun of his dick size, you have to introduce castration anxiety, too?  

I made a mistake:  At their after-church lunch, Peter owns up to the money he lost investing in Y2K gear. May-May rushes to confront Eli: "You tricked him!  You did this on purpose to punish me!" Yep, just like Judy, it's all about you. "But Eli is going to buy it back!"  "Nope, we're not taking his money.  It's evil!"  

Remember in Episode 3.1, May-May attacks Aimee-Leigh for "what you done to my family"?  I can't see here that Aimee-Leigh did anything; she's been perfectly nice.  It's all on May-May for bullying Peter and refusing to let Eli help.

All sensitivity: Jesse rushes into Judy's room to yell at her for stealing Amber's ring, but she is so distraught over her parents' ridicule that he ends up consoling her.  He explains that they both get angry easily, because they take after their father, whereas Kelvin "is more like Mama that way.  He handles things more like a girl does. Just sensitivitively and stuff."   Sounds like he is identifying Kelvin as feminine/gay at an early age.

To get revenge on Trent for the hair-cutting, Jesse breaks into the school dressed as Slenderman and bashes his face with a cymbal.  Surprisingly, that doesn't knock him out or kill him.  

Next Jesse shaves his head and pantses him. The other students all point and laugh.  He turns around, but now everyone is laughing at his penis! Ulp -- like Kelvin, the adult Trent will face fears of sexual inadequacy.

Left: not Trent's dick.

Peter's Fall:  In a very effective staging decision, we are looking through the window of a coffee shop as Peter enters the bank across the street. We hear screams and gunshots.  People rush out, followed by Peter and the security guard. Our view is obscured by cars driving past and the condiments on the table, but it looks like they exchange gunfire and collapse. Peter has been shot in the face and the leg. The security guard is dead.     The end.

The full review is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

[lilcheeseburgerbirb]

reposted from starcchild-archived

here’s a rough idea of Carter’s room at the compound! The furniture placement is accurate, but anything decorative isn’t fully accurate, since I was just using what was available in the sims. She has posters/photos on her wall (which, what’s shown on her wall is mostly filler - I honestly don’t know if she would have pride flags up? but I included them because I like them and I’m projecting because I want pride flags in my room DSFJHGSDF), has a filled bookshelf (and I have a list of her books here!), and has a few notebooks and textbooks out, usually around her desk. She has a dog bed for Kenobi at the foot of her bed, though he often ends up sleeping on hers anyway lol, as well as a water bowl and a toy station, though she’s honestly tempted to get rid of it since his toys still end up all over the place and often under her bed.

Carter keeps her room clean, mainly because she does have to upkeep it frequently due to having a longhaired dog, but also because surface space can get cluttered quickly with her work if she doesn’t keep herself organized. And her nightstand stays relatively bare, save for a water bottle and her phone charger, though sticky notes can be found scattered on it occasionally with reminders of appointments and deadlines.

now, there is a reason for her bed being pushed up against the corner, and for her desk being right by the door. She isn’t one that startles well, so having her desk there allows her to immediately notice when someone’s coming in. And she often tends to get straight to work after uni, so she’ll just dump her bag next to her desk the moment she gets to her room and sits down to start on whatever she needs to get done lol.

as for her bed, she often sleeps on her left side, so the way her bed’s positioned allows her to be facing the door while her back is to the wall. It’s… definitely a habit formed from her trauma, and her sleeping position changes depending on location and if she’s sleeping with someone. But, in this case, she can still hear what’s going on since her right ear isn’t covered, and she’ll notice if anyone’s coming in without being taken too off-guard.

I do wanna add she does have the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck up on her ceiling, and she has taken the time to arrange them to actually represent real-life constellations! She keeps the layout focused on constellations found in the southern hemisphere, and does actually take the time to rearrange them to match the season!

[genderqueerpositivity]

Meet the South Carolina native who created the transgender pride flag

Monica Helms dabbled with dressing as a woman in the secrecy of her own room while serving as a crew member on the USS Francis Scott Key submarine in Charleston in the 1970s — and she was almost caught by her superiors. Two decades later, Helms created the renowned Transgender Pride Flag in 1999. The road to boldly expressing her creativity and love for the transgender community was arduous. Born in Sumter in 1951, Helms prayed to God when she was 5 years old to make her a girl.

“As I got older, I started trying on my mother’s clothes when I was 12-13,” Helms said. “Because I felt like I wanted to dress as a woman because it was a part of me that was missing.” While serving in the U.S. Navy and stationed in San Francisco in 1976, she went out in public for the first time dressed as a woman.

“I was very quiet about it, of course, obviously. It felt natural,” Helms said. The United States military counted “homosexual acts” as grounds for discharge in the 1970s. After World War I, sodomy was a crime under a court-martial. Helms left the U.S. Navy in 1978. In 1992, she began taking hormones and officially came out as a woman in 1997. Worried that her transition would upset her father, Helms’ mother told her she wasn’t allowed back in her parents’ house in Phoenix, Arizona. At the time, Helms’ dad had Alzheimer’s and diabetes. “That was very painful,” Helms said. “That made me want to get a job out of Phoenix and go somewhere else. That’s why I came to Atlanta.” Throughout the ‘90s, Helms was encouraged by Mike Page, the creator of the bisexual Pride Flag, to create a transgender pride flag. She first flew it in 2000 in a Pride Parade in Phoenix.

“The stripes at the top and bottom are light blue, the traditional color for baby boys. The stripes next to them are pink, the traditional color for baby girls. The stripe in the middle is white, for those who are transitioning or consider themselves having a neutral or undefined gender,” Helms explained. Although legal progress has been made in recent years to benefit the LGBTQ+ community, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, Helms said she believes the United States has a long way to go toward equality. Georgia and South Carolina’s transgender community suffers discrimination under state laws, including South Carolina’s recently passed ban on transgender athletes in high school sports. “We’re going to have to get visited by aliens in order for trans people to not be discriminated against. They’re trying every so often to pass laws to restrict transgender kids from getting medical help,” Helms said. “It’s very upsetting.” She encourages anyone with a desire to transition to make sure they have a supportive community around them. Helms didn’t have that while she transitioned as an adult. “I had friends, and I lost some of them. But now, I have more friends that I can count on — people I know real well — than I’ve ever had in my entire life,” Helms gushed.

Now, her relationship with her family is “perfect.” Helms said that no one in her family has a problem with her transition. “My father passed away in 2004. When that happened, my mother wanted me to come back,” Helms said. Helms founded the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) in 2003 and is proud of the organization’s work to encourage the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to publish a directive for trans rights. “We received emails from trans veterans telling us that (the directive) worked. That places that they were not able to get help before are helping them,” Helms said. “I feel that we may have even saved lives, in that respect.” In her free time, Helms builds and launches model rockets. She also loves to produce videos and go camping with her wife, Darlene Darlington Wagner.

June, recognized as LGBTQ+ Pride Month, is one of Helms’ favorite times of the year, and she loves that the month encourages the queer community to be themselves in the face of adversity. “We’re very proud to be who we are,” Helms said. Since the early 2000s, Helms has always been shocked to see her flag in various places globally. “I’m always in wonder of where I see it. I’m always excited to see it in different places. And, you know, (to see it) in conservative states, it’s just, it’s amazing,” Helms said. But there’s one other place Helms wants to see the transgender pride flag fly.

“I need to see it in the International Space Station,” Helms declared.

[babblydrabbly]

The Suicide Squad (2021) || Tattoo Shop!AU Headcanons

Rick Flag || American Traditional

Rick opened the shop with Robert DuBois, unsure of which direction to take their business. They knew had room for a lot of artists, their only intention bringing in those who didn't have the right look on paper; People who had trouble getting jobs, people who wanted the freedom to ink with real passion.

Yes, he was a bit of a cliche. He got his first tattoo done while in the military, and now he was doing the same for similar clients most of the time; But Rick took anyone interested in his style.

Rick likes to take his time with consultations. Most of his work is big pieces— Shoulders, backs, forearms — He makes his clients feel welcome, never judging the meaning behind the occasionally corny tattoo. Gruff at first, he tends to go long on first meetings just getting to know those who have the time for a chat.

Rick takes on a lot of cover-up projects too. He likes to let the world know that mistakes can be fixed, even ones as permanent as ink.

He's the first one in and the last one out. Rick keeps a tight ship, making sure everything is stocked and all the others have their stations straight. When someone calls, Rick is usually the one picking up the phone.

Robert DuBois || Portraits

Much to his chagrin, Rick put Robert in charge of the artists. He makes sure wildcards like Harley keep up with their bookings and follows up on scheduling if sessions take more than one appointment. When a client is feeling lost about what they want in a piece, Robert can usually guess which artist is the perfect match; He's got a 100% success rate.

Rob has a portrait of his daughter that takes up most of his inner arm. He gets a lot of people that want similar tributes.

His sessions take a lot of hours. Robert will ask his client to tell him about a personal story to pass the time if they're comfortable with it— It also helps him focus. He hears a lot of stories about families, friends, lovers, etc. About the people whose faces he's bringing to life.

His style is mostly Black & Grey, but he does love when a client shells out for full colors.

He's strict about what he won't do— 'Stubbornly so' as Rick has put it before. Robert tends to tell clients what they want, but to be fair, he's usually right. As much as ensuring their artists are making enough to live by, he still runs he shop the way he set out to do.

Harley Quinn || Cartoon / Piercings

Harley is in and out of the parlor on an irregular basis (She's got a surprising amount of seniority). Rather than depending on appointments, she opens her chair to flash days— Especially Friday the 13th's. In fact, these days have started to bring in so much business that the others have begun drawing up work just for flash days too.

She handles the most piercings, only second to Rick. She likes encouraging people who want something that really stands out; Dermal piercings for ribbon tying, etc.

Her presence is chaotic, but her energy draws in new people and a lot of attention to the shop. When someone came in for a small piece from Harley, it wasn't uncommon they got to talking to one of the others for their next venture.

Her work is a rainbow of bright pigments; She'll mash together a caricature of Batman and Yogi Bear riding a rocket together— She really doesn't give a shit what you want. Somehow, she'll nail it.

Harley gets into the most spats at the shop. Rick has a zero tolerance policy, but trouble always seems to find Harley Quinn. Most assholes think messing with her will get them in a fight with one of the bigger guys— Smith or DuBois— but really Harley will be the one to send them out flat on their asses.

Christopher Smith || Realism

Chris and Robert never have to fight for clients, but there is something to be said about how they're the only two who overlap.

As much as he prides himself on great portrait work, he also has an endless portfolio full of creative realism. He becomes known in the city for his muscle pieces— Detailed snippets of machinery or animals peaking out beneath 'torn' flesh. He likes to create entire sleeves from shoulder to wrist. DuBois thinks his work is macabre, but clients love seeing how they look with open wounds.

Chris isn't much of a talker when a client is in his chair. He makes sure every minute of a session counts. Some clients try to bite it through the pain— But he can tell when someone needs to tap out.

They all seem to have something to hide; That's what happens when you run a place like their's. Robert suspects that Chris' aloof nature stems from the life he's never really keen to talk about.

There is absolutely no alcohol allowed in the shop during hours, but some nights Chris will pour some shots in the backroom after they've closed; As much as he butts heads with Rick and Robert, there have been plenty of nights spent shooting the shit and throwing portfolio ideas back and forth.

Cleo Cazo || Blackwork / Abstract

Cleo is the youngest artist in the shop. Despite her age, she's mastering her own blackwork style. From geometric to illustrative, clients love to ask her what she sees in the inky black— To let her create images in the negative space of their skin.

That being said, Cleo will often hang around the shop even when she's not working, observing and learning from the more seasoned artists.

Rick had found her, as he did most of their little pod of misfits. She had been drawing in a notebook, all alone in a coffee shop he frequented. They weren't taking on apprentices, but Rick had a habit of following his gut. When he introduced her to Robert, he had been skeptical. Rick never lets him forget it— If anyone had an apprentice now, it was Robert.

Her station intimidates many clients. She decorates it with her disarming sketches— Black smoke, rat skulls, eerie empty alleys. But Cleo is sweet and careful. She's not just a pro at the art, she's good at making her clients feel comfortable without trying.

She has the honor of being one of Robert's only pro-bono clients: On her right arm resides the image of her late father in photographic clarity, the word "Purpose" in a curling script beneath him. Cleo shares her story in the quiet of their empty shop one night as Robert inks the word into her skin; For him, it's payment enough.

Abner Krill || Trash Polka (Sort Of)

Rick never expected to hire such an odd one out at the shop. Abner had worn a khaki jacket to his interview, for god's sake. He was all slacks and tucked in shirts, his sleeves rolled up to reveal abstract ink on his forearms and knuckles.

When he first came in with his portfolio, Rick noticed that his style was more colorful than he expected. Instead of the traditional reds and blacks of Trash Polka, Abner had a habit of inserting whatever color he felt like into his work. But, they were never for hard artistic rules in the shop.

Abner is very reserved during consultations. Many clients assume his silence is judgement, but by the time they're finalizing the ideas, Abner is giving them feedback that blows most people out of the water. Maybe he has a hard time communicating, but the sketches he ends up with fill his clients with confidence.

Like Cleo, Abner spends most of his time in the shop, working in the back or being trusted with the business side of things when Rick is busy.

Abner has a piece from every artist in the shop. His chest and back are a clash of styles. He's formed a reputation for handling the chair like a champ— Usually it's the other artists who have to take a break when working on a piece for him.

[antifainternational]

2021: A Timeline of Bigoted, Fascist, And  Extreme Right Violence - Part Two (July-December 2021)

Read Part One [January-June 2021] of this Timeline Here: bit.ly/2021hatecrimespt1

Since 2017, we’ve been running the International Violent Hate Crimes Research Project, tracking as many incidents of bigoted, fascist, and extreme right violence as we can document (you’ll find our 2020 report here: http://bit.ly/2020ViolentHateCrimesReport). We continue this project in 2021 with this timeline of hate-motivated violence we’ve documented and with an accompanying map (http://bit.ly/2021ViolentHateCrimesMap) - both of which we will be updating, in real time, throughout the year.   Please help us continue & expand this project by making a donation! https://bit.ly/intlhatecrimesresearch

(CONTENT WARNING FOR EXTREME BIGOTED LANGUAGE AND GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF VIOLENCE)

July 1, 2021: Khaled Awad - a man described by his college roommates as "violent" and "very much anti-semitic," stabs a rabbi eight times after trying to steal his car. When Brighton, MA. police catch up to Awad, he points a gun at them before surrendering. SOURCE: https://boston.cbslocal.com/2021/07/02/rabbi-stabbed-shlomo-noginski-khaled-awad-brighton-anti-semitic/ July 1, 2021: 27-year-old Yang Wu is leaving a Cardiff, Wales petrol station with his gay friend when two men mistake them for a couple and verbally abuse them with homophobic slurs before beating him unconscious. Wu suffers facial injuries, broken bones and broken teeth. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/07/04/cardiff-homophobic-hate-crime/

July 1, 2021: The body of 32-year-old trans woman Ivonne Tlahuetl is discovered inside the Iztapalapa, Mexico salon where she worked. Her hands and feet were bound. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/01/ivonne-tlahuetl_iztapalapa-ciudad-de-mexico-mexico_804a0fc1

July 3, 2021: A 21-year-old nursing assistant out clubbing in A Coruña, Spain, is targeted by a group of men who beat him to death while shouting homophobic slurs at him. SOURCE: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/protests-spain-against-suspected-lgbt-hate-crime-2021-07-05/ July 3, 2021: A man walking home from a Greenwich Village subway station is pursued by a man screaming homophobic abuse at him. The aggressor catches up and attacks the man, kicking and punching him, breaking his jaw so badly that he is rushed into emergency surgery. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/07/05/doctor-homophobic-attack-new-york-city/

July 3, 2021: Proud Boys and other far-right protesters held a transphobic rally at Wi Spa in Los Angeles. Counter-protesters showed up in support of transgender rights. During the protest Proud Boys attacked counter-protesters and press. One journalist was beaten with an iron pipe, and a counter-protester was stabbed with a knife by a Proud Boy. A far-right protester was also stabbed by one of the people on his own side who mistook him as a counter-protester. SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi_Spa_controversy#Protests

July 3, 2021: Trans woman Grace Mahoro dies in a Malawi hospital after being brutally beaten by a mob. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/03/grace-mahoro_malawi_e663cadb

July 3, 2021: On the day of the Zagreb Pride march, a man carrying a rainbow flag is attacked by a group of men who punch him and set his flag on fire. Later that same day, a teenaged girl is attacked by a group of men, who knock her to the ground, injuring her, and steal her rainbow flag before fleeing. SOURCE: https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5pzw/violence-broke-out-at-a-pride-march-for-the-first-time-in-10-years

July 3, 2021: Two gay men were attacked in València, Spain, by a dozen homophobes, after one the attackers asked a victim if he had any money.  When the victim told them he did not have any money the attackers started yelling homophobic slurs and attacking. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/07/06/spain-homophobic-hate-crime-gay/

July 4, 2021: While relaxing in a Medellín, Colombia park after a Pride event, a group of trans women are attacked by a man wielding a knife, who injuries two of the women and fatally wounds 23-year-old Isabella Garzón Monsalve. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/04/isabella-garzon-monsalve_medellin-colombia_e06031bf

July 4, 2021: While waiting for a bus in Dehli, India, a 62-year-old Muslim man is lured into a car by four men who then drive him around the city, taunting him with Islamophobic abuse and torturing him. When he is finally released and goes to the police, they refuse to file a hate crime report and try to dissuade him from pursuing charges. SOURCE: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/delhi-resident-moves-top-court-seeks-compensation-for-hate-crimes-101637930745212.html

July 4, 2021: Far-right coca growers blockade a road near Coripata, Bolivia, in protest against the left-wing government, clashing with police. One police officer is killed when he is shot in the back. SOURCE: https://www.paginasiete.bo/seguridad/2021/7/4/pugna-por-adepcoca-deja-un-policia-muerto-el-gobierno-llama-al-dialogo-300057.html July 5, 2021: A mob of hundreds of homophobes rampage through Tblisi, Georgia, destroying the offices of Tblisi Pride and assaulting more than 50 people, including several journalists (one of whom died), forcing the cancelation of a planned Pride march in the city. SOURCE: https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2021/07/07/tbilisi-episcopal-church-a-refuge-for-lgbtq-people-in-georgia-shaken-by-homophobic-attacks/

July 5, 2021: A Jewish man walking in Brooklyn is attacked by another man who lunges at him with a club fashioned from discarded furniture, which he uses to hit the Jewish man in the chest before throwing it at him. SOURCE: https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/07/09/jewish-man-hit-with-furniture-hate-crime/

July 5, 2021: 28-year-old Deangelo Wallace is shot and killed outside a Kansas City, MO. police station in an attack his family believe was motivated by the fact he was gay.  SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/07/08/x-factor-deangelo-wallace-dead/

July 5, 2021: After purchasing a wooden club online and researching how to get away with murder, Springfield, OR resident Daniel Andrew McGee arranges a date with a gay man on the dating app Grindr. Once at the man's house, McGee beats him nearly to death with the club. SOURCE: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/oregon-man-charged-federal-hate-crime-after-attacking-gay-man

July 5, 2021: While at a party in Beira Rio, Brazil, 37-year-old Crismilly Pérola attracts the attention of a transphobic teen, who shoots her, then hits her with a shovel before dragging her to the river and throwing her in, killing her. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/05/crismilly-perola-piu-piu-bombom_recife-pernambuco-brazil_79955a6a July 6, 2021: 32-year-old Michael Parks decides to draw a swastika on his chest with a felt marker and then walk around shirtless in a Toronto park, yelling anti-semitic slurs at the first person who noticed him before throwing a heavy object at the person. Parks would repeat this stunt four days later in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood, where he harassed three Jewish women and then attacked a man who intervened, punching him repeatedly. SOURCE: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/antisemitic-swastika-man-park-toronto-1.6104039

July 6, 2021: 55-year-old Ramon Castro slashes another man in the face with a wooden stake while the two were waiting in line at a Queens, NY. taco truck after calling the man a "faggot" and loudly declaring "I hate Latinos and faggot people!" Castro told arresting officers "homosexuals are OK but not when you’re an adult." The victim required 16 stitches to close the wound. SOURCE: https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-queens-hate-crime-slash-20210716-6ibzbxsdufalnokznwi4a42quy-story.html July 7, 2021: An Asian mother and her six-year-old son are confronted by a woman in a Las Vegas shopping mall who racially abuses them both before punching the six-year-old boy. SOURCE: https://www.ibtimes.com/woman-allegedly-punched-6-year-old-asian-boy-while-hurling-racial-slurs-3249009

July 7, 2021: 25-year-old trans woman Valeria Carrasco is found strangled to death inside her Villa de Álvarez, Mexico home. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/07/valeria-carrasco_villa-de-alvarez-colima-mexico_eba076a3

July 7, 2021: Turkish journalist Erk Acarer, a noted critic of Turkish president Erdoğan, is attacked in front of his house in Berlin-Neukölln by three men who beat him to the ground in front of his wife, yelling "You don't write anymore!"  Acerer is treated for a head injury sustained in the attack. SOURCE: https://taz.de/Attacke-auf-tuerkischen-Journalisten/!5780835/

July 7, 2021: When 27-year-old trans woman Fabiana da Silva Lucas enters a bar in Santa Cruz do Capibaribe, Brazil to use the washroom, she is followed by a 22-year-old man who stabs her to death before attempting to flee. Other patrons in the establishment seize him and beat him before the authorities take him into custody. The police characterize the murder as motivated by transphobia. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/07/fabiana-da-silva-lucas_santa-cruz-do-capibaribe-pernambuco-brazil_8c005f30 July 8, 2021: 52-year-old Michael Joseph Schlimmer threatens a black man in Springfield, OR. with a knife, then later approaches a black woman playing a video lottery terminal and whispers in her ear that he is going to kill her. SOURCE: https://nbc16.com/newsletter-daily/da-evidence-in-springfield-case-doesnt-support-the-bias-crime-charge

July 8, 2021: 18-year-old trans woman Rachel Oliver is stabbed and shot in Caridade, Brazil, killing her. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/08/ravel-oliver_caridade-ceara-brazil_e0411511

July 9, 2021: 27-year-old trans woman Danizinha "Dani" Fontiny is dumped from a car in Açailândia, Brazil, after being shot to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/09/danizinha-fontiny-dani_acailandia-maranhao-brazil_2c9c0cea

July 9, 2021: 32-year-old trans woman Robert Silva succumbs to her injuries in a Recife, Brazil hospital, after a teenager poured alcohol over her and set her on fire. Over 40% of her body had been burned and doctors had been forced to amputate both of her arms in an attempt to save her life, to no avail. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/09/roberta-silva_recife-pernambuco-brazil_afda76e7 July 10, 2021: 32-year-old Michael Parks decides to draw a swastika on his chest with a felt marker and then walk around shirtless in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood in Toronto, where he harassed three Jewish women and then attacked a man who intervened, punching him repeatedly. Four days earlier, Parks had pulled the same stunt in a Toronto park, yelling anti-semitic slurs at the first person who noticed him before throwing a heavy object at the person. SOURCE: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/antisemitic-swastika-man-park-toronto-1.6104039

July 10, 2021:  A London woman is brutally assaulted and left barely able to breathe because of an injury she sustained while defending her friend from homophobic abuse in a vicious attack by three men in Blondin Park in London, UK. The friend described how they were walking in the park with the victim when a young man sitting on a bench started hurling homophobic abuse towards them. “I ignored it and walked past, and my friend wasn’t gonna have it,” they said. They continued: “My friend turned around and said, ‘No!’ She put him in his place and said, ‘F**king stop being homophobic and keep it to yourself.'”According to MyLondon, the men continued, and one person from the group got up from the bench and started attacking the victim. The friend described how he “ran at her, grabbed her by her hair, kicked her and punched her in the face so hard that he broke her nose”. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/07/21/homophobic-attack-london-ealing/ July 10, 2021: 24-year-old Aodhán Benson is surrounded by a group of men in Liverpool's city centre. The men shout homophobic slurs at Benson while beating him. Benson is hospitalized for his injuries. SOURCE: https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/11/graduate-24-feared-he-would-die-after-appalling-homophobic-attack-14908331/ July 10, 2021: 24-year-old Bunker Kainoa Gref is arrested after screaming racial taunts at a group of Latinx people in San Luis Obispo, CA. and then pulling out a knife and threatening to stab them. SOURCE: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/crime/article252707008.html July 11, 2021: 63-year-old Frank Rodriguez is walking in Manhattan when he crosses paths with an Asian woman. Shouting "fuck you, you Asian bitch!" Rodriguez spits on her, throws a bottle of water at her, and then hits her in the arm with an umbrella. SOURCE: https://nypost.com/2021/07/11/man-charged-in-hate-crime-attack-on-asian-woman-in-ny/ July 12, 2021: A Muslim mother and daughter walking across a parking lot in Hamilton, Canada are nearly run over by a vehicle. The driver jumps out and screams death threats and Islamophobic abuse at both women, who flee and hide behind some bushes nearby. The man gives chase, catches up to them, and threatens to murder them before bystanders intervene. SOURCE: https://hamiltonpolice.on.ca/news/hamilton-police-investigating-hate-crime/

July 12, 2021: Police in eastern Austria raid the homes of nine members of a far-right biker gang, seizing automatic weapons, hand grenades, bullets, nazi paraphernalia, and drugs.  The police believe the gang was plotting to form a nazi militia to "overthrow the system." SOURCE: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/neo-nazi-biker-gang-amassed-arsenal-for-war-2swt60kwg

July 12, 2021: 41-year-old trans woman Fray Mando Bautista Bobadilla is shot dead in the streets of Manzanillo, Mexico by two assailants on a motorcycle. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/12/fray-mando-bautista-bobadilla_manzanillo-colima-mexico_5fbbda3b

July 12, 2021: A gay British man had his jaw smashed with a hammer in a homophobic attack in front of a popular gay establishment in Barcelona, Spain. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/07/16/barcelona-hammer-attack-homophobia/

July 14. 2021: Jérémy Mourain, the former leader of the nazi group White Wolf Klan, is arrested in Gauchy, France after shooting four people and stabbing a fifth. SOURCE: https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/hauts-de-france/aisne/saint-quentin/l-ex-chef-d-un-groupe-neonazi-incarcere-pour-violences-aggravees-dans-l-aisne-le-caractere-racial-de-l-agression-ecarte-2186383.html

July 14, 2021: Fascists of the Bastion Social Group chase an antifascist into a bar in Clermont-Ferrand, France, then attack one of the bar’s patron, mistaking him for the man they were chasing. The man is punched and kicked and suffers a broken jaw.SOURCE: https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/puy-de-dome/clermont-ferrand/double-fracture-45-jours-itt-il-raconte-son-agression-erreur-membre-presume-du-bastion-social-1523568.html

July 14, 2021: 37-year-old Vallejo, CA. resident Jarrod Copeland is the 2nd person to be charged in a conspiracy to firebomb the Democrat offices in revenge for the 2020 U.S. federal election and to "start a war."  Along with 45-year-old Napa resident Ian Benjamin Rogers (who was arrested earlier in 2021), the two plotted with a militia group to firebomb the offices.  Police seized over 45 firearms, including a machine gun and other prohibited firearms, as well as five pipe bombs, from the pair. SOURCE: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/07/16/bay-area-men-ian-benjamin-rogers-jarrod-copeland-indicted-planning-firebomb-democratic-headquarters-sacramento/

July 14, 2021:  A group of fifteen fascists attack a leftist bloc in a yellow vest demonstration in Toulouse, France. SOURCE: https://fafwatch2.noblogs.org/post/2021/07/20/alliance-mythomane-les-identitaires-en-roue-libre/

July 14, 2021: A gay man was beaten by a homophobic mob in Wa, Ghana. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/07/16/ghana-gay-hate-crime-homophobic/

July 14, 2021: Jérémy Mourain, former leader of the nazi group White Wolf Klan, is arrested and indicted for aggravated violence in Gauchy, France, after having shot and stabbed four people, most likely other neo-nazis. SOURCE: https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/hauts-de-france/aisne/saint-quentin/l-ex-chef-d-un-groupe-neonazi-incarcere-pour-violences-aggravees-dans-l-aisne-le-caractere-racial-de-l-agression-ecarte-2186383.html

July 15, 2021: A racialized trans woman is harassed by a  man yelling racist slurs at her in a dog park. “He told me that me and my piece of s***t dog deserved to die. So I leaned down and tried to put the leash on my dog so that we could leave.” She was then hit on the back of the head and kicked in the side of the head and felt her skull bounce off a fence post.  The woman is hospitalized with a fractured eye socket. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/07/23/trans-woman-wyoming-dog-park/

July 16, 2021: A Jewish man walking to synagogue in Brooklyn, NY is attacked by two men, who punch & kick him before robbing him of religious items and fleeing. SOURCE: https://abc7ny.com/man-robbed-walking-to-synagogue-religious-items-taken-hate-crime-investigation/10891845/

July 17, 2021: A journalist is assaulted by far-right protesters at a transphobic protest at Wi Spa in Los Angeles. SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi_Spa_controversy#Protests

July 17, 2021:  A racist man attacks a group of Romani women and their children verbally and physically in Kalinovo, Slovakia.  The man racially abused the group and then assaulted them with a wooden club, then attacks three passerby who try to intervene. Several of the Roma women and children are injured, one with a serious shoulder injury.  SOURCE: http://www.romea.cz/cz/zpravodajstvi/zahranicni/spiny-cikanske-muz-bezduvodne-rasisticky-zautocil-na-skupinu-romek-a-romskych-deti

July 17, 2021: During demonstrations against the "sanitary pass" in Besançon, France, a field reporter and photographer for Radio BIP / Media 25 is assaulted  by a neo-nazi, after filming the man attacking two other protesters. SOURCE: https://radiobip.fr/site/blog/2021/07/19/communique-agression-dun-reporter-de-radio-bip-media-25/

July 18, 2021: 29-year-old trans woman Fatima Belén Barrios dies in police custody under unexplained circumstances. The police claim she died of of an overdose but upon seeing her body at the Formosa, Argentina morgue, her family were shocked to discover she had a broken nose, broken knee, crushed forehead, and bloody wounds all over her body. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/18/fatima-belen-barrios_formosa-argentina_473d21b6

July 19, 2021: A Kurdish agricultural worker is mobbed by a group of men in Dereçine, Turkey, who kidnap him, drive him to a wooded area, and break his arm. When the man's family arrives at the scene of the kidnapping to address the matter, a mob descends on them, attacking them with rocks and clubs, injuring six more family members. SOURCE: https://medyanews.net/turkey-kurdish-mother-and-son-who-escaped-a-lynching-in-afyon-recall-the-incident/ July 19, 2021: The Aurora, CO home of an Iraqi immigrant family is targeted by assailants, who cut their surveillance cameras and then fire up to 18 shots into the home while the family slept upstairs. The father later received a racist, threatening phone call at his business. SOURCE: https://kdvr.com/news/aurora-family-home-shot-up-while-children-slept-inside/

July 19, 2021: The body of trans activist Aline Sánchez is discovered in her Mexicaltzingo, Mexico home. She had been stabbed to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/19/aline-sanchez_mexicaltzingo-estado-de-mexico-mexico_9813c617

July 20, 2021: Massimo Adriatici, a far-right politician in Voghera, Italy, shoots a 38-year-old Moroccan man dead in a local bar. SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/22/alleged-killing-migrant-far-right-politician-italy-gun-control-row

July 20, 2021: A drunk 64-year-old man wielding a knife threatened a group of juveniles in a park in Senica, Slovakia. According to Police the assailant was bothered by the youngsters having fun. The man decided to pull a knife on the group and threaten them with death while commenting on their Romani origin. SOURCE: http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/slovakia-drunken-knife-wielding-man-threatens-to-kill-romani-children-for-being-in-a-park-and-is-now-in-custody#.YPpQ7qLdzUU.facebook

July 21, 2021: 21-year-old HIghland County, OH. resident Tres Genco is arrested after the FBI uncover a plot hatched by the self-described incel to commit a mass shooting targeting women on a university campus. Police recover an illegally-converted fully-automatic assault rifle, a "ghost gun" with the serial number removed, body armour, and ammunition. SOURCE: https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019089834/police-foiled-an-ohio-incels-plot-to-kill-women-in-a-mass-shooting-prosecutors-s July 21, 2021: A mob of at least 60 people attack a Kurdish family in Konya, Turkey - shooting and killing member of the family in what is being described as a "racist attack." An eyewitness claims the family had been attacked at least three other times, after a local politician encouraged locals to attack them. SOURCE: https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/turkey/21072021

July 21, 2021: 43-year-old trans woman Fabiola Rivera is found stabbed to death inside her home in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/21/fabiola-rivera_san-luis-potosi-mexico_279f5e1f

July 21, 2021: The Department of Justice announces that 21-year-old Hillsboro, OH. resident Tres Genco - a self-described "incel," has been charged for plotting to commit a mass murder targeting women at an Ohio university.  Police seized a note where Genco states he aspires to killing 3000 people, along with body armour, an assault rifle with a "bump stock," and boxes of ammunition. SOURCE: https://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-man-charged-hate-crime-related-alleged-plot/story

July 22, 2021: Orlando, FL police arrest two teens after a crime wave of robberies and kidnappings targeting gay men in the area. "That's what you get for doing that gay shit," one of the accused told one of the victims as he held him at gunpoint. SOURCE: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-ne-lgbtq-hate-crime-spree-robberies-kidnapping-20210722-agri7n3zrfe6xgzb3ctgjiz5ke-story.html

July 22, 2021: 40-year-old Travis Crawford is arrested after confronting two transgender teens in a La Crosse, WI. park, punching one of the teens and then kicking him in the face. SOURCE: https://wxow.com/2021/07/22/call-for-updating-hate-crime-laws-after-man-charged-in-copeland-park-assault/ July 22, 2021: 25-year-old Marcia Bell is arrested after allegedly committing a string of attacks against Asian people in Queens, NY over a three-month period. In the latest attack on July 21st, Bell allegedly attacked an elderly Asian woman with a hammer, leaving her seriously injured. SOURCE: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-woman-faces-4-hate-crime-charges-in-string-of-anti-asian-attacks/3170193/

July 23, 2021: Screaming anti-Asian abuse and making remarks about COVID-19, Melvin Taylor attacks a Korean woman in Santa Monica, CA before attempting to steal her purse. Taylor now faces second-degree robbery, assault by means of force likely to produce bodily injury, and assault with a deadly weapon charges, with hate crimes charges pending. SOURCE: https://www.davisvanguard.org/2021/07/man-in-los-angeles-county-charged-with-hate-crime-assault-of-korean-woman/

July 23, 2021: Description: Right-wing anti-mask protesters fight with counter-protesters at a hospital in Los Angeles, USA. One counter-protesters is pepper sprayed.SOURCE: https://twitter.com/ACatWithNews/status/1418378192860049409

July 23, 2021: A group of vacationers from Prague assault local Romani people in Sokolov, Czechia, first attacking a Romani child and then other Romani people. They are said to have attacked any Romani people on-sight. Several people are injured and had to be treated in the hospital. One Romani woman suffered a broken arm after one of the out-of-town assailants kicked her. "They were saying 'Black swine, we'll kill you, we'll send you to the gas chambers'. SOURCE: http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/out-of-town-youth-assault-romani-child-and-then-other-roma-in-sokolov-czech-police-defused-the-conflict-and-are#.YP0OB46O8Uc.facebook

July 24, 2021: 32-year-old Benton Beyer escalates his months-long campaign of harassment against an interracial couple in Cold Springs, MN who dared to put a Black Lives Matter sign on their lawn and speak publicly about racial discrimination in their child's public school by driving a stolen SUV through their home. In the months previous, Beyer had broken the couple's windows, shot out security cameras, and followed them through local stores. SOURCE: https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2021/07/27/benton-beyer-cold-spring-stalking/ July 25, 2021: A Muslim woman walking in Queens NY is confronted by a man shouting Islamophobic abuse. The man pulls out a knife and threatens her with it. The same man is wanted for two assaults on Muslims in Brooklyn's Ozone Park a few weeks earlier. SOURCE: https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/07/27/anti-muslim-hate-crime-pattern/

July 25, 2021: Far-right Polish football hooligans racially abuse and then assault a Romani man in Přerov, Czechia, kicking and punching him before driving off. The 45-year victim is hospitalized with his injuries.SOURCE: http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/polish-football-hooligans-allegedly-physically-assault-romani-man-in-prerov-czech-republic-for-objecting-to-their-racist#.YP7txiY-i4k.facebook

July 25, 2021: A transphobic group verbally harasses trans woman Beren Ecmel and her friend Asya in İstanbul, Turkey before stabbing them."They pierced my friend's face. They attacked us contrary to all reason. We are humans. We don't inflict any harm on anyone. We want our rights, we want justice. We are humans, we don't inflict any harm on anyone," Asya has said in the video about the attack on Ecmel.SOURCE: https://m.bianet.org/english/print/247692-transphobic-attack-on-woman-in-istanbul-s-harbiye

July 26, 2021: A gender-fluid 14-year old is beaten by a group of teenage boys after they demand to know the victim’s gender. The 14-year old was knocked unconscious and loses several teeth in the attack. SOURCE: https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/boosheid-om-geweld-tegen-lhbtq-in-nederland-nieuw-kabinet-moet-maatregelen-nemen~a76b6e9e/

July 26, 2021:  A bouncer at a nightclub in St Julian’s, Malta, brutally throws two women to the ground for sharing a kiss, kicking them repeatedly as he held them down. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/07/27/malta-nordic-bar-homophobic/ July 28, 2021: A Jewish man out walking his dog in a Toronto neighbourhood is confronted by another man who body-checks him into a fence, knocking him to the ground, while screams anti-semitic slurs. SOURCE: https://www.cp24.com/news/jewish-man-allegedly-assaulted-while-walking-dog-in-toronto-neighbourhood-1.5528626 July 30, 2021: A gay couple in Edinburgh, Scotland are confronted by four men who attack them, spitting on them, punching them, and kicking them, before running off with one of the men's bags. SOURCE: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/abhorrent-leith-street-assault-officially-being-treated-as-a-hate-crime-3331831

July 30, 2021: Nine days after they were attacked by a racist mob that murdered one of them, a Kurdish family in Konya, Turkey is again set upon by an armed mob, who shoot seven more family members dead in front of their home, which is later set on fire. Police arrest fourteen people involved in the attack. SOURCE: https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-kurds/police-detain-10-suspects-racist-attack-central-turkey

July 30, 2021:  A Pride rave held outside the office of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was ambushed by far-right thugs, but Pride-goers refused to be stopped. Around a 100 LGBT+ activists gathered outside of Zelensky’s office for a six-hour Pride rave, dancing for hours despite continued attacks by members of far-right group Tradition and Order, who violently attempted to break up the demonstration by hurling bottles and other weapons at the revellers. Yet activists ultimately withstood the attacks and continued to rave draped in rainbow flags to protest wider, systemic injustices within the country.SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/02/ukraine-pride-rave-2/ July 31, 2021: Two teenagers are attacked by a man on a Queens-bound E train. The man approached the two shouting homophobic remarks before punching both of them repeatedly, then running off. A woman who attempted to intervene in the attack was also punched in the face. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/10/new-york-subway-homophobic-hate-crime/

July 31, 2021: Badega - a trans woman living in Salvador, Brazil, is shot multiple times, killing her. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/07/31/badega_salvador-bahia-brazil_ea18f050

July 31, 2021: A group of fascists participating in a protest against coronavirus measures attack a group of antifascists in the crowd. Two people are brutally beaten while they were on the ground with telescoping batons and iron bars before the antifascists rally and chase the attacking nazis off. SOURCE: https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/un-cadre-local-du-rn-a-t-il-participe-a-une-attaque-de-lextreme-droite-lors-de-la-manif-contre-le-pass-sanitaire-a-nantes-20210805_2CPHSNG64ZGGBIRBUJARCMYGHM/

August 1, 2021: The body of an unidentified trans woman is found dumped in the streets of Juarez, Mexico. She had been murdered. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/01/name-unknown_ciudad-juarez-chihuahua-mexico_272c2018

August 1, 2021: Seasonal agricultural workers living in the village of Bayralar in Elmalı, Turkey, had to leave the village after being attacked and threatened by a racist group of 300 people for two days straight.One of the workers said, “"Last night, a group of racists raided the house and battered the people in the house. The gendarmerie who came to the scene told my family, 'There is nothing we can do. Leave this place for your safety.' This racist group told my family, 'You are Kurds, we don't want you here. They threatened them saying ‘We are giving you until tomorrow evening. If you do not leave Elmalı tomorrow evening, we will burn the whole family’.  Our boss's nose and ribs were broken. We are being taken out of the village under the supervision of the gendarmerie.” SOURCE: https://anfenglishmobile.com/news/racist-group-attacks-kurdish-family-in-antalya-53879

August 1, 2021: 200 far-right marchers, protesting police handling of an assault case by an Eritrean suspect, shouted: 'Death to the Sudanese' in Tel Aviv, Israel, harassing nearby asylum seekers and attacking one Eritrean man, kicking him and spraying him with pepper spray. In addition, one person grabbed items from a supermarket and threw them at a woman and baby as they were passing by. At least eight people were arrested. SOURCE: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-the-neighborhood-is-ours-asylum-seeker-assaulted-at-tel-aviv-demonstration-1.10069045

August 4, 2021: 39-year-old trans woman Cindy Jones Torres is stabbed to death in the Guiginto, Phillipines salon where she worked. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/04/cindy-jones-torres_guiginto-bulacan-philippines_bceb33d7

August 4, 2021: When a Roma woman asks for her change after paying for a bus ticket, the bus driver starts ranting about all Roma being rude, that they should be gassed and that they need Hitler. When the woman took out her phone to film the man’s rant he grabbed her and threw her out of the bus, causing injuries to her hands. SOURCE: http://www.romea.cz/cz/zpravodajstvi/domaci/nadaval-mi-do-cikanu-a-posilal-romy-do-plynu.pak-me-vyhodil-z-autobusu-popisuje-zena-incident-s-ridicem-autobusu-v-moste

August 5, 2021: A Polish man deliberately crashes his van into at least 13 vehicles in Berlin and runs several red lights, injuring at least one person in his rampage. After being taken into custody, the man referred to himself as a “Knight Templar” and also mentioned Norwegian white supremacist and mass murderer Anders Breivik. SOURCE: https://apnews.com/article/europe-germany-aeb106c1d3be3316c9fe2eb526fead04

August 7, 2021: During a demonstration against the "passe sanitaire" anti-COVID measures in France, a member of the far-right Civitas movement confronts several antifascists observing the Toulouse, France demonstration, threatening them with a knife. SOURCE: https://rapportsdeforce.fr/boite-a-outils/les-violences-de-lextreme-droite-ont-double-cet-ete-en-france-carte-101111287

August 7, 2021: A man is arrested in Washington DC after attacking Sean Lai, a gay Asian man, and his elderly parents are walking near the Washington, DC observatory when a man starts following them, called Lai a “f****t” and shouting “you are not Americans!” and “you don’t belong here” before assaulting the family, beating Lai’s father and mother to the ground before Lai could intervene. Both Lai and his father suffer broken bones in the attack; Lai’s mother’s arm is also injured. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/12/gay-asian-washington-dc-homophobia/

August 7, 2021: 44-year-old trans woman Coco Chanel Wortham is shot to death in a Dallas, TX. homeless encampment. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/07/coco-chanel-wortham_dallas-texas-usa_d1021031 August 8, 2021: Two men are hospitalized after being attacked by a mob of youths in a Waitrose parking lot in Bishop's Stortford, UK. Both men were subjected to homophobic abuse before being set upon by the mob, who knock one of the men unconscious in the attack. SOURCE: https://www.bishopsstortfordindependent.co.uk/news/two-men-suffer-multiple-fractures-in-homophobic-attack-by-te-9211005/

August 8, 2021: 40-year-old surf instructor Matthew Taylor Coleman takes his one-year-old daughter and two-year-old son down to Rosarito, Mexico, where he stabs both of them to death and dumps their corpses in a ditch. After his arrest, Coleman explained to officers that he had been "enlightened by the QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories" which led him to conclude that his wife "possessed serpent DNA and had passed it onto his children," which forced him to kill his children before they grew into monsters "to save the world." SOURCE: https://www.scribd.com/document/519797609/Coleman-Complaint

August 8, 2021: The body of trans woman Mia is found half-naked in the streets of Mexico City. She had been stabbed to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/08/mia_iztapalapa-ciudad-de-mexico-mexico_d36c6804

August 6, 2021: 36-year-old Yusuke Tsushima boards a Tokyo commuter train and begins stabbing his fellow passengers, targeting "glamorous women and the men with them."  Tsushima also tells police he attacked because of his resentment of women after being romantically rejected by his peers.  Ten people are injured in the attack. SOURCE: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/man-arrested-stabbing-on-subway-tokyo-b949631.html

August 9, 2021: After nearly driving into another car in Madison, WI., 20-year-old Donneil J. Gray Jr. calls the other driver a "Chinese dumb bitch" before firing a gun at her and driving away. Gray Jr. later threatens a construction crew at a road site he drives through at high speed, flashing his gun and threatening to shoot them all. SOURCE: https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime-and-courts/man-charged-with-hate-crimes-for-road-rage-gunshot-incident/article_28122075-f341-57f8-87a9-5227ef1daaeb.html

August 9, 2021: Proud Boys and other fascists roamed around downtown Portland, Oregon, looking for a fight with counter-protesters, after a far-right prayer event earlier in the day. They assaulted antifascists and random bystanders with mace, paintball guns, airsoft rifles and fireworks. SOURCE: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/08/09/portland-downtown-violence-police-absent-protests/

August 9, 2021: The body of trans woman Michell González Cortés is found in her San Carlos, Venezuela home, tied and gagged. She had been bludgeoned to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/09/michell-gonzalez-cortes-pitufa_san-carlos-cojedes-venezuela_00c756f1

August 10, 2021: Hundreds of people chanting anti-Syrian and Islamist slogans attack the homes and businesses of Syrians in the Altındağ district of Ankara, Turkey.  The attack came after 18-year-old Emirhan Yalçın was killed in a fight between the Syrians and locals in the same neighbourhood earlier in the day.  SOURCE: https://www.duvarenglish.com/hundreds-attack-syrians-homes-businesses-in-ankara-video-58462

August 10, 2021: Relatives discover the body of 39-year-old trans woman Valentina Gámez in her San Cristóbal, Venezuela home. She had been beaten and strangled to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/10/valentina-gamez_san-cristobal-tachira-venezuela_86093326

August 11, 2021: The rotting corpse of an unidentified trans woman is discovered in her room in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. She had been murdered. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/11/name-unknown_rawalpindi-punjab-pakistan_ab4f47d1

August 11, 2021: At the end of a rally by the Hindu extremist Bajrang Dal organization in Kanpur, India, attendees attack a Muslim man in front of his 11-year-old daughter until the police intervene. SOURCE: https://www.siasat.com/up-muslim-man-beaten-forced-to-chant-jai-shri-ram-2177068/

August 12, 2021: In what has been described as the worst mass shooting in UK in years, 23-year-old self-described incel Jake Davidson shoots his own mother dead before embarking on a shooting rampage in Plymouth, killing a three-year-old girl and three adults and injuring two more before turning the gun on himself. SOURCE: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9890209/I-Terminator-Rambling-videos-fat-ugly-virgin-23-went-rampage-Plymouth.html

August 12, 2021: A man on a 2 train in Harlem, NY. approaches another passenger. Yelling homophobic abuse, the man repeatedly punches the other passenger in the face, before fleeing out of the 135 St. subway station. SOURCE: https://pix11.com/news/local-news/manhattan/man-beats-subway-rider-in-manhattan-in-possible-hate-crime-attack/

August 12, 2021: Two children, aged 11 and 14, are surrounded and attacked by a group of youths who shouted homophobic and transphobic abuse as they tried to help a half-conscious drunk girl in a Liscard, UK park.  The two are beaten, kicked, and spat upon. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/17/children-homophobic-attack-liverpool/ August 13, 2021: Two teenaged girls are badly beaten in what police describe as a "homophobic attack" in Hertfordshire, UK. The two were approached by a mob of five people who set upon them in an unprovoked attack, shouting homophobic abuse at the pair before severely beating them. Both victims were treated in hospital for their injuries. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/15/homophobic-attack-hertfordshire/

August 13, 2021: Trans woman Suelen Carey is shot to death in the streets of Fortaleza, Brazil. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/13/suelen-carey_fortaleza-ceara-brazil_ef783c0a

August 13, 2021: The body of trans woman Dandara Brum is discovered dumped in Niterói, Brazil by a homeless person. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/13/dandara-brum_niteroi-rio-de-janeiro-brazil_6245c2e2

August 14, 2021: Proud Boys armed with bear spray, clubs, and knives join other fascists to attack counter-protestros at an anti-vaccination rally in Los Angeles.  Several counter-protesters and a journalist were beaten by the fascists, and one man is hospitalized with a life-threatening stab wound. SOURCE: https://abc7.com/anti-vaccine-protest-vaccine-mandate-proud-boys-requirement/10952130/ August 15, 2021: A gay couple and their friend are brutally attack in Birmingham, UK's Gay Village while on their way to a friend's house. Four men in an SUV screamed homophobic abuse at the couple before attacking them and their friend with glass bottles, knocking one man unconscious. All three victims had to be treated in hospital for multiple injuries. SOURCE: https://inews.co.uk/news/gay-couple-attacked-birmingham-hate-crime-1152602

August 15, 2021: The body of 28-year-old trans woman Raqueli is found dumped on a road in Rio Novo do Sul, Brazil. She had been shot to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/15/raqueli_rio-novo-do-sul-espirito-santo-brazil_d8bb10d0

August 15, 2021: The body of trans woman Camila Arcila is found covered in stab wounds and dumped near a road in Doradal, Colombia. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/15/camila-arcila_doradal-antioqua-colombia_ff1d2201

August 16, 2021: A gay man is discovered bludgeoned to death in a south London park. Police arrest a suspect two days later and believe that the murder was motivated by the assailant's homophobia. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/21/gay-murder-hate-crime-london/

August 17, 2021: An armed group of Israeli settlers chase a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, running him over with their car, then beating him with clubs before blindfolding and kidnapping him. They then tied him to a tree and whipped him with belts, stabbed him, burnt the soles of his feet with a car cigarette lighter, and then beat him unconscious with a cudgel. SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/palestinian-teen-describes-brutal-israeli-settler-attack

August 18, 2021: A 28-year-old man is arrested after going on a spree of violent hate crimes targeting Jews in a London neighbourhood, randomly assaulting five Orthodox Jews as young as 14 and as old as 64 in the span of a few hours. One of the victims is knocked unconscious and hospitalized with broken bones and facial injuries. SOURCE: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-58428086

August 18, 2021: A gay man in Torquay, UK is mobbed on his way home by a group shouting homophobic abuse. Then one of them men in the mob pulls out a hammer and smashes him in the face. The man in hospitalized and has to undergo extensive surgery to repair the damage to his face. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/10/05/torquay-devon-hate-crime-gay/

August 18, 2021: Far-right anti-vax conspiracy theorists throw two molotov cocktails into the home of a local journalist while he and his girlfriend are asleep in their bedroom. Both manage to escape without injury. The attack comes the day after the journalist published a critical blog of a far-right anti-vax demonstration. SOURCE: https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/09/08/hoe-een-groningse-blogger-doelwit-werd-van-corona-extremisten-a4057689 August 19, 2021: 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry drives his pickup truck up to the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and announces that the truck is carrying a bomb. Roseberry - a Trump supporter - livestreams the five-hour standoff with authorities, demanding that the Democrats remove themselves from government. SOURCE: https://news.yahoo.com/police-responding-active-bomb-threat-144506301.html

August 19, 2021: At least three people are dead and 50 others wounded after a bomb ripped through a Shia Muslim procession in Bahāwalnagar, Pakistan, officials said. Security was high as the religious minority marked Ashura, the 10th day of the holy month of Muharram, a flashpoint for sectarian violence in previous years. SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/19/blast-hits-ashura-procession-in-pakistan-dozens-wounded

August 19, 2021: A 15-year old neo-nazi student is arrested after stabbing a 45-year old teacher in the Swedish town of Eslöv. The assailant walked through school wielding a large knife and wearing a helmet, mask, and what appeared to be a bullet proof vest. The victim was seriously injured. The 15-year-old planned to commit a Twitch-streamed massacre in the school due to hatred against Muslims, Jews & homosexuals, to "send a political message", but changed his mind after he stabbed the teacher. SOURCE: https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/teenager-sentenced-for-school-knife-attack

August 20, 2021: A student-housing building is set on fire in Amsterdam. The arson attack appears to target rainbow flags in the apartment building, after previous incidents nearby targeting rainbow flags. Four victims are injured in the fire and taken to hospital. Four other residents had to be rescued from a balcony by the fire brigade with a ladder truck SOURCE: https://nltimes.nl/2021/08/20/anti-lgbtq-arson-suspected-amsterdam-student-flat-fire-4-hurt

August 21, 2021: Fascists from Des Tours et des lys attack suspected leftists at a demonstration against the vaccine passport in Tours, France, beating two people to the ground, knocking one unconscious and badly injuring them. SOURCE: https://lahorde.samizdat.net/Agression-fasciste-dans-la-manif-anti-pass-sanitaire

August 21, 2021: 26-year-old trans woman Dodô Bezerra da Silva is shot dead in the streets of Caruaru, Brazil. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/21/dodo-bezerra-da-silva_caruaru-pernambuco-brazil_4e50e524

August 21, 2021: 23-year-old trans woman Catalina Santos Arévalo is set upon by several attackers in Ciudad López Mateos, Mexico, who beat her for several minutes before slashing her throat open with a knife, killing her. Arévalo's body lay in the street in the pouring rain for four hours until family members came to retrieve her. No emergency services ever arrived to deal with the murder or her body. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/21/catalina-santos-arevalo_ciudad-lopez-mateos-estado-de-mexico-mexico_c829101e

August 21, 2021: A 25-year-old was brutally beaten in a homophobic attack in Belgium after he gave his boyfriend a goodbye kiss.The victim had just kissed his boyfriend before he got off a bus when he was attacked by a man in his 40s. The attacker reportedly punched the gay man in the face and spat on him before fleeing the scene. The victim was hospitalized and received stitches as a result of the attack. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/27/belgium-homophobic-attack/

August 21, 2021: Far-right COVID-conspiracy demonstrators fight police in Melbourne, Australia, injured seven police officers - two with broken noses, one with a broken thumb and the rest with concussions. Over 200 protesters were arrested. SOURCE: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-21/anti-covid-lockdown-protesters-clash-with-police-in-melbourne/100396458 https://redflag.org.au/article/right-wing-mayhem-melbourne

August 21, 2021: A group of queer friends were having a few drinks and dancing in the center of Galway, Ireland, when they heard a group of men calling them “f****ts, and were attacked. One of the group had to be treated by paramedics.SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/09/10/non-binary-zerhanah-galway/

August 22, 2021: A group of Proud Boys and associated fascists hold a rally in the parking lot of an abandoned K-Mart in Portland, OR. after aborting their initial plan to stage it downtown, thanks to a large antifascist presence. At the rally, Proud Boy Tusitala “Tiny” Toese threatens to assault trans people. The fascists attack antifascist counterprotestors with clubs, bear spray, and paintballs, completely destroying two vehicles after chasing the occupants out and later driving around the neighbourhood shooting people with paintballs. Portland police refuse to intervene or respond to 911 calls about the violence. Later, some of the fascists move downtown to confront antifascists. One of them - 65-year-old Dennis Anderson - yelled racial slurs at passerby before producing a pistol and firing several times, provoking an armed response from antifascists in the vicinity. SOURCE: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/09/01/portland-police-investigate-aug-22-violence-amid-internal-questions/

August 22, 2021: Neo-Nazis attack an antifascist demonstration with fireworks and rocks.SOURCE: https://www.ruhr24.de/dortmund/dortmund-demo-neonazis-attackieren-linke-polizei-fahndung-rheinische-strasse-nazi-kiez-heute-90935209.html

August 22, 2021: The body of an unidentified trans woman is found naked from the waist down and dumped in a vacant lot in Chalco, Mexico. She had been beaten to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/22/name-unknown_chalco-estado-de-mexico-mexico_cd745aff

August 22, 2021: Muslim street vendor Tasleem Ali is set upon by half a dozen men who police identify as members of the Hindu extremist group Bajrang Dal. The mean taunt him with Islamophobic abuse, beat him, and rob him. SOURCE: https://theprint.in/india/from-compromise-to-pocso-how-case-of-muslim-bangle-seller-who-was-thrashed-in-indore-changed/723666/

August 23, 2021: 25-year-old Pooh Johnson is found shot to death in a parked car behind a Shreveport, LA. home. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/23/pooh-johnson-titanizer-mua_shreveport-louisiana-usa_16aace3b

August 25, 2021: 24-year-old trans woman Rebeca Sampaio is shot dead in the streets of Caruaru, Brazil. She is the 2nd trans woman to be murdered in that way in the town that week. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/25/rebeca-sampaio-raiane-santos-de-matos_caruaru-pernambuco-brazil_a5565424

August 25, 2021: A 20-year-old Muslim man at a Bareilly, India bus station is attacked by a Hindu mob who drag him by his hair and beaten to the ground, where people began stomping on his neck and legs. SOURCE: https://www.siasat.com/muslim-youth-in-up-assaulted-by-mob-on-theft-suspicion-2182796/

August 26, 2021: Police in Colmar, France arrest a 26-year-old nazi, seizing four home made radioactive bombs. SOURCE: https://twitter.com/Nantes_Revoltee/status/1435650840656818184/photo/1

August 26, 2021:  A 40-year old woman threatens participants of a demonstration against homophobic violence in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, calling them “cancer-homos” before throwing a bike at them. No one was injured, and the woman was arrested. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/28/amsterdam-anti-lgbt-violence-protest/

August 26, 2021: A man beats up a New York City subway rider while yelling homophobic insults at him. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/09/06/gay-new-york-subway-hate-crime/

August 26, 2021: A Muslim food vendor in Dewas, India is beaten by two men upon suspicion that he was not Hindu. SOURCE: https://www.siasat.com/up-muslim-dosa-vendor-attacked-for-economic-jihad-in-mathura-2183874/

August 26, 2021: Two Muslim men in Jamshedpur, India claim that police dragged them into the local police station, beaten with an excrement-smeared cricket bat, and forced to have sex with each other. SOURCE: https://www.siasat.com/list-of-anti-muslim-hate-crimes-in-india-reported-in-august-2187287/

August 28, 2021: After neighbours report a bad smell, police in Mogi das Cruzes, Brazil break into the home of trans woman Lola Santos, discovering her decomposing corpse. Santos had been murdered. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/28/lola-santos_mogi-das-cruzes-sao-paulo-brazil_60353c24

August 28, 2021: A “straight Pride” event in Modesto, California, USA, organized by the far-right Proud Boys ends in chaos and violence when the angry far-right mob attacks counter-protesters. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/31/proud-boys-straight-pride-california/

August 28, 2021: Neo-nazi group Tradition and Order attacks the Gay Pride march in Odessa, Ukraine, throwing tear gas at the pride-goers, and attacking police who were protecting the march. 29 police officers were injured, and over 50 neo-nazis were arrested. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/31/ukraine-odessa-pride-police-tradition-order/

August 30, 2021: A 14-year old gay teenager was the victim of a homophobic attack in Haydock, UK. The victim and a female friend were walking through the town when a gang of youths targeted them, police said. Lobbing homophobic slurs at the boy, the youths then punched and kicked him in the face, leaving him with a split lip. They also threw plant pots at him. Police added that the victim phoned his sister following the attack, who was later assaulted by the same group when she came to her sibling’s aid. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/09/01/st-helens-liverpool-gay-teen-attack/

August 30, 2021: Dakshayani, a 17-year-old trans teen living in Salem, Tamil Nadu, India, is stabbed to death by her own brother, who tells police he murdered his sister to protect his family's reputation. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/08/30/dakshayani_salem-tamil-nadu-india_e636fdf5

August 31, 2021: A trans woman was harassed by seven men in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, called homophobic slurs and pushed off her bicycle. SOURCE: https://www.nhnieuws.nl/nieuws/291148/transvrouw-mala-belaagd-op-straat-in-amsterdam-durf-alleen-nog-naar-buiten-voor-therapie

September 1, 2021: A woman drives up to a crew working to repair one of the water mains damaged by Hurricane Ida in Jefferson Parish, LA., calls them them 'fucking n----rs," and demands that they be arrested,.  The workers flag down sheriff's deputies and report her, at which point the woman twice hits one officer with her car before another deputy shoots her to death." SOURCE: https://news.yahoo.com/louisiana-woman-shot-dead-ramming-041409929.html

September 3, 2021: A Sri Lankan man living in New Zealand who authorities claim was "a supporter of ISIS ideology" buys a kitchen knife in a suburban Auckland grocery store and immediately starts stabbing customers, only to be shot and killed about a minute later by a police team tracking his movements. Six people were injured in the attack. SOURCE: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/03/asia/new-zealand-attack-intl-hnk/

September 3, 2021: A gay man onboard a J train in Brooklyn is approached by another passenger who tells him he "isn't into that gay shit" before repeatedly punching him in the head. SOURCE: https://meaww.com/authorities-homophobe-straphanger-brooklyn-subway-train

September 4, 2021: A gay former US Marine and his friend are buying food in a Brooklyn bodega when two other men approach them yelling homophobic abuse before stabbing and slashing both men with a screwdriver and a broken bottle, then robbing them. NYPD are investigating the case as a hate crime. SOURCE: https://bushwickdaily.com/news/rally-against-lgbtq-hate-this-wednesday-after-possible-hate-crime/

September 4, 2021: During a demonstration against the pass sanitaire in Grenoble, France, leftist demonstrators are attacked by fascists. Several people are injured. SOURCE: https://telegra.ph/Lextr%C3%AAme-droite-toujours-aussi-violente-09-08

September 4, 2021: The body of 30-year-old trans woman Hevelyn Montine is found dumped alongside a highway in Rio Grande, Brazil.  She had been shot to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/04/hevelyn-montine_rio-verde-goias-brazil_d2087251

September 5, 2021: 39-year-old trans activist Devanny Cardiel is gunned down inside of her own salon/home in Léon, Mexico. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/05/devanny-cardiel_leon-guanajuato-mexico_4256cb78

September 5, 2021: A Christian pastor was summoned by the police in Raipur, India, for questioning after complaints from far-right Hindus accusing the church of converting Hindus. Raipur. Once he reached the police station, he was assaulted by the Hindu supremacists. SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/2/india-christians-church-hindu-groups-bjp-conversion

September 6, 2021: 25-year-old plumber and nazi Shane Marshall pelts Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with rocks at an election campaign stop in London, Ontario. SOURCE: https://www.cp24.com/news/man-charged-with-assault-after-gravel-thrown-at-trudeau-1.5581815

September 7, 2021: Proud Boys roam around Olympia, WA., looking for left-wing activists to assault. They assault several people, including macing and beating a female journalist. SOURCE: https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/olympia/olympia-residents-shaken-by-violence-between-groups-allied-with-antifa-and-proud-boys/281-22c79765-c480-47f7-8901-bc6b9e37d82d

September 8, 2021: Members of the far-right BJP attack the offices of the Communist CPI(M) across the state of Tripura, India, setting fire to the party headquarters in the state capitol Agartala, and ransacking several more, while shouting Hindu-supremacist slogans. At least ten people are injured in the attacks. BJP thugs also attacked two newspaper offices, injuring three journalists, two of whom had to be treated in the hospital. SOURCE: https://scroll.in/latest/1004929/tripura-cpi-m-claims-bjp-set-fire-to-one-of-its-party-offices

September 9, 2021: Raphaël Arnault, spokesperson for antifascist group Jeune Garde Lyon, is ambushed by a mob of fascists as he arrives at Paris' Gare de Lyon, who beat him with a cudgel, injuring him. SOURCE: https://rapportsdeforce.fr/boite-a-outils/les-violences-de-lextreme-droite-ont-double-cet-ete-en-france-carte-101111287?fbclid=IwAR0BIMCqzagQvtErrSt6K8kP5QKi7i-jZCHTuBxu5u74zYfu9OgsFYq6mnM

September 10, 2021: After an attack by Israeli settlers on Palestinian homes in Hebron, Palestine, another settler walks through the area, passing by the Abu S’eifan family’s home. The family were out on their porch celebrating a birthday. The settler yelled at them to “get inside” and fired several live bullets in their direction with a handgun. No one was injured.SOURCE: https://www.btselem.org/video/20211116_settlers_attacked_homes_in_hebron_and_one_fired_at_a_house_soldiers_shot_at_palestinians#full

September 10, 2021: Australian counter-terrorism police arrest a right-wing extremist accused of possessing a blueprint to 3D-print a gun and making “significant preparations” to manufacture a firearm. Mitchell Priest, 26, from Orange, Australia, has been charged over the digital blueprint – banned by NSW firearm laws – which was found on his phone after police raided his home. Police say Mr Priest had also been importing legal items to be used for manufacturing weapons over 14 months. SOURCE: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/alleged-right-wing-extremist-arrested-over-blueprint-to-3d-print-a-gun-20210913-p58r80.html01/08/2022 9:27 PM

September 11, 2021: A white woman on an Atlanta - Detroit flight spends the flight racially abusing passengers and flight attendants. When a Muslim woman asks her to stop the abuse, the woman punches her before being restrained by the flight crew. SOURCE: https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/group-calls-for-hate-crime-charge-after-woman-arrested-for-assault-on-spirit-flight-to-detroit

September 11, 2021: A 67-year old man is tied to a tree, undressed and violently beaten by two thugs in a chilling homophobic attack. The man is attacked while leaving a popular meeting place for gay men in Toulouse, France. He is dragged out of his car by two men, beaten and kicked. They snatched his car keys as they tore his clothing off, then bound him to a tree  and pummelled him even further before fleeing the scene in his car, making off with his clothing as well. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/09/14/france-mayor-tree-homophobic/

September 11, 2021: Raquel, a trans woman living in Cabo Frio, Brazil, is shot in the back of the head in a daylight execution. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/11/raquel_cabo-frio-rio-de-janeiro-brazil_e0f1d1e3

September 12, 2021: Gersson Saavedra is standing at a San Diego pier with friends when two men approach him and ask him for a light, then immediately begin screaming homophobic abuse at him and beat him mercilessly. Saavedra is knocked unconscious in the attack and wakes up in hospital, suffering from an injured spine and several broken bones. SOURCE; https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/san-diego-man-brutally-beaten-in-anti-gay-hate-crime/2722271/

September 15, 2021: Four people are arrested for plotting to attack a synagogue in Hagen, Germany on the day of Yom Kippur. Authorities identified a 16-year-old from Hagen as a suspect. There are "conclusions of an Islamist motivated act." SOURCE: https://taz.de/Moeglicher-Anschlagsplan-an-Jom-Kippur/!5802072/

September 17, 2021: A 35-year-old Syrian refugee and his five-year-old daughter are confronted by two men and a woman in Eberswalde, Germany, who racially abuse the pair before physically assaulting them, injuring the child. SOURCE: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/polizeibericht-berlin/rassistischer-uebergriff-auf-syrischen-vater-und-tochter-li.184011

September 17, 2021: 25-year-old trans woman Brianna Ulmer (aka Brianna Hamilton) is shot to death on the streets of Chicago, IL. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/17/brianna-ulmer-brianna-hamilton_chicago-illinois-usa_50c22de5

September 17-18, 2021: 19-year-old Christopher Cella faces hate crime charges after picking up three Latino men in separate incidents around Long Island, NY, taking each man to a remote location and then attacking them. All three men managed to flee before being seriously harmed. SOURCE: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-york-man-faces-hate-crime-charges-attacks-latino-men-n1279592

September 18, 2021: A 25-year-old Asian man shopping in a Cambridge, UK grocery store is taunted with racial abuse by a mob of teens in the store, who then attack him as he tried to leave, punching and kicking him to the ground, leaving him to go to hospital to be treated for multiple fractures and other injuries. SOURCE: https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/22098

September 18, 2021: After being turned away from a gas station in Idar-Oberstein, Germany because of his refusal to wear a mask in the store while buying beer, a 49-year-old AfD supporter and right-wing conspiracy theorist returns to the store armed with a revolver and shoots the cashier dead. SOURCE: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/idar-oberstein-nach-mutmasslichem-mord-wegen-masken-streit-das-ist-eine-ganz-unfassbare-schreckliche-tat-a-90ca5198-5416-4098-aa78-ac12f7a7887f

September 18, 2021: At a rally for Israel and against anti-semitism, a 60-year-old rally participant is confront by four men shouting "shit Jews!" before punching him in the face and then fleeing. The man is hospitalized with a broken nose and cheekbone and serious damage to one of his eyes. SOURCE: https://www.focus.de/panorama/welt/teilnehmer-durch-faustschlag-verletzt-brutaler-antisemitischer-angriff-bei-mahnwache-in-hamburg-sie-riefen-scheiss-juden_id_24263469.html

September 19, 2021: An unidentified trans person is shot to death outside of their home in Pasay City, Phiilppines. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/19/name-unknown_pasay-city-luzon-philippines_d5747309

September 19, 2021: Three men were attacked in Oxford, UK, after a night out. They say they suffered homophobic abuse from the group of men, which rapidly escalated into an attack in which they where whipped with belts.  One of the victims required hospital treatment after receiving a laceration to his forehead. The two other victims suffered injuries to their head, stomach and arms but did not need any hospital treatment.SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/09/23/men-whipped-belts-homophobic-attack-oxford/

September 20, 2021: A 27-year-old man in Offenbach, Germany approaches four strangers, berating them with anti-semitic abuse before kicking one of them in the leg, injuring him. SOURCE: https://www.zeit.de/news/2021-09/20/antisemitische-beschimpfungen-in-offenbach-mann-attackiert

September 20, 2021: A large group of right-wing builders and anti-vax demonstrators attacked the headquarters of the construction workers union CFMEU in Melbourne, Australia, and assaulted union officials and workers. During similar protests the next day a journalist is assaulted, and police are pelted with beer cans. SOURCE: https://www.3aw.com.au/union-officials-abused-and-attacked-by-anti-vax-protesters-in-cbd/

September 21, 2021: 71-year-old Fargo, ND resident Larry Baldner faces multiple charges after confronting a group of children playing basketball near his home. Baldner called the children "niggers" and "bitches" and told them their skin "was the color of shit" before slapping an 11-year-old Muslim girl, ripping her hair out of her head, and lifting her off the ground by her throat, choking her. SOURCE: https://www.valleynewslive.com/2021/09/23/your-skin-is-color-s-man-choked-out-11-year-old-girl-court-docs-allege/

September 21, 2021: A Berlin Uber driver gets in an altercation with two passengers. Shouting homophobic abuse, the driver attacks one of the passengers, hitting him in the head. SOURCE: https://www.queer.de/detail.php?article_id=40044

September 21, 2021: Muslimah Hasim, a trans person living in Maguindanao, Philippines, is shot to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/21/muslimah-hasim_maguindanao-mindanao-philippines_b95385b3

September 24, 2021: A mob of Hindu extremists with ties to the BJP attack Muslims and Muslim-owned shops in a Khargone, India marketplace, assaulting several Muslim men before being beaten back by riot police. SOURCE: https://www.siasat.com/hindu-mob-attacks-muslim-run-business-in-mp-many-injured-2197549/

September 24, 2021: 28-year-old lesbian and LGBTQ+ activist Sisanda Gumede is stabbed to death in her Umbumbulu, South Africa home by her cousin in what is being characterized as a hate-motivated attack. SOURCE: https://www.news24.com/witness/news/pietermaritzburg/concern-over-increase-in-number-of-violent-hate-crimes-20211002

September 24, 2021: 16-year-old trans woman Paulet is shot to death in the town of Pueblo Nuevo, Mexico. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/24/paulet_pueblo-nuevo-guanajuato-mexico_de39293e

September 25, 2021: Two men in Shrewsbury, UK, attack a non-binary, gender fluid person, kicking and punching them because they were wearing high heels and a dress. “They knocked me to the ground and were kicking me in the face. It went on for about a minute. My face was all black and blue and I had bruised ribs.”, the victim said. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/10/07/shrewsbury-non-binary-attack-gender-fluid/

September 26, 2021: 32-year-old trans woman Erika Tatiana Martínez García is stabbed to death in her Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras apartment by unknown assailants. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/26/erika-tatiana-martinez-garcia_santa-rosa-de-copan-honduras_fc3fd2f5

September 26, 2021; A 26-year-old Muslim woman riding a bus in Vienna is told by another passenger to “go back to Turkey”. The woman moves to the front of the bus but the racist continues to racially abuse her, then spits on her and forcibly attempts to pull off her hijab, injuring her.  SOURCE: https://www.heute.at/s/wienerin-mit-kopfuch-in-autobus-brutal-angegriffen-100164886

September 27, 2021: Russian officials arrest five nazis in Ufa, Bashkortostan.  FSB alleges the five were plotting a series of terror attacks against the region's Muslim population.  Police seized a homemade bomb, bomb-making components and manuals, a cache of knives, portraits of nazi leaders, and other nazi memorabilia from the suspects' homes. SOURCE: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-bashkortostan-terror-plot/31479950.html

September 27, 2021: The decapitated body of an unidentified trans woman is found stuffed in garbage bags and dumped in a vacant lot in Cancún, Mexico.  This is the 2nd time a dismembered trans woman has been found dumped in the trash in the city this year. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/27/name-unknown_cancun-quintana-roo-mexico_e0ba1d77

September 28, 2021: The dismembered and mutilated corpse of a Muslim man is discovered lying beside railway tracks in Karnataka, India. The man had been involved in a relationship with a Hindu woman which the woman's family strongly disapproved of. The woman's father and two other men stand accused of the murder. SOURCE: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/dismembered-body-of-24-year-old-man-found-on-railway-tracks-in-karnataka-police-suspect-hate-crime-101633204308543.html

September 28, 2021: Dozens of masked Israeli settlers lead an organized assault on the Palestinian village of Mufagara, beating and stoning residents while wreaking havoc, home by home. One three year old child’s skull is fractured when they are hit in the head with a rock. An elderly shepherd was mercilessly beaten with rocks. In total, twelve Palestinians were injured.  IDF soldiers stood by and did nothing to stop the attacks.SOURCE: https://www.972mag.com/settler-violence-sukkot-pogrom/01/07/2022 6:52 PM

September 28, 2021: Police in Le Havre, France arrest a 19-year-old Hitler worshipper who had been plotting to commit a terrorist attack on April 22, 2022, targeting a local mosque and his former high school. SOURCE: https://www.paris-normandie.fr/id236911/article/2021-10-03/projet-dattentat-dejoue-au-havre-un-jeune-de-19-ans-interpelle

September 28, 2021: The decapitated corpse of Muslim youth Arbaz Mulla is discovered dumped besides railway tracks in Khanapur,, India with his hands tied behind his back. Two days previously, a Hindu nationalist gang had threatened Mulla and his Hindu girlfriend in an attempt to break up the relationship. Police have arrested ten people, including the girl's parents. SOURCE: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/civil-society-urged-to-unite-against-hate-crimes/article37269673.ece

September 29, 2021: Returning from a forum on far-right extremism, four antifascists are swarmed by a mob of 20+ fascists, who beat them with clubs and attempt to stab them, but are fought off with the assistance of bystanders in a Lyon train station. All four antifascists are injured in the attack. SOURCE: https://rapportsdeforce.fr/boite-a-outils/les-violences-de-lextreme-droite-ont-double-cet-ete-en-france-carte-101111287?fbclid=IwAR0BIMCqzagQvtErrSt6K8kP5QKi7i-jZCHTuBxu5u74zYfu9OgsFYq6mnM

September 29, 2021: A 49-year-old Asian woman is walking in Manhattan when a man on a bicycle rams her from behind, then racially abuses her, before riding away. SOURCE: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/asian-woman-bumped-by-bicyclist-in-manhattan-in-possible-hate-crime-police/ar-AAPfjw7?ocid=hplocalnews

September 29, 2021: Neo-nazi high-school students fight with anti-fascist students at a Thessaloniki, Greece, high school. When police arrive, the fascist students attack them with molotov cocktails and bricks. Two leftist students were lightly injured, and another girl was beaten by the nazis after giving a statement to the media. SOURCE: https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2021/09/29/neo-nazi-school-epal-thessaloniki/

September 30, 2021: A gay man is brutally beaten in an unprovoked attack in Birmingham (UK)'s gay village. The man is beaten unconscious by a lone attacker who ran off after the assault and may now lose an eye due to the injuries he sustained. SOURCE: https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/uk-world-news/man-beaten-unconscious-suspected-homophobic-6005828

September 30, 2021: Trans woman Kiér Laprí Kartier is found shot to death in her car in Arlington, TX.  She is the 3rd trans woman to be shot to death in the DFW area so far this year. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/30/kier-lapri-kartier_arlington-texas-usa_e83abeff September 30, 2021:  Environmentalists are attacked by neo- nazis after they had disrupted a press-conference by an FPÖ politician in Vienna, Austria. One of the activists was injured. SOURCE: https://twitter.com/antifa_w/status/1443597274236530701

September 30, 2021: A man charged in the deaths of his brother, sister-in-law and another woman in Ellicott City, MD., killed his brother, a pharmacist, because the brother was administering COVID-19 vaccines. Jeffrey Burnham, 46, of Cumberland, "wanted to confront" his brother "with the government poisoning people with COVID vaccines." SOURCE: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-burnham-killed-pharmacist-brother-covid-vaccine-shots-poisoning/

September 30, 2021: A trans woman working as a street merchant in Fresnillo, Mexico is kidnapped and tortured to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/09/30/b_fresnillo-zacatecas-mexico_6c02f79a

October 1, 2021: German authorities announce an investigation into an airsoft club with former paratroopers and military reservists as members that appeared to hatch plans to murder migrants.  Police searched eight homes throughout Germany and seized weapons, ammunition, and right-wing extremist material. SOURCE: https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/rechtsextremismus-bundeswehr-reservisten-sollen-anschlaege-auf-migranten-geplant-haben-a-948bfb89-0e26-428c-8538-77c9ff1c5bf5

October 2, 2021: After a 1500-person rally in Lille, France in support of far-right politician Eric Zemmour, Zemmour supporters attack a Dominican priest and his friends in a local bar and later start fights in a local lesbian bar. SOURCE: https://actu.fr/hauts-de-france/lille_59350/un-pretre-et-des-personnes-lgbt-accusent-des-militants-pro-zemmour-de-violences-a-lille_45374118.html

October 2, 2021: 40-year-old trans woman Royal Poetical Starz is found shot to death in her car in Miami Gardens, FL. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/10/02/royal-poetical-starz_miami-gardens-florida-usa_5312b098

October 3, 2021: Youth members of the local communist party in Thessaloniki, Greece are attacked by about 15 members of a local fascist group wielding chains, bats and tasers against the leftists.  Four people are hospitalized with their injuries. SOURCE: https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5g493/neo-nazis-are-violently-attacking-leftists-in-greece-in-broad-daylight

October 3, 2021: A mob of nearly 250 far-right Hindu vigilantes armed with iron rods ransacked a church in Roorkee, India, molesting and beating the pastor’s daughter and bludgeoning a church staff member, seriously injuring him. SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/2/india-christians-church-hindu-groups-bjp-conversion

October 3, 2021: Hundreds of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, India are returning home from against three controversial farm laws proposed by the far-right BJP government when they are rammed by a speeding car that was part of a car convoy of BJP workers and politicians. Two other vehicles in the convoy quickly followed the first car and crushed the injured who were lying on the ground. According to witnesses, gunshots were also fired.  Two farmers died on the spot while two more, including a journalist, died later in the hospital. SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakhimpur_Kheri_violence

October 3, 2021: A leftist gathering on a square in Neo Iraklio, Athens, Greece, is attacked by armed neo-nazis, sending four people to the hospital. SOURCE: https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5g493/neo-nazis-are-violently-attacking-leftists-in-greece-in-broad-daylight

October 5, 2021: 62-year-old Los Gatos, CA. resident Richard Hanford confronts an Asian-American woman walking her dog. "This is Amercia!" Hanford shouts before punching her twice in the face. Hanford now faces assault & hate crimes charges. SOURCE: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/2-men-face-hate-crime-charges-in-separate-alleged-south-bay-assaults-da/2714538/

October 6, 2021: Trans woman Andrea Velasco Amaya is stabbed to death on the streets of Santander de Quilichao, Colombia. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/10/06/andrea-velasco-amaya_santander-de-quilichao-cauca-colombia_8831a619

October 8, 2021: Suicide bombers connected to the Islamic State detonate explosives in a Shia mosque in Kunduz, Afghanistan during Friday prayers, killing 100 worshippers and injuring 150 more. SOURCE: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/suicide-bomber-kills-100-in-northern-afghanistan-shia-mosque/articleshow/86878040.cms

October 9, 2021: Taking inspiration from the January 6 insurrection in Washington, DC, 5000 supporters of the Italian fascist party Forza Nuova break off from an anti-vaccination protest in the heart of Rome and storm the headquarters of a labour union, completely trashing it.  They also target a hospital emergency room, forcing terrified medical staff to barricade themselves in.  38 police officers were reportedly injured combatting the roaming mob. SOURCE: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/italian-police-arrest-far-right-party-leaders-after-anti-vaccination-riot-1.5618358

October 9, 2021: A man walking through York railway station in York, UK is targeted by a group of men who taunt him with homophobic abuse. When the man turns to confront them, one of the men swings at his head, knocking him unconscious. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/11/18/york-homophobic-hate-crime/

October 10, 2021: A man walking home after a night in Birmingham's Gay Village is attacked by a stranger, who smashes him in the head with a wine bottle. SOURCE: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-58998651

October 11, 2021: 25-year-old trans man Mel Robert Groves drives himself to a Jackson, MS. emergency room after being shot several times, succumbing to his injuries.  He is the 2nd trans person shot to death in Jackson so far this year.  SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/10/11/mel-robert-groves_jackson-mississippi-usa_f924c00c

October 11, 2021:  A 26 year old female motorcyclist is severely injured  after driving into a wire strung across the road by members of a far-right student group who were participating in an attempted right-wing pro-coup lockdown of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. SOURCE: https://kawsachunnews.com/crucenista-roadblock-leaves-motorcyclist-with-severe-injuries

October 13, 2021: After receiving a message that her Reynosa, Mexico salon is on fire, 46-year-old trans woman Yakki Nájera rushes from her job in a maquiladora to the scene, only to be confronted by two men who beat her mercilessly before throwing her into the blaze, killing her. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/10/13/yakki-najera_reynosa-tamaulipas-mexico_9c8eb87b

Week of October 13, 2021: Violence erupts across Bangladesh after a photo of an alleged desecration of the Quran circulates on social media, triggering violent attacks on Hindus throughout the country.  More than 100 attackers murder a member of a Hindu temple in Begumganj, beating and stabbing him to death.  The body of another Hindu man is found beside the temple the next day.  at least 20 homes belonging to Hindus are set on fire in Rangpur.  One Hindu community leader put the number of injured Hindus at 150.    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/18/bangladesh-hindus-men-killed-temples-vandalised-religious-violence

October 14, 2021: In broad daylight, 39-year-old Sharee Jones pours accelerant on a Jewish school in Brooklyn, NY. and attempts to set it on fire. SOURCE: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/577249-woman-accused-of-trying-to-set-fire-at-jewish-school-arrested-in-new

October 14, 2021: As they leave a Sheffield, UK mosque, two teenaged Muslim girls are attacked by four women who beat them and attempt to rip their hijabs off their heads. Both girls are injured in the attack. SOURCE: https://iqna.ir/en/news/3476585/attack-against-muslim-schoolgirls-reported-in-uk

October 15, 2021: Islamic State claims responsibility for the suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in Kandahar, Afghanistan, which killed 41 people and injured 70 others. SOURCE: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/afghanistan-kandahar-mosque-attack-1.6213852

October 15, 2021: Conservative MP Sir David Amess is stabbed to death in his Leigh-on-Sea constituency by a 25-year-old man with connections to the Islamic State. SOURCE: https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/man-accused-murdering-mp-sir-014547362.html

October 15, 2021: The body of 34-year-old trans woman Keeva Scatter is found dumped in a field in Baton Rough, LA.  She had been shot to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/10/15/keeva-scatter_baton-rouge-louisiana-usa_270af3c4

October 15, 2021: A Palestinian family harvesting olives is attacked by about 40 settlers while  in the West Bank village of Yasuf.  The assailant hurl stones at the family and pepper-spray one of the women. SOURCE: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-settlers-attack-palestinian-family-harvesting-olives-in-west-bank-1.10298762

October 15, 2021: A woman wearing a shirt of the accelerationist Boogaloo movement and wielding a baseball bat near the U.S. Capitol bites an officer, and is arrested in Washington DC. SOURCE: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/woman-wielding-baseball-bat-arrested-near-us-capitol-police/2832085/

October 16, 2021: Upset at how a masonry worker parked his truck, 61-year-old Fairfield, CT. resident Joseph Soracco confronts the man by screaming racial abuse at him and threatening him with a knife. Arresting officers find a handgun and several knives in Soracco's possession at the time. SOURCE: https://dailyvoice.com/connecticut/brookfield/police-fire/man-charged-with-hate-crime-making-threats-in-fairfield-county/818326/

October 17, 2021: During a Christian church service in Hubbali, India, Hindu extremists entered the church, shouting Hindu prayers to drown out the service, and then beating up parishoners. SOURCE: https://thelogicalindian.com/trending/39-hate-crime-incidents-in-karnataka-against-christians-in-2021-pucl-report-32604

October 17, 2021: The body of 42-year-old trans woman Jessi Heart is found dumped in the woods outside of Banks, OR.  Police believe she had been murdered at least two weeks prior to the discovery of her body. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/10/17/jessi-heart_banks-oregon-usa_2422e65f

October 18, 2021: Four friends in Paris, France are approached by two drunk men who warn the sole black person  in the group to not hit on white girls, and then racially abuse him. When the friends react to these racist attacks the two drunks assault the group, injuring all four.SOURCE: https://newsrnd.com/tech/2021-10-22-beaten-up-in-the-middle-of-paris--%22dirty-nigga--you-shouldn-t-hit-on-a-white-girl%22.r1eNaRuxLt.html

October 18, 2021: Police raids the businesses and homes of a woman and two men in and near Saint-Etienne, France - all three activists in the ultra-right survivalist movement.  Police recover a submachine gun, an assault rifle, two shotguns and three grenades, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition were seized. SOURCE: https://www.leprogres.fr/faits-divers-justice/2021/10/21/prevention-d-acte-terroriste-coup-de-filet-dans-la-mouvance-ultra-droite-survivaliste

October 19, 2021: Hundreds of far-right retired military officers demonstrate in Guatemala City, demanding financial compensation for their service during the country’s civil war.  The protest soon devolves into a riot when the ex-soldiers, armed with sticks, stones and machetes, break down one of the building’s gates and forcibly enter the parking lot, setting fire to several vehicles.  At least five cars and two motorcycles are torched, and at least 10 security officials and four journalists are injured during the protest. The damage caused to the building’s facilities includes broken gates and glass doors, and others due to the spread of the flames. SOURCE: https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/10/20/retired-military-officers-storm-guatemalan-congress-set-fire-to-vehicles/

October 19, 2021: Far-right conspiracy theorist Remy Daillet is placed in custody by French police for planning attacks against a Masonic Lodge and government facilities. SOURCE: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211021-french-far-right-conspiracy-theorist-in-custody-informed-source

October 20, 2021: German police conduct raids on the homes of 15 members of the nazi Berserker Clan gang throughout the country, who they believe have been amassing arms caches in preparation for "Day X" - a mythical day when right-wing extremists will coordinate attacks throughout the country. SOURCE: https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7njd7/far-right-berserker-clan-accused-of-prepping-for-armed-uprising-in-germany

October 22, 2021: The body of Dallyla, a trans woman, is found dumped in a ditch alongside a highway near Alvorada, Brazil.  She had been shot to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/10/22/dallyla_alvorada-rio-grande-do-sul-brazil_828d90af

October 22, 2021: Violent clashes erupt between Pakistan’s security forces and a far-right group in the eastern city of Lahore, killing at least two policemen after thousands of members of the far-right Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan (TLP) party launched their “long march” from the city towards the capital, Islamabad, demanding that the government release the leader of their outlawed party. SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/22/pakistan-lahore-violence-tlp-rally

October 23, 2021: An Asian man walking through Manhattan's Koreatown neighbourhood is confronted by five people who ask him "what are you doing here, Asian?" before punching him and hitting with with clubs. The man is hospitalized and treated for head injuries he sustained in the attack. SOURCE: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10218473/Three-suspects-sought-police-group-attack-NYC-man-hate-crime-rises-nation.html

October 23, 2021: 20-year-old trans woman Hagatha Luana is shot to death on the streets of Brasília, Brazil. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/10/23/hagatha-luana_brasilia-distrito-federal-brazil_5a11f323

October 24, 2021:  Far-right Hindu extremists attack a film set in Bhopal, India. Filmmaker Prakash Jha was covered in ink, and at least three members of his film unit were beaten when they were shooting for the upcoming web series Ashram 3. SOURCE: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/right-wing-activists-attack-film-production-unit/article37154435.ece

October 25, 2021: Three fascists attack two members of a left-wing student union in Albi, France, after recognizing one of them as an anti-fascist. One of the victims is badly beaten up after being knocked to the ground.  Later that night, the same three fascists tried to attack a group of CGT union members, but had to hastily retreat when the fight didn’t go their way. SOURCE: https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/occitanie/tarn/albi/albi-quand-l-ultra-droite-bascule-dans-la-violence-de-rue-2315344.html

October 27, 2021:  A gay teen is subjected to homophobic abuse on a bus in St. Andrews, Scotland.  His tormentors then follow him off the bus and attack him while his back is turned, punching and kicking him to the ground, where they continue to beat him.  SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/11/02/scotland-st-andrews-fife-gay-homophobic-hate-crime/

October 27, 2021: Four Pakistani police officers were killed and 263 were wounded when armed activists from a banned group clashed with security forces at an anti-blasphemy demonstration by the banned far-right Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party on a highway in Sheikhupura, Pakistan, as the group prepared to march on the capital Islamabad. SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/27/pakistani-police-killed-at-tlp-protest

October 30, 2021: A racial slur is spray-painted on it the home of the only black town council member in Connersville, IN. while he is vacation with his family. The vandals then break into the home and set it on fire. The family's cat and dog die in the blaze. SOURCE: https://www.wdrb.com/news/fire-set-at-connersville-councilmans-home-investigated-as-arson-hate-crime-by-fbi/article_ca19681a-3c15-11ec-b5b5-afcbba88496f.html

October 31, 2021: A 26-year-old Asian woman walking through Manhattan's Soho neighbourhood is harrassed by another woman shouting anti-Asian abuse before punching her in the back of the head and running off. SOURCE: https://pix11.com/news/local-news/manhattan/anti-asian-statements-woman-punched-head-hudson-street/

October 31, 2021: Bellingham, WA. resident Charles Nicholas Shipley calls another man a homophobic slur and tells him he should die. When the man responds, Shipley produces a knife and stabs him in the face. SOURCE: https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/crime/article255550191.html

October 31, 2021: A black teen in Woodsboro, TX. is shot with a stun gun by classmates dressed in KKK uniforms on Halloween. SOURCE: https://www.newsweek.com/depraved-menaces-kkk-dressed-texas-teens-shot-black-teen-taser-halloween-lawyer-1648449

October 31, 2021: 18-year-old Texas National Guardsman Franklin Barrett Sechriest drives to the Beth Israel Synagogue in Austin, TX. and sets it on fire. Police recover a journal from his home filled with racist & anti-semetic tirades, along with notes related to the arson attack. SOURCE: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2021/11/15/congregation-beth-israel-synagogue-fire-suspect-diary/8625617002/

October 31, 2021: The bodies of trans woman Huapaya Morales and her partner, Peruvian LGBTQ+ activist Pedro Prado Asin, are discovered in their La Victoria, Peru home.  The pair had been tortured and strangled to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/10/31/huapaya-morales_la-victoria-peru-peru_96090352

November 1, 2021: Arsonists set fire to a family home in Ripley, TN., burning it to the ground, but not before spray-painting "n*gg*r lover" on a boundary wall. SOURCE: https://tntribune.com/american-islamic-relations-org-calls-for-federal-hate-crime-probe-of-n-lover-fire-at-tenn-interracial-couples-home/

November 1, 2021: Two women leave a London nightclub when a “very flirty” man approaches them and ask for their numbers.  When the pair reply that they are a lesbian couple, the man spews homophobic abuse and then sucker punches one of the women in the face, fracturing her jaw before assaulting the other woman, then fleeing.   SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/11/11/london-piccadilly-homophobic-attack/

November 2, 2021: A 17-year-old boy in Istanbul asks a 12-year-old boy if he is Syrian. When the younger boy replies in the affirmative, the 17-year-old knocks him to the ground and strangles him unconscious. The younger boy is revived in hospital four hours later. SOURCE: https://ahvalnews.com/istanbul/syrian-boy-hospitalised-istanbul-suspected-hate-crime#

November 2, 2021: The body of 25-year-old trans woman Jenny de Leon is discovered in Tampa, FL.  She had been murdered. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/02/jenny-de-leon_tampa-florida-usa_3eae27a4

November 3, 2021: Jose Serra - an elderly Filipino man, is walking in Cajon, CA. to meet a friend when 24-year-old ex-convict Israel Ezekiel Valdivia approaches him from behind, stabbing him several times in the back, in a completely unprovoked attack. SOURCE: https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/san-diego-aapi-community-stands-against-hate-crime-as-police-seek-suspect-in-stabbing-of-filipino-man/509-f19ecea2-cd1c-4042-ab3a-4c993b2b23b4

November 3, 2021: Self-proclaimed national socialist and Bulgarian presidential candidate Boyan Rasate after leading a group of men to storm a Sofia LGBTQ rights office as they were holding a meeting for trans people.  Rasate is accused of punching a woman in the face and joining the other men in ransacking the offices. SOURCE: https://www.euronews.com/2021/11/02/far-right-politician-in-bulgaria-accused-of-attacking-lgbt-centre

November 3, 2021: The decomposing corpse of trans woman Alicia Díaz is found in a home in Ensenada, Mexico with her throat slashed. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/03/alicia-diaz_ensenada-baja-california-mexico_e135cc3c

November 3, 2021: 18-year-old Washington, UK resident Luke Aaron Skelton faces terrorism charges for plotting a bombing campaign targeting "drag queens," "Muslim rape gangs" and police stations. SOURCE: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19728831.luke-skelton-washington-faces-trial-terror-plot/

November 4, 2021: A gay man is passing out food to homeless people on Coney Island, NY when a man he had just given a sandwich to smashes him in the face with a metal pipe, seriously damaging the man's eye, who requires repeated surgeries as a result. SOURCE: https://abc7ny.com/attack-hate-crime-lgbtq-coney-island/11321436/

November 4, 2021: 28-year-old trans woman Marquiisha Lawrence dies of multiple gunshot wounds in her Greenville, SC. home following "an altercation with one or more individuals." SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/04/marquiisha-lawrence_greenville-south-carolina-usa_ac7f46fa

November 6, 2021: Far-right conspiracy theorists fight with police and attack journalists in Leipzig, Germany, during an anti-vax demonstration. One journalists is injured after he was beaten to the ground. SOURCE: https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2021-11/querdenker-demonstration-leipzig-gewalt-verletzte-polizisten-sachsen-corona

November 7, 2021: Danyale Johnson, a 35-year-old trans woman living in Memphis, TN., is shot and killed in her vehicle.  The assailant then dumped her body on the street and drove off in her truck. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/07/danyale-johnson_memphis-tennessee-usa_4f433422

November 8, 2021: Larraya, a 53-year-old trans woman, is crossing a street in Sobral, Brazil, when a man, who had been convicted of a previous murder, runs at her and beats her to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/08/larraya_sobral-ceara-brazil_0d686e03

November 8, 2021: The fascists organize an anti-vax rally in Boston, USA, and attack counter-protesters. SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=309595720980136

November 10, 2021: 40-year-old San Diego resident Robert Frank Wilson approaches his neighbour in the neighbour's driveway screaming homphobic abuse before punching him in the face through the driver's side window of the neighbour's car.  A week later, Wilson would join other to hang an anti-semitic banner over a local freeway.  https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/crime/chula-vista-man-accused-homophobic-slurs-altercation-anti-semitic-banner-san-diego-overpass-hate-crimee/509-9d42e558-0be0-4eeb-824a-23cb627d1b7c

November 11, 2021: Israeli settlers attack the Palestinian inhabitants of Khallet a-Daba’ with rocks and guns. Two Palestinians are shot, one had his leg broken, and seven others had lighter injuries. SOURCE: https://www.972mag.com/khallet-a-daba-settler-attack/

November 11, 2021: A 25-year-old Orthodox Jewish man walking in Crown Heights, Brooklyn is mobbed by five men, who call him a "dirty Jew" and punch him in the face, knocking him to the ground. SOURCE: https://hamodia.com/2021/11/13/gang-attacks-jewish-man-in-crown-heights-in-possible-hate-crime/

November 11, 2021: While conducting a welfare check, police in Aliquippa, PA. discover the body of 36-year-old trans woman Angel Naira in her home.  She had been shot to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/11/angel-naira_aliquippa-pennsylvania-usa_ebb9a160

November 12, 2021: 38-year-old trans woman Kitty Russo is drinking in a Cativá, Panama bar with a friend when a third person intervenes, arguing with Russo before pulling a gun and shooting her to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/12/kitty-russo_cativa-colon-panama_1fbdfa65

November 13, 2021: As she leaves a San Lorenzo, Paraguay bowling alley, 23-year-old trans woman Gabriela "Gabi" Cabrera is attacked by a group of 10 men, who smash liquor bottles over her head and beat her mercilessly for 20 minutes until a bystander intervenes and take Cabrera away. https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/13/gabriela-cabrera-gabi_san-lorenzo-central-paraguay_5b24f9b1

November 13, 2021: 13 members of the ultra-right Recolonisation France organization are arrested in Marseille after police raid their homes, seizing 51 weapons and over 1500 rounds of ammunition. SOURCE: https://www.lefigaro.fr/faits-divers/quatre-militants-du-mouvement-d-ultra-droite-recolonisation-france-mis-en-examen-20211126 

November 14, 2021: A man in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland is confronted by a group of men shouting homobphobic abuse as they mercilessly beat him, punching him numerous times in the head. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/11/20/northern-ireland-homophobic-attack-enniskillen/

November 14, 2021: A taxi carrying a passenger arrives at the  Liverpool Women's Hospital when an improvised explosive device carried by the passenger explodes killing him and injuring the taxi-driver, in a failed attempt at an extremist Islamiist terrorist attack. Police suspect that the intended target was to detonate the device at the anglican church nearby. SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/15/three-remain-in-custody-over-liverpool-womens-hospital-blast

November 14, 2021: Members of the neo-nazi Strasbourg Offender group, attacked a fan of a rival football club in Nancy, Fance.   SOURCE: https://www.rue89strasbourg.com/impunite-continue-hooligans-neonazis-strasbourg-offender-222056 November 15, 2021: Arsonists set fire to the home of Jaén, Spain's socialist mayor while he sleeps with his family. This attack follows weeks of vandalism to his home, with vandals leaving messages like "maricón" and "el único virus es el socialismo” (the only virus is socialism) spray-painted on his home. SOURCE: https://benin.tenzica.com/arson-attack-against-the-mayor-in-navas-de-san-juan/

November 16, 2021: A 28-year-old transgender man exits a Cleveland, OH. bus while a second man follows him, making threats and transphobic comments, before pulling out a chain and whipping the transgender man in the leg, then fleeing.  The transgender man is hospitalized with injuries. SOURCE: https://www.cleveland19.com/2021/12/01/cleveland-police-investigate-assault-transgender-man-hate-crime/

November 16, 2021: Construction worker Kemal Korkmaz, after telling his coworkers how much he hated the  Syrians working on the same Izmir, Turkey construction site, went to where three of his Syrian corowkers lived, then poured gasoline on them while they were sleeping and lit them on fire.  All three men, aged 17-23, burned to death. SOURCE: https://stockholmcf.org/murder-of-3-syrian-men-in-alleged-hate-crime-sparks-public-outcry/ 

November 16, 2021: At least three people have been killed and 33 others wounded in twin suicide bombings in Uganda’s capital Kampala, police said, the latest in a string of attacks over the past month. The attacks took place within minutes of each other and were carried out by three suicide bombers belonging to a group affiliated with ISIL. SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/16/ganda

November 17, 2021: French authorities raid the homes of two right-wing extremists who had been using the chat app Telegram to issue calls for violence.  Police seize weapons and bomb-making materials in the raids. SOURCE: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/two-people-linked-frances-far-right-arrested-anti-terror-probe-report-2021-11-17/

November 18, 2021: 75-year-old Seattle activist Rev. Harriett Walden is crossing a downtown street when a man in a vehicle stopped at the light yells racist abuse at her, guns his car forward, nearly hitting her, and then throws a can of motor oil at her, hitting her in the head and injuring her. SOURCE: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/rev-harriett-walden-speaks-out-against-hate-crimes-after-she-says-she-was-targeted/

November 18, 2021: A mob of about 30 Hindu extremists attack two Muslim school girls in Shanivarsanthe, India. Two of the men serve two weeks in prison for the attack and are greeted by BJP leader SN Raghu and paraded as heroes as they leave the prison. SOURCE: https://millattimes.com/archives/9418

November 18, 2021: Counter-terrorism officials have charged a far-right man who encouraged anti-lockdown protesters to bring firearms to State Parliament and execute Premier Daniel Andrews. Another neo-Nazi was also arrested for promoting violence and instructing people on how to 3D-print ghost guns.SOURCE: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/far-right-protester-charged-by-counter-terror-police-amid-talk-of-killing-daniel-andrews-20211117-p599qx.html

November 20, 2021: Two dozen fascists attempt to attack a Paris march protesting violence against women by hitting the protestors with clubs, belts, and chairs. The protestors fight back and drive the fascists off the streets. SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/tiphaine.blot/videos/2689257738036747/

November 20, 2021: Trans woman Alejandra Valeria López is shot dead outside of a hotel in Arauca, Colombia. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/20/alejandra-valeria-lopez_arauca-caldas-colombia_d655c59f

November 21, 2021: Uxpanapa, Mexico bar owner and trans woman Cesi "Mamá Osa" de Rosas is shot dead in an attack in her own home by assailants who also shoot and kill a man and injure another woman. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/21/cesi-de-rosas-mama-osa_uxpanapa-veracruz-mexico_0a690718

November 22, 2021: Two union activists in Paris are attacked by a gang of seven fascists who spot one of the pair wearing an anti-fascist shirt. SOURCE: https://rapportsdeforce.fr/breves/agression-de-deux-militants-sud-rail-par-7-fascistes-a-paris-112311908

November 23, 2021: A teenager armed with a knife attempts to force a homeless man to leave a Turlock, CA. park by first racially abusing him and then by stabbing him. SOURCE: https://californianewstimes.com/juvenile-arrested-for-hate-crime-after-attacking-man-with-knife/603075/

November 23, 2021: 13 members of the ultra-right Recolonisation France organization are arrested in Marseille after police raid their homes, seizing 51 weapons and over 1500 rounds of ammunition. SOURCE: https://www.lefigaro.fr/faits-divers/quatre-militants-du-mouvement-d-ultra-droite-recolonisation-france-mis-en-examen-20211126 

November 23, 2021: Two men, one of them a corporal in the French army, are arrested after they ram a customs police car in an attempt to evade a search in Mesnil-en-Ouche, France. Police found weapons in their vehicle and a further search of property connected to the pair yields a large cache of weapons, and Nazi propaganda and objects. Customs officials seize 130 weapons, including AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles, submachine guns, handguns, shotguns and sawn-off shotguns, 200 kg of various ammunition, grenades, 5 cartridges of 20mm ammunition for an anti-aircraft gun.SOURCE: https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/armes-croix-gammees-propagande-un-arsenal-neonazi-mis-a-jour-dans-l-eure-23-11-2021-2453436_23.php

November 23, 2021: A gay couple walking arm-in-arm are attacked and robbed in Bury, UK by a group of six men shouting homophobic abuse, then beating them with a hammer before stealing their belongings and leaving them with multiple injuries. .SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/11/26/gay-ryan-winnard-max-green-homophobia-hate-crime-bury/

November 23, 2021: Two drunk, off-duty police officers pick a fight with two Romanian men in Leipzig, Germany, racially-abusing the men as they beat them. All four people were treated in hospital for injuries sustained in the attack. SOURCE: https://www.t-online.de/region/leipzig/news/id_91212540/leipziger-polizisten-sollen-maenner-fremdenfeindlich-beleidigt-haben.html

November 23, 2021: An unidentified 27-year-old trans woman is stoned to death by unknown assailants in an isolated spot in Pune, India. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/23/name-unknown_pune-maharashtra-india_ab4a67df

November 25, 2021: Far-right Identitarians attack a feminist demonstration, fighting fight with demonstrators in Valence, France. SOURCE: https://www.streetpress.com/sujet/1638210742-valence-patriote-soutiens-zemmour-violence-manifestation-feministe-generation-z-identitaire-extreme-droite-election-presidentielle

November 26, 2021: 33-year-old Elisaul Perez approaches a 62-year-old Asian woman as she sweeps the front stoop of her Queens, NY apartment building and bashes her in the head with a rock, nearly killing her. The woman is hospitalized and undergoes brain surgery. SOURCE: https://abc7ny.com/woman-struck-by-rock-hate-crime-investigation-jackson-heights-assault-queens-attacked/11275056/

November 26, 2021: 20 masked men attack a gay bar in Kiev, Ukraine, destroying furniture outside and breaking windows before spraying pepper spray and throwing rocks into the bar. Eyewitnesses said they shouted slogans like "white power" and "death to faggots." The attackers and the bouncers each pepper sprayed each other, however the attackers also beat one bouncer with a police baton and left him temporarily blinded. In all, the attack lasted 3-5 minutes and police later arrested 12 men and charged them with "hooliganism." Stickers and spray-painted symbols for Azov far-right linked groups are left on the building. SOURCE: https://www.belltower.news/centuria-steht-hinter-dem-angriff-auf-einen-kiewer-club-eine-rechtsextreme-miliz-125153/

November 26, 2021: Berrak, 22-year-old trans woman, is pulled into an argument with another person outside of a busy train station in Izmir, Turkey.  The person stabs Berrak repeatedly in the chest before fleeing.  Berrak manages to cross the street and ask for help at a nearby restaurant before collapsing and bleeding to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/26/berrak_zmir-turkey_3af68c1b

November 26-27,2021: Three teenaged girls wander around Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, attacking Orthodox Jewish children and teens. The trio wordlessly assault four children ranging in age between three and eighteen years old, knocking them to the ground, slapping them in the face, and hitting them. SOURCE: https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-teens-wanted-for-anti-semitic-hate-crime-spree-20211130-oyqtaxzzwfdnddw7uzsff2utke-story.html

November 27, 2021: A 27-year old man inspired by IS stabs three people on a high-speed train between the German cities of Regensburg and Nuremberg, severely injuring them. SOURCE: https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/messerangriff-in-ice-womoeglich-doch-extremistisches-motiv,Souzmye

November 28, 2021: A 54-year-old Asian woman leaves a Manhattan subway station on her way to work as a nurse when a man deliberately slams his bicycle into her, injuring her back.  When she turned to see her attacker, the man laughed and told her "I got you good, Asian!" and continued to taunt her as she walked away. The woman's injuries have prevented her from returning to work.  Police arrested 46-year-old Raymond Bennet four days later and charged him with assault as a hate crime & criminal possession of a weapon. SOURCE: https://abc7ny.com/hate-crime-investigation-subway-assault-anti-asian-slurs-bike/11293330/

November 28, 2021: A man arrives at the Segovia, Colombia home of 28-year-old trans woman Estrella and shoots her to death, then flees. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/11/28/estrella_segovia-antioquia-colombia_7541094d

November 28, 2021: A mob of far-right Hindu supremacists, whose members were seen shouting “shoot the traitors”, attacked a church service in Delhi, India, injuring one person. SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/2/india-christians-church-hindu-groups-bjp-conversion

November 29, 2021: 43-year-old Isela Camarena returns to an Albuquerque mosque after previously setting off a fire alarm there and starts several fires near the mosque's prayer room in an attempt to burn the building down. SOURCE: https://ladailypost.com/cair-welcomes-identification-of-suspect-in-new-mexico-mosque-arson-renews-call-for-hate-crime-probe/

November 30, 2021: Five white supremacists in their 20s are arrested in Kankaanpaa, Finland in a series of dawn raids by police, who seize explosives, firearms, and ammunition in the raids. Police believe the five were part of a white supremacist accelerationist terror group intent on conducting a campaign of bombings and mass murders. SOURCE: https://www.rfi.fr/en/five-arrested-in-finland-over-far-right-terror-plot

November 30, 2021: A person drove his car through a crowd of BLM protesters outside the courthouse in Minneapolis, USA, injuring several people. The driver drove around car blockades onto the sidewalk and into the crowd. Serious injuries were evaded but at least one person was left with a broken wrist. SOURCE: https://unicornriot.ninja/2021/protest-after-first-day-of-kim-potter-trial-attacked-by-car-driver/

December 1, 2021: A 58-year-old Asian woman waiting for a subway in the Bronx is aggressively approached by a man who punches her in the face while screaming anti-Asian abuse. SOURCE: https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/12/13/bx-subway-assault-suspected-hate-crime/

December 3, 2021: Nikai David, a 33-year-old trans woman living in Oakland, CA., is shot and killed. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/03/nikai-david_oakland-california-usa_b8a7bd89

December 4, 2021: Five journalists are attacked by neo-nazis and far-right conspiracy theorists during an anti-vax demonstration in Berlin, Germany, injuring two.  SOURCE: https://taz.de/Angriffe-bei-Querdenken-Protest/!5817189/

December 4, 2021: A demonstration in the city of Volendam, the Netherlands, against the racist blackface tradition of Black Pete is surrounded by right-wing inhabitants of the town, including far-right hooligans. Protesters were pelted with fireworks, eggs and other food, and beaten.SOURCE: https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/opinie-geweld-in-volendam-tegen-kick-out-zwarte-piet-rechtvaardigt-strafvervolging~bbfb5ae4/

December 4, 2021:  Far-right YouTuber Baptiste Marchais is in court after hiting the president of a feminist group  in the face in a bar in Paris, France. SOURCE: https://www.marianne.net/societe/police-et-justice/enquete-ouverte-pour-violences-volontaires-contre-le-youtubeur-dextreme-droite-baptiste-marchais

December 5, 2021: Seven anti-racism campaigners are wounded, two seriously, after they were set upon by Zemmour supporters during the far-right candidate’s first election rally in Paris, France. Videos show men and women from SOS Racisme being attacked after standing on seats while wearing T-shirts reading “No To Racism”. One of the clips shows a woman being repeatedly punched in the head by a man.SOURCE: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/eric-zemmour-president-violence-rally-b1970526.html

December 6, 2021: 74-year-old Bayport, NY resident Robert Fehring is charged with sending hundreds of death threats to LGBTQ+ activists and organizations over an eight-year period.  FBI agents seized two loaded shotguns, an American-flag-patterned machete, a manual for making silencers, 20 stolen Pride flags, and an envelope addressed to an LGBTQ+ lawyer with a dead bird inside. SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/nyregion/hate-crime-long-island-lgbtq.html

December 6, 2021: 21-year-old trans woman Andrielly Priscila de Melo is shot dead in the streets of  São José dos Pinhais, Brazil in what police describe as a targeted execution. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/06/andrielly-priscila-de-melo_sao-jose-dos-pinhais-parana-brazil_13f9b2c5

December 7, 2021: Maní, a trans woman living in Bogotá, Colombia, is stabbed to death.  She is one of three nonbinary/trans people murdered in Colombia on the same day: Cristina Cantillo Martínez, a trans rights activist and community leader who had previously received death threats because of her activism, is shot dead by an assassin while she is standing on the veranda of her home;  La Divaza - a nonbinary person in Riohacha, Colombia, is stabbed to death.   SOURCES: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/07/mani_bogota-distrito-capital-colombia_40b6c010; https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/07/cristina-cantillo-martinez_santa-marta-magdalena-colombia_a9faaf5a; https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/07/la-divaza_riohacha-la-guajira-colombia_67d53f66 December 7, 2021: An unidentified 22-year-old trans woman is stabbed to death in the streets of Praia Grande, Brazil. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/07/name-unknown_praia-grande-sao-paulo-brazil_97bdb59f

December 8, 2021: A man is been arrested after stabbing two migrants living in a park in Paris, France. The man tried to tear down the tents and stabbed the migrants sleeping there. He carried out the act while yelling anti-immigrant slogans against them. SOURCE: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/french-police-arrest-suspect-who-attacked-migrants-with-knife/2443399

December 9, 2021: A man was knocked unconscious in a homophobic attack in Blackpool, UK. The man was home at night after visiting a gay bar when he was approached by two men. The men asked if he had visited the Flying Handbag and if he was gay before violently hitting him in the side of the head, causing him to lose consciousness. SOURCE: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/12/23/homophobic-attack-blackpool-gay-police/

December 10, 2021: Bijlee, a trans woman in Karachi, Pakistan, is found strangled to death in her own home. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/10/bijlee_karachi-sindh-pakistan_15847b5c

December 11, 2021: An unidentified trans woman is strangled to death in Karachi, Pakistan, just one day after another trans woman in the same city was discovered strangled to death in her own home.  The trans woman's family refused to identify her publicly, stating that their daughter's killer had threatened to kill them as well if they made it public. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/11/name-unknown_karachi-sindh-pakistan_f6af6945

December 11, 2021: A group of fascists attacked the opening of the new premises of Montpellier, Franch left-wing bar and social center Le Barricade, beating people and throwing bottles. One person was injured. SOURCE: https://lepoing.net/montpellier-suite-a-une-attaque-fasciste-le-barricade-appelle-a-un-rassemblement-contre-lextreme-droite/

December 11, 2021: Two men in Talegaon Dhamdhere, India, use a cinder block to beat Ashu, a 23-year-old old trans woman, to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/11/ashu_talegaon-dhamdhere-maharashtra-india_88807a5c

December 11, 2021: The body of 31-year-old trans woman Sarahí Atenea/Saray Ramos Izaguirre is found dumped in a sewer in Colima, Mexico. She had been tortured to death.  She is the third trans woman to be murdered in Colima so far this year. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/11/sarahi-atenea-saray-ramos-izaguirre_colima-mexico_15ef2d6a

December 12, 2021: 51-year-old Ralph Stanford Davis III enters a Huntington Beach, CA. liquor store then makes an anti-immigrant comment directed at the store's 71-year-old cashier before punching him in the face. SOURCE: https://www.ocregister.com/2021/12/14/garden-grove-man-accused-of-hate-crime-for-attacking-clerk-at-huntington-beach-liquor-store/

December 13, 2021: Unable to accept her daughter as a trans woman, the mother of 21-year-old Akshitha and five others in Salem, India kidnap her to take her to conversion therapy and force her to take hormone injections.  When Aksitha resists, they break both of her legs, then beat her to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/13/akshitha_salem-tamil-nadu-india_26201cbc

December 14, 2021: While shouting Hindu chants, an extremist mob in Haryana, India hacks a 22-year-old Muslim man to death with machetes in an attack that is recorded & broadcast on social media. SOURCE: https://www.siasat.com/mob-chant-hum-hindu-hai-tu-mulla-hai-as-they-kill-muslim-man-2244304/

December 14, 2021: The body of 31-year-old trans woman Panimalar is found dumped on a farm near Parangipettai, India with severe wounds to her face and head. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/14/panimalar_parangipettai-tamil-nadu-india_0d9da72b

December 15, 2021: 20-year-old trans man Camury Amorim is murdered by three men who break into his Camaçari, Brazil home and shoot him. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/15/camury-amorim_camacari-bahia-brazil_ce598212

December 17, 2021: An 81-year-old Asian man out for a walk in his San Diego neighbourhood when another man asks him if he's Chinese or Vietnamese before beating him to the ground. SOURCE: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2021-12-18/assault-asian-possible-hate-crime

December 20, 2021: Usha Rani, a trans woman living in Patna, India, is beaten with rocks and then shot to death. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/20/usha-rani_patna-bihar-india_e4eecb36

December 21, 2021: While returning home from a birthday party in Patna, India, Soni - a trans woman - is shot dead.  She is the 2nd trans woman to be murdered in Patna in as many days. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/21/soni_patna-bihar-india_311960c4

December 25, 2021: Three Muslim men leaving a Tucson, AZ.  mosque after morning prayers are confronted by an agitated mob who had been waiting in the parking lot. The mob set upon the men on-sight, forcing the trio to retreat back into the mosque, at which point a woman in the mob smashed out one of the mosque's windows.  One of the Muslim men suffers an injury to his eye in the attack. SOURCE: https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-arizona-calls-for-stepped-up-security-after-tucson-assault-and-mosque-vandalism/

December 27, 2021: White supremacist and misogynist Lyndon Mcleod goes on a shooting spree at several locations in downtown Denver, CO., murdering five people and injuring three more, including a police officer, before being killed in a gunfight with police. SOURCE: https://abcnews.go.com/US/dead-officer-injured-killing-spree-denver-police/story?id=81966638 

December 29, 2021: Two armed men break into the Timon, Brazil home of trans man Bielzinho Costa and shoot him, killing him. SOURCE: https://tdor.translivesmatter.info/reports/2021/12/29/bielzinho-costa_timon-maranhao-brazil_4c8e1710

December 31, 2021: A man in his 20s racially abuses a Syrian man as a petrol station in St. Wendel, Germany before hitting him in the nose, injuring him, then fleeing. SOURCE: https://www.rheinpfalz.de/lokal/zweibruecken_artikel,-rassistischer-angriff-gegen-syrer-_arid,5298231.html

Decemver 31, 2021: Arsonists set fire to the Planned Parenthood building in Knoxville, TN., completely destroying it. SOURCE: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/07/1071284758/a-fire-that-destroyed-a-planned-parenthood-building-was-intentionally-set

(READ PART ONE OF THIS TIMELINE [JANUARY-JUNE 2021] HERE: bit.ly/2021hatecrimespt1)

[illatreal]

Heartstopper, an essay by me that probably no-one will ever read. (Spoiler alert, obviously, if you haven’t read or watched the series)

(PART 8) 

So it’s been a really long, shit week at work and I never got around to part 8. Frankly, I don’t think I have the energy to write much - I just want to curl up in a ball and watch ‘Heartstopper’ over and over until I feel human again. So here are just some thoughts jotted down without any real structure or expansion

Teachers, Parents, Siblings

Mr Ajayi (Fisayo Akinade) - everyone wishes they had a teacher like this. Always there with an open door and a friendly ear. Willing to give out advice  even when it’s not what you want hear. Doesn’t ever push Charlie to tell him more but just creates a really open, supportive environment so that when Charlie is ready he knows that Mr Ajayi will be there for him. Wears the pride flag on his uniform so any student knows that they have his support

Coach Singh (Chetna Pandya) - strict but caring. Looking forward to hopefully being able to see the scene between Nick and her if we get a second season where she talks about meeting her partner through rugby and offering support if anyone gives him shit about his relationship with Charlie

Nick’s Mum, Sarah Nelson (Olivia Colman) - ICONIC. There is great chemistry between Olivia and Kit in the sweet scenes between Nick and his mum throughout. Such tender motherly concern and affection. The kind of supportive parent any kid wants and such a beautiful reaction to Nick coming out:  “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you couldn’t tell me that!” *hugs*    “You don’t have to say you like girls if you don’t”   “Oh, I love you!” *hugs*. Love that Joe Locke has on his instagram bio that Olivia Colman is his mother in law - I mean, the dream right?

Charlie’s Dad, Julio Spring (Joseph Balderrama) - protective, sweet, there for his son. Worried about Charlie because he knows how hard things were for him at school last year and just wants his son to know that he is supported

Tao’s Mum, Yan Xu (Momo Yeung) - such a sweetie. I definitely want a cup of tea, thanks Mrs Xu. Just adores Elle and is the biggest shipper of Tao and Elle together (Keep the door open *wink*)

Charlie’s Sister, Tori Spring (Jenny Walser) - great energy and, for lack of a better word, vibe. Always a fan of deadpan. Sibling teasing but with genuine affection, love and care thrown in. Tori knows what’s up: “I don’t think he’s straight”  *Charlie and Nick get together*  “Called it”.  There for Charlie at his lowest point:  “And I just feel like maybe I do just ruin people’s lives, and it would be better if I didn’t exist” “You’re not ruining my life!” *sister hug* - such a beautiful, poignant scene and so beautifully acted by Joe and Jenny.

Nellie (Echo) - what a little sweetheart. Emotional support dog. I’m sure Echo got all the love and attention. Joe is totally jealous that Echo loves Kit more. The best doggo who deserves all the pats

Miscellaneous

Supportive friends and the concept of found family - just so important to see represented for young people. Find those who lift you up and make you shine with their love.

Rainbow motif -  some of my favourite examples include: Nick and Charlie’s first meeting (camera catching the light), Tara and Darcy’s kiss at Harry’s party (lights from DJ + confetti), Tao and Elle’s sports day moment (camera catching the light), Nick and Charlie’s beach date (rainbow behind the train station), Alice Oseman drawing Nick and Charlie on the train (rainbow on her back pack)

Graphic novel elements - used to provide insight into the characters emotions/feelings throughout e.g. hearts (yes Elle, you do love Tao); butterflies (yes Tao, you do love Elle), flowers, leaves, sparks (just hold his hand, you know you want to); framing (pink for happy fantasies and black for darker imaginings). Love that even though the storyline is stretched out and rearranged a little bit (to add drama and to add a bit more realism to Nick’s journey of self discovery) there are still so many scenes that are practically shot for shot from the web comic.

Music choices - what an incredible soundtrack. The music really suits the style of the film and always helps to create the right atmosphere instead of detracting/distraction from the fabulous actors. The whole cast seems especially supportive of Baby Queen who wrote ‘Colours of You’ specifically for ‘Heart Stopper’ and who’s other music is featured throughout.

The realisation that I have the haircut of a teenage boy and I’m not even mad about it. Not a rugby lad although I do enjoy an oversized sweatshirt from time to time.

This was still really long. Sorry

Everyone deserves happiness and our differences should be celebrated!!!!!! <3

P.S. If Stephen Fry is the principal of the all boys school, does that make Sandi Toksvig the principal of the all girls school?

[vinyls-and-valentines]

Description: Tommy finally goes to visit an old friend after a long, long time

Warning(s): Brief Canon Character Death Mention

Tagging: @always-and-forever-a-killjoy, @wishiwasthemoon-tonight, @dagger-queen, @tasteofamnesia​

First time Tommy Chow Mein leaves his shop in years is after Better Living falls. The thing that gives it away isn't the earth's trepidations or the chatter carried over the airwaves- it's the sudden lack of the feeling of belonging in a place he'd spent day and night in for the past 15 years. It's like he'd been wearing a pair of tinted glasses the entire time and now that they have been removed the store that once was his entire world looked cold and bleak.

Threading like a ghost through the still shelves, he pushes the door open and steps through before pausing for a moment. It isn’t hesitation, that stops him in his tracks, but rather determination to meet again with an old friend, as he sets off into the Zones. Memories he never even realised to have forgotten slot back into place, bringing into focus the image of the life of one, so-called, Tommy Chow Mein, and the 40-something years that have passed before him.

The sun is barely hovering above the horizon when he reaches the radio station, shy rays of light seeping in through the cracks in the wooden walls of the shack covered in photos, post cards, pieces of art and poetry like a veritable scrapbook. Sitting behind a desk filled with audio equipment is a person with long greasy black hair and an american flag bandana tied around his head like a rocker straight out of the 90s. The pale light in contrast with deep shadows, give him an almost translucent glow, but maybe that isn’t a trick of lighting at all.

“Hey, Bruce Springsteen, seen my friend around here? He’s a real handful with absolutely incorrect opinions on which is the best Beastie Boys album, but has good intentions- heard he goes by some edgy like Doctor Death or something, these days.“ Tommy speaks up, leaning against the old doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest and a crooked smile playing on his lips.

“Well, i be damned if it isn’t the Zone’s resident entrepreneur-” Dr. Death Defying smiles back, turning his chair to face the other, “took you long enough to visit.“

“What can i say, economy is booming.“ the ex-salesperson rolls his eyes sarcastically, “How’s your charity work going?“

“Worked me to death.“ D chuckles to himself, waving a hand in the air that passes right through a bundle of low-hanging cables, “So...Tommy Chow Mein, huh?“

Tommy hums in agreement, “My father’s namesake. Didn’t want to forget him, i suppose.“

“He’s not you, though.“ the latter asks, though it comes out more like a statement, despite the uncertainty underlining it.

“Not anymore than i am a man, no.“ he quietly chuckles to himself, though it quickly dissipates in the cool morning air, “Sometimes it’s easier, to pretend though.“

“I know what you mean.“ the doctor nods solemnly before changing the subject, “Motorbaby helped free Bat City- can you believe? She’s a spitting image of her mother.“

“God. The squirt little thing hanging off your runners? She was clutching onto the Cobra’s leg like yesterday.“ the younger muses, thinking back to when ‘The Fabulous Killjoys’ had first rolled into his shop with the newest addition to their crew.

“Watch your language, Chow Mein, that’s my niece.“ D jokingly warns the other, pride underlining his words when he calls The Girl his niece, “It really feels like that was yesterday, though, doesn’t it?“

“Don’t go soft on me now, Dee.“ he teases and the doctor dismisses him with a wave of the hand like what does he know, “But it does- i swear we were in college just last year. Never thought you’d be the kind to take care of kids, though.“

“You, me and Gertie all thought so and yet look where we ended up.“ Dr. Death Defying sighs, silence falling over the two.

Somehow, despite neither of them being too fond of children or the complicated situations that raising them entails, the three of them became something of the Zones’ caretakers. They were lousy parents at best, but nonetheless they cared about every undergrad, tumbleweed, crash queen and motorbaby who dropped by their respective places. Perhaps, that’s why at the end of everything the only question weighing down on Tommy’s mind was, “So...what now?“

“Now we retire.“ Dr. D shrugs, like it’s a resolve he’s made peace with long before any of this was even put into motion, “Go on that vacation around the world you always wanted to go on.“

Tommy is nowhere as confident in that answer, but still he nods in agreement.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I think i’d like that.“

[mattzerella-sticks]

Not Here for Me

If he had the choice, Dean never would have stepped foot inside this place. But Sam was curious - and curious is a hell of a lot better than the depression that clung to him day after day since Jess left him. So Dean swallows his pride, joins Sam as his babysitter. So he won't get find himself in any trouble. Trouble, however, is more likely to find Dean. In the bowels of his personal hell, can Dean resist temptations that have plagued him his entire life? Or will someone descend and lend a hand, showing Dean that the darkness he imagined only lived inside his own mind. And all that he feared was not as he seemed if he let himself step out of the shadows of his past.

(Dean/Cas, Human AU, 2000s-set, 8,113 words, tw: Dean’s childhood & upbringing by one John Winchester)

ao3

           His ears hurt. Dean stares at a small puddle of maybe-water-maybe-vodka that collected on the bar top, focusing on it instead of the pounding bass drum and blender whirring that’s somehow considered music. At least that’s what Sam told him seconds after entering, meeting Dean’s disgruntlement with patented exasperation. Floppy bangs pushed back for its full effect. “You’re such an old man,” he said, “Can you pretend you’re happy being here?”

           “That depends,” he fired back, brow raised. Pulled taut like a bowstring, retort knocked and waiting. He lets it fly, “How quick do you think I can get drunk?”

           The answer – very quickly. Dean balked when Sam ordered them these bubbling potions the color of lava lamps mixed with Barbie vomit. Served in dainty glasses Dean could easily break if he applied even a fraction of pressure between his thumb and forefinger. Rim lined with salt and a wedge of lime. Sam suggested they cheers. He chugged his before Sam raised the glass. He flagged the bartender, ignoring Sam’s glare. “What the hell did I drink?” he asked.

           The bartender pursed his lips, eyes dragging over Dean’s frame as if he were stripping him bare in the room; peeling away the layers of his jacket and plaid button-down and faded band tee like they were tissue, freckled-and-pale skin freed for the bartender’s enjoyment. He sowed seeds of unwanted fantasies. Dean cleared his throat, repeating the question, digging out those dropped seedlings before the bartender’s imagined wanderings might flower.

           If Dean wanted to encourage attention, he’d have dressed like him. Mesh shirt with uneven holes, some stretched wider than most. Its woven fabric failed at hiding the sweat that dampened his obviously spray-tanned skin, strips of orange paint peeling like a rind. The bartender wiped his brow, a streak of bright white skin revealed. “A strawberry margarita.”

           “Of course,” Dean nodded at the selection behind him, “got anything that doesn’t taste too… sugary?” A frown dragged every wrinkle and crease forward on the bartender’s face. He clarified, “A beer. What beer do you have?”

           They didn’t have any. Dean asked for a vodka neat, Sam criticizing his choice as the bartender retreated. “You’re so boring.” That was three vodka neats ago.

           Sam left his station beside Dean soon after his first drink, swept away in the tide of bodies pulsing in the center of the club. Each individual moving to a different beat. Their dancing unsyncopated and wild. Yet, despite how hopeless it looked, bodies acting independently from one another, the writhing mass shared one mind. Although, even assimilated by the crowd, Dean can keep track of his little brother. Head poking free of the mass like some odd periscope. Scanning every few seconds until their gazes met and then submerging once more.

           Dean isn’t searching for him now. He studies his small puddle of definitely-vodka. He swiped his finger through it earlier and sucked it dry; cheeks hollow, eyes half-lidded and unfocused. Dean heard someone’s glass shatter over the wretched din of noise, timed perfectly with his finger popping out of his mouth like a burst bubble. The sharp smell of alcohol fries his nose hairs. It dulls the throbbing ache caused by his surroundings, Dean’s frayed nerves sparking underneath, jumping like live wires since Sam detailed their plans for this evening.

           “You wanna go to a gay bar?”

           Sam rolled his eyes with so much force they rattled inside his skull like a novelty magic eight-ball, his hazel gaze landing on him, answer written neatly, ‘It is decidedly so’. Dean shook it again, scoffing. The answer changed. Not in Dean’s favor. ‘Yes – definitely’.

           “Why?” Dean leaned across their small table, “Are you…?” He asks with a wry twist of his lips and a limp wrist.

           “I don’t know,” Sam told him.

           “You don’t know? Isn’t that a requirement for a – a gay bar?”

           “Not necessarily,” he explained, sitting across from Dean finally. Sam’s windbreaker swooshed with every dramatic sweep of his arm. “I mean… sure, most of the people there are gay. But it’s not like they make you flash some official gay card at the door…” Expression pinched, he powered head, avoiding the conversational detour and sticking to the main highway of his argument. “Besides, there’s more than just gay.”

           Dean nodded, “Like what?”

           “Bisexual, Pansexual… Asexual, Demisexual –“

           “I think I might be that,” Dean laughed, tongue swiping over his bottom lip. “It means you’re attracted to Demi Moore, right? Because if Kutcher weren’t in the picture, I’d definitely be all up in her business!”

           “Don’t be an ass, Dean,” Sam said, “Demisexuality is a real thing, okay? It’s only being attracted to people who you have a deep, intimate bond with.”

           “Oh, is that so?” He stretched his legs out from beneath the table, knocking into Sam’s. “That what you’re learning in college? I thought you wanted to be a lawyer. Or were you a bit presumptuous when you made that e-mail, lawboy?”

           “I still do,” Sam muttered, cheeks tinted a dark shade. “I… it was one of these classes I have to take, for my degree. Made me think about things I never knew about and – and stuff I said that, looking back, was… kind of offensive. That we joked about, what dad would say, sometimes…” Dean tuned Sam out partly, a refreshing static separating him from Sam’s words. Standard whenever Sam mentioned their dad, or if he saw something that reminded him of dad, or if dad cared enough to leave a voicemail for Sam on their shared answering machine. The little antenna on his brain’s radio drooped slightly, making Dean fiddle for the signal. He managed to catch the remainder of Sam’s monologue, barely. “…it’s a whole new world!”

           “No, it isn’t,” Dean sighed, tiredly scrubbing his chin. “Sam, you’ve only ever liked girls.”

           “To my knowledge!” Sam insisted, “I might’ve liked a boy, possibly. Maybe. I mean… do you remember Trevor?”

           “Trevor?”

           “Y’know, Trevor,” he fumbled through his memories, silence painstakingly ticking past. The clicking of their kitchen clock suddenly, obnoxiously loud. “That kid from that town we stayed at for about two months my sophomore year of high school, up in Montana.”

           Dean remembered that town. GED burning a hole in his pocket, he bummed through town hunting for a job since dad hightailed it for a phantom thread of a lead on their mother’s murderer. Not many folks were hiring, but a stern man in a rough-hewn Stetson and bushy mustache needed an extra ranch hand. Introduced Dean to his son, Dean’s new co-worker. Steve was a nice boy, older than him by a few years, with a warm temperament, skin tanned like leather from a life of fieldwork, and legs bent further than Dean’s by riding horses since birth.

           One day while tending the horses, Steve noticed how Dean’s focus drifted every few seconds, drawn to the saddles. “We can go for a ride,” he mentioned, “one night, around the property.”

           “I wouldn’t even know how to get on a horse, let alone ride it.”

           Steve chuckled, shoulders barely shaking from the act. His honeyed eyes were earnest and gooey in the filtered sunlight, distracting Dean more than saddles ever did. “I can show you,” he said, “it ain’t too hard.” He proved that by using their lunch break to teach Dean how to mount a horse. He demonstrated it, legs wrapping around its thick flanks, showboating and urging the steed forward by tapping his heels while Dean laughed, head dizzy from spinning, following Steve and the horse, as well as other things. “Think you can try it?” Dean didn’t. He shook his head, lip trapped between his teeth. Speaking felt blasphemous in that moment. “What if I helped?” Steve offered a hand, easily hefting Dean up atop the horse. They shared the saddle, Dean bracketed by Steve’s sturdy arms and supported by his firm chest. Dean felt every tug of the reigns as Steve guided the horse around the stable, and every whispered breath along his neck. Steve dismounted first, holding Dean’s hips and helping him down later. “Now imagine how nice that’d be, out on the plains, with nothing but the moon watching us?” He painted a pretty picture, even if Dean’s copied brushstrokes were shaky and inelegant. They made plans the following Friday.

           John returned Tuesday, and they left Wednesday. He’d never been near a horse since.

           But they weren’t talking about Steve. Why did he think of Steve? “Trevor?” Dean repeated, still unsure what Sam’s flailing meant.

           “My lab partner,” he said, “We bonded over our mutual appreciation of Vince Vincente and the Goonies… there were some days he’d give me the extra sandwich his mom packed, for some reason?”

           “You mean to tell me you had a crush on this Trevor kid?”

           “I might have!” Sam rose, shouting, “He was… he treated me well, and I liked hanging around him.”

           “He was your friend, Sam. Friend,” Dean sunk deeper into his seat, kicking Sam’s abandoned chair. “You have had friends in your life, right? I know I joke about you being a loser, but I never really meant it…”

           “Of course I had friends,” he scowled, “I have friends.”

           “And you’ve had girlfriends,” Dean reminded him, “Hell, you and Jess only broke up about a month ago! Did Trevor give you feelings like Jess did?”

           Sam visibly faltered, stooping slightly. Footing lost as the ground trembled beneath his feet. “Well… no, I mean – not, not that I can recall…” Spluttering, his hands balled tighter into fists. “But maybe it’s different, feelings for a boy and – and feelings for a girl.”

           “Sam, feelings are feelings regardless of who’s on the other end of ‘em. You just… you just know –“

           Like he regressed two decades, Sam stomped his foot in a very childish way. Whining, “God, Dean, can’t you be a little supportive!” Immediately his face stretched in regret, rubber band snapping as he leaped forward in years to his appropriate age. It didn’t matter; the barb struck exactly where it intended, puncturing soft underbelly, unguarded by Dean’s calloused defenses.

           Dean stiffened; gaze drawn to a whorl in the table’s finish. His thumb pressed hard at its center. He snorted, but it sounded more like an engine backfiring. “Supportive huh?” he asked, smile wide and wry, “You want me to be more supportive?” Thousands of examples flickered like a clip reel in his mind. Small things. Dean skipping breakfast so Sam can eat the last of their cereal. Wearing the same clothes, weeks on end, because Sam needed a new wardrobe, reedy body bigger than what they had. Risking arrest with every five-finger discount or hustled game or back alley trick; supporting the way their dad couldn’t.

           Bigger things. Lying, letting Sam play over at other kids’ houses; Dean frozen, watching the door in fear their dad came home early. Hiding letters from admissions for Sam, secreted from beneath their dad’s nose. He was an ever-present figure during those last few years. A shadowy patrol that continually followed since they were old enough. Dad had more use for men then children. Dean went as far as distracting him one starless night while Sam escaped, then accepted the consequences of his actions. He joined Sam weeks later with Baby’s keys and a split lip caused by, who he described to Sam as, some jackass biker. It healed in time for an interview, for a job he still has. Six days a week spent under the hoods of cars, working long hours and earning money to support them both, like before. Giving Sam the very freedoms he’d been denied – time, luxury, and safety.

           He held these words firm in his mouth, smoke bitter as it roiled. But, in his next breath, Dean released the past with a low hiss. Darkness rising, dissipating. “It’s okay,” he assured Sam, cutting off his rambling apologies. “Really.” He glanced at Sam’s outfit, fully taking in his choices. A color-blocked jacket of bright colors, reds, yellows, and oranges, that glowed over his tight, dark button-down. A hint of some printed graphic peeking behind the half-zippered flaps. Combined with a pair of Sam’s most distressed denim and flip-flops because It’s California, Dean, and you know how awful my feet sweat. As a whole Sam presented like a grade-A douchebag. Entirely unprepared for any bar, let alone a gay one. Dean’s instincts kicked into overdrive.

           “Fine,” he decided, standing, too, “you want supportive? Then I’m coming with you.”

           “What?” Sam trailed Dean’s wake as he left for his bedroom, cornering him while he slipped into some ratty white sneakers left by his dresser. “You’re coming?”

           “Sure.”

           “But… why?” Sam slammed his hand on Dean’s doorframe, blocking his exit. “You’re not gay.”

           Dean frowned at him, “I thought you didn’t have to be gay to go to a gay bar?”

           “Yeah, but –“ He knocked Sam’s arm loose, passing his brother on the way towards the door. Sam followed, buzzing behind like a mosquito. “You don’t seriously wanna go, do you?”

           “Obviously not,” Dean said, sliding into an oversized leather jacket. Another relic of their dad’s. Dean couldn’t leave without it. He couldn’t explain why. “But since you’re insisting on doing this, I might as well make sure you don’t get taken advantage of.”

           “That won’t happen.”

           “You kidding? A guy like you, wobbling around like a fawn – a sort of gay Bambi… you’d get eaten alive instantly. Or drugged.” He squeezed Sam’s shoulder, the finger of his other hand pressed into his brother’s chest like it was an intercom button, pushing so forcefully Dean thought it might burst through the other side. “I don’t need the stress of finding out you died at this gay bar because some idiot overestimated the amount of roofies they’d need to take down your elephant-sized ass.”

           Sam cringed at his worst-case scenario but hadn’t shrugged his hand off. Instead he returned the gesture with his own comforting touch around Dean’s wrist. “Okay,” Sam said, “you can come. Don’t embarrass me though, by being an ass.”

           “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

           “Hey,” Sam said later, Baby idling in front of a red light. Zeppelin blaring through her speakers, making conversation difficult. Dean lowered it for his brother. “What’d you think dad’d say, if he knew where we were going?”

           Dad’s opinion, of his two sons wasting their night in a gay bar, would ruffle the feathers of Sam’s newfound sensitivity. He hears their dad’s voice clearly, delivering a tirade about their terrible choices. Dean spent his time at the bar drowning that voice since arriving. He drains his fourth-or-fifth glass of its contents. It all splashes like the others, into his empty, churning stomach. Dad’s voice, the awful music, his nerves and senses slip out of mind. He sees dregs of vodka left in his glass. He uses the same finger that swiped through the tiny bar puddle and swirls it there, coating in in more vodka. Again, Dean sucks on his finger.

           Someone approaches while his lips graze knuckle.

           “If you get tired of that finger…” a stranger says on his right, reeking of cherry-and-liquored stink. Dean’s face scrunches at the smell. “I’ve got this big thing you can suck on…” His gaze wanders to where the stranger is.

           He’s a man with severely gelled hair, plastered back. A few strands were missed in the initial sweep and clung to his forehead, shiny and wet, making it seem like oil slowly bled down. He chokes on a gold chain that resembles a collar, broad neck seizing as he breathes. Steroids, Dean wagers, given how bulging veins snake past the sleeves of his stretched-thin shirt. Which makes him doubt the man’s ‘big’ claim. He arches a stupidly perfect, sculpted brow, leaning far past the bubble of Dean’s personal space. “You’d definitely have a lot more fun than playing with your finger,” he adds, taking Dean’s silence as an apparent invitation.

           He can’t remember when his finger slid free, but it did and, while spit-slick, jabs at Roidy’s brick-wall chest. “Not interested pal,” he says, “Why don’t you try a different fella?”

           “What if I don’t want a different fella?”

           “Then you are s’stupid as you look.” Dean waves, flagging the bartender for his next vodka. “Why don’t you take your big package crap elsewhere?”

           Undeterred, Roidy leans closer. Fingertips ghosting where Dean holds his glass as the bartender refills it. He tenses, squirming, imagining the very oil that drips from the man’s head coats his fingers, too, and through his touch smears it around Dean’s wrist. “Listen, you might not know this… but I made a promise tonight. That I would fuck the hottest, sexiest piece of trade in the club tonight. And congratulations… that’s you.”

           Dean squints, mockingly cooing at the other’s assessment. “I feel honored,” he says, sarcasm heavy like the hand pouring his drinks this evening. “Special, even,” Dean continues, “don’t know how anyone could turn y’away after that.”

           “No one does.”

           “Then I guess I’ll be the first?” Dean asks. The bartender huffs softly under breath, he and Dean reveling silently. They connect over this interloper’s antics. With a subtle shift in the bartender’s gaze, a snide flash of teeth, Dean understands. He’s not the first, only the latest. Certainly not the last.

           What he wants to be, though, is left alone. That doesn’t seem likely. Not with how Roidy gloms onto Dean’s side, an arm curling around his shoulders. Not if his biting smile meant anything, tearing through Dean’s dismissals. Not as Roidy whispers, barely audible because of the music, “If you’re going for discreet, I can do that… play along, that is. It wouldn’t be worth it if it were easy…”

           Dean’s mood sinks under such nauseating charms. He looks for assistance in the bartender, but he swam to safer shores at some point, serving drinks elsewhere. Unfortunate. He was starting to like him.

           Roidy snuffles Dean’s neck, alarms clanging within his head. Or possibly it’s coming from the many speakers placed throughout the bar. Either way that plus everything he drank, make thinking complicated and tortuously slow, like Roidy nosing along his collarbone. His thoughts fall apart before they make it to his mouth, Dean opening and shutting and opening his mouth hoping a few words can crawl themselves into existence. He manages a few garbled syllables that are greatly ignored.

           As swiftly as Roidy began his assault, he’s being tugged off him. Dean gasps for breath, spinning, facing the dancefloor now. Glaring at Roidy who glares elsewhere, at the owner of the hand that cleaved this growth from Dean’s side.

           It’s beautiful, for a hand. Tan, palm curled around Dean’s shoulder protectively. No cuts or scabs across the knuckles, nor any scars. If he were to touch it, he imagines the skin there is soft and smooth. Dean’s gaze travels, curious who might own such a gentle hand.

           Chasing the sinewy lines of his savior’s arms to broad shoulders, Dean feels his chest tighten in a desperate need for fresh air. However, it’s not terrifying like before with Roidy. This is unique and comforting. He inhales, then exhales. He has no trouble breathing. He still feels that tightness. Crushing once he finds his savior’s face.

           Marble. Statues are carved from stone – marble, specifically – he remembers from an old teacher’s droned lecture that returned with vengeance. Spoken during a field trip to some museum where Dean barely stayed awake as they flew room to room, always seconds from collapsing, waking momentarily for the next exhibit. Except when they entered a room of statues, and Dean managed fifteen minutes of attentiveness. Aided by chiseled features of a statue hidden between two columns near the farthest corner of the room. A man, naked, endowed, frozen in repose and staring into the distance. It might have been at a bathroom door, Dean’s memory supplied, but the statue saw beyond such borders. Dean wished he knew what existed where only statues can see. All he understood was the expression. Marble evoked steel. The statue displayed determination, tempered and ready for whatever barrels forward, with a hint of sorrow he must greet what is to come. The same expression shone on his savior’s face triggering his sudden recollection. Only his was brighter because of those eyes. An incomparable blue.

           On first glance, Dean wonders if that statue perhaps came alive. Journeyed from wherever it stood, in that town whose name he can’t summon up, to save him. Except that’s impossible. That statue is most likely there, forever guarding the bathroom. Blue Eyes is a man with his own history, parallel to Dean’s until he jumped in playing hero. But why?

           He can’t think of a reasonable explanation, because Blue Eyes finally speaks. “Hey babe,” he growls, Dean jolting from the pitch, like he stepped, shoeless, on glass shards littering the floor. An abundance of them must slip loose from Blue Eyes’ mouth whenever it opens after they shredded his vocal cords. “Sorry I’m late, traffic was crazy.”

           What?

           “What?”

           “Didn’t you get my text?” he asks Dean. Then, subtly checking on Roidy who watches, fuming from the sidelines, he makes an odd clicking sound. “Or were your hands full, and you couldn’t check?”

           “His hands were full all right,” Roidy interrupts, not waiting for Dean’s response. He tries shoving Blue Eyes back, but he refuses to budge. His strength real and not decorative like Roidy’s. He falters slightly; adjusts course and snags a fistful of Blue Eyes’ white button-down in case Blue Eyes wastes energy trying what Roidy did. “Why don’t you leave and let your babe hang with someone who’s there when he needs him?”

           Blue Eyes squints, lips slowly stretching, like a match dragged across a striker, until the flame of a smirk dances into view. “I can assure you, that’s exactly who I am. Wouldn’t you agree?”

           He does. He should. Blue Eyes listens for Dean’s answer, chin dipped patiently. Roidy’s is, as well. Both wait on him, Dean the difference between favor and disgrace. It’s a non-decision. He eases into his savior’s warmth, improvising by slipping his thumb through a belt loop on the other side. “Exactly,” Dean says, “you’re all I need, sweetie.”

           Dean knows there’s no reason to turn from Blue Eyes. Temptation wins, and he chances a peek at the loser. Roidy fumes, his sneer somehow making him appear uglier. He wipes at his brow, disrupting those few, sticky strands, and reveals covered pockmarks. They appear horn-like, in the bar’s dim lighting. That cherry-and-liquor scent sours, suddenly pungent like rotten eggs. “Whatever,” he mutters, letting Blue Eyes go, “your boyfriend’s a fucking tease.”

           “Go fuck yourself,” Dean drawls, laughing, squeezing Blue Eyes tighter. Encouraged by his presence. “At least you’ll know it’s consen-u-tal!”

           Roidy departs dreadfully, saluting them with his middle finger. Dean responds with a raised glass that quickly empties itself down his throat. Slumping onto the bar, releasing Blue Eyes, Dean motions for the bartender’s return. “Hey,” he slurs, “another vodk-eh and, uh…” He scowls, studying the rack, an array of alcohol lined up. “Shit, man,” he asks his savior, “what’s your poison?”

           “Tequila,” Blue Eyes tells the bartender, frowning at Dean, “You sure you’re good for this?”

           “What’s that s’posed to mean?”

           “That you look like you’ve had enough.” Blue Eyes accepts the glass of tequila, tapping its rim against his chin, lime wedge hitting the corner of his quirked lips. “How many of those vodkas have you had?”

           “’Bout this many,” he answers, hand open. Dean hums, considering the number. “Maybe one or two more. Or less? I must’ve lost count…” He shrugs, sipping at his latest drink. “S’okay, though, I once drank this meathead trucker under the table. A whole bottle of ol’ Jack at this… roadhouse off a highway somewhere east a’here.” Vodka sloshes with each gesture while he retells the story. “So I’ve got tolernance.”

           “Clearly.” Blue Eyes chuckles, and Dean – not sure for what reason – joins him. He can’t hear much of it, but the bits of his laughter that break over the bar’s chaotic din make Dean giddy. “Thank you,” he nods at his tequila, “for the drink.”

           “Hey, I’m the one thankin’ here buddy,” Dean says, “I don’t know what I’d’ve done if you hadn’t stepp-epped in when you did. Probably somethin’ punchy.”

           “He would have deserved it,” he finally tips his glass back. Dean’s Adam’s apple bobs in rhythm with Blue Eyes’, even if his drink rests miles away on the bar top. “Hey,” Blue Eyes continues, smiling, fiddling with the lime wedge, “what’s your name?”

           “Why you wanna know?”

           “Well, usually I know the names of the men who buy me drinks. Especially those who buy them for me after I’ve scared off pervy creeps.”

           “You make a habit of this, then?”

           “No,” Blue Eyes says, “you’re the first.”

           Unlike with Roidy, Dean believes him. “Dean.”

           “Castiel,” he reveals, simultaneously sticking the lime in his mouth. Teeth locked around it, he drains the wedge of its juice. Dean blushes, and the rush of blood to his head brings dizziness. Resting one hand on the bar doesn’t help. Neither does two. Castiel finishes his drink, placing the glass and shriveled lime near Dean’s hands, and yet his sudden lightheadedness persists.

           Castiel must notice this queasiness, because he grazes Dean’s elbow. Uses words Dean cannot presently grasp. A wave of concern sweeps across Castiel’s features, transforming them. Drawing Dean closer, lost in his orbit.

           A diversion is necessary. “So, Cas,” he starts, their faces inches from each other. To talk easier. “You gay?”

           “Uh…” Belatedly, Dean realizes his stupidity. His jaw drops, as if he can vacuum the question back. Pretend he never said it. Castiel, looking saintly under the bar’s neon glow, recovers faster. Replies before Dean might withdraw. “Yeah, yes I’m… I’m gay. Be pretty weird if I wasn’t.”

           “I must be pretty weird, huh,” Dean thinks aloud. He smacks his lips. They taste oddly like a morning where, after playing some hilarious prank on Sam, he came to with old socks stuffed into his duct taped mouth.

           Castiel skews his head to the side. “Why are you weird?”

           “Because…” It’s a bad idea. He recognizes how bad an idea this is. However, recognition and action are completely separate. And while he succeeds in the former, he fails spectacularly with the latter. “I’m not gay.” Then, slurring, he whisper-shouts, “I’m straaaaight.”

           “Really…” Castiel skims through tens of emotions Dean cannot discern with his vodka-addled brain. He settles on detachment, the tightness within his chest loosening as Cas inches backwards. Dean, instinctively, floats closer. That strain returns tenfold, like a python coiled itself around Dean. Squeezes him until Castiel bumps into a patron, bringing their chests flush together. Dean likes it even if he cannot breathe. Castiel smiles, but it’s noticeably different than those previously gifted. “If you’re straight, why are you at a gay bar?”

           “You don’t have to be gay to be in a gay bar,” Dean supplies.

           “It’d be a real plus though.” He barely caught Castiel’s mumbling. He can’t question what was meant, because Castiel clears his throat and repeats his question. “Why did you choose a gay bar for the evening?”

           Dean glances at the dance floor. Sam hadn’t left, enmeshed between writhing bodies. “I’m not here for me. My brother – he thinks he’s gay… or somethin’ like it,” he tells Castiel, snorting when someone other than Sam rakes a paw through his hair. Awkwardness flashes like lightning, disappearing behind forced puppy-dog features and Sam’s too-wide grin. “He’s here expermimenting while I’m the… uh – the moral support.”

           Castiel’s face publicizes his thoughts. The lines of his face twitch in simple patterns that are already familiar to Dean. And the pools of his eyes reflect the subdued variety of his feelings, providing needed transparency. With this change of his features, Dean guesses Castiel’s tensed mouthline and wishbone-bent eyebrows meant awe and respect. “That’s… very nice of you.”

           “Least I can do,” Dean shrugs, tasting sock once more, “it’s not like I’ll need’ta do more. Kid’s straight as a… straight thing.”

           Those pearled emotions seal themselves tightly in a clamshell, Castiel sending them back into murky depths. “How would you know?”

           “Because I’ve known the kid all m’life, Cas. He’s a shit liar… at least to me he is.” Dean settles against the bar, past resurfacing. A clear memory from their younger years. Sam never finishing his dinners, but somehow dropping a clean plate into the trashcan every time. Followed by a question, like clockwork, about taking a walk. “Around the motel,” he said, “nothing further.” His father’s rules. Never plainly set, but strictly enforced. Dean learned of them the hard way. Sam agreed, not even fighting like he usually did. Maybe that’s why, one night, he left their motel a beat after Sam. Dean kept close tabs on his brother. Not stopping him as he disobeyed orders and crossed the street, nor when a crowd of adults poured out of some ritzy venue, stares scathing as he passed. He maintained distance, only toeing nearer as Sam slowed for a better view of the alleyway he paused at, of a three-legged dog hobbling out of a cardboard box, tongue lolling, tail wagging. Sam greeted him in similar fashion, kneeling at the edge where light and shadows gathered. He pet and pet and pet this stray, stopping only to reveal the portion of dinner he hadn’t eaten wrapped in several paper towels. Dean scurried off in the direction of the motel, asking Sam how his walk was once he returned. He relates all this to Castiel. “Sam loved dogs. Always wanted one assa pet…” If this was his chance, Dean figured he might help. Became more lenient. Gave Sam food from his plate, not that he ever noticed. Lied to John during those rare moments he was home.  “Most of the things he got away with were only because I let him. I’m sure if he ever wanted a boyfriend he could’ve done it, and there I’d be covering his tracks like I did for his dog an’ his playdates an’ his girlfriends.”

           “Wow, you…” Castiel trails off. Or perhaps he completed his thought, and Dean missed it because their arms are pressed together on the bar. Dean turns, watching the other’s soft contemplation instead of Sam. Castiel meets his gaze, those pearls reappearing. Shinier, too. “What happened to the dog?”

           “Sam dropped off food the next two weeks, but by then our dad was dying to move on,” he explains, “I happened to overhear him bitchin’ on the phone and knew it’d be soon. So I took a personal day and brought his mutt t’the nearest shelter.” Hopefully Patchy found a good home, not that he cared.

           “You’re a good brother.”

           “I try my best.”

           “Your best is better than a lot of people’s…” Castiel knocks his shoulder into Dean’s, Dean chasing after it. “My brothers’ idea of kindness is the occasional birthday e-mail, when the mood strikes them that is.”

           “That sucks.” There’s more he wants to say, except Dean cannot make his mouth open again. When he finally unsticks his lips, he forgot all those words that seemed important moments ago. Replaced by off-tempo notes and cyclical phrases. Dean sighs, head lolling to the side while his lids slide closed over his eyes.

           He exists in darkness. A warm, welcoming blackness, like being swaddled in a blanket. Hiding under it while winds howled and raged, sheets of rain slamming atop roofs and pelleting windows. Safe, protected.

           That blanket is torn from him, Dean stumbling slightly. Castiel catches him and helps him stand upright, smirking. “Hey,” Dean whines, numb fingers twining loosely around Castiel’s wrist, “where you goin’?”

           Castiel nods at the writhing mass, somehow larger since Dean last looked. “I feel like dancing.”

           “No…” Dean tugs Castiel back towards him. He stays where he was. “Stay here,” Dean insists.

           “Or…” Castiel says, prying Dean’s hand from his wrist. His needy fingers seep through the spaces between Castiel’s and he clings tight. “Or,” he repeats, breathier than before, “you can join me on the dancefloor?”

           “I don’t dance, Cas…” His legs betray him, following Castiel into the fray. Vodka making his protests toothless. Vodka and Castiel.

           He meant what he said, though. He does not dance. Men don’t dance. Real men. Normal men. Dad never danced, not even at his wedding. Even though mom begged, dad would tell them that he remained firm in his decision. “Never trust a man who dances,” he advised, Sam asleep feet from where they sat, beers in their hands. Dean was fourteen. “No man wants to dance. If he’s dancing, it means he’s weak enough to have lost that fight. And if he likes dancing, then that’s not the kind of man you want to be associating with.” Dean nodded, because at fourteen why not? Dad rarely gave guidance that wasn’t pointed, aimed directly at him. Cutting, slicing bits and pieces off and leaving them behind in whatever motel they briefly occupied.

           With how Castiel moves, effortless and graceful, Dean bets he likes dancing. And if Castiel likes dancing, Dean wonders, truly, how bad it can be.

           You want these people thinking you’re some kind of fairy? They already have, before he walked onto the dance floor. No son of mine is gonna dance with a man! Luckily, he won’t be dancing with one. He’ll dance, surrounded by men. Do you want to look gay, Dean? He won’t. Not if he says he doesn’t. Not if he says he isn’t.

           A kid from his junior high days taught him that. How, by telling yourself what you do isn’t gay, suddenly you create your own version of truth. “Not for everything,” he warned. He paused, panting, as he – like Dean – recovered on the leather couch. Spent, video paused on his basement television, shorts – like Dean’s – around his ankles, “it doesn’t work all the time.”

           “But for this?” Dean asked.

           “Definitely this.”

           Dean listened; those sacred words used sparingly over time. Mostly during clouded nights when the money ran out, as did their supplies, and Dean’s skills at the pool table or poker game couldn’t compare to those of his body.

           He uses the words again. This isn’t gay. Castiel spins him, his chest plastered onto Dean’s back. He tries phrasing it differently. Dancing isn’t gay. Dean takes his free hand, the one not latched onto Castiel, and mirrors an earlier action he saw. Combs his fingers through Castiel’s dark brown locks. He amends and adds to it, too. Dancing is the least gay thing he can be doing in this bar. That appeases the monster clawing at his mind, its voice, eerily similar to his dad’s, fading away. Dean smiles, then lets go.

           The music isn’t so bad. Dancing isn’t as bad, either. Castiel is…

           Dean focuses only on the music and dancing. It’s easy, losing himself in the rhythm. Forgetting who he is, where he is, and why he is where he is. He becomes nameless, another body in motion. Faceless as the strobe lights flicker and hide his features. Thoughtless, no room for anything besides what he hears. Dean doesn’t exist save for moments that jab at his awareness. Castiel squeezing his hand. The feel of hair then stubble then hair as his touch roams. Gasps at the base of his neck that elicit headier gasps from Dean. Firm press of chest-to-back, joined hands resting over his heart while Castiel’s free hand lays atop Dean’s stomach as they rock together.

           Dancing is the least gay thing he can be doing at this bar.

           While it fascinates Dean, Castiel must tire of their arrangement, because he disturbs Dean’s oblivion by turning from back-to-chest to chest-to-chest. The wrong move, Dean thinks, as his vision blurs in such a violent way. The room spins and tilts long after he did, everything appearing off-balance. Save for Castiel, standing in front of him, not dancing anymore.

           That’s why he throws his arms around Castiel’s shoulders, Dean’s mind comforts him with seconds later. For safety. For stability. Since he, too, wasn’t dancing anymore. His legs were useless, bent further than normal. Making him smaller. Forcing him to angle his head upwards to meet his savior’s searching gaze. Lips parted silently, asking a question with the ghost of his breath. Dean thinks he hears an invitation.

           He accepts. Dives headfirst into it, vodka mixing with tequila and a spritz of lime. Castiel tastes better than any drink he’s had. He puts pressure on Castiel’s shoulder, climbing for easier access. Castiel helps; an arm braced around Dean’s waist steadies him. Guides their bodies into a holding pattern, a simple sway that won’t interfere with the others cavorting around them. Serenity made within the chaos of a raging sea; these waves don’t crash. Rather, they tenderly caress the shoreline before retreating in similar fashion. A line of sea foam, like the line of spit generously coating Dean’s mouth, the only proof it even hit.

           Dean breaks from their kiss, panting. His forehead rests against Castiel’s. “That was…” he pauses, testing each word he thinks of and ultimately rejecting them all since they fail to describe what happened. He settles for, “Wow.”

           “It was,” Castiel agrees, “Why’d you stop, then?”

           “I stopped?” Dean sifts through his memories, those last few minutes entirely unforgettable but completely hard to recount. “I did?” he whispers, “Maybe it’s because I’m straight?”

           “Are you sure?”

           “I…” He can be, if he says so. Unfortunately, Dean forgets those little magic words. Trapped in limbo, the space between truths. “I’m not… I don’t know.”

           Cas steps back, enough that Dean sees his entire face instead of those enchanting blue eyes. It eases the worry plaguing Dean’s mind. “Did you enjoy what just happened? What we did?”

           “Yeah.”

           “Then you certainly aren’t straight.”

           Dean nods. He swallows a lump in his throat, feels it tear itself down into his stomach. He imagines blood spouting out of these gashes, building, climbing up in an escape attempt. He chokes on it. It might not be blood. Maybe-blood-maybe-drool leaks from the corners of his mouth as he asks, in a daze, “Does that mean I’m gay?”

           “Or something like it.” Castiel reaches forward, combing through Dean’s sweaty hair in time with the music. “Hey,” he says, “it’s okay if you are. That you like… that you kissed me. It’s okay.”

           It isn’t. Dean knows it isn’t. Not for him. Not with all that’s expected of him. The blueprint of who he’s supposed to be. Who Dean Winchester is. Torn to shreds and raining overhead like the actual confetti that floats down from high above. That were released without notice. Dropped there while he stands, in the middle of the dance floor, petrified by another man’s kiss. Dad’s efforts wasted.

           “It’s okay,” Castiel repeats, “it’s okay…” He drifts further away; but before Dean can whine about his absence, he realizes his feet move, too. Castiel leads him from the belly of this ecstatic, partying mob.

           “Where are you taking me?”

           “Nowhere far, just off the dance floor.” They reach the perimeter, crowd thinned and weak; Cas releases his hold on Dean. Shrugs his shoulders, blessedly smiling at him. “Where you go and... what you do next, well – that’s up to you.”

           He’s unprepared for such freedoms. The simplicity of making a choice. A foreign concept when all your life, every decision was already made for you. For other people. Keys don’t choose which doors they open. Hammers don’t make plans on which nails they’ll hit and which they’ll avoid.

           Dean giggles, overcome by an intoxicating rush of getting to choose without any real consequence. No judgement, no threats, no guilt. If Dean told Castiel that kiss meant nothing and then bolted out of the bar, he would never have to deal with these conflicting thoughts, actions, and feelings. Never need to see Castiel again.

           That isn’t what he wants.

           Dean embraces the confusion because he, Dean, wants to. He kisses Castiel, driving them forward until they hit a wall, because he wants to. Tells him, “I want you,” because he does. Because it’s the truth.

           And Castiel’s truth, “You can have me,” slots perfectly next to his.

           Dean is intimately familiar with the art of kissing. Spent years practicing with ever-changing partners; girls from all over who were probably as bored as Dean felt. Girls who his dad saw and made him beam with pride. Enough girls, so that he called Dean names – different than the ones he thought Dean didn’t know about – like lady killer and chip off the ol’ block. Girls that were good kissers, bad kissers, and mostly unremarkable whatsoever. Dean lost his appetite for kissing, the act not being very fun for him. Not something he might look forward to, even if he said the right things and acted his part perfectly.

           Kissing Castiel wasn’t good. Wasn’t bad. Not unremarkable in the slightest. It elevated the idea of kissing onto another level. A holy act. Placing Castiel on the same level as all his previous entanglements would be similar to heresy.

           This isn’t just a kiss. It’s Dean sticking his face into a fuse box with all the switches flicked on. It’s Dean stepping out into a storm without an umbrella. It’s riding down an empty highway, no cops in sight, and abusing the gas pedal until the speedometer needle vanishes.

           This kiss is apocalyptic, destroying the notion that anyone besides they two existed.

           A hand joins the two roving his body, shaking his arm. Dean laughs, “How’d you do that, Cas?”

           “Dean,” Not-Cas says, “hey, uh… Dean?” He turns, Castiel’s lips adorning his jaw with favor, and finds Sam on his other side. Watching. Aware of what he interrupted, given his pained smile and squinted gaze trapped elsewhere. “Sorry, but I’m…” he clears his throat, “I’m kinda ready to leave, if you… you are?”

           His fingers curl where Castiel’s shirt is rucked up, dangerously teasing the line of his jeans. Castiel rolls his hips, rutting their cocks against each other again. “Yeah,” he tells Sam, “Yeah I can… we can go.”

           Dean extracts himself from Castiel, slowly, taking care to disentangle themselves. Dean flattens Castiel’s mussed hair. He fiddles with the buttons of Dean’s shirts, inexplicably unfastened. Neither speak of how these things happened. “Hey,” he starts, still hovering inside the other man’s personal space, “Um… thank you, for everything. Tonight. From the bar to – uh… to he –!”

           Castiel drags him into a kiss, one Dean returns heartily. His hands grabbing fabric while Castiel’s dance around his hips. Consumed by this, Dean ignores his cell phone being stolen. Only becomes aware of it when Castiel ends their goodbye with a smile, Dean’s phone in hand actively calling someone. “My number,” he explains, flipping his phone shut, “to use whenever. Hopefully soon.”

           “…Thanks.”

           “Good night, Dean.”

           “Night, Cas.”

           He lingers. He opens his phone, closes it, then slips it back into his pocket. Sam mutters an unintelligible phrase at them, shoving Dean from where he stood. Dean blindly navigates his way towards the exit, seeing nothing but Castiel’s shrinking face that disappears once they step outside.

           He expected heat. It’s cold. Not actually, but cooler than the room they left, where bodies and light and energy broke the thermometer. Fresh air brushes his skin, startling Dean from his stupor. Dean jolts awake. His heart plummets down past his ass, chest hollowing. He glances at Sam, about to ask if they ever entered the bar. Or if he hallucinated everything on the walk to it. Dean’s lips purse, then flatten. Sam already walked ahead. He jogs after him.

           No one speaks for half their journey.

           They pass a twenty-four-hour convenience store Dean remembers, and he knows Baby waits a block around the next corner. Sam chooses then to restart their conversation. “Looks like this trip was good for both of us,” he says, hands shoved inside his pockets. He won’t meet Dean’s eyes. “Learned a lot.”

           “Really?” He’s parched. Unbalanced. His feet won’t walk in a straight line, stumbling every few steps. He persists, “What?”

           Sam shrugs, “I might have… over-examined that memory of Trevor.” Sighing, Sam kicks an empty, abandoned can into the street. “I guess I was searching for a reason why Jess and my relationship ended like it did. We were going so strong I… I figured it might have been me. That I wasn’t able to love her the way she needed because I couldn’t.”

           “Sometimes people just don’t work,” Dean tells him, “and no amount of forcing it is gonna fix it.”

           “Yeah…” He spots Baby easily, street deserted save his car and some poor, busted Beetle. Dean searches for his keys, struggling. Sam talks all the while. “And then there are some people who… who click immediately.” Dean tenses, breath stuttering. “How long have you been –?”

           He’s back in the bar. He must be. How else could he hear this overwhelming, earsplitting ringing. The kind that makes him stagger, slump against the closest surface and collapse there into a tiny ball, protected from the voice that somehow talks louder than that goddamn ringing. The monster’s voice. The one that sounds strangely similar to his dad’s. Angrily shouting, calling him names. “I’m not,” he said, as always, “I’m not.”

           Another sound overpowers the monster and that throbbing din. “Dean! Dean, hey… hey-hey-hey-hey Dean… it’s okay… it’s me, Sam. Sammy.” Someone touches his shoulder. Dean flinches from it. “Come on Dean… I won’t hurt you.” Their voice hitches, sounding waterlogged. “Please, Dean… wherever you think you are, you’re not. I promise. I need you, man. Sammy needs you.”

           Look out for Sammy.

           Dean forces himself into the present, a herculean feat as shadowed claws dig at him. Fight his attempts. He pries an eye open, then the other. There’s only Sam. Sam, kneeling in front of him on the sidewalk. Sam who, though he denies it, carries so much of their dad with him it makes staying calm near impossible. Dean sees a reflection of who Sam could be, that dad hoped Dean might be, that Sam wished he never would be. It was the reason why fatherly adoration came effortlessly when it was for Sam, even during days they hardly spoke. Dean acted as their go between. Hearing praise and relaying it; forever the messenger, carrying wounds and scars.

            “Dean, are you… you’re with me, right?” Dean nods, tension melting away. He slides further, knees bumping into Sam’s. A wordless comfort. “Fuck I am so… so sorry. I didn’t, I never meant –“

           “It’s okay.”

           “It’s not okay, Dean. Fuck!” His shout echoes towards the moon, filling the space left by clear California night. “What if I asked you while you were driving, we could have…”

           They might have died.

           “Shit…” Dean hisses, rubbing his throbbing head, willing its silence so he can think. He gets one minutes. He uses it wisely, handing Baby’s keys to Sam. “Take ‘em.”

           “What?”

           “I drank too much anyway.” Wobbling when he rises, Dean proves that true. “You were gonna have to take it, regardless.”

           Sam’s expression softens. In turn, Dean’s skin crawls. “Thank you.”

           “Just go start the damn car.” Dean won’t follow. Rather sharpening his defenses for the inevitable. Bad music. Lawful driving. Plaintive whines and rhetorical questions, all in an attempt at making Dean talk. About tonight. About their childhood. About signs he didn’t see, how it felt being this while in dad’s presence. Sam will push and push and push until he’s flatter than cardboard. Contents neatly organized and fit for storage.

           He hears the soft rumble of Baby’s engine, then that of his phone. A text.

Unknown Number 1 (650) 378-0914: In case you’re wondering, my name is spelled C A S T I E L ;)

           Despite what a whirlwind these past few minutes felt like, Dean laughs. Giggles become snorting which become happier tears rolling across his cheeks, tracing over still-damp lines and erasing them from sight. He clutches his phone atop his heart, figure bent as he now wheezes.

           Dean reigns in his giddiness. Stares at the message, wondering what he will do. Once Dean decides, he realizes his thumb was already halfway done.

           He saves his number under Cas <3. Dean responds, snapping his phone closed quickly before he can reread and second guess.

           Sam honks, watching with interest. A thousand questions waiting, hidden by the curious bend of his brows. Because of Castiel, Dean must face them. Will answer them. Is ready for them.

[oasisofgalaxies]

hm yes for prompt. how do hsmp neb feel when shown gloria,

 It was safe to say she felt like a brick house. Exhaustion was an understatement for her condition but hell if that would get in the way of this outing. Void had given her a set of coordinates and a time to meet. She didn’t know what the meeting was for, or what this compass even led to. The only hint was the word “Gloria” etched into the side of a compass that was given alongside the rest of the details. It was a normal compass, just pointing north. Odd, she thought. Neb was very intrigued about all of this.

   As she neared the coordinates, the meeting place came into view. It was a beach off the coast of a coral reef, a dark forest in the distance. She could see Void at the edge of the water. They were sitting in a boat toying with something Neb couldn’t quite see from her spot in the sky. She kept her fiancé in sight as she beat her wings to slow her fall.

   Even with the attempt, she still landed hard on the ground. A jolt of soreness rocketed from her legs to her head, making her wince. She stumbled a bit and after gaining her bearings, she tucked her wings away. They folded up neatly and with a quiet swish, turned into a short cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Boots crunching in the sand, she jogged over to where Void was stationed. 

    “Hey, finally here, sorry I’m late!” Neb leaned against the side of the boat, running a hand across the edge, “So, what’s the occasion? Not really any context for me, so I’m real curious about it y’know?”

    Void chuckled and handed her the item they were toying with, now recognizably a scrap of fabric, “I can tell. Do me a favor and blindfold yourself.”

    Neb stared at them for a second, confused. After realizing their fiancé was not blindfolding themselves, Void clarified, “It’s for a surprise. Boat, blindfold, we’re going.” 

    “Oh, oh, ok, gotcha-” Neb stepped into the boat and tied the blindfold around her eyes. She felt the boat shift under her and the movement of water. The vessel tilted side to side just a bit as Void took the spot behind them on the boat. Neb heard the oars slide in their spots and the splashing of water as they started out on the journey.

    After a few seconds of silence, Neb piped up, “Any idea how long it takes to get there?”

    “About ten to fifteen minutes.”

  A few more seconds pass. She piped up again, “So what’s the surprise?”

    “I can’t tell you, it’s a surprise.”

   A few seconds more, “How long again?”

    Void sighed, obviously getting exasperated, “I just told you, about ten to fifteen minutes. Going anywhere with you feels like traveling with a child, all these questions.”

    Silence befalls them again. Neb snickers. A child, you say? Void seems to be able to read minds as they hiss out a, “Oh don’t you dare-” But it was too late. 

    “Are we there yet?”

    Neb cackled and Void stopped rowing momentarily to grab Neb by the back of the collar. They gave her a shake, exhaling sharply.

   “Dear, I love you, but I swear to the stars I WILL throw you overboard, clear?”

   “Cl- hah!- Clear!” Neb giggled some more as the rowing continued. They feel into true silence now. Neb closed her eyes behind the blindfold, content to listen to the gently lapping of the waves and enjoying the warm sun on her skin. For the first time in a while, she felt alright. 

    ~~

    Neb blinked slowly, just noticing that the rowing noises had stopped. They were stationary now by the feeling of it. Before she could ask, Void answered her question.

    “Yes, we’re there. Now don’t take off your blindfold just yet, ok? Also you’re going to have to trust me for this one.”

    Neb tilted her head, puzzled, “I mean, I trust you of course but what’s going o- WOAH WOAH WOAH!”

    Arms hooked around her torso as she was yanked from the boat. Her legs spun in open air, not finding purchase anywhere around her. She could hear the telltale beating of wings as she kicked around in confusion. Void patted her shoulder with another hand (freshly grown, presumably) to calm her down.

    “Shh, shh, calm. We’re flying. You can take off your blindfold now.”

    Neb took the blindfold off and tossed it to the wind. She could hear an offended scoff from behind her but she was too focused on what she saw before her.

     A grand ship lay moored in the waves. The sides were lined with bright blue pain and golden inlays, reflecting golden sunlight. The many masts held flags of so many colors, pride flags. There was one for almost every type of being she could think of and even more. Her jaw was wide open at this point, astounded by the sheer size and beauty of the vessel. 

    “It’s for you, you know. Also close your mouth, you’re gonna drool on me.” Void, when no response came, used yet another hand to clamp Neb’s jaw back shut. The nether-being would have laughed if she wasn’t currently crying. Void realized this and shook their head, smiling.

    “I just said not to drool on me and now you’re just crying- Ok, come on lets get you on deck.” Void carefully guided the two of them down between the flags and rigging before setting Neb down on the boards of the deck. She gasped, it was gorgeous up close. 

    After a few moments of stunned silence, Neb turned to face Void, “You.. You made this?”

    “Mhm.”

    “For me...?”

    “Yep. That was id-”

     They were cut off by Neb nearly tackling them over, wrapping them into a giant hug. Her tail wrapped around one of their arms and her wings came out just to hug them with her whole being. 

     The entity froze for a second before hugging her back. They tried to ignore the tears now soaking their shoulder. It was fine, it was fine, don’t think too much about it. Bleh, it was WET now-

     But they decided to forgive them as they heard the string of “thank you thank you thank you”s coming from their fiancé’s sobbing form. They would forgive them for this crime. Just this once. Yes. 

     It was some time before they managed to pry Neb off of them to give her a tour. She loved every part of it, scampering across the decks and cabins like an excited puppy. She kept running to Void, noticing something else, and darting off again. Eventually they managed to see the whole ship and make it back to the deck. The two were watching the sunset now, sitting with their legs dangling from the side of the ship. 

    “So I assume you like it, yes?” 

    “Void, I don’t like it, I love it. It’s absolutely gorgeous.”

     The sun cast a pink and yellow glow across the ocean, waves gently lapping against the side of the ship. In yellow gilding, the word “Gloria” was written across the side of the ship. Neb smiled and leaned their head against Void’s shoulder. 

     Gloria. What a beautiful ship.

[alirhi]

jfc FINALLY

Ugh. I have been fighting with my muse to get this done for two months. And I was actually going to stretch it to line up more or less with the movie's timeline, but honestly... I'm just so burnt 😂 So this is what you get.

Title: Monday Chapter: Oneshot Fandom: Monday Rating: R/NC17 (I mean, have you seenthe movie?) Pairing: Mickey/OC Summary: What if, instead of Chloe, Mickey met a woman that night who was actually good for him and whom he was compatible with? WARNINGS: swearing, sex (not explicit; I rarely if ever write smut, but still) Notes: I hate Chloe. Omfg I hate her so much. So I fixed it XD Yes, I literally rewrote the entire movie with a different love interest. Well... most of it lol. I get bored, okay? Lol. Oh, and the girl is actually a character I yanked from one of my original stories lol. I didn't make her up on the spot for this (I'm too lazy for that XD). Tweaking her to fit the setting was kind of a bitch, as she's from a fantasy series, so if she seems kind of Mary Sue-ish...sorry.

“You have a nose for American cheese!”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Come on, that girl looks insane!”

“What?” Looking surprised, Argyris turned and looked where his friend was pointing, and then laughed. “Not her, you idiot! The ginger-snap over there!”

The girl in question, a lithe, pretty thing with a wild mass of red hair that she constantly shoved impatiently out of her face was dancing alone a few feet away from the angry-looking blonde Mickey had thought he'd been talking about. She was gorgeous, he had to admit.

“Go and talk to her, man!”

He pointed to the turntables in front of him, impatiently reminding Argyris, “No, I'm working!”

“Come on,” the other man taunted, “I know your playlist inside-out! It's the same R&B shit, and then a little bit of disco!”

“It's not R&B, and it's not disco!”

“This song is twenty fuckin' minutes long! Come on!”

“Hey!” Mickey grimaced, hastily yanking his headphones off and setting them down as he was dragged off toward the redhead. “Fuck!”

All puffed up with pride – and way too much to drink – Argyris pushed Mickey when they drew close to the girl, so that he slammed right into her. Laughing, he patted her shoulder, but his mirth was short-lived. She grabbed his hand and twisted his arm up behind his back.

“Put your hands on a girl you don't know again. I dare you.”

Mickey covered his mouth with one hand to hide his laughter as his friend writhed in the deceptively delicate-looking girl's grip.

“Alright, alright! I'm sorry!” Laughing as he was released, Argyris went to put a hand on each of their shoulders, took one look at the girl, and just hung off of Mickey's shoulder, instead. “You're an American... You're an American! You're a man, you're a woman! There you go!”

“Yeah, crazy kismet,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. “Two Americans out of their natural deep-fried, flag-waving habitat at the same time! Imagine!”

Undaunted, the drunk Greek simply shrugged and flounced off with a flippant, “Whatever. Have fun!”

“Sorry about him,” Mickey said immediately, smiling when she turned and smiled at him. At least she didn't seem to be judging him by the company he kept.

“Friend of yours?”

“Argyris? Yeah.” He grinned. “He's kind of an idiot, but he's a good guy.”

She laughed. “I'll take your word for it. Aren't you the DJ? Should you be over here?”

“No,” he admitted with a laugh, “but I'm fine for a few minutes. You wanna dance?”

“I'd love to.”

She was tall, he realized as he spun her around; in the little barely-there heels she was wearing, they stood eye to eye. Clearly drunk, though, she lost her balance every few seconds and crashed into him with a laugh, occasionally giving up on righting herself and just resting her head on his shoulder.

Mickey grimaced as he heard the song beginning to wind down, but the girl hanging off of him only smiled and patted his chest. “Go on! Get back to work. I'll be here when you're done.”

“Any chance I could convince you to come around the other side?” He gave her his most charming grin, and felt a little warm inside when she laughed.

“Why, so you can stare down my top the whole time?”

With a shrug, he admitted, “I've been doing that anyway, so why not?”

“Honesty!” She grinned and kissed his cheek. “I like it. Alright, you gorgeous lech! Get back up there. We'll see what I can do about your view.”

He only made it another hour or so, with the girl coming up to him every few minutes with another drink, and occasionally flashing him from the spot she'd found in front of him. Queuing up enough songs to play through the end of the party, he hopped down off the podium and ran over to her, tugging her close for the kiss he'd been dying for since Argyris had first pulled him over to her. “You wanna get out of here?”

“You sure? What about-”

Mickey shook his head, smiling. “It'll run til they all pass out. No one'll touch my stuff, not here. Come on!”

“Okay, yeah.” She shrugged and laughed, allowing him to pull her through the throng of dancing people and away from the party. “Fuck it. Let's go!”

The next morning, naked, hungover, and covered in sand, they were nudged awake by a police officer while an angry lady yelled about their indecency. The officer waited for them to scramble back into their clothes and then cuffed them both, ushering them into the back of a cruiser.

Despite the situation, Mickey couldn't keep the silly smile off of his face. At least the cops had been kind enough to cuff their hands in front of them, allowing him to hold his out to the girl beside him. “Hi. I'm Mickey.”

She laughed, the realization that they'd never introduced themselves clearly dawning in her bright green eyes. “Beck.”

“Nice to meet you.” He shook her hand, but couldn't hide his slight confusion. “That a first name or a last name?”

“It's short for my first name.” She was still smiling, but there was a dangerous glint in her eyes as she added, “Call me 'Becky' once and I'll be facing real prison time at the end of this ride, and you'll be missing body parts.”

With a slightly nervous laugh, he nodded. “Alright, noted. Beck it is!”

“And, nice to meet you, too.”

There was the briefest of conversations at the police station, the sandy couple signed themselves out, and then Mickey persuaded one of the officers to give them a lift back to the beach.

“You want a ride?”

Beck grinned, one ruddy eyebrow arching up. “I still need to clean up from the 'ride' last night.”

Laughing, Mickey shook his head. “I'll never say 'no' to more of that, but that's not what I meant.”

“I know.” She shrugged, snarky grin turning into an almost bashful smile. “And yeah, I'd love a ride. Thanks.”

He loaned her his helmet and, after getting directions from her, drove her to her hotel. It seemed like that would be the end of it... and he hated that thought. “So, what're you doing tonight?”

“Packing and sleeping,” she told him with a laugh, leaning against the building. “I gotta be on a plane Monday morning, and I hate leaving things to the last minute.”

“You're leaving?”

With a grin and a snarky air kiss, she teased, “Missing me already, lover boy?”

Mickey shrugged, grinning. “Maybe I am. I like you, is that so bad?” He beckoned, and was somewhat surprised when she walked right over to him. Still smiling like a fool, he grabbed her by the waistband of her shorts and pulled her close for a kiss. “Come with me tonight, for a proper sendoff.”

“Come with you where?”

“I'm DJing on an island.” Thumb sliding under her clothes to slide over her hip, he wheedled, “Come on. Come with me.”

“I need to shower. I'm all sandy and sticky from last night.” Beck gave him just long enough to deflate, and then she smirked and nipped his jaw. “Care to join me?”

“Fuck yes!” He was off his moped in a flash, following the laughing redhead as she took his hand and tugged him into the hotel. Giggling like hyenas, the pair made their way up to Beck's room, stopping every few steps for one to yank the other close for another kiss. Mickey was on cloud nine. This girl was fun, she was sassy and wild, and he couldn't get enough.

It seemed she couldn't get enough, either. They'd barely stepped into the shower before Beck was on her knees in front of him, her hand on his ass and his hand tangled in her hair as she sucked him off. He leaned back against the wall, tugging lightly on her hair and shuddering as he felt her moan around him.

“Fuck... oh, fuck, you're good at that! Holy shit... Stop. Stopstopstop!” With a little half-smile at her look of confusion, he tugged her back to her feet and kissed her. “You're fucking amazing. God damn, you are good with that mouth! But that's not what I want.”

Beck grinned, a playful glint in her bright green eyes that made him weak in the knees. “That's not a good idea.”

“Oh, no?” He backed her up against the wall, nuzzling her neck as his hand drifted down between her legs. “Funny... You don't seem to really believe that.”

“I definitely want you to fuck me til I can't move,” she assured him, shaking as she tried desperately not to laugh. “But it's not a good idea-” Her words turned into a startled whimper as Mickey hoisted her up by her thighs and slid into her to the hilt.

“I think it's a great idea,” he purred, biting her shoulder. Then he almost dropped her, and they both cracked up.

“The wall's slippery! This isn't smart.”

“No, it's definitely not smart,” he agreed, turning so that he was holding her up in mid-air instead of bracing her against the wall. “But that doesn't make it not a good idea.”

Beck laughed, clinging to him for dear life. “You're just gonna hold me up?”

“Yep.”

“The whole time?”

“You don't think I can do it?” Mickey grinned, bouncing her a few times just to prove her wrong. “You weight nothing, baby girl. I got this.” She was surprisingly light... but she was also a grown woman almost the same height as him. His pride would never let him admit it aloud, but there was no way he was going to be able to fuck her like this for long.

Just as he was wracking his somewhat foggy brain for a solution, he saw light dawning in Beck's eyes and waited. “Counter!” She nodded toward the sink, and only then did he realize they hadn't even closed the shower curtain, and the bathroom floor was getting soaked. “Put me on the counter.”

“I thought we were supposed to be getting cleaned up.” Even as he teased her, he was carefully stepping out of the tub, blessing her foresight when she grabbed a towel and threw it down just before he set his foot down, and carrying her across the bathroom.

Beck snickered and kissed him. “No point getting clean until we're done getting dirty. Shut up and fuck me.”

“Yes, ma'am!”

A little while later, they stumbled across another logistical issue Mickey hadn't considered.

“You are not putting dirty clothes on a clean body!” Beck insisted, prying his – pretty nasty at this point, he had to admit – clothes from his hands. “That's disgusting!”

“Well, what the fuck else am I supposed to wear? Clearly, I can't just run around naked. We got arrested for that this morning!”

“Pity,” she teased, eyeing him in a way that made him wonder if they were ever actually going to leave her hotel room. “You're the best view in Athens.”

“Maybe they arrested us out of jealousy, then.” Mickey shook his head, though he couldn't help chuckling a little, despite his frustration. “Either way, I'm kinda stuck. It's either be gross, or don't go anywhere.”

“As much as the thought of keeping you trapped here as my sex slave appeals to me...” With another mocking grin, Beck turned and started going through her dresser drawers. “I think I can help you out.”

“I'm not wearing your clothes.”

“They're less flamboyant than what you do wear.”

“They won't fit!”

She tossed him a tee shirt and a pair of cargo shorts that proved him very wrong. They were huge. At his questioning stare, she shrugged.

“I always pack a couple of cute outfits when I travel, and the rest is super baggy; at least three sizes too big. I like to be comfortable.”

“Convenient.” He stared at the shorts in his hands, and then at the belt she handed him a few seconds later. “Am I supposed to wear your underwear, too?”

Beck snorted and walked away, patting his shoulder as she passed him. “I don't wear underwear.”

“Then I guess I kind of am wearing yours.” Even as the joke was tumbling out of his mouth, he knew it was lame, but they still both laughed. Then he glanced at his watch and winced. “Shit, we gotta go.”

“What?”

He waited for the dress she was pulling on to settle into place and then wrapped his arms around her, tugging her back against his chest. “We gotta go. If we don't catch the next ferry, we're gonna be late.”

She flinched. “Okay, two seconds.” The girl moved like lightning. Mystified, Mickey watched as she yanked on a pair of canvas sneakers, grabbed her wallet and cell phone – which she then stuffed in the pockets of the shorts he was wearing – grabbed a hair tie, and ran for the door. In no time, she'd strangled her wild red curls into submission in a low ponytail. They hadn't even reached the elevator yet.

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

Handing her his helmet, Mickey shook his head. “I think you got dressed faster than I did! I thought girls always take forever to get ready.”

Laughing, Beck rolled her eyes. As she settled on the back of the moped and tucked her skirt around her legs for decency, she told him, “I spent two years in the jungle with nothing but what I could fit in a backpack. Low maintenance is kinda my thing. The fewer steps to getting ready, the less time it takes.”

“That explains so much.” He stared at her for a moment, and then shook his head and grumbled as he slid into place in front of her and started the moped, “And raises so many more questions!”

“Full disclosure: I will probably answer none of them, as I'm very likely never going to see you again after tonight.”

Well, that was a depressing dose of reality he wasn't ready for. Not one to dwell on things, though, Mickey simply decided to have as much fun as he could with this girl while she was around, and treasure the steamy memories.

They made it to the ferry just in time. Making sure there was no one else around, Mickey smirked and tugged Beck into his lap, one hand sliding up her thigh. He moved slowly, giving her plenty of time to push him away if she wanted; she simply arched an eyebrow at his questioning look and grabbed his wrist, tugging his hand closer.

“Why do you think I'm wearing a dress?”

Fuck, he loved this girl!

They were pretty much attached at the hip the whole day – literally, when they could steal a few minutes alone. While he was DJing, she was dancing like a lunatic, front and center. Those piercing green eyes never strayed from him; he knew, because he couldn't look away from her, either. Once he was free, they danced together for a little while, but it didn't take long for Beck to grow bored and yank him down the beach, away from the party. They found a dark, hidden nook to be alone, spent the night hopelessly wrapped up in each other, and then cuddled as they watched the sun come up.

“Gods, this place is so beautiful!”

Mickey chuckled at the plural, but didn't ask about it. He had a more important question for her: “You really gonna leave all this behind?”

“I have to.” She didn't sound any happier about leaving than he was about letting her leave. “I gotta get home.”

“Where's home?”

“Boston. You?”

He grinned and nudged her. “Athens, baby. Been here seven years!”

“Okay, but where before here?” she prodded with a laugh. “You're obviously not Greek; you don't even speak it!”

“Do you?”

Beck sat up a little straighter, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Nai.”

“Showoff.”

“One word is being a showoff?” Beck laughed, shaking her head. “You've been here seven years, and you don't know a single word of the language?”

Mickey scowled, feeling defensive. “Everybody speaks English!”

“Wow.” She wasn't smiling anymore. She actually looked and sounded pretty pissed off. “That is astoundingly arrogant. And completely American, so clearly your obnoxious friend with no boundaries was right; it's not just a funny accent, you actually are American.”

“You're an American, too!”

“By birth,” she snapped, “not by choice. And I fucking hope not by attitude. I don't go stomping around foreign countries with absolutely no respect for their language or customs, expecting everyone around me to cater to my laziness.”

He rolled his eyes, scooting away from her. “Give me a break! Learning another language is hard!”

“Impossible, if you don't even try.”

“Yeah? How many languages do you speak?”

“Fluently?” She held up her hands, ticking each one off on her fingers as she listed them. “English, obviously. Korean, Irish Gaelic, Italian, and German. Passably? Japanese – I can speak it fluently, but I have trouble reading it; the kanji is a nightmare – Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish. I can read Latin and Old Norse, and I'm learning Mandarin, but I admit I'm struggling with that one. Mostly for the same reason I can't read Japanese; the writing system.”

Gaping at her, Mickey couldn't formulate a response for a long moment. When his brain finally started working again, all he could think to say was, “Jesus, what the fuck are you, a robot?!”

“I'm an archaeologist,” she told him flatly, still looking irritated. “And I've been traveling since I was seventeen. Been studying at least one language other than English since I was ten. I definitely had an advantage, starting when I still had a little kid's spongy brain, but it's not impossible to learn at any age, if you actually care enough to try.”

“You sound like my ex.” Hoping to distract her from that comment he hadn't meant to make, he hastily asked, “If you love to travel so much, why're you in such a rush to get home?”

Beck sighed, turning to stare out over the water. “I promised my daughter I'd be home in time for her birthday.”

Huh. They had more in common that he'd thought. “You have a kid?”

She nodded. “Two. Two girls.”

“How old?”

“Alice is five,” she murmured, pulling her knees up to her chest and crossing her arms over them. Head pillowed on her arms, she added, “And Madeline's about to turn fourteen.”

“How the hell old are you?!” He hadn't meant to ask so bluntly, but he was so stunned by her daughters' ages that the question just kind of blurted itself out.

Mercifully, Beck laughed a little. “I'm thirty-three. I'll spare you some math – I was nineteen when I had Maddie.”

Mickey shook his head, not sure how to react. In all honesty, she didn't look much older than that now. There was a shadow behind her eyes that he was dying to ask about, but even as thoughtless as he could be, he knew when to just not go there. Instead, he told her softly, “My son is six.”

“What's his name?”

He smiled. As much as the situation with his ex sucked, he loved his son, and thinking about him always brought a little smile to Mickey's face. “Hector.”

The look on Beck's pretty face as she watched him like a hawk made him blush, though he wasn't sure why. There was just something about that direct green gaze that made him feel like she could read his mind. “He's the real reason you don't want to leave Greece, isn't he?” A spot-on guess like that certainly did nothing to dispel the notion.

He nodded. “Yeah. Yep. His mom hates my guts, but I don't care. There's nothing I wouldn't do to stay in his life. I actually, um... I have a room for him, at my place. If she'll ever let me take him, you know, just for a weekend or whatever... His room is ready and waiting for him.”

“All you can do is keep trying. Put in the work, be the best dad you can be, and hope for the best.”

Unsure what to say to that, Mickey changed the subject with an awkward smile. “So... Alice? She blonde, like Alice in Wonderland?”

Beck snorted, shaking her head. “No, she has black hair, like her dad.” She paused and then shook her head again with a bemused smirk on her face. “Actually, both of my girls look like their dads – dark hair, big blue eyes.” Smirk turning into a grin, she nudged him. “Guess I've got a type.”

“'Dads,' huh?” He grinned, too, and nudged her right back. “Plural?”

“You gonna get all judgy on me, now?” Her tone was light and teasing, but her eyes promised a whole lot of pain if he answered wrong.

Mickey just laughed. “Nope, no judgment. I think you've seen enough of what I'm like this weekend to know I wouldn't have the right.”

“Good answer.”

“I don't want you to leave.” He watched her go rigid and sighed, shaking his head. “I'm not gonna try to stop you. If you were leaving for literally any other reason, I might, but I'd never dream of trying to keep a mom away from her kid. I just... I really like you, and I wish you didn't have to go.”

She shrugged a little, staring out over the water again. “To be honest, I don't wanna go, either. I mean, I'm dying to see my girls again, being away from them is always painful, but... This place is so beautiful. I would love to stay a little longer.”

Not a single word about whether or not she liked him. That stung, but he did his best to ignore it. “Why don't you bring them with you when you travel?”

“I used to,” she admitted. “When it was just Maddie, I brought her everywhere with me and tutored her myself. I tried to keep it going after Alice was born, but it was rough. They got tired of always being on the road and not having kids their age to play with, so now I leave them with my sister when I'm away.”

“Wait, you taught her yourself?” He laughed, shaking his head in dismay. “Are you sure you're not a robot?”

Beck laughed, too, rolling her eyes. “I'm sure. There's more down time than you think in archaeology; plenty of time to keep an already smart girl from falling behind in her schooling.”

“They must take after their mom. I mean, you speak a zillion languages, so you gotta be pretty damn smart.” She was so reckless and carefree, it was hard to picture this woman digging in the dirt for broken clay pots, or wrangling two children to teach them math. From what he'd seen, it felt like Beck was describing a completely different person. He didn't want to offend her, so he refrained from pointing out that she came across less brilliant, multilingual career woman in her thirties and more Girls Gone Wild: Athens.

“Cheapann tú gur leathcheann mé.” He had no idea what the hell she'd just said, but he could tell from the look on her face that he hadn't been as good at keeping his thoughts to himself as he'd hoped. She looked both offended and darkly amused. “Pensi che una ragazza non possa essere intelligente e libera? Eísai vlákas, Mickey.”

He didn't bother asking for a translation; her tone told him he didn't want to know. “How many languages was that?”

Beck grinned. “Three. Gaelic, Italian, and Greek. I sometimes mix a few in the same sentence – I constantly mix Japanese and Korean at home; it makes my girls laugh – but I figured I'd be nice.”

Mickey opened his mouth to say he wouldn't have noticed the difference, and then stopped. He had noticed the difference; the lilt of her voice changed dramatically with each language. That was how he'd realized that she'd been speaking more than one in the first place. “I kinda wanna hear that mix, now. Are the languages that similar?”

“No.” She laughed. “Not at all. They share some slang thanks to pop culture, and both borrowed a lot from China, but they're structured differently, and the way they're spoken is different.”

“Then how do you mix them?”

“I speak them both,” she said with a shrug and another laugh. “If you speak more than one language well enough, they don't have to be similar to still flow. Like...” She smirked, leaning against him and batting her eyes. “Kimi wa baboya, demo... mada jowayo.”

“Showoff.”

“Yes.” Cracking up, she pulled him back to lie on the warm sand with her and cuddled close. “That time, absolutely.”

“Do you think you'll ever come back?” He'd been trying so hard to avoid the subject, but he just couldn't get his mind to budge from the fact that he didn't want her to leave.

With a fond smile, she kissed him before teasing lightly, “You gonna miss me, honey?”

Mickey grinned, hoping she couldn't see that he was feeling more melancholy than amused. “I think mostly I'll miss the sex. It's hard to find a woman who can keep up with me.”

“Oh, is that so?” She laughed and tickled him, making him squirm. Then she stopped, a warm, almost wistful smile on her face. “I'm gonna miss you, too, you know.”

Forced playful grin turning into a soft, genuine smile, he pulled her closer and kissed her. “I was beginning to worry you didn't like me.”

Beck grinned and nuzzled his neck. “The past twenty-four hours wouldn't have happened if I didn't like you.”

Feigning shock, Mickey gasped. “You mean you don't fuck strange men all over Greece indiscriminately?”

“No, that I do all the time,” she joked, hand sliding up one leg of his borrowed shorts. “But I only let the really special ones wear my clothes.”

He laughed, glancing down at himself; he'd forgotten for a second that they were hers. “Right. We should stop at my place so I can change and give these back before I take you back to your hotel.”

Beck sighed, snatching her hand back as if he'd burned her. “Right. Yeah, we should get going.”

Though he still hated that she had to leave, he kept his word and didn't try to stop her. Argyris tried to convince him to make some grand gesture at the airport, but Mickey shut him down with a grumpy, “It's her kid's birthday. I'm not that much of a selfish asshole.”

“I can't believe you're in love with this girl!” Hooting with laughter, Argyris slapped his back. “I'm a fuckin' matchmaker! Who knew?”

“Fuck off, Cupid!” Mickey grinned and shoved him away, hoping the other man couldn't see how shitty he really felt. He moped for a couple of days, barely paying attention to the world around him, just missing the crazy girl with the temper as fiery as her hair.

Then he answered an unexpected knock at his door and was baffled by the sight of a cute, petite brunette with huge blue eyes staring up at him. “Um... Can I help you?”

“Huh.” One dark eyebrow arching up, she called back over her shoulder, “You really do have a type.”

A familiar laugh made Mickey freeze in shock as Beck stepped into view behind the girl, another one in her arms. “I made the mistake of telling Maddie that I met this awesome DJ in Greece-”

“And since I have no friends anyway,” the girl, who he finally realized was Beck's older daughter, Madeline, cut in, “I figured there'd be no problem moving my 'party' somewhere more fun than my aunt's house. For the third year in a row.”

“Jesus, you might look like your dad, but you sound just like your mom!” The words slipped out before he could stop himself. While Madeline rolled her eyes, the little girl in her mother's arms – Alice, he figured – giggled.

“Yeah,” Beck agreed with a grin, moving closer and leaning past her daughters to kiss him. “She's got my snarky attitude. Gods help me. Thankfully, this one's still innocent.” She squeezed Alice tighter against her side, making her giggle again.

“Mommy! You're squishing me!”

“Her? Innocent? Did auntie tell you what she did to my stereo?!”

“It was an accident!”

“My butt it was!”

Wincing, Beck glanced at Mickey and mouthed, 'I'm sorry.' “Girls, enough. What have I told you about bickering in front of strangers?”

“I mean, you also tell us not to spread our legs for strangers, and yet...”

“Madeline Fiona O'Brien!”

“What?!” Eyes wide and looking frustrated, Madeline gestured to Mickey. “I'm kinda right!”

He couldn't hold it in anymore. Leaning on the door frame to stay upright, Mickey burst out laughing. God help this woman, he thought as he struggled to get his breath back. Her daughter's exactly like her!

Face even redder than her hair, Beck grumbled, “I did not tell her we slept together.”

“You couldn't shut up about him and your clothes smelled like dude. Doesn't take a genius.”

“Maddie, couldja stop? I kinda wanna see more of Greece than two buildings. If mom drags us home early cuz you're being a jerk, I will kick your seat the whole way back to Boston!”

“I'll let her.”

Mickey had just about gotten his laughter under control. Still chuckling, he yanked Beck into his arms and gave her a long, slow kiss. “You are dreaming if you think I'm letting you leave again.”

“That doesn't sound kidnappy at all!”

Laughing again, he released the blushing redhead only to trap Madeline in his arms and tickle her until she squeaked. “And you, little miss Queen of Sarcasm!” With a grin, he kissed the top of her head and released her, pleased to see that she was smiling. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

As he stepped aside to let them in, it finally dawned on him that he'd never actually worked a child's party before. He was used to crowds of rowdy drunk Greeks, not two innocent little girls. He didn't even know any kids, besides his own! He glanced helplessly at Beck, who snickered and kissed his jaw.

“Just do whatever; I can keep an eye on them. Maddie was more interested in the change of scenery than an actual party.”

“Does she really have no friends?”

She shrugged, turning to watch her daughters awkwardly settle on the couch and begin nudging and poking each other repeatedly. “She's never been the most social kid in the world. Around their own age groups, Liss is the bubbly extrovert and Maddie can't be bothered; she wanted to hang with kids her own age until she realized they annoy the hell out of her.”

“Argyris might know some people with kids...” He rolled his eyes. “He'll think I'm nuts, trying to hunt down teenagers, though.”

Beck laughed and shook her head. “No, really, don't worry about it. We don't even have to actually throw a party-”

Cutting her off with a kiss, Mickey insisted, “Oh, she's getting a party. When is her birthday, anyway?”

“Today, actually.”

He flinched, glancing at the clock, and then relaxed. It was still pretty early. “She's getting a party,” he repeated firmly. “She's fourteen! That... has no special significance in any culture I've heard of, but the kid still deserves some fun on her damn birthday. Especially if the last few have been disappointing.”

“The day after is pretty significant in our culture,” she murmured, so softly he almost didn't catch it.

“Is it?” Wasn't she American? He seemed to recall a whole conversation that almost turned into an argument about it. “Since when?”

Beck blushed again, looking uncomfortable. “Never mind.”

“...Girls, make yourselves at home. I need to talk to your mom for a minute.”

“You're talking now.”

He almost wrote that off as another snarky response, until he realized it had come from Alice. Looking innocently confused, she stared at him with almost comically large blue eyes, and he smiled. “In private,” he clarified as gently as he could as he grabbed Beck's wrist and tugged her down the hall toward his bedroom.

“Door open at all times!”

With a huff, Beck dug her heels in and spun around to glare at Madeline. “Who's the mom, here?”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“Madeline.” Wrenching free of Mickey's grasp, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared her defiant offspring down. “Who's the mom?”

Glowering right back, Madeline mirrored her pose and grudgingly admitted, “You are.”

“Good. Now that we've got that cleared up, how about you show our host a little respect?”

Madeline's face was red as a tomato, but she still looked more angry and resentful than contrite, until she took a deep breath and turned to Mickey. With a surprising note of sincerity, she grumbled, “Sorry, Mickey.”

“Jet lag gets the best of all of us. Maybe you two should take a nap while your mom and I talk.” He didn't know what the hell else to say. He couldn't say 'it's okay' and undermine her mother, and 'you're forgiven' sounded kind of dickish. With an awkward smile, he waved and resumed dragging Beck down the hall.

As soon as the bedroom door was closed behind them, Beck sighed and leaned against it, looking worn out. “I'm so sorry about her. She's been so bitchy lately; my sister said she was even copping an attitude with her, which she almost never does.”

“She's probably just tired and been missing her mom.” In truth, he thought Madeline's sass was funny as hell, but he wasn't about to step into the middle of a mother-daughter war. Instead, he focused on his own curiosity. “What 'culture' celebrates the day after a birthday?”

She winced. “It's nothing, Mickey. Forget it.”

Weird. “What's the big deal? I'm just curious.”

“Alright, fine.” Looking and sounding resigned, she muttered, “If you're gonna judge or laugh, might as well get it out of the way – I'm a witch.”

Mickey stared at her. Whatever he'd been expecting her to say, it wasn't that. “...A witch?”

“I don't ride a broomstick and I can't turn you into a toad.” Oof. Defensive. Judging by her tone, she'd had this conversation before, and it hadn't gone well. “My sister's a witch, too, and so are my girls. There's an old tradition in the craft; at thirteen we find our deity, if we're meant to serve one, and a year and a day later, we pledge to their service.”

Light dawned. “Oh, that's why you always say 'Gods' instead of 'God'! That makes sense.” Who was he to judge? He wasn't particularly religious, but was any one religion really any weirder than the next? Curiosity abated, he brushed it off and tugged her into his arms. “My very own Sabrina.”

Beck snorted and dropped her head onto his shoulder. “Sometimes I feel more like Sarah Sanderson.”

“You really want me to throw a rager for your fourteen-year-old?” He didn't know what to say about her Hocus Pocus reference – 'horny and ditzy? Sounds about right' was...probably not the right thing – so he decided to just jump back to the original topic.

She shrugged. “I honestly don't know what to do for her. Coming back here was her idea, but I kinda doubt it had much to do with her birthday. She wasn't kidding about wondering which one of us is the parent; that kid's been trying to take care of me since she was little.”

“Why?”

Sighing, she stepped back out of his arms. She looked so sad and broken suddenly that he wished he'd never asked. “I would love to say that it's just who she is – and it is, to a point. Some people are just natural caregivers, and Maddie's definitely one of them. But I was a mess before Liss was born. Maddie's had to deal with a lot of bullshit, and it made her grow up too fast.”

That settled it in Mickey's mind. As he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket with one hand and opened the bedroom door with the other, he told her again, “She's getting a fucking party.”

Three hours and a lot of yelling at Agryris to get him to stop laughing later, he was setting up speakers in front of his apartment building, surrounded by what looked like every kid in Athens between twelve and sixteen, along with their parents. It definitely wasn't his usual crowd, to say the least, but they were friendly enough. Most importantly, Madeline was already smiling and laughing.

Remembering the posters he'd seen around town, he pulled his phone out again and called a number he hadn't used in quite a while. “Well, well. So you're in Athens. What do you know? I have a favor to ask you...”

“OHMYGOD! BASTIAN!”

Mickey grinned. Clearly, he'd made the right call, and it was earning him hugs galore. For the first time all day, Madeline was acting like a teenage girl, bouncing up and down and screeching with joy as Bastian made her way through the party. With a bright smile, she hugged the birthday girl and smoothed her dark curls back off of her face before approaching Mickey and hugging him. The second she moved back, Madeline launched herself at him, squeezing so tightly he thought she might crack a few ribs. And then her laughing mother replaced her, and he'd never felt so popular.

“Hell of a dad move,” Beck teased, grinning at him as she stepped aside and Maddie barreled into him again.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”

Laughing, Mickey lifted her up and kissed the top of her head. “Happy birthday.” She was too light; idly, he made a mental note to ask what the hell Beck and her sister were feeding these kids, or failing to feed them. Then he realized he sort of was acting like Maddie's dad and he blushed, setting her down.

As she ran off to dance with her little sister, he pulled Bastian up onto the platform and picked up the mic. “First of all – let's hear it for the birthday girl!” He pointed, and grinned when the revelers around him cheered, making the brunette blush. “Maddie O'Brien! You said you have no friends back in the States-” Boos echoed around them, and her color deepened. “-So I thought, what could make a better birthday present than a couple hundred Greek friends?”

The crowd cheered again, and a few “YEAH, MADDIE” shouts made the girl in question laugh, covering her face with the hand not holding tight to Alice's little wrist. Mickey noticed that she did that a lot; whenever the younger girl wasn't in her mother's arms, she was in her sister's tight, protective grip.

“What do you guys think?” He shouted into the mic. “This girl's really cool, right? You wanna be Maddie's friends, and show her how much better everything is here in Greece?”

The cheers were deafening. Mickey was grinning like a fool, and was pleased to see that so was Madeline. Big blue eyes shining, she stared up at him like he was her hero, and for a minute, life was pretty damn good. He'd die before admitting it aloud, at least so soon, but he could easily see a bright, happy future where he was stepdad to these two beautiful little girls, and they doted over their step-brother Hector, the way Maddie doted over Alice. He glanced at their mother, and couldn't help getting just a little choked up when he saw an identical look of joy and appreciation on her beautiful face. Man, it was nice to be the hero.

Before he could get too emotional and ruin the party, he pointed to Bastian. “You guys know who this is, right?” Another enthusiastic roar; he was a little jealous this time, but shoved it down and smiled. “Well, she's gonna take over for a little while, so make sure you give her some love, alright?”

Yanking her into one more tight hug, he handed the reins over to Bastian and hopped down. Beck immediately threw her arms around him and kissed him. “You are amazing, you know that? I descend on you unannounced with a grouchy teenager in tow, and you give her the best fucking night of her life!”

“All in a day's work,” he joked, squeezing her. “She seems like a great kid; they both do. I couldn't just do nothing and let her be miserable.”

“Hector is lucky.” She was grinning so wide, her face hurt; Mickey only knew because he was doing the same. “He's got a really great dad. If you'd do something like this for a kid you've never even met before, I can only imagine the lengths you'd go to for your own.”

“Think you can pass that praise on to my ex? Maybe she'll actually let me see him.”

Smile fading, she gripped his head with both hands and pulled him down to press their foreheads together. “If you want me to, I'll help you fight for him. You deserve to see your son, and he deserves to know his dad.”

“How long are you staying this time?” He didn't want to talk about Hector suddenly; not at a party surrounded by strangers and their children.

Seeming to sense his mood, Beck smiled and glanced at her giggling daughters. They were hopping around like lunatics to the music, surrounded by kids Maddie's age. She looked like she was having the time of her life. “From the looks of things now? Forever.” Mickey thought she was joking, but the look on her face stopped him from laughing it off. “I've never seen her so happy. Athens might just become home.”

“I hope so.” He shrugged, forcing a chipper smile to hide the desperately hopeful one he couldn't quite keep in. “It did for me!”

“We'll see.”

Unlike most of the parties he'd worked, this one started winding down fairly early as kids hugged Maddie, wished her a happy birthday, and were ushered home by their tired parents. Alice was asleep in Mickey's arms, her tiny body limp as a rag doll and her silky black curls tickling his nose. As the last of her party guests wished her well and left, Madeline hurried over to him and cuddled up to the side not currently occupied by the dead weight of her sister.

“Thank you, Mickey.”

“Did you have fun?” She nodded, and he smiled softly, stroking her dark hair. “Good. Let's get inside and get the little one into bed, shall we?”

She glanced around, frowning a little. “Where's mom?”

“Already upstairs.” Grinning, he watched her for a reaction and added casually, “With Bastian.”

Bright blue eyes widening, she gaped at him. “She's staying?”

Mickey laughed. “For tonight, at least, yeah. Come on.”

As they trudged through the door of his apartment a few minutes later, Mickey found himself wishing he'd stayed outside.

“No way!” Beck whipped around to gape at him while Bastian laughed. “You didn't tell me you were in a band!”

“Oh lord,” Madeline grumbled under her breath. “Get something pierced and she'll propose to you by midnight, I swear.”

Choking on a startled laugh, he lowered Alice into her sister's waiting arms. “Put her in Hector's bed. You and your mom can take mine tonight.” As she obediently wandered down the hall to tuck the younger girl in, Mickey flopped down on the couch beside Beck and tugged her into his arms. “That was a long time ago. Then she got her big break and got all famous, and she didn't need losers like me anymore.”

“Oh, that is such bullshit!” Laughing, Bastian stretched out to kick him. “We got a break. We got a deal. You were every bit a part of all that!”

“Oh, please!” Mickey rolled his eyes. “You never needed me. It was the Bastian Show, and we were just-”

“No! No, what happened was...”

They bickered for a while, going back and forth over who was to blame for Saint Claude's ultimate demise. After a few minutes, Beck excused herself and left the room, leaving the two old friends to catch up. When the argument showed no signs of ending, Mickey huffed and stood up, muttering something about getting a drink as he walked away. He loved Bastian, but damn she could be stubborn!

“What the fuck are you doing?” A glass in each hand, he stared at her as she laid out lines of cocaine on her phone's screen.

“What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?”

“Oh, god.” He grimaced, glancing toward the bedrooms. All quiet, but he didn't know if Beck and Maddie were asleep, or just hiding from the debate. “Come on, let's go in the bathroom.”

“The Brat Pack's asleep. Don't worry about it!”

“You don't know that,” he hissed. “Come on.”

Bastian rolled her eyes, but she allowed him to usher her into the bathroom. “You're paranoid. You barely even know these people! What do you care what they think?”

“I care,” he snapped, though he didn't refuse when she offered him a line. He'd just finished, was still hunched over the phone, when the door opened and he was faced with, basically, his worst nightmare: Madeline was standing in the doorway, hand on the knob.

They both froze, staring at her like deer in headlights. Face completely expressionless, Maddie looked at each of them, then at the line of cocaine still on the phone, and then straight at Mickey. "I just wanted to thank you again for today." Without another word, she calmly turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.

"Shit." Ignoring Bastian's drug-fueled giggle fit, Mickey was on his feet and chasing after the teen in a flash. "Maddie!"

Though her face was still a stony mask, there were tears in her eyes when she whirled around to face him. "I need to talk to you. Now."

"Okay." He gestured to the couch, but she shook her head.

"Outside. I don't wanna wake up mom or Alice."

Nodding, he followed her without another word. At first he'd thought she meant out in the hall, but she didn't stop until they were outside the building. "Maddie, listen-"

"Let her go." Mickey's heart broke when she turned to face him again. Tears running down her cheeks and lower lip trembling, she stared up at him with those huge blue eyes and he almost started crying with her. "You have to let her go. Mom's loyal even when she shouldn't be. She'll never break it off."

"Maddie, I don't want-"

"I only exist because my dad drugged and raped her!" Wiping furiously at her face while he shrank back in horror, she continued more calmly, "She doesn't know I know that, or that he tried to kidnap me a bunch of times when I was little. Auntie told me. She still stayed with him for almost a year. Will hit her, Owen was a toxic psycho, Alex was a racist jerk... Alice's dad was always really nice to us all when he came around, but he almost never did. And I don't know what he did, but he's in jail for life now." With a bitter grimace, she spat, "And you're a druggie."

Maddie's had to deal with a lot of bullshit, and it made her grow up too fast.

Beck's soft voice, so full of pain and regret, echoed in his head as Mickey sank down to sit on the steps and tugged Madeline into his arms. "I'm not a druggie," he assured her as she clung to him and broke down sobbing. "One time thing, kiddo, I promise."

"Like you'd say anything else!"

The little whimper that escaped her as she scooted up his leg to get closer and dropped her head onto his shoulder very nearly made him start crying with her. For all that she insisted he get the hell out of her life, he could tell that she was desperate for someone decent to stay. This poor kid was fourteen going on forty after watching her mom date a string of losers; no wonder she had no faith in men, or in her mother's ability to make sound decisions. He squeezed her a little tighter, not sure what to do or say.

"Mickey, I'm tired," she croaked, making his heart ache for her even more. He knew she didn't mean sleepy; she was tired of being the mature one, and he couldn't say he blamed her. "I'm so tired..."

"Shhh, it's okay, baby," he whispered, rubbing her back. "You can rest now. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. You're my little girl now, okay? And I won't let anything happen to you, or your sister, or your mom. You don't have to take care of her anymore, honey. I will. You just take a breath and be a kid while you can."

"How can I trust you?"

Well, that hurt, but he got where she was coming from. Pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head, he murmured, "I gotta earn that." He pried her loose and pushed her back a little, just enough to be able to look her in the eye. "Do you think you can give me a chance to?"

After a pause that felt like an eternity, Maddie sniffled and nodded. "Okay. But if you hurt her, I'll kick your nuts back up inside."

Laughing, Mickey nodded and smoothed her hair back. "Noted.” A thought occurred to him and he frowned. “Why did you aunt tell you all that? Putting that weight on a kid... That's cruel.”

“I asked,” she admitted with a shrug. “I asked why mom was such a mess, and why I didn't have a dad. So she told me.”

I'd have made some shit up, damn. Even high, he was smart enough not to say that. He chose not to say anything at all, and just held her for a while as the cool night air soothed their frayed nerves and her breathing slowly returned to normal.

“Mickey?”

“Hm?”

Voice a small, timid whisper, she asked, “Do you really wanna be my dad?”

Smiling softly, he kissed her head again and hugged her just a bit tighter. “I am your dad.” When she tensed and let out a frustrated huff, he explained, “I'm in love with your mom, kiddo. And I already love you and your sister. We're family now, and I'm not going anywhere. I promise.”

“You're weird.” He could hear her teasing smile in her voice, and he smiled, too, relieved. “You don't even know us.”

“I know enough. Come on.” Though all he wanted was to sit there and cuddle with her all night, he gently pushed her off his lap and stood. “It's getting late. You should get to bed.”

Sending her off down the hall to his bedroom when they got back upstairs, he collapsed on the couch and sighed. He'd known when he met her that Beck would make his life more interesting... he just had no idea how interesting.

A laugh beside him reminded him of his other guest and he reluctantly opened his eyes. Judging from the way she was twitching and snickering, Bastian had finished the rest of the coke. “That was intense!”

Mickey closed his eyes again. “If it's not already gone, get that shit out of my house.”

“Oh, come on!” She shoved him, grinning impishly. “Don't try to act all virtuous now! You were right there with me, until that kid walked in.”

“'That kid'?” Annoyed now, he sat up and glared at her. “My kid.”

“Not really, though.” Confused, she twisted to glance down the hall, and then back to stare at him. “...Right? I mean, shit, she does kinda look like you...”

He shook his head. “No. Biologically, no, but I don't care. I'm not gonna add my name to the list of guys who've hurt her.”

Bastian snorted, rolling her eyes. “Mickey, you can't just decide to play daddy to this random kid on a whim just because your ex won't let you see your own. She's not yours, and changing your whole life and personality isn't going to change that.”

“I haven't touched that shit in years. I'm not changing on a whim; you just don't know me anymore.”

“Enough,” she challenged, settling back in her seat and staring down her nose at him. “I know you well enough to know this is never gonna work.”

“What isn't?”

“This!” Bastian gestured vaguely around them. “This whole self-domestication shit. You're not some house husband and stepdad – you're a musician. You belong on the road, Mickey! Not shut up in some old lady's apartment playing House with some crazy chick and her walking, talking reminders of past mistakes.”

“Beck,” he snapped, glaring at her. “'That chick's' name is Beck, and her gorgeous daughters are Maddie and Alice. They're not mistakes. Alice is adorable and so smart, and Maddie is fucking awesome and she's been through Hell. I haven't seen you in years and you think you're gonna sit here in my house and tell me who I am and what I want? I don't fucking think so, Bastian.”

“Alright, alright!” She held up her hands in surrender, eyes wide. “Chill. I just miss you, okay? I want you to come on tour with me, like the old days, not sit here and rot away in some mediocre domestic life. You could have so much more!”

Mickey sighed, staring off into space for a moment. Some part of him was drawn to her offer, but that wasn't him anymore. He didn't actually want to tour with her, he just hated feeling settled; at some point in his wild youth, stability had begun to feel like stagnation, and now he found himself often desperate to avoid it, even if it came with everything he truly wanted.

He thought about Beck, and her bright smile and her two beautiful, lonely daughters, and he thought about Hector. Beck had been spot-on; as much as he did love Greece, Mickey had really only stayed this long because of his son. He wanted to be in Hector's life. Now he wanted to be in Maddie and Alice's lives, too. He wanted a family.

And for the first time, he was willing to fight for that family.

“You're right,” he admitted slowly. “You're right, I've been hiding here, just floating around aimlessly.” Before she could get all triumphant, he stood and growled, “But that's not what I'm doing now. Now, I'm finally seeing a life that I want, and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone take it away from me.”

That said, he walked away without giving Bastian a chance to argue. He peeked into his son's room to check on Alice, smiled when he saw the way she was sprawled, half hanging off the bed, and he quietly closed the door and headed to his own room. Hopefully Maddie wouldn't mind; he'd originally intended to crash on the couch, but he couldn't stand to be in the same room as Bastian, and couldn't quite bring himself to kick her out, either. Moving slowly, so as to avoid waking either of the bed's other two occupants, he slid in next to Beck.

She immediately rolled over and cuddled close to him. At first he thought she was just fidgeting in her sleep, but then she whispered, “Don't let anyone change you or tell you who you are. Not even me.”

“I won't.” He tried to smile, couldn't quite manage it, and kissed her, instead. “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

It wasn't quite a seamless transition. Mickey's place was too small for a family of four, and he didn't exactly love the idea of moving a bunch of heavy audio equipment down those winding stairs. Though he wanted to jump right into living together, he didn't put up much of a fight when Beck started looking for her own place.

It helped that she didn't spend a lot of time at home. Once the girls were enrolled in school, their mother started dropping them off and then going straight to Mickey's place. She helped Argyris translate for Mickey and his clients, which both men had thought was a terrible idea... until they saw her in action. The short fuse he'd become so familiar with in their first couple of days together was nowhere to be found. Around even his most difficult clients, Beck was the embodiment of charm and professional courtesy. Mickey quickly found that while Argyris was better for direct translation, he was no match for Beck when it came to diplomacy and deescalating a heated argument.

“You haven't seen 'difficult',” she teased, “until you've been a woman in a male-dominated field arguing for funding. This is nothing.”

Mickey laughed, yanking her into his arms. “Where have you been all my life?”

She flinched, closing her eyes and pressing her fingertips to her mouth for a second. It was the briefest of moments, and then she was smiling again and joking, “On my knees in the dirt, mostly,” but he refused to ignore it.

“You okay?”

With a little shrug and a nod, she admitted, “Been a little queasy and lightheaded lately, but I'm fine. It never lasts long.”

“You are so American.” She glared at him and he grinned, pleased that he knew how to get her attention. “You're not in Dystopia anymore – go to a doctor.”

“Did you not hear me? I'm fi-”

“I heard 'lately,'” he countered, poking her side and immediately regretting it when she cringed. Right; queasy. Maybe don't mess with her stomach, Mickey. “'Lately' means this is not normal. It means you're sick, so go to a doctor.”

She shook her head, winced, and dropped it onto his shoulder. “I don't need a doctor.”

“You can't even move without turning green.”

“I'm fine. I don't need a doctor.”

“Why are you being so stubborn? You're supposed to help me with stubborn people, not be the Queen of them!”

“Am I your girlfriend or your lawyer?”

“That's not what I meant and you know it. Don't change the subject.” Rubbing her back, he insisted as gently as he could, “Please just go get checked out.”

“I don't need to. I'm fine.”

“Look, even if it's minor, do you wanna suffer or find out what's wrong and get better?”

“I don't need a doctor to tell me what I already know!”

What she already knew? He frowned, more confused than ever. “Is it some kind of chronic-”

“Mickey, I'm not sick – I'm pregnant!”

He froze, gaping at her in shock. She started to pull away, but he tightened his grip on her waist before she could stand up. “You're what?”

Looking nervous and uncomfortable, she mumbled, “I was trying to find the right time to tell you; we've just been so busy with that 'make it more Greek' asshat...”

“You're really pregnant?” When she slowly and carefully nodded, Mickey grinned and hugged her as tight as he dared. “That's fantastic!” He finally let her up, only to stand with her and frame her face with both hands. Between frantic kisses all over her face, he gushed, “That's incredible! Have you told the girls yet? Oh, Alice is gonna be so excited to be a big sister! And Hector! I can't wait for Hector to meet his little brother or sister!”

“Mickey...”

He glanced around, smile dimming just a bit. “Damn, we gotta get a bigger place.”

“Mickey.”

“I wonder if Agryris' grandmother had-”

“Mickey!” Shoving his hands away, Beck got a tight grip on his hair and forced him to turn back to face her. “Do you really think we can do this?”

He blinked, taken aback by that. “Don't you?”

“Three kids, and fighting for joint custody of a fourth?” She shook her head, looking at him like he was an idiot. “The thought that we might be in over our heads crossed my mind, yeah. I was struggling with just two!”

“Well, now you have me.” His cheeky grin didn't seem to comfort her as much as he'd hoped it would. “You were struggling 'cause you were alone; now you're not.”

“A single mom with two kids really isn't all that different from two parents with four,” she pointed out, releasing his hair and crossing her arms over her chest. Seeing the hurt he tried to mask, she sighed. “Look, I'm glad you're excited, I am. And whether we're ready or not, the kid's on the way, I just... I just wish I shared your optimism. I'm not excited, Mickey; I'm scared to death.”

“Well, get excited,” he jokingly commanded, pulling her close for another hug. “We'll be fine. Besides, it's not like Aspa's ever gonna give me full custody, so it's not really two to four. Maddie's old enough that she doesn't need constant hyper-vigilance from us, so it's really just two to two-and-a-half.”

Finally, finally, Beck laughed. It was quiet and weak, but a laugh nonetheless. “Jesus, you're like sunshine in human form. Does anything ever get you down?”

He shrugged. “Sure, but I try not to let it for long. And I see a new baby as something to celebrate, not freak the hell out over.”

“See, you get to see it that way because you don't have to push it out,” she teased. “It's not so perfectly sunny from where I'm standing.”

“No one said life is perfect.” Still smiling like a fool, he kissed her. “Whatever you need, I'm here. You're not doing everything alone anymore. We got this.”

“I love you.”

It didn't seem possible, but somehow his smile got even wider. “I love you, too.”

“Speaking of Aspa, though...”

“Oh, god, what?”

With a laugh and an apologetic smile, Beck ventured, “I don't think you should come today.”

“What?”

Her smile immediately faded; apparently, he was really bad at hiding it when he was confused and offended. “Baby, you're chaos incarnate. It's one of the things I love about you, but it's not exactly conducive to a civilized conversation with a woman who probably kind of hates you.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“I just think I might have better luck getting through to her, single mom to single mom.” She looked like she was waiting for him to hit her, which only made him feel worse. “I know how hard it is, and how, whether we mean to or not, we tend to villainize our exes-”

He snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, well, with the stellar guys you've dated, it makes sense. It's not really villainizing if he's already a villain.”

“Exactly how much did Madeline tell you?”

Uh-oh. She was mad. Knowing he was in trouble no matter what and refusing to drag his stepdaughter down with him, Mickey hastily changed the subject. “Do you really think I'll fuck things up that badly if I go?” Why was he even asking? Offended or not, he knew she was right; Aspa hated his guts.

Thankfully, Beck let the dig about her exes drop and her steely expression melted back into one of gentle sympathy. “I just want you to have the best chance possible of getting to be an active part of Hector's life. I want him to know you, to sleep in that bed you bought him before he outgrows it, to meet his new sisters. And I think your feelings towards Aspa, and hers toward you, are probably too raw and volatile right now for a face-to-face meeting to be a good idea.”

“Alright.” Forcing a faint smile, he nodded. “Alright, go. You've got a point.”

“I'll tell you all about it when I get back, okay?” She promised with an equally strained smile, kissing his cheek.

“Can't wait.”

When she came back a little while later, she was laughing. Mickey's hopes that it meant things had gone better than expected were dashed, though, when she managed to gasp out, “She really hates you!”

“Yeah, thanks.” He shook his head. “I knew that much.”

“I'm sorry.” Still giggling, Beck wound her arms around his waist. “She was just such a bitch. I kinda respect the hell out of her.”

“What did she say?”

“That you're a baby,” she dutifully recited, “and you're irresponsible, unreliable...”

“Why is this funny?!”

“Because, Mickey... Mickey, honey...” Framing his face like he had to her earlier, she told him, “It's nothing I didn't already know. You're flighty and you're a big kid; this isn't news. She was floored that I love you anyway, and my god, the look on her face when I went off about how that childishness is what makes you such a good dad, and you're great with the girls... I haven't been able to stop laughing since! Pretty sure she hates me now, too.”

“Great!” Failing to see the humor, Mickey jerked free of her light grasp and moved away, beginning to pace the room. “So instead of helping, you just alienated her from us both!”

“We're going to see him on Saturday.”

“What?” He spun to stare at her; she wasn't laughing anymore. “Are you serious?”

Looking rather proud of herself, she nodded. “Supervised by Aspa, of course, but yep. You get to spend time with your son, and I finally get to meet him. It doesn't matter what she thinks of either of us, as long as she can see that you give a shit; that we're safe to be around Hector, and can be trusted to think of him first. Show her how much you love him, that even childish and flaky you can be reliable, that you want to be reliable, and a supervised visit might turn into father-son weekends, without your ex underfoot.”

“I... wha... how...?”

She shrugged, smiling faintly. “Mother to mother. We came to an understanding.”

Overwhelmed by emotions he couldn't even identify, Mickey closed the distance between them and lifted her up. “I fucking love you, you know that?”

Beaming as he set her down, Beck leaned in for a kiss. “I love you, too, baby.”

“That's not cute anymore.” Despite his protests, he was grinning as he backed her toward the bedroom. “Now I just feel like you're calling me a baby. That sucks. Don't do that.”

“I'll call you what I want,” she teased, pulling him down for another kiss. “And you can't stop me!”

With a hand on her belly, he joked, “How about you call me 'daddy'?”

“No.” She laughed and shook her head. “I physically cannot do that. I'll puke.”

“Well, morning sickness is pretty common.”

“No, this is pure disgust.”

They were both laughing now as they reached the bed; he almost playfully shoved her back, but then remembered the baby and thought better of it. Instead, he flopped across it himself and beckoned for her to join him. “We're gonna be okay, you know.”

Beck winced as she settled gingerly on the edge of the bed. “It's just such bad timing. I don't...”

“Hey.” He tugged at her arm until she stretched out beside him, and wound his arms around her. “It's all gonna be okay. No matter what life throws at us, we'll deal with it together, okay? I want this baby. I know you want this baby. The rest is just details.”

“Pretty big fucking details. I was supposed to go to Mongolia next month.”

“Then go.” God, he didn't want her to, but he was determined to show her that they could be together, be a family, without completely derailing her life. When she looked at him like he'd lost it, he gave her a bland 'are you kidding' look right back. “You're not really gonna try to convince me that you weren't still going on digs when you were pregnant with Alice, are you?”

She blushed. “My team didn't know...”

“So don't tell them this time, either.”

“Mickey...” Pushing his arms away, she sat up. “You really have no idea how physically demanding my work is, do you? I almost lost Alice.”

For a second, he floundered, wondering what the hell to do or say. Then he brightened and sat up, as well. “You speak a million languages; just work as a translator until you're safe to go back out into the field.”

“...I do love it,” she conceded, making him perk up. “And maybe I can finally teach you some Greek so you can talk to your son more easily.”

Mickey chuckled. “I'm not getting out of that, am I?”

“Nope.” She grinned and settled back against his chest as he leaned against the headboard. “Not until we're both fluent.”

“Alright, I'm in.” He smiled, kissing her jaw and lacing their fingers together. “New home for us, new job for you, learning a new language...”

“New baby on the way.”

“New baby on the way,” he parroted, pressing their linked hands to her belly. “New chapter.”

“Here's to a new life.”

Mickey nodded and leaned down for a proper kiss, murmuring against her lips, “Together.”

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Direct approach not needed

Humans are weird: Direct approach not needed

For seven years the Human/Iltick war had been raging across the cosmos. Planets had fallen, reconquered, sacked, reinforced, pillaged, burned, and then rebuilt countless times all the while the space between the two galactic empires became an ever increasing grave yard of destroyed vessels.

Humans said it started when an Iltick security detail murdered a diplomatic mission, while Iltick said they were protecting themselves from hired mercenaries. In the end the who and the why didn’t matter anymore, only how it would end.

Aboard the Iltick flagship Crimson Prow, commander Gnarl would ensure that it was the Iltick that would emerge victorious.

Gnarl had learned through his spy networks that a human strike force had split off from their main fleet in a desperate gamble to strike at the Iltick homeworld. By making of series of random jumps that bypassed the advanced warning network employed by their alien foes, the humans had planned to emerge upon the unsuspecting Iltick forces and overwhelm their birth planet and strike a crippling morale blow to their foe.

To that end Gnarl had amassed a fleet of battleships, war spheres, heavy cruisers, and whatever other fleet fairing vessels that were within reach. This armada now circled the Iltick homeworld like rings of iron and patiently waited for their foe to wander into their trap.

Several days had passed since the spy networks warning when the human fleet finally arrived. Gnarl was sitting in his command throne when the first of the enemy vessels broke from their transition and returned to real space.

Unlike the Iltick vessels whose metal hulls had been carved from solid metal rather than pieced together the human vessels were ugly and bulky. Gun emplacements appeared across their decks like spuds of an overly ripe vegetable while the bridge held reinforced glass instead of being solid metal.

One by one the vessels began appearing, all the while the Iltick fleet began amassing to meet their foe. The Iltick held station above their worlds capital Jova and known well in advance that the humans would most likely strike it from orbit. Powerful shields had been erected on the planets surface  ensuring that even if the humans tried to bombard it nothing would get through.

As the final human vessel arrive the final numbers appear to be 30 human vessels built around a core of three battleships, and 123 Iltick vessels.

Gnarl watched as the smaller human vessels, mostly light cruisers and destroyers, rapidly began their attempts to form a battle line. Gnarl imagined the sheer terror and surprise going through the human captains as they realized their sneak attack had become a death trap for them.

On board his vessel and many other Iltick ships were camera crews who were recording the events as they unfolded which would then be turned into propaganda videos. Not wishing to prolong the battle and risk a potential setback that would reflect badly, Gnarl ordered his full force to assault the now formed human battle line.

Swarms of missiles and energy bursts shot out towards the human strike force as the swarm of Iltick vessels rushed in. Most had been repelled by activate shields, but some struck home and a human destroy erupted into a fireball after an energy lance struck the aft reactor before the shields could be fully raised.

Uncoordinated return fire greeted the onrushing Iltick as individual ships began picking their own targets and opening fire. Gnarl smiled at this now finding proof of the humans fear. Had they been of sound mind they would have grouped their shots to overwhelm the shields and fully destroy enemy vessels, but by targeting so many different ships at once the vast majority of the return fire was likewise being deflected by Iltick shields.

As the two forces closed the combat increased in intensity. While his sub commanders were laughing and smiling at the coming victory something was bothering Gnarl. Throughout the entire battle so far the human battleships had yet to fire a single shot.

Gnarl rose from his seat and strode to the tactical display. Looking at the placement of the enemy vessels, Gnarl noticed that rather than a standard battle line the human vessels had formed a protective perimeter around the battleships. He looked up from the display to the visual link and saw a human cruiser move out of line to place itself between an energy burst shot that had been aiming for the battleships in the rear. The cruiser’s shields flared and then shattered under the attack and the starboard gun emplacements melted away from the super heated energy.

Gnarl’s eyes widened as he gained a somewhat insight into the enemy plans. The enemy destroyers and cruisers were nothing to them for it was their battleships that held whatever key was needed for their victory. So much so that they were willing to sacrifice their own vessels and comrades to protect it.

Just as Gnarl saw the danger the human battleships guns finally fired. Their massive barrels had slowly traversed silently in the cold void of space before releasing a blind blast of light.

Gnarl braced for an impact that would be his last, but nothing came. He opened his eyes to see that he was still among the living and that none of his ships had been destroyed in the salvo. Smiling at his good fortune, Gnarl shouted commands for all Iltick vessels to target the human battleships.

A second salvo was fired and this time luck had run out for some unlucky Iltick. A warsphere took a round straight to the core and it simply imploded like a popped children’s balloon. Debris from the shattered sphere impacted surrounding Iltick ships causing secondary explosions which only seemed to urge Gnarl’s previous orders even more.

The third salvo was unleashed just as the Iltick ships met the human battle line head on and attempted to pass through it. Some ships colliding with each other while others unleashed devastating broadsides from point blank range. It was here that the human resolve for the battle finally broke and one by one the human vessels broke off and began jumping away.

While none of the battleships had been damaged before they jumped away, several more destroyers and cruisers vanished under a hail of fire before the last of the active human vessels retreated.

Over the communication links Gnarl could hear the cheers and praise being issued by the crew members of the Iltick fleet as what had been intended as a devastating blow against the Iltick had been turned into a black mark of defeat for the humans. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (8 hours later)

The massed throngs of Iltick citizens crowding the plaza made Gnarl feel claustrophobic as he stood behind the stage waiting to be introduced.

Following the battle he had performed a standard mop up operation of the remaining enemy vessels, but aside from a few strange energy readings the enemy fleet was entirely dead.

Gnarl had then been summoned by the Iltick high command to appear at a celebration at the capital he had saved from the human invaders.

With the energy shield down the night sky was glittering with countless stars and running lights of orbiting ships. Gnarl looked up and though some would say he was mad he tried to pick out the lights of his flagship which was no doubt watching over him as an honor guard.

Feeling a tap on his shoulder Gnarl looked down to see a stage hand motioning him to the stage as the speaker had just announced his name. The cheers of the crowd were loud enough to make the buttons of Gnarl’s parade uniform vibrate as he stepped on to the stage.

He waved his hand and smiled sheepishly to the crowd as he approached the podium, the effect somehow making the crowd cheer louder than before. Gnarl reached the podium and looked out over the crowds as his chest swelled with pride. Seeing the support of his people there was nay a doubt in his heart nor his mind of their inevitable victory over the treacherous humans and that one day soon the Iltick flag would wave high over their miserable dirt pile of a world.

As the crowds cheers began dying down Gnarl prepared to deliver his rehearsed opening remarks honoring his crew and those that had lost their lives in battle.

He had barely uttered the first syllable when the first warhead struck the city and his world turned to white.......   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (8 hours earlier)

Marcus saw the Radiance move out of line and take the energy burst meant for his ship full on. He could nearly feel the aches and pains the tortured vessel must be going through.

“Weapons master Frig!” He shouted between issuing commands to the rest of his fleet. “We need those firing solutions five minutes ago!”

Not even bothering to look up from her console weapons master Frig continued performing calculations. “The planet’s data does not match the files we were given!” she angrily shouted back as she dashed from console to console. Th enemy shots were starting to find their home against the battleships shields and as she dashed she had to catch herself with each impact shudder that ran through the ship. “One wrong miscalculation and this entire operation was for nothing!”

Though Marcus wanted to challenge the weapons master she was right. Rather than arguing a point he couldn’t win he tapped the command keys of his ear mounted com device.

“This is Admiral Marcus of the Retribution hailing the Talwar and Deutschland, respond.”

“This is captain Anika of Talwar, good for go.”

“This is captain Emil of Deutschland, go to receive.”

“Prepare to receive targeting data for your main guns. Do not fire until you have the data, repeat, do not fire until you have the data.” “Roger. holding for data.” came both replied.

The viewport lit up as another destroyers shields were overwhelmed and torn to ribbons. The closeness of the explosion sent a shock wave through the Retribution and knocked Marcus off his feet.

He unsteadily regained his footing as the wall of enemy ships had now decided that a headlong rush was the best tactic.

“Weapons master!” he shouted as he found his way back to his command chair.

Frig’s hand shot a thumbs up as she reached the final terminal. “Uploading data now!”

From his command chair a screen of data began streaming in which was then fed down to the gunner crews not only aboard his ship but to the Deutschland and Talwar as well. As the ships gun icons flashed green one by one Marcus thrust out his arm and shouted “Fire!”

Though the void could not hear the roar of the guns the crew of the Retribution could feel the mighty ships weapons vibrate the entire ship as they spat burning fury towards their foe.

“Reload and fire!”

The command wasn’t necessary for Marcus to shout, but now at the peak of the battle it was all he could do. Days of calculated jumps and maneuvers had all led to this climatic battle that would decide the fate of the war.

“Belay that!” Frig shouted. “Enemy warsphere is blocking trajectory! I must recalculate around it!”

“Belay that belay that!” Marcus shouted over her. “We do not have time to wait, they’ll be on us in minutes!”

The enemy vessels had redoubled their efforts to close the gap and the shield wall the destroyers and cruisers were providing was steadily being chipped away.

“Talwar, Deutschland; wait until after the warsphere has been destroyed then fire your next two salvos. After our third the strike force is to break orbit and make for the rendezvous point!”

A chorus of replies came in as the Retribution fired its second salvo and utterly destroyed the enemy warsphere.

The following salvos from the other battleships easily passed through the gap now opened by the absent warsphere. As the three warships reloaded for their third and final salvo the enemy fleet was now mixing within the battle line. All Marcus could do was pray that the plan would work and that those who had died had not died in vain... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (8 hours later)

High in orbit, circling the planet for the last several hours since the battle had ended, the warheads fired from the battleships had slowly begun their descent.

Fired from hard shells rather than from rockets, the shells had bypassed the energy scanners of the enemy fleet that had scoured the battlefield after the human fleet had fled. The radiation signatures being the only give away but were thankfully masked by the debris clouds.

Carried by the planets gravity along specifically calculated routes, the shells flown around the planet several times before impacting at their target location.

The capital city had their shields deployed during the entire battle and for several hours after in case of falling debris, but with the passage of time the shields had been deactivated and thus allowing the warheads to impact the capital directly.

Space ships were designed to in some cases withstand warhead explosions if done correctly; the capital city was not.

The rain of warheads dotted the entire city reducing what had once been the nerve center of the greatest threat to humanity to a irradiated pile of waste and the once proud cheers from across their empire were turned into cries of despair as the wrath of humanity was brought to bear.