#that knife of course being the knife which is known as Podcasting

[chiropteracupola]

"Male friendship makes it possible to survive the oaken death machine."

— November Kelly, Kill James Bond! s3e8.5: Master and Commander

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

Ok, basics of Soul Eater. This is a world where people can be born with the ability to transform into magical weapons, known as Demon weapons. They can come to this school called the DWMA (Death Weapon Meister Academy) and find a partner who’s able to wield them, called a meister. If their soul wavelengths are compatible, they’ll become a pair. These weapon-meister pairs are then tasked with going out into the world and fighting off kishin eggs, which are people who have strayed onto the path of evil by eating human souls. If they aren’t hunted down and eliminated, they will eventually form into a kishin – a creature of pure madness that would destroy the world.

There are also Witches, beings of magic who are kind of like a third party – some want the kishin to be revived because it causes chaos, but others are chill and actually on the side of the DWMA. Witches are important because their souls are the key to a Demon weapon awakening their true form, and gaining extra powers. Defeating a witch and consuming their soul makes the weapon into a Death Scythe, a weapon powerful enough to be wielded by Death himself, the god of the world.

For my AU, I’m just taking the premise of the world and replacing the characters with DSMP/MCYT characters, so I won’t explain much there. Great show, would recommend highly, it’s on Netflix, read the manga as well if you’re disappointed by the ending of the anime.

Anyways, I’d like to use more MCYT characters than just DSMP peeps, like some Hermitcraft folks, but I know nothing about them really, so I just have DSMP stuff for now.

Phil is Death, because I can’t help but make him immortal in every AU I make. He’s the one who determines who has started to go down the path of the kishin and makes the order for them to be taken out. (Sounds kinda intense, but in this universe souls of people like this actually look different to healthy human souls).

Dream and George are a meister-weapon pair. George is a Demon Axe, and they are classified as a Three-Star pair (the highest ranking a meister can achieve, and second only to being a Death Scythe for a weapon.)

Techno is also a three-star meister, although his situation is a little different. He doesn’t wield a Demon weapon, but instead he wields a legendary sword called Harpe, which is a shapeshifting weapon that can take different forms. (So, in the series, they have Excalibur, who is this really powerful sword that anyone is compatible with, wavelength wise, but he himself is really freaking annoying so nobody can stand using him as a partner. I wanted to give Techno something different, but I wanted to tie in his connection with Greek mythology, so I created my own legendary weapon. Harpe is Perseus’s sword in the mythology, what he used to decapitate Medusa. Harpe is the same as Excalibur in that it can match anyone’s wavelength, but instead of just being annoying like Excalibur, Harpe allows Techno to hear the voices of the dead. Wherever he goes, there are people who speak to him, and usually it’s just idle chatter and he pretends he can’t hear them, but they seem to know that he can because he always seems to attract them wherever he goes.) Harpe usually takes the form of a sword, but it can also become a trident, a spear, and a pickaxe.

Then there are the two-star pairs, who are a level above the regular students and able to take on more dangerous missions. There’s Sapnap and his two weapons Karl and Quackity, who wield fire and water/ice (not sure yet) respectively. Sapnap and Karl were partners first, before Quackity came to the school, and he was a menace. Sapnap is a very powerful meister, but also very destructive due to his partner being fire and him not knowing how to hold back sometimes. When Quackity became a student and the teachers learned that he was a water weapon, he was begged to partner with them to try and reduce the amount of damage Sap does on lessons, and generally chill them out. Of course, the teachers didn’t account for Quackity being just as chaotic, if not more, than his partners, and thus begun the most chaotic trio at the school.

Bad and Skeppy are partners, and originally I was gonna have Skeppy as the meister with a reluctant Bad who gets pulled into Skeppy’s pranks, but then I remembered that IRL!Bad is a badass who throws knives and shoots guns and stuff, so I changed it so Bad’s the meister and Skeppy’s his knife weapon. Bad still gets dragged around with Skeppy’s shenanigans though.

Punz and Ant are partners, mostly because I needed them to be in the AU somehow and they both needed a partner. Honestly don’t know much about either of them, and I don’t know what kind of weapon Ant is, but they’re strong enough to be two-star.

Then there are the one-star meisters, which is the ranking all students start as. You have Tubbo and Tommy, Wilbur and Fundy, Niki and Jack, Puffy and HBomb, and Purpled and Hannah(hannahxxrose).

To the surprise of most people who meet them, Tubbo is actually the meister in their pair. Which makes it very funny when Tommy’s being his usual bombastic, irritating self and picks a fight with another pair who they may not know, and when they get ready to fight Tommy calls over this innocent looking kid and starts glowing in his transformation, becoming a crossbow that can shoot explosive shots (like a firework crossbow).

Fundy is an interesting case, because he is actually a Witch (using the fact that Fundy’s character on the SMP is ftm trans, and because witches in this world are animal-themed and it just made too much sense with his fox connection. He has ears that he hides with a hat and a tail that he hides.) He’s partnered with Wilbur, who is a set of oversized gauntlets that have claws at the end. Yes, he gets furry jokes, no, he’s not amused, but he deals.

Niki and Jack are the weapon I’m probably most excited about. Jack can transform into a big shield, Steven Universe style, but it also has another ability. Niki can strike it with a mallet in different ways, and the sound that emanates from it has a different affect on her enemies/their attacks. She can ring it so that it resonates at a frequency that can break glass, can stun her enemies, etc. A lot of people think she’s weak or not as good as others because her weapon is defensive, but she just smiles and knows that if they ever see her fight, they’ll think differently.

Puffy and HBomb is half a joke, but also serious. HBomb is some sort of spiked whip/lasso, but many people joke that he’s a glorified fishing rod because Puffy once used him for that and he never lived it down. (Because Puffy’s a captain, but also because HBomb has his podcast and it just seemed to fit). Puffy is also a sheep witch, and bonds with Fundy over it since nobody else at school knows about their heritage (given that Witches are usually an enemy of the DWMA)

Purpled and Hannah, I will admit, are only a pair because they’re both bedwars players and it seemed appropriate? No idea what kind of weapon Hannah would be though.

Real quick, here are some other character roles. Ponk is the school nurse, Sam is a technician who is supposedly working to make sure the school is functioning, maintaining the old pipes and stuff, but he has a lot of secret work that Death has him do on the side of that. Alyssa and Callahan are a Death Scythe pair (Alyssa as a meister) who work on another continent and aren’t ever around, cause I thought it would be funny.

Ranboo is a special case of being his own meister? If anyone reading knows the series, he’s basically like Crona. But instead of madness from the black blood, it’s his enderwalk state that he eventually gets snapped out of in an epic battle with Tommy/Tubbo. He has two non-demon weapon pickaxes that he fights with, as well as the enderman powers from the SMP, and some mild telepathy.

In terms of other MCYT, I don’t know much about the hermits but most seem like they would be good teachers? The only one I was told had to be a meister was Falsesymmetry, because she’s a pvp god. And her weapon is Rendog, because I was told he’s supportive of her and also goes feral if needed? So there’s that. Ren is a transforming weapon, it’s a bow that can disconnect at the middle and become two swords connected by a magic chain that can extend as far as needed.

I have no idea what to do with Eret or Schlatt, they feel like they should have important roles but the “corrupt politician” or “the traitor who became king” bits don’t work super well in this universe. Well, traitor does, but I also love Eret and want to give them a good ending. And I could easily use Schlatt’s normal video persona rather than his SMP character, because that would be kinda funny and not something I see as often. - 🐉

Oooooooh. This is super interesting. This is super interesting. I really love this concept already!

[alexandenigtscreations]

Chapters: 6/7 Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Poisoning, blaster shot,... Summary:

Juno Steel and Peter Nureyev make a good team. But when a bank job goes horribly wrong, the injured pair are forced to lay low and hope the Carte Blanche can make it back to them in time.

Note: Bold Italic Writing signifies Nureyev speaking Brhamese 

Chapter 6: 

The dim light of the safe house shined supernaturally bright after the darkness outside.  The planetoid revolved slowly, so it would be another day or so before they found themselves back in the sun’s rays.  

Hopefully they would be gone by that time.

Nureyev blinked against the brightness, realizing he cracked a lens during the excursion.  At the moment he was too tired to care.  The Carte Blanch held a spare set or two dozen for just such an occasion.  

No, the only thing he had room to think about was Juno.

Juno, his goddess, was still sleeping on the couch.  Still in the same recovery position that Nureyev had left him in.  

"It's been a- a while - Juno-" he said to the still form.  Juno didn’t stir.  Nureyev hadn’t expected him to.  

All the same, the Thief stumbled over to the Detective and plopped down on the makeshift coffee table.  If he was being honest with himself, and he rarely was, there was something comforting about being this close to his partner again.  

Juno's chest rose and fell with a frantic rhythm and his eye danced under the lid.  Nureyev frowned.  Whatever dream he seemed to be having, it didn’t look to be a good one.  

Nureyev contemplated the wisdom of waking Juno.  If this was their room on the Carte Blanche, he’d have done it already, chasing away the nightmares that plagued him.  He paused, halfway to the pulse point at the lady’s throat.  

The pepper bomb residue still tingled on his skin, it probably wouldn't hurt Juno, goodness knows he was a tough lady- but all the same it would be best to wash up beforehand.

Rita had agreed to message him if she noticed guards near the safe house.  Judging by the live feed she’d sent, the security was still in a frenzy over Nureyev’s earlier theatrics.  That was something, at least.  

He sighed, wilting over his knees.  He should call Vespa.  He should report to the Captain.  He should be securing the safe house.  He should be doing anything other than watching the little dots on the comms screen buzz about his last known location.  

It was some time before Nureyev felt ready to stand again.

The smoke had worked its way into everything.  His hair, skin, clothes, makeup, everything.  This was promising to be a production.

Carefully he shrugged off his coat and set to work in the sink.  A quick glance at the mirror told him what he already knew.  Gone were the knife sharp cat eyes and the carefully contoured cheeks.  Now the coverage was patchy at best and gore splattered at worst.  Nureyev scoured down the grime on his hands and aggressively attacked the makeup streaks.  The water wasn’t working fast enough, each plunge setting him to ache afresh.  Under him, his leg was trembling, threatening to give out at any moment.  

There was nothing for it, he’d just have to shower the stuff off.   It wasn’t like he ever dried off from the earlier river dip anyways.  With an impatient puff of air, he sat himself on the toilet and stripped off boots, socks, corset and shirt.  All of these items have been protected from the worst of the fumes by the long coat.  Not so his trousers.  

At first the icy water activated the chemical residue afresh.  He scrubbed his skin raw with a bar of upscale hotel soap.  Well, the hotel it came from may have been upscale, but the soap itself was as mediocre as any other hotel soap.  He glared at it as though it was it’s fault he was in this mess.  Fresh scrapes and bruises blossomed across his chest and arms.  

The water ran off in muddy brown and rusted red, gradually fading sudsy clear as blood stains and dirt alike were rinsed away.  

Shaking with effort, Nureyev slid down onto the shower stool.  In his impatience, he’d forgotten about the bandage.  

First rule of thieving, Nureyev chastised himself, if you want to stay alive, keep a level head.

Numb fingers struggled with the bandage fastenings.  It was harder to remove the wrappings than it had been to apply them.  He expanded the tear in the leg seam to gain better access, exposing the burn beneath.  The sight churned his stomach, which was something.  He’d never considered himself squeamish.  There was something unsettling about seeing your own flesh distorted in such a fashion….

The angry red of the burn was expected, unpleasant, but expected.  But wasn’t prepared for the purple tinged veins webbing out from the injury or how tight the skin was stretched about it.  

File it away- just file it away.

As soon  as he was out of the shower and re-clothed; Nureyev decided to take Vespa’s advice and down a glass of water.  It repeated on him just as quick and he was left bowed over the sink, coughing and sputtering while his stomach roiled.  His knuckles turned to white over the porcelain as he waited for the nausea to die down.  

Face bare and hair free of product, he could plainly see the high flush on his cheeks and bruised circles under his eyes.  “Oh what are you looking at?” he rasped at his haggard reflection.   He should have known better, did know better.  He’d had enough experience to know when he could and couldn’t keep something down.  

That horrid chill bit deeper into his bones, conspiring with the fire of the injury to make him thoroughly miserable.  

This wasn’t right, he knew.  This wasn’t supposed to be how a blaster shot felt- fresh or no.  Goodness knows he’s had enough of them.  And the purpling veins were down right... unpleasant.

Nureyev sighed, bringing out two glasses of water and a clean cloth ripped in two.

“Juno, love.” Nureyev coaxed, all but collapsing on the tiny coffee table.  He could do this while he slept, but much rather the lady be awake to take his fluids.  “Love-” he coaxed, running his fingers through his curls like he'd wanted to ever since his return.  He was rewarded with a gentle moan and Juno pressing into his hand.  

“Love- You have to drink for me-”

“Don’ feel good.” his voice was so weak, Nureyev tried not to think about what that could mean.  

“I know-” he said, dipping the cloth in the water and bringing it to Juno’s lips, “J-Just take the water from that.”  

Juno pulled away from the cold, hand wrapping around Nureyev’s wrist.  “Naugh’ a child-”

Nureyev chuckled fondly “Drink, or Vespa will have both our heads.”

“Vespa?”

“I d-dare say she isn't too…. pleased at the moment.”

“Wha else ‘s new?” Juno commented, but took the cloth from Nureyev.  He was tentative at first but really started to pull on it, dipping messily back in the cup for more.  

“Slow, if you d-don’t want it repeating on you.” Juno hummed in affirmation.  That would have to do.  

Nureyev took a hit off his own cloth and turned his attention to the injury.  Though the surrounding skin had dried by now, the burn itself was swollen and oozing a clear fluid.  This close and the discoloration to the veins was easy to see.  He didn’t need Vespa to tell him that it had been contaminated.  Didn’t need her to explain that the speed at which the inflammation was spreading was concerning.  Didn’t need her to tell him there was nothing that could be done about it till he returned to the ship.  

File it away.

“Hh-hell, ‘Reyev-” He jumped, twisting to see Juno staring.  His eye was wide, glassy and his parlor was more ashen than before.  

“Lay back love.” Nureyev soothed, gently pushing Juno back.  The Detective collapsed under his gentle touch with a little strangled sound.  “D-don’t look.”  He hadn’t meant for him to see.  The thought of moving to another room, of having to stand another minute, made him sick.  Still, he should have tried harder to spare Juno.  

“It’s- bad-” as distorted as his words were, Nureyev could tell it was a statement, not a question.  

“Nothing that c-can’t be managed.” he shivered.  He almost believed it.  “Have some more water- i-if you can.”  

Nureyev tried to work quickly, using what little remained of the smuggler’s first aid kit to clean the wound and apply burn ointment.  The task was made difficult by clumsy cold hands.  The exercise may prove pointless, but at least nothing else was likely to add to the contamination.  

He should make a report to Buddy, maybe even get some answers as to what was going on with the Carte Blanche.  

Nureyev pursed his lips looking at the comms.  His mind was fuzzy at the edges, from fatigue and stress.  A call with someone who could see through so much of his cover on a good day, was daunting.  

And yet….

“Captain Auranko.” his usual smooth voice was rough and unwieldy.  "I believe it is t-time for a r-report."

"Pete, darling you sound dreadful." Nureyev couldn't tell if she was disappointed or concerned.  Perhaps both.  

"Yes well, a l-lot has... transported."

"Transpired?"

"Quite." He coughed.  "We have e-encountered several….troubles.  The b-box is fine but they are a-aware we are still within the c-city."

"Yes, I've heard something of your predicament Pete.  I assure you we are doing everything we can to collect you."

"When , Captain." He coughed harder, "we are r-running out of the…" he couldn't remember the right word " time- "

There was a pause, voices in the back, urgent and cutting.  He'd lose her- he’d lose her before he’d a chance to get answers, to get help.

"P-please, Captain-"

She sighed, "I'll be frank with you Pete.   Listen closely because we don't have time for questions."

The thief cleared his throat "Of course-"

"Planetoid Xnon is owned by Galactic Stars First Bank.  The entire place is on lockdown after our stunt." There was a strange sound like crunching metal  and Buddy gave a sharp intake of breath.  Shouting something to the Carte Blanche team.  

"They know t-the Carte Blanche is there."  Nureyev commented.  He didn't have to be a detective to put that together.

"Quite."

"Ah." The complicated note of emotion welled up within, there wouldn't be a rescue, they wouldn't be able to get close.  The bank would get them in the end and there would be nothing he could do about it.  Nureyev felt the knot in his throat before he had a chance to file it away.  "S-so we are to be… left b-behind."  Made to follow their pirates deal.  

"And leave two injured crew to fend for themselves against an overgrown bully?  I think not, dear.  Jet and Rita have been coordinating their efforts, we will beat them yet."

"Captain-"

"There is no need to be such a negative man Pete.  We will get back to you.  These bank executives made the mistake of coveting two things that are mine, my crew and my information.  I'm not in the mood for sharing."

Nureyev let out a strangled sort of laugh that was far from his usual chuckle.

"I will transfer you to Vespa, keep us in the loop darling."

"No need f-for the transfer.  T-tell her things are much the s-same on our end.  We will await the next contact."

"Very well, I'll defer to your judgement then Pete.  Buddy out."

Nureyev sagged at the call end.  He'd the distinct feeling like Buddy was withholding something from them.  He wasn't sure if that was a good or bad that ng, so he filed that away for future consideration.

"They kknow 'bout tha ship?"  Juno inquired in the lull.

"It would seem s-so." Nureyev said.  He had no intention of lying to Juno, even in a state like this.

"J-Jet and Rita are on it though."

"Rita-" Juno gave a snort, "almos' feel bad- for-” he gasped “'em- ah-"  His face twisted and he curled tighter on himself.  

“L-love, you should- reset.” he said, scooting himself over so that he was within reach of Juno.  

“You’re ss-switchin’ words- Reyev-” he was looking up at him with that glassy eye.  

“What?”  

“Switching- words-” Juno tried again.  “You’ve been- doin’ it a lot-”

Then it clicked.

“I-" he floundered, " Oh my.  I hadn’t realized-” and he hadn’t.  But now that he was actually thinking about it, he’d been doing it for a while.  His hand drifted up to his traitorous lips.  That was definitely a hit to his professional pride.  It had been a long time since he'd slipped like this; would that only get more common as he got older?  Or....

File it away-

"You're- tired- too-" Juno added, reaching out to put his hand on Nureyev's knee.  It seemed to be meant as a squeeze, but his fingers couldn't quite manage.  He'd likely be unable to work a blaster in this state.

He was defenseless.

Just file it all away-

"It's- alright." Nureyev shrugged delicately.

"No- it's s'not."

Nureyev hummed, wrapping his fingers about Juno's wrist, feeling the pulse point fast and light.  In truth, he would be alright as long as Juno's heart kept beating.

After Juno drifted off once more, Nureyev took to securing the safe house again.  Moving around more than was wise judging by the dizzy spells.  

One eye was on the guard locator Rita sent, another kept on his love.  

Two hours passed, Vespa called, Juno was examined again.  His heart rate was inching up but otherwise, he was much the same.  She didn't know when they'd return.  Nureyev's eyelids itched to close.  He could not rest yet.

He refused.  

To keep awake, he attempted a few mobility exercises.  A near collapse on the second set led him to abandon the attempt.  The movements weren’t hard, per say, but they were deceptively taxing.  One that left him shaking and gasping on the ground.  Forgetting that was a stupid, foolish mistake.  Nureyev was slipping.

The buzzing of an incoming call forced him back to reality.  He’d been dangerously close to nodding off again, lulled into stillness by the mirriorid aches and pains that plagued him.  It was Vespa, goodness, had it really been two hours?  

Her tone held none of it’s usual bite.  If Nureyev didn’t know better, he’d call it concern.   Juno was much the same, fast asleep, curled on his side, face pinched in pain.  Nureyev longed to kiss it away.  As if he was of any use to the Detective now.  

________________________

He patrolled the safehouse again, pausing in front of the crates. They easily outnumbered the pair.  The more Nureyev considered them, the more ominous he found their hidden insides to be.  What if they had listening devices inside?  Cameras?  Drones?  It could also be completely innocuous-

It was reminding him of the old earth thought experiment.  There was a cat in a box, and you didn’t know if the cat was alive or dead until you opened that box.  Until you did, both possibilities remained true at once.  He thought that old earthlings must have been very cruel or cowardly to trap such a creature in the first place and not check on it’s welfare.  In his current state, he related very much to the cat.  

Were the contents of the crate dangerous?  Or harmless?  There was only one way to find out.  

Nureyev pulled up a smaller box for a seat and set a plasma cutter to the side.  Slicing through the synth wood till it hung loose from the hinge left against the floor.  He glanced over at Juno and pulled.  

Tiny vials cascaded from the packing fungus.  Nureyev jumped, jarring his leg and hissing.  It was a far cry from what he’d been expecting.  Cautiously, he reached in and scooped up a tiny glass bottle bearing the legend ‘ Saffron Pharmaceuticals, Venucian SARS-97 Vaccine ’  

He grabbed another squinting at the label ‘ Saffron Pharmaceuticals, Venucian SARS-97 Vaccine ’

A brief investigation revealed the entire crate contained the long expired vaccines.  Nureyev stood, dizzied by the sudden motion and moved to the next crate.  This too contained medical devices, two ventilators and their accompanied equipment.  Another crate contained bandages and antiseptic.  Another filled with tiny computerized vital monitors.  Still another was cramped with some sort of scanning tech.  Crate after crate contained specialized medical supplies.  

Nureyev’s chest constricted, wherever these had intended to go, they were meant to save people on the Outer Rim.  Not be left to rot in a forgotten smuggler den.  

Out of morbid curiosity, he snagged a few of the vials for future consideration.  Then sent a picture of the medical equipment to Vespa with a caption “Would these items still be of use?”

There would have been many people on Brahma alone that would have benefited from such equipment.  It was near impossible to get on the war torn Outer Rim.  Frustration bubbled out from some locked file.  In his fatigued state, it was near impossible to hold it back.  

Just then, the Detective stirred.  The file snapped shut and Nureyev hobbled back to his love.  

Something seemed to have changed, even through the brain fog, it was plain to see.

“J-Juno?” Nureyev asked.  

Juno let out a low pained groan, fingers twisting into his stomach. “ ‘Reyev- ” he gasped, his chest stuttering.  “ Nu-reyev- ” he was struggling as if trying to force himself upright.  

“What’s ha-happening love-”

“Hu- hur’s -” he keened.  Nureyev’s blood ran cold, his hands fluttering over the lady.  Unsure whether he should push him back down or help him up.  

“Hurts?  Juno- w-what hurts?”

Juno swayed on his elbow, eye screwed shut.  

“ Love ?”

He looked as though he was going to be sick.  Nureyev pushed a bin under him just in time for him to wretch.  His whole body shook from the force of it, he was left gasping from the strain before it hit him again.  A curdled mass of red splattered against the bottom of the bin.  

Blood

Juno was bleeding on the inside.

Nureyev didn’t wait for him to finish, he called Vespa barely able to keep the panic down.  

“I’m kind of busy thief, if this is about the equi-”

“Juno’s Bleeding !” Nureyev choked out.  

“Whut?”

“Please Vespa- Juno- Juno is-” he groped for the right phrase, “How do you say- internal bleeding-'' the Brahmese slipped out of his mouth before he could think to stop it.  Juno heaved again, dissolving into dry heaves.  Nureyev wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.  “Sick on blood.” he managed at long last.  

“Wait, you're telling me he’s vomiting blood?”

“Yes.”

She swore.

“How d-do I stop it?”

“Ransom-” she sounded tired.  Almost defeated.  He couldn't understand.  There had to be something he could do, anything that he could do.

“Please- I-” he was hyperventilating now, getting dizzy from it.  Juno was shaking in his spare arm, just keeping himself from toppling over.  He couldn't lose him, not like this. “Please-” his voice broke.  

“Whoa, hey!  First Ransom, I’m going to need you to breathe for me!  Sheish!”  He tried, grounding himself with the heat radiating from Juno.  “Okay look, I can’t promise anything right now, but gonna need you to turn on the video feed, I need to see what’s going on.” He did.  

As before he followed her instructions.  Juno seemed to collapse in on himself, curling around his core.  

“Here’s the story Ransom.” Nureyev perked up, trying with all his might to focus on Vespa’s voice.  “He’s in bad shape.” he snorted, he knew that.  “But judging by the color and texture of the blood, it's a slow bleed.  We have the time to get to you.”

“S-so, I am to w-sit in idle the entire time?”

“Your Job, Thief, is the same as before!” she snapped, sounding more like her usual self.  “His heart and brain need blood circulation to elevate his feet.” Nureyev got a box to prop Juno’s feet on and carefully turned him onto his back.  Juno whined at the motion and Vespa swore loudly “Not on his back Thief!  Damn it!  Want him to choke if he ralfs again?!  Keep him on his side, the recovery position.”  Nureyev could kick himself as he hurried to comply, Juno made another piteous sound that tugged at his heart.  “No, it’s not comfortable, but it will improve his chances of survival.”

It was harder than it should have been to move Juno, he was panting by the end, the world swirling “What n-now?”

“If he can keep it down, get water into him.  Mostly just keep him alive until we get there.”

“When will that be- ” he was frustrated, tired.  He wanted answers.  He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to massage out the headache that had taken residence in his temples.  

“I don’t know what you are playing at Ransom, but I don’t speak Brahmese!”

“Wha- I-” he swallowed, he’d done it again.  Maybe if he just ignored it- “W-when are you coming?”

“Look, we’ll keep you apprised.  And goddamnit, do something about that chill.  I can’t deal with you keeling over on us.  Talk to you next check in.” and she hung up.

He just had to wait it out.

He could do that.  A shiver passed down his spine, clothes scraping over hypersensitive skin.  

He could wait.

________________

It was getting- hard- to concentrate.  Nureyev couldn't patrol the safe house anymore, could scarcely move.  So instead, he was saving what was left of his strength for what was to come.  Whatever that may be.  

The fatigue was crushing and still he kept his eyes open.  He would not leave Juno, not if there was anything he could do about it.  

He squeezed the handle of the blade, the sharp edges of the bare handle digging into his palm.  Over and over he squeezed until it hurt, and backed off, lulling himself into a half hypnotic state.  So long as he could squeeze, he could feel the pain, so long as he felt the pain, he could stay awake.  

It was different from the consuming burn in his leg, the unruly, hungry sort of agony that was far beyond his control.  Far beyond anything he could file away.

The squeezing distracted from it, in a small way.  Any relief was welcome.  

Nureyev bowed over his knees, eyes trained on the comms screen and the blurry dots migrating over the surface of the map.  Squeezing the handle.  Paying no attention to the moisture working it’s way down his wrist.  

It had been- hours- since they last heard from the Carte Blanche.  Hours since he heard a peep out of Juno-  The only way the thief could be sure Juno was alive was the heat rolling off his skin.  

They’ve been abandoned.  

He was sure.

Buddy Auranko had promised that the Carte Blanche would be more than a team, that it would be a family.  He snorted derisively.  He should have taken Juno and run right then and there.  Family’s only ever brought suffering.  

The burn gave a particularly nasty throb, Nureyev jumped, hissing against the onslaught, clutching high over the wound.  How long would they last like this?  

The comms started to beep.  Nureyev glanced down and saw activity on the screen.  The details were lost to him, but what was known was that the guards of Galactic Stars First Bank were on the move.

He wasn’t sure what that could mean, but it couldn’t be good.  

There was a rattling at the door.  Nureyev’s heart plummeted.   Now?  Of all times.  Why couldn't they just leave them alone?  

Someone, or something pounded on the door, a large someone judging by the racket it made, setting Nureyev’s head to pound.  There were voices from the other end.  Nureyev’s mind stretched them into something sinister and ominous.  He straightened his leaden limbs.  Preparing himself.

If they expected him to go out without a fight, then they were sorely mistaken.  

The door was flung open and Nureyev used the last of his strength to launch himself at the intruders.  The blade sung through the air, making contact judging by the grunt.  A large blurry person shouted, staggering away from the knife.  

They weren’t fighting back.  

That was strange.  Not only weren’t they fighting back, but they seemed to be calling out to him-  As though they- recognized him.

It did nothing to soothe his fears.

Nureyev collided painfully with the door jam wheeling around and-

“‘ansom!  Ransom!  We are not a threat!  Ransom!”

He staggered, a familiar figure in a tan overcoat swam before his eyes.  

Nureyev- knew that coat.

“J-Jet?” he asked, bewildered.  How was it possible that they were there?  They’d left them?  Hadn’t they?  Blackness encroached on what was left of his vision.  

“Yes.  We have come to collect you.”

“Oh- Thank the stars- ” and Nureyev knew no more.  

[pronouncingitwang]

post-S3 to S4 wtgfs | 4.1K words | intended for @tmagirlsweek but I got busy

1.

On a bad arthritis day a few years ago, after Georgie had failed one too many times to open a beer can at her kitchen counter, Melanie had winced, reached down under her skirt, and handed Georgie a sizable penknife. “I’ve never really been a fan of pepper spray,” she’d said before Georgie could ask, looking almost shy about it, and, “Yes, I keep it there all the time. Don’t tell Andy, he’ll freak.” And so Georgie learned that 1. getting a knife’s point under a metal tab and then bracing your forearm against the handle takes a lot of pressure off your thumb, and 2. seeing your friend of a few months (who has apparently been hiding a knife under her clothes this whole time) laughing as a metal tab hits her in the face is something that might make you think about kissing her. Apparently, seeing your friend-with-occasional-benefits of a few years sitting in your ex’s hospital room with a Polaroid camera around her neck can do the same thing, even if it also gives you a lump in your throat.

Georgie’s known for the last month that her visiting hours would have to overlap with Melanie’s eventually, but knowing and seeing are not the same thing. When you know something, you can practice various appropriately neutral “Hi, Melanie”s in your mirror. When you see something, all your planning goes out the window, and you blurt out instead, “Is that a knife strapped to your thigh, or are you happy to see me?”

Melanie doesn’t laugh at the joke, which makes sense. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and Georgie can see the moment the surprise in them hardens into something else. When she speaks, her voice sounds rough, like each syllable is being dragged across a whetstone on its way up her throat. “Knife. Obviously.”

Georgie tells herself not to react, to focus on Melanie’s words instead of her tone. Not being happy to see someone in Melanie’s set of circumstances is understandable, and Melanie’s not wrong about the “obviously”—her long skirt is wrapped twice around her legs, so tight that it must be restricting movement, and the outline of a blade is more than clear against the thin fabric. The Melanie Georgie is used to wouldn’t have displayed a weapon so boldly; but then, the Melanie Georgie is used to also wouldn’t have left her a voicemail about how Sarah Baldwin and being trapped in The Magnus Institute was “all your fault!” followed by a one-word apology text, followed by two months of ghosting, so perhaps Georgie needs to amend her expectations.

“Hi, Melanie,” Georgie says, practice finally deciding to kick in. “Are you… are you alright?”

“What, that bad?” Melanie replies. Her hair is longer than Georgie remembers, dark roots now grown out to the same length as the red-dyed strands on the bottom. Georgie thinks she would like to braid it someday.

Georgie shrugs. “A bit.”

“You don’t look too good either,” Melanie says, but she gets up to offer Georgie her seat anyway. Georgie takes it silently, propping her cane against the wall. This, at least, has not changed between the two of them.

“I’ll be here for half an hour,” Georgie says, offering… parameters? warning? escape?

Something like panic crosses Melanie’s eyes, but she crosses her arms. “Me too.”

“I can ask for another chair?” No matter how quickly Melanie claims her gunshot wound had healed, standing on it for too long can’t be comfortable.

“Don’t need one.” A pause. “And stop looking at me.”

A few minutes pass, during which the only sound is of Melanie bouncing her leg. Then, her breathing, getting louder and faster. When Georgie looks up, Melanie has her face in her hands.

“Are you o—”

“You know what,” Melanie gasps, “I’ve changed my mind about the half hour.”

“I can leave, if you’d rather—”

“No,” Melanie says, shaking her head. “No, I need to go.”

“Do you need—I can squeeze you, or—”

“No, no, no, just—Don’t touch me,” Melanie growls, and then she’s out of the door and gone.

For the next half hour, Georgie eats a sandwich, reads aloud from John Keats: The Complete Poems because it’d annoy Jon if he were alive, and tries very hard not to cry.

Another half hour later, Georgie’s phone dings. The text reads, simply, “see you.”

For the first time that day, Georgie smiles.

-

2.

Georgie comes back to the hospital at the same time next week, and yes, Melanie is there. This time, there are two chairs, sat about a foot away from each other. Georgie chooses not to comment on it, but she thinks Melanie can tell she’s biting down a smile.

They make it through the pleasantries this time without too much tension. Melanie asks about the podcast, and Georgie can at least talk about that for a few minutes. She remembers they used to have conversations for hours at a time, during drinks or pillow talk or game nights with friends, but now she has no idea what they talked about. Besides work, that is—Melanie could go on for hours about the newest Ghost Hunt UK project—but that’s obviously not a safe topic anymore. They talked about TV shows maybe, or mundane day-to-day shit about their lives. It was easier before. Now, if Georgie wants to tell Melanie about what her neighbor’s daughter said yesterday, she first has to tell Melanie about her new neighbor and their dog and the other times their daughter came over to play with The Admiral, and that’s too many sentences to trail off on, especially if Melanie might not have a story to trade for hers.

They’ve gone silent long enough that Georgie is contemplating getting her book out when Melanie says, “I’ve still got that cane you let me borrow after India, if you want it back.”

There are several possibilities for what that means. One, Melanie is offering the two of them an opportunity to escape this room with its stale air and too-bright lights and engage in anything from a fight to a hookup to a hangout. Two, Melanie is trying to cut off any remaining ties or obligations to Georgie. Three, the silence was just way too awkward and this is the first thing Melanie thought of.

Georgie picks her next words carefully. “You can keep it, it’s no problem. I thought the floral decals suited you.”

Melanie makes the face she makes when she’s trying to figure out if something is a joke or not. “I suppose it really brought out the red in my eyes.”

Georgie can’t help the surge of laughter that bubbles out of her. “Sure. And… also because it’s pretty.”

They’ve done the flirty banter before, as foreplay to actual foreplay or just for fun. Georgie still has at least ten minutes of cut What the Ghost? audio where they went back and forth on “you’re so hot, you __” pick-up lines before remembering they were supposed to be talking about the Plague. In the past, Melanie returned fire with twice Georgie’s cheesiness.

This Melanie scowls. “if you don’t want it—”

“Is the cane at your flat?”

“Should be.”

“Then, sure.”

 Melanie hails them a cab outside the hospital. Georgie doesn’t quite recognize the streets it’s going down, and then she realizes that of course, after Andy left, Melanie would need to downsize.

“Good news,” Melanie says when they arrive at the building, “it’s, uh- I think it’s on the first floor.”

“You think? Don’t you live here?”

Melanie shrugs. “Technically.”

Georgie begins to understand when Melanie opens the door. Melanie’s old place wasn’t Instagram-perfect by any means, but it felt like her—deliberately nonsensical “motivational” posters, an upside-down “福” character on the living room wall, a coat hanger shaped like a tree by the entrance with a different chewable necklace dangling from each branch. Here, the walls are bare and the floor is covered in boxes. No bed, which puts one of Georgie’s theories for this outing to rest, and the space is too small for a mattress to be hiding anywhere other than a box. There’s a couch; the TV from Melanie’s old place sitting unplugged at an awkward angle on the ground; an empty bookshelf, and leaning against said bookshelf, a cane with a moderately worn tip and various rose stickers winding around the shaft. Melanie hands it over to Georgie, who takes it silently.

“So in case you haven’t guessed, I’ve been sleeping in the Archives.”

Georgie hasn’t guessed. The Magnus Institute isn’t something she allows herself to think about most days. But there is something very familiar in the sunkenness of Melanie’s cheeks right now, the grim set of her jaw, the way she scans every room she enters for hidden danger.

“And before you tell me that place is bad news, I know. Obviously.”

“Then why…?”

“I talked about it so you wouldn’t have to. Don’t make me kick you out.”

Georgie had almost made the same threat to Jon once, when he was staying with her. Jon—Jon who she cut off for reading statements and not taking care of himself and staying with his job. Georgie has a dreadful suspicion that if she examined Melanie and Jon against her so-called principles, the only substantial difference between their situations would be that she is in love with one of them and not the other. Luckily, Georgie is good at compartmentalizing.

“I understand,” Georgie says. “Do you need help with your bookshelf?”

 Later, after Melanie’s whipped out her thigh knife to cut open every box, and after Georgie’s directed her on organizing the books by size, the two of them settle on the couch. Georgie opens an old season of Bake Off on her tablet. They’d watched a few episodes together before, but since Georgie finds captions distracting and Melanie has a tendency to talk over everything, they’d both decided that watching separately and calling afterwards made more sense.

Today, Melanie is silent. As soon as the episode ends, she gets up and announces, “I’m going back to work.”

Georgie doesn’t protest, not yet. It’s too early to be sure it won’t push Melanie away. She opts instead for, “Take care of yourself.”

“I can’t make any promises,” Melanie says, and then contradicts herself immediately by saying, “See you.”

(When Georgie leaves, she leaves the rose cane.) 

-

3.

Georgie leans back in the bathtub, careful to keep her braids out of the water, and lets the warmth soak into her joints. It’s a ritual she usually performs in the morning on days that requires more physical activity than she’s used to. As for why she’s trying to increase her range of motion and discomfort tolerance on this particular day… Georgie takes an ibuprofen and elects not to think about it.

On the way to the hospital, Georgie also elects not to think about the word “hypocrite.” This is made easier by the fact that she never actually enters Jon’s room. Melanie is waiting in the doorway, looking wired in a way that makes Georgie’s heart beat faster.

“You left your extra cane at my place again,” she says, but it sounds more like a question than a factual statement.

“I suppose we’ll have to go back and get it,” Georgie answers. “If you’d like to, that is?”

Melanie sneaks a look at Georgie’s face, nods, and grabs her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

Georgie is well aware that this is the first time they’ve touched since April. Melanie isn’t an enormously tactile person, but she used to hug people hello and goodbye. Georgie misses inhaling the scent of citrus shampoo every time Melanie ran into her, but this is a good replacement.

The two of them are silent until they reach Melanie’s flat, which Melanie’s clearly cleaned. The floor looks fresh-swept; there’s less dust everywhere; and most importantly, the mattress has been unpacked. It sits on the ground in front of them, topped with several pillows and blankets.

Melanie sits Georgie down on the couch, still gripping her by the (by now, asleep) arm, and blurts out, “I bought condoms.”

Georgie is prepared for this, wants this, but still—”Are you sure you’re in a good emotional place to—”

Melanie rolls her eyes and says, speeding through the words like she’s written them out beforehand, “Whatever you think’s happening to me, I promise you it has no interest in my sex life. If you don’t want to, fine. I have Candy Crush on my phone. There are books, you can”—Melanie affects a bad American accent and leans back—”read to me like one of your dead ex-boyfriends. You can leave, if you feel uncomfortable around me right now. Those are your decisions. But this is mine.”

“Will you still talk to me after this?”

Melanie considers, chewing on her lip. “This… won’t affect whether or not I still talk to you.”

“Are you trying to hurt yourself with this?”

“Unless you’re planning to hurt me—”

“I wouldn’t—”

“And unless you’ve forgotten what makes me feel good in the last year, then no, I’m not trying to ‘hurt myself.’ I’d say I’m doing the opposite, actually.”

Georgie knows her next question should be “Are you going to leave the Institute?”, but she also knows that the question will make Melanie pull away and the answer will force Georgie to reconsider. Georgie doesn’t want to reconsider.

“Okay.”

Melanie’s lips are as soft as Georgie remembers, a reminder that she is still here and solid and Georgie’s as long as Georgie’s touching her, holding her, loving her. Melanie deepens the kiss. We’re safe here, Georgie thinks emphatically as she presses forward, like she’ll suddenly be able to develop telepathy if she gets close enough. You’re okay. I’m okay.

Melanie pulls away for breath far too soon. “Sorry. Stuffy nose.”

Georgie laughs. “If you say so.”

“What, don’t believe me?”

“I just thought it was more likely that I took your breath away.”

The pun takes a second to register before Melanie groans and nips at Georgie’s lip. “You’re awful.”

“What a biting retort.”

“Nope!” Melanie kisses Georgie, hard. “It is not safe for you to be making terrible puns to a woman with a knife.”

It takes Georgie a little longer to catch enough breath to respond to that one. “Luckily, I’ve only made good puns today.”

“Jesus,” Melanie says, burying her face in Georgie’s shoulder, and there’s the citrus shampoo, and it’s like nothing has changed, like this is just another hookup between friends after a night out, and maybe Georgie will ask Melanie out next week or maybe she won’t depending on how busy she is, but it doesn’t matter too much because she’s at no risk of losing her soon anyway.

And then Melanie pulls back, and there’s a small cut above her eyebrow that wasn’t there in April. Georgie’s breath catches with the newness of it all. It is October again, and it is suddenly imperative that Melanie knows. “I’ve missed you. All these months. I thought about you all the time.”

Melanie is silent for a while. Then, she leans a few centimeters forward and presses a kiss to Georgie’s nose, so careful it makes Georgie want to cry. “I… don’t know if I can miss anyone anymore. But I”—she sighs—”I have… thought about you.”

“I’ll take it,” Georgie says because she will take it, she’ll take any proof that whatever is between them still has soil to grow in. And then Melanie moves her lips to Georgie’s neck and asks, “Do you want to move to the bed?”, and everything they say and think from then on is far harder to transcribe.

-

4. 

Georgie looks at her phone again, where several texts to Melanie over the last week remain unread. Nothing important, just pictures of The Admiral and a Tweet she found funny. It probably doesn’t mean anything, but Georgie has so few ways to find clues about Melanie’s mental state that these things end up mattering more than they should.

When Georgie steps out of the elevator still looking at her phone, she’s stopped by a woman wearing a hijab with her arm in a splint.

“Georgie, right?” she asks. “I’m Basira. Melanie sent me.”

“Yes, that’s me,” Georgie says. “Where’s Melanie?”

The thing about no longer being able to feel fear is that it leaves behind a hole. Sometimes, in its place, Georgie feels a neighboring emotion—disgust, surprise, anger. Sometimes, she just feels nothing.

Basira speaks, and Georgie’s fingers turn numb.

“We—the Magnus Institute—we were attacked a few days ago.”

“Is Melanie okay?” Georgie’s voice sounds distant to her own ears.

“Oh!” Basira says. “Yeah, sorry, didn’t mean to worry you. She’s fine, not too injured. She’s actually the one who saved us all.”

Although Georgie’s lost her fear, she hasn’t lost the ability to feel relief. The feeling comes rushing into her, warming her skin and slowing her breaths.

“Oh, thank god.”

But Basira isn’t finished yet. “She told me to tell you that you shouldn’t expect to see her back here again.”

“What?” Melanie had said that what happened last week wouldn’t affect whether or not she talked to Georgie afterwards, and Georgie trusts her. Whatever this is is far worse than post-sex awkwardness. “Why?”

“Basically, leaving the Institute… it’s not safe anymore. I shouldn’t even be here, but I owe Melanie a favor. We need her protection.”

Georgie plays the words back to herself, once, then twice. “That’s it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You break your arm once and now Melanie has to live out the rest of her life as a guard dog?”

“Everyone’s in danger, including her.”

“But you’re giving her the task of defending against whatever tried to hurt you.”

Basira sighs. “You don’t get it. You didn’t see her attack The Flesh.”

“Sure.”

“It was like… She was laughing. The whole time. The ‘not being able to quit’ mess is a different issue, but the anger and violence? I think she likes it.”

There’s the numbness again, and with it, a heaviness on Georgie’s chest. “I don’t believe you.”

Basira sighs again. “Listen, I don’t really know what the situation between the two of you was, but I think you need to let it go. Either way, I need to get back to work.”

Basira presses the down button on the elevator. The door doesn’t automatically slide open, so she stands there and waits for the elevator to reach their floor. Georgie is suddenly very aware that if she stays here, she might break something.

“I have to go, too,” she says, and heads to the stairwell where no one can see her scream into her hands.

-

5. 

“Melanie?” Georgie says into the phone, hoping against hope that this is a good sign.

There is silence from the other end of the line, and Georgie waits, teetering between shocked and curious and angry and numbnumbnumb. Then, slow and rasping:

“Georgie. It’s… agh! sorry—it’s… good to… hear from you.”

“It’s good to hear from you too, but it’s been five months, Melanie, what are you even—”

“I… know, I'm… sorry… but I need… you to get me…” 

Georgie arrives at the location Melanie’s sent her within minutes and stops dead. Melanie’s slumped on the ground, face tear-soaked and twisted in pain. In one hand, she holding her knife, which she drops once she registers that the sounds she’s hearing are Georgie approaching. In the other, she clutches her right leg. There’s a giant piece of fabric cut out of her trousers. The rest of said trousers are soaked in blood.

Once, Georgie and Melanie had challenged each other to a gore-athon—one night of the bloodiest horror movies they could dig up; whoever reacted audibly or covered their eyes first had to buy the other dinner. Georgie thought the no-fear would give her an advantage; Melanie later told Georgie that she was entirely banking on exploiting the rules (no one said she couldn’t cover her mouth so her reactions would be too muffled to be audible). Georgie doesn’t remember who lost, but she remembers that the injera at the Ethiopian place they went to afterwards was divine. That, and that they didn’t even make it through the first film. Turns out, disgust is disgust regardless of the presence of fear, and it’s very hard to muffle full-throat yells even with your fist in your mouth. 

Melanie’s not screaming this time, and Georgie’s not disgusted, just very, very still.

“Fuck,” Georgie says. “How long have you been—”

Melanie’s words leave her mouth between gritted teeth. “Not… sure. Hour, maybe? Wasn’t really in a state… to count.”

“And you ran all the way from the Institute before—?”

Melanie nods.

“Fuck.”

Melanie makes a grabby motion with her free hand. “Did you bring…?”

Melanie had asked on the phone if Urban Survival had sent Georgie any first aid kits as part of their What the Ghost? sponsorship. Georgie had said yes, they did, and tried not to stamp down any inappropriate joy over the fact that Melanie knows Urban Survival is a sponsor when the only time she’d read an advert for them was the newest episode this week.

“I didn’t bring the first aid kit.”

Melanie frowns. “Why?”

“Promise me you won’t run?”

Melanie raises her eyebrows and looks meaningfully at her leg.

“I’ve already called an ambulance here.”

“What?”

Melanie looks like she’s gearing herself up for a long argument, but frankly, the optics of Georgie standing over a bleeding woman in an alley aren’t great and adding shouting to the mix is a terrible move. Speaking of—

“Respond to that later. Right now, can I put your knife away?”

“Why?”

“I’ll give it back, I just—I gave them my description, but I still don’t want the paramedics to think I’m the one who attacked you.”

Melanie shrugs and stares at the ground. Georgie bends down (which, ouch) to pick it up, sheathes it, and, after some consideration, drops it in her coat pocket.

“Good now,” she tells Melanie.

“I’m… not going… to hospital.”

As if on cue, Georgie hears the faint sound of sirens. “You can argue with me once we’re on the way.”

“I don’t… want…”

“I checked The Magnus Institute’s health insurance policy, so you should be fine.”

“That’s… not…”

“Melanie, listen. Bandages aren’t gonna cut it, and even though I do have a needle and thread at home, neither of us have hands that listen to us. We can’t stitch this up ourselves.”

The sirens get louder. “Then—”

Georgie notes, briefly, that she is shaking, which is a fairly unusual stress response for herself. “A&E will take care of it. And after that, you tell me what the hell happened because ’Jon and Basira’ isn’t a good enough explanation.” 

“I’m… not… going,” Melanie says again.

“Well I am, and I’m also not leaving you, so, tough.” Melanie grimaces, and Georgie softens her tone. “Melanie, do you trust me?”

Melanie scowls, then nods.

“The doctors won’t hurt you. I’ll stay with you the whole time.”

Melanie holds out for a long time, then sighs. “Fine. Don’t… really think I have the… strength right now… to fight off a paramedic.”

“Then it’s a good thing that you don’t have to fight anymore.”

Melanie frowns at that, shaking her head. “I… don’t know… if that’s true.”

There’s a story there, Georgie can tell, an important one, one that Melanie won’t like telling and one that Georgie won’t like listening to.

Georgie presses a kiss to her own fingers, then brushes those fingers against the top of Melanie’s head. “Okay. We’ll work on it. For now, hospital.”

-

6.

A coda, of sorts:

Melanie tells Georgie about choosing to keep the ghost bullet months later, after therapy and an awl in each eye and a truckload of anesthetic wearing off, and Georgie eats the rest of their dinner thinking about blame and the pitfalls of black-and-white morality. That night in bed, Georgie tells Melanie about why she needed to take a year off uni, and Melanie holds her through it, rubbing the back of Georgie’s neck with her thumb and vowing to stab all future trauma-causing medical corpses. Later, Melanie sinks down onto Georgie, slow and careful, as Georgie gasps into the sticky darkness of their room. In the morning, they say hi to Georgie’s neighbor and their daughter and feed The Admiral. Melanie puts textured stickers on her white cane (which may or may not have a concealed blade compartment, courtesy of one of Georgie’s friends) and talks about getting into podcasting, and Georgie orders takeout and makes a list of name suggestions for the guide dog they’re saving up for. In the afternoon, Georgie takes Melanie to her one-week enucleation follow-up appointment and Melanie says, so very casually, “bye, love you” as she walks into the doctor’s office. There’s more to come later, but for now, Georgie smiles at everyone in the waiting room and the world keeps spinning.

[libertyreads]

Best and Worst Books of 2020

This has been a mess of a year for everyone, but I actually managed to get a lot of books read. I decided to repeat this post from last year because I enjoyed going back through all the things I read and remembering how I felt about them.

I’ll try to avoid any repeats, but I’m sure it’ll happen at some point. If you want more info about my feelings on these books, check out my ratings and reviews on GoodReads.

Best Sci-Fi: This one was such an easy pick for me. All Systems Red by Martha Wells. This whole series just knocks it out of the park. The Murderbot Diaries is a series about a Security Bot who hacks their governor module so they can just watch their shows all day. Too bad the humans they’re assigned to protect are getting into trouble left and right. Worst Sci-Fi: Starstruck by Brenda Hiatt. I remember this being a free e-book that I picked up this year. I explained it to my husband as a sci-fi version of Twilight. You get a small town nerdy girl with few friends who suddenly becomes important when this alien boy pays attention to her. It was definitely a book of its time. Best Fantasy: A Fantasy that I really enjoyed this year was Fable by Adrienne Young. It is about a girl whose pirate father leaves her stranded on a deserted island after her mother dies. If she can survive, she can find her way back to him and receive her inheritance. It goes in depth about family and friendship. Plus found families. Am I right? Worst Fantasy: The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Oh boy. How do I get into it with this one without regurgitating my review? I had a problem with the author taking all of the best known magical stories of all time and twisting them throughout this dense book in order to point out that magic is a problem to be dealt with and not all unicorns and rainbows--just to rip that point out of the reader’s hands in the last four pages of the novel. Please read my review I go so in depth there. Best Contemporary: Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson. I think this was mostly just that I read this book at the right time. This book is about a family who is going through a hard time when the father is diagnosed with terminal cancer. They decide to spend one final summer at their cabin on the lake before he passes. I distinctly remember crying my eyes out at the end of this one and it hitting me so hard. Worst Contemporary: Girls in the Moon by Janet McNally. This was a Book of the Month pick for me at a time when they had less variety in their options. I felt like I couldn’t keep pushing back my picks every month. It’s a story about this rock band family who divorced in the late 90s and the fall out for their two children while one moves to New York to pursue a music career. A lot of fluff and almost no substance. Best Mystery: This is the year I realized that I like YA Mystery novels and not a lot else in the mystery genre. I had a three way tie for best Mystery and they call came from the YA Age Range. The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson, In the Hall with the Knife by Diana Peterfreund, and The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. These were all done so well and all taking the things I love about mysteries and twisting them. Worst Mystery: In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware. I had heard so many amazing things about this book, but it fell so flat for me. I hate unreliable narrators. Why are they necessary in this genre? I feel like if you need an unreliable narrator to write a good mystery then you’re a bad mystery author. Best YA: Traitor to the Throne by Alwyn Hamilton. This is book 2 in the Rebel of the Sands series. It’s a desert Fantasy that is written so well. The world building is fantastic. We have a rebellion, magic, and some amazing characters. In book two we see Amani thrust into court politics. I marathoned this whole series in a couple of weeks and loved the adventure. Worst YA: The worst YA book I read this year was Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke. I felt like the story went no where and the writing was overly flowery. I’m sure it does good things for some people but it’s the polar opposite of what I love in books. Best Adult: For this one we have a two way tie. The first book is House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas. Is this the next great American novel? Of course not. But I had an amazing time reading this book. I felt so many feelings and the world building was fantastic. The second book is In A Holidaze by Christina Lauren. I read an ARC of this for my Christmas in July and enjoyed it so much I had to read it again right before Christmas. It was perfect for getting in the Christmas spirit.  Worst Adult: This category is also a two way tie. I read The Broken Girls by Simone St. James and thoroughly disliked the mystery aspect of the story. I felt like it was left too open ended and it completely put me off. The second is a book of poetry called Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur. It felt like a lot of these poems were incomplete thoughts. Maybe it’s how open it is too interpretation again, but I really did not like this at all. Best New Release: This feels like the hardest category to pick from. If we’re going based on ratings, Check, Please! Volume #2: Sticks and Scones is the highest rated new release that I read this year. But I also have a couple of YA Mystery novels that I read this year that I loved and that stuck with me throughout the year. The first is The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson which is the third book in the Truly Devious series and finishes out that mystery arc. The second is The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes which I have been raving about since I read it this fall. The Inheritances games is the first book in a new series that is like a combination of Knives Out and Clue plus puzzles minus a few murders. It’s just so good. So, a top three for this category I guess. Worst New Release: The Bookweaver’s Daughter by Malavika Kannan. This one was easy to pick hands down. I felt like this book brushed over some major events that happened. As well, there’s a major lack of world building in this novel. I think with some polishing it could have made for a good middle grade novel but was sold as a YA novel. Best Backlist: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. I’m normally not huge into Adult Fantasy, but I feel like the author does a good job of making the world accessible to the reader even though it’s vast with a lot of political machinations. Probably one of the best series I read start to finish this year. Worst Backlist: The Cruelty by Scott Bergstrom. I was going to put in Wink Poppy Midnight here again, but technically I gave The Cruelty the same rating and I wanted to avoid repeats. For this one, I gave a LENGTHY review about my problems with the book. I wanted to like it, but the author’s internalized ableism and misogyny really ruined the party here. Best 2021 ARC: This was a two way tie between “You Have a Match” by Emma Lord and “Shipped” by Angie Hockman. I had no idea I enjoyed these equally because they’re such different books. Both are contemporaries but “You Have A Match” is YA Contemporary about families and secrets while “Shipped” is an Adult Contemporary about a hate to love romance and work/life balance. Worst 2021 ARC: “The Castle School (for Troubled Girls)” by Alyssa B. Sheinmel. This one is more of a problem about what the publishers sold the book as. Because the book summary wasn’t correct when it came to the whole point of the book. So I went in with completely incorrect expectations. I think because of the plot twist I would have still rated it lower than the other 2021 ARCs I read, but it would have been a closer contest. Best Standalone: I Hope You’re Listening by Tom Ryan. This is a YA Mystery that came out this Fall that I really enjoyed. It’s about a girl who is present when her friend gets taken from the woods. Years later she still has trouble dealing with being the child left behind so she starts a podcast to help people solve missing persons cases. It also had a surprise cult element that I wasn’t expecting and really enjoyed. Worst Standalone: Meet Me at Fir Tree Lodge by Rachel Dove. This one is a bit blurred in my brain. I think that really speaks to how I feel about this one. It is about a girl whose life falls apart after a skiing accident and how she tries to put it back together. But it involves a romance with an Alpha Male character which everyone hates at this point. I wanted it to be sweeter and softer and more heart wrenching than it was. Best Book in a Series: All Systems Red by Martha Wells. I scoured my spreadsheets to try to find a book I hadn’t already gushed over, but there’s a reason this one is in the top of so many categories. I love Murderbot and following all of their misadventures. The Murderbot Diaries is a series about a Security Bot who has hijacked their Governor Module and just wants to watch their serials all day. But those pesky human’s they’re hired to protect keep getting themselves in trouble. Worst Book in a Series: I found the book in a series that I gave the worst rating to and I had to go over my review to try to remember what it’s even about. I read Legacy of Ash by Matthew Ward which is the first book in the Legacy Trilogy. And I still don’t remember much about it. I remember it being dense and hard to read without getting a lot out of the book in reward for my effort. It was a hard slog and clearly not great if I can’t remember what it’s about less than 9 months after I read it.

[redroseinsanity]

Not Everything Changes

Happy Birthday, Sugawara Koushi!!! 13/6/2019

Featuring an overthinking Suga LOOK I know it’s his birthday and he sounds sad at first, but birthday boys must be happy and so by that decree, this Suga is given a happy birthday. I promise. 

Sugawara Koushi was restless. He paced the length of his apartment, which was closer to a shoebox than an actual apartment so he was really making circles rather than pacing, and sighed more often than an eighteen year old should. Well, nineteen year old. 

You see, today was Koushi’s birthday and it was his first birthday as a university student. Which meant that he was here in the city, away from his parents, who never failed to celebrate his birthday, away from friends, who always bought him a cake and wished him as soon as they met him, away from everyone who knew it was his birthday. 

Most unsettling of all, was that it was Koushi’s birthday and he was away from Daichi.

You sound spoiled, he chastised himself, feeling guilty on top of being restless. But it wasn’t really that he wanted someone to celebrate him, it wasn’t that at all. It was the accumulation of the acute loneliness of living in a city, moving out of home and not completely settling into an intimidating university course that made this particular day extra disquieting. 

To top it off, he hadn’t really spoken to Daichi all summer, with them travelling with their respective families (missing each other by hours at the airport), being too preoccupied with moving into their university dorms (they’d both gotten into Tokyo colleges, but they were on opposite ends of this bustling metropolis and had moved in at different times too) and generally trying to figure out how the next chapter of their lives worked. 

For almost a month now, Koushi had been plagued with the uneasy notion this was the start of the end. Away from all that he’d ever known, he was in a concrete jungle that he feared moved too fast for him to catch up with, surrounded by people he was scared he would never truly feel at home with and perhaps that would turn him into someone he didn’t know. What he was even more afraid of was that Daichi would turn into someone he didn’t know because wasn’t this summer just the beginning of them slowly splitting off to start their own lives? Maybe they’d slowly drift apart until Koushi turned to find his best friend, the one he’d been hopelessly in love with for three years, gone. 

The oven dinged and he whipped around with the mitts at the ready, delivering his cookies from the stifling heat of his oven. Apart from three batches of cookies that he would distribute to his neighbours and classmates, he had done a morning session of yoga and booked all his appointments for the next six months including the dreaded dentist. 

It had been an incredibly productive morning for Sugawara Koushi, all the dishes were done, the laundry was in the dryer and there was nothing else to do. Nothing much else to keep him busy with to ignore the fact that for the first time in a long while, he felt quite alone. 

He was alright with being alone, or else he would have looked for accommodation with a roommate. But it was this sense of… Knowing that it shouldn’t matter and feeling that it did, that set up this prickling feeling in his chest, that didn’t let him sit in his chair for more than five minutes. 

Koushi knew he could go out to the bookstore that he liked, order the cake that he’d had his eye on for a while, treat himself to anything he liked. I would like to be with Daichi, he heard himself think sulkily. 

Well, he pulled himself up with a dignified inhale, deftly moving cookies to a cooling rack, it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to. I can be stupid and selfish and sulky today and no one can say anything about it.

His phone buzzed and he nearly upended a tray full of double chocolate chip to get to it, his shoulders visibly slumping when it was a message from an old teammate. Most of his friends and family had already wished him, but not a peep from his best friend and honestly, Koushi was running out of plausible reasons at this point. 

I will sulk but I will not feel sorry for myself to the point that I am bitter or mean, and nodding decisively, he set about packing cookies that had cooled. 

When most of the baked goods had been neatly packed into labelled boxes and Koushi had just been about to click on a Youtube video tutorial about making DIY home decor, the door bell rang. 

He lifted a curious hazel eye to the door, most packages went to the mail room and having only moved in a week ago, only his parents had his address. 

For a brief moment, episodes of true crime podcasts flashed through his mind, reminding him of the high crime rates in big cities and just to make himself feel a teensy bit better, he picked up his rolling pin. Not as lethal as knife, but good enough to bludgeon someone’s brains out, he thought with satisfaction. 

Holding the rolling pin next to the door frame and hiding it behind the wall, he opened the door as his grip tightened. 

“Daichi??!”

Warm dark brown eyes crinkled as a familiar smile turned his anxiety into golden syrup, making him loose-limbed and quieting all the possibilities that had been crowding his head. 

An answering smile found its way to his face immediately as he dropped the rolling pin as discreetly as he could, opening the door to admit the man. 

“Happy birthday, Suga,” Daichi grinned up from where he had crouched, hands on his knees. 

“Thank you,” Koushi replied automatically, before, “Are you panting? Daichi, did you run here or something?”

He eyed his best friend and sure enough, he could pick out trickles of sweat running down Daichi’s neck and a faint flush on tanned cheeks. 

“Kind of,” Daichi straightened, his expression sheepish, “Shit, Suga, I’m so sorry I’m late. I meant to come first thing in the morning so I didn’t text you but then when I was about to leave my neighbour lost her cat so I was looking for it. And then I took the wrong turn about two streets down so I ended up in the wrong place and I just-”

“Daichi,” Suga felt a bit faint, “That’s fine, you couldn’t have helped any of those things. I’m just really glad you came, I thought, you know because we didn’t really have time to make plans and then we haven’t been in contact much and so I was um-”

“Wait wait, hang on,” Daichi had an incredulous look on his face, “Are you saying you thought I forgot your birthday?”

Koushi laughed weakly, trying to play it off.

“Not forgot per say, more like, that maybe you had other plans or something, I mean! Because now we’re in university and not living so near each other and I was baking cookies-”

He was saved from his rambling when Daichi pulled him into a tight hug and he took the chance to bury his nose into the crook of Daichi’s shoulder, inhaling that comforting scent that he associated with safety. 

Daichi drew back, hands firmly on Koushi’s shoulders and locked his dark eyes on Koushi’s.

“Suga, I don’t know what you’ve been cooking up in that brain of yours, but if you think that going to different universities is going to change anything, you’re sorely mistaken. Maybe we’re a little further from each other than we’re used to, but it’s not that far; maybe we’ll have a different routine and circle of friends and courses, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to tell you everything as usual,” he shook Koushi a little, “Everything can change, but not us.”

Koushi had been Daichi’s voice of reason a fair number of times, but Daichi was just as often Koushi’s. Just as it had in high school, his level, certain baritone cut straight through all of Koushi’s fretting and insecurities to ground him, as securely as an anchor holds a ship. 

Taking a deep breath, he absorbed it, processed it and beamed up at Daichi. 

“Well, looks like I’m stuck with you,” he teased, startling a laugh out of his best friend. 

“Come on, birthday boy,” Daichi held out his hand, “Let’s go on an adventure.” 

Grinning, Koushi reached out for that warm, calloused hand, wishing that it could always be his birthday, that he could always have this hand in his. 

“Let’s.”

- You gotta give Daichi time, man, it’ll be like the second year of college before he gets the balls to ask Suga out

- In the meantime, they’re practically dating already so I wouldn’t be too worried

- SEE It’s a happy ending, don’t worry. 

[hgfstreamchats]

Halloween (2018)

Hello! Night human, hello! Are you playing music, or is it coming from somewhere else? It should be coming from my end. If it's not, well... Ah, good Follow the sound of the unexplicable Halloween theme for a magical adventure. I LOVE magical adventures! I like how some of the whipped cream disappeared mysteriously before they put the nutmeg on Very mysterious indeed. I assume the answer involves licking. The answer always involves licking. Is that considered humane? Just keep them standing around in the sun? I... have no idea what the exact setup is supposed to be, but presumably they're not outside all the time Wuh oh So the mask is supposed to be... a magic artifact now? Good old Pumpkin! It's... un-rotting! It's got things to do! Things to watch! Yes.  Things.

The slit between the nose and the mouth kind of weirds me out there. You too? "well, surely they don't mean us" "Not us! We're starting things on a respectful note, comparing her to her almost-killer and a caged animal all within under the space of a minute!" "we've traveled a very long way... we didn't feel like trying to contact you ahead of time or make an appointment or anything, though" unbiased as SHIT "Here's 3000 dollars, now let us make a rubbing of your scar." IKR? "how the fuck should I know" I kinda hope this guy is the first victim. "We did, but we were sort of hoping to snap off a few shots of you crying." Likewise. I have a bad feeling about those mousetraps I hope they go off on Podcast Man's person. Somehow. That sounds like a lie That's Pumpkin's polar opposite, the disgusted one. The one who kinkshames. Kast, I swear to various gods, I will destroy you. Victim #2 Starscream! Hello! I finally beat the blasted thing into working. I did not want to miss the shenanigans. You haven't missed much! And so you didn't! A couple of idiot journalists went to bother the final girl from the first movie I'm glad. Today requires dead teenagers. And upset Michael's fellow patients for no reason. Ah, that is always a good idea. Ah, that is always a good idea. This one is aware she lives in a horror movie universe, isn't she. Yeah. Is *anyone* going to approach her and her very obvious trauma in anything resembling a respectful way? Probably not! Doubtful. wow awww man She clearly is not handling herself well. "It's not like this is a difficult day for you or anything." What kind of person doesn't shrug off a whole lot of her friends getting murdered and nearly getting murdered herself? Shiiiit I mean, we knew it was coming, but "don't get murdered" Who gave that child a rifle? Oh good, the kid has a gun I bet it'll do him a world of good I bet he startles and shoots his own father. cool, cool, investigate by yourself Well, you guessed close, anyway! And who's in the backs....yep That's about right. "And, don't forget, just naked enough for """fanservice"""" Let's see.... known serial killer on the loose on the night he's known for being extra murderous... Yes, maybe you should cancel Halloween. What can possibly go wrong?! Oh, great Lovely! Ugh He's very strong for an older fellow. Maybe should have given him a little less fresh air and healthy food. So, that's four more corpses. Think they will cancel Halloween yet? Says the soon-to-be-corpse Whatever you say, Corpse Number 5. Just think of how squirrelly she will be when her stupid family gets murdered for not listening to her. :( And journalists intrude on her privacy to ask her about it. Does no one in this town lock their door? Apparently not? Ham, never eaten. Oh, jeez He doesn There's no effort needed to get in. Oh, I like this little human. Awww. Yes, leave the door open. Every door in this town must be left open, so murderers can get in. Welp. "If you're cold, they're cold. Bring them in." Wow. What the fuck. I hope he is stabbed nineteen times. Uhh. "a noise like... a murderer?" Oh goody, dry! fuuuuck cue murder ...really, dude So I guess she didn't QUITE check everywhere That kid is going to need so much therapy. Run, sensible child! Run! Again, they know that they have a murderer problem. Why does he have no backup? Backup is for losers I think he wants to be murdered. "Captured" "so in a way, all this is his fault" It is not paranoia, if there really is something out there to get you. If only some shithead hadn't dropped her phone in the punch bowl, or soup, or whatevr that was facepalm . . . . Oh, I've heard that one. oh my god. dude stop Look at that, she managed to not be killed for the moment. ...Well, that took care of that! Double tap. Is it Ben Tramer? .... Well, that's a problem. Damn it. So did he survive that after all?  Are there two of them now? Oh, he's not going to be happy about that. Now his mask has old man stink inside it. I admit I don't quite get how he did that through the grate He kicked the grate out. Ohhh His head was...overripe, apparently? I guess? That was a strange plot cul-de-sac ...I feel like taking the van would've been a better bet It's Pumpkin! Well, damn it Oh. No, no it isn't. Oh, no!  That guy I hated is dead now! Hopefully she didn't like him too much. I don't like that he gets to survive most of the movie and Fun Babysitter didn't. I feel like it's a bad idea to leave that remote up there. I feel like her just leaving the remote on the counter there is a bad thing urgh I hope she brought it down with her, at least Well, that gave you away. But what do I know? It's not my paranoia cellar. I feel like she should have forced him into a chute, for a clean kill. Oh, crap Don't be impatient... For someone planning this for forty years, she's done a poor job of building a trap house. That is a creepy target practice area Why have a scary mannequin room, if you know one day this situation is coming? Right? For that matter, why not install proper indoor lighting, to see who you're trying to shoot? That would spoil the jumpscares! When you're planning on facing off with your supernatural attacker someday and plotting things out to the minute, but you need to keep the atmosphere Spooky. About time. hey Hello and goodbye, Nude Human. Keep shooting him. I feel like this is a kill that should be confirmed before they relax. No more relaxing for any of them ever. But on the plus side, they no longer think Grandmother is crazy. Now they love Grandmother and her room full of non-jamming guns and canned corn! Grandmother who they all call grandmother for some reason. Why *did* she stock rations? Did she think Michael would just pop a seat down on the kitchen floor for a month on end and they'd have to wait him out? Perhaps she was planning for zombies as well, given she knows at least one creature that refuses to stay dead. She likes to cover all bases. Michael, zombies...got a couple of hobgoblin defenses lined up just in case. If one is going to be prepared, might as well cover all bases. Except when it comes to well lit rooms and moving the mannequins out. Who has time for that? Sigh. My computer froze and I missed everything after the spooky mannequin rom. What happened? They eventually got him into the basement, and lit him on fire. Which he'll almost assuredly walk off. Oh, good. Less good. And we hear his spooky breathing at the end of the credits, so... And Allison has a knife. Of course we do. I haven't been able to pull up a light note to end on, so I'm open to suggestions! Goose game! Goose game it is! How about a fun goose game highlight reel? Beautiful! He's enjoying the moment. Sun hat! put it in the pond! What did this old man ever do to anyone? He dared try to get work done. Tried to keep the goose out of the garden! Unforgiveable! Unforgourdable! I'm having this great idea for a game for you to stream sometime! I'm thinking the same thing! I thought he did too! no, no, it's floating back! Somebody do something! Oh this kid gets TERRORIZED What kinda scam is she running here! Clearly she knows how to make the money. oh my gosh I wonder if you could make him buy back his glasses... His evil delight is infectious. He is having too much fun. What kind of person walks right up to a goose to take a ribbon off it I want to play this, but I don't think it's on steam... yet. That's going to be a beautiful day when it is. Right? Well, that wraps it up, I'd say! I am very glad I did not miss out. Your streams are definitely a highlight. Goodnight, and thanks for the stream! Oh, hush! But don't, of course, never hush. Thank you for coming! Good night!

[animaeclub-blog]

ANIMAECAST #2 (Conclusion)

Video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/390040979

The stream got cut off due to loadshedding which is a thing in South Africa - our country's primary electricity supplier is apparently absolute shit at it's job of generating and distributing electricity. I know this because there has been periods of heavy loadshedding since more than 10 years ago and they haven't managed to get things under control. I was happily chatting with you all and the next moment I was sitting in complete darkness. Terrifying, especially since criminals often use this as an opportunity to break into houses (easier to sneak around with no lights on anywhere). PFFSSHHH okay enough complaining and let me share the final thoughts I wanted to in the podcast. 

[The Promised Neverland Episode 8 Spoilers ahead]. 

As I was cut off we were busy discussing Sister Krone's death in episode 8 of The Promised Neverland. It would be more accurate to say that we were describing how they chose to direct the event of her death and the scenes surrounding it. I thought it was brilliantly done, but there were a few in the chat who disagreed. As I was editing the reaction highlights video a little while ago (https://dai.ly/k5FQ8mw9N5Wez3t2quN), I looked at the montage a little more closely. What seemed to be bothering a lot of viewers is that Sister Krone was "all over the place". First she was close to the gate, then the wall, then she was far away etcetera. I can understand why that would bother some people, but I think my brain immediately "registered" that quite some time elapses between those scenes. 

When the demon first enters the screen, he is quite close to Sister Krone and you immediately see her back into the gate. Then you see some scenes with the children starting their lunch, and also some of Sister Krone's backstory. When we're back with the present Krone, she is backed up against the wall. It's clear to me that the demon is very big and sluggish. In other words, it's a very slow-moving demon. Although it is clear that it's a powerful demon, when you see his hand move, it is not at a fast pace. For me, even though they didn't show it happen, I imagine Krone went from being backed up against the gate (clearly no escape there since it's closed) to trying to get around the huge demon by moving towards the side of the "tunnel". I feel like we missed a large part of the struggle, since at some point she must have gotten something (I think it was a butter knife?) from her suitcase and was helplessly trying to fend off the demon. Of course, she must have known it was useless, because even if she did manage to escape, they could kill her in an instant using whatever device was planted in her body. Still, even if you know you have no chance of winning, when we are backed into a corner, death staring us straight in the face, we have no choice but to grasp at straws. 

In another scene, after some more flashbacks from Krone's past, she is seen running back toward the gate. Once again, I understand that this must seem inconsistent to some viewers, but my brain makes sense of it. While she is running away, she trips and falls. This (in my mind at least) illustrates how frantic and tired she must have been by this time. Clearly, there had been a big struggle from Krone to somehow escape this horrendous monstrosity in front of her. She wanted to fight back, but how can one do so when all you have is a butter knife? She wanted to try and run away, but how could she trapped in that tunnel? Of course her actions must have been erratic. And I feel like they did a very good job of conveying that through the montage, while at the same time making the viewer sympathise with her by showing us her flashes of her past. 

I was most impressed by the sense of horror these scenes evoked in my heart, compared to the route horror stories usually take. Generally, there would have been a lot of screaming and running and blood spattered against the walls. But instead, we get classical music, children happily enjoying their lunch, and a bouquet of flowers blooming in beautiful, blood red. The slow-moving, creepy-faced demon just made Krone's desperate struggle worse. Take a look at this picture: click here. Take note of Krone's words: 

"I may have no chance at victory, but I have plenty of space to struggle."

What some thought didn't make sense in this scene, makes perfect sense to me. The anime truly did a good job of bringing Krone's struggle to life. At least in my opinion. 

The only other things that I wanted to discuss in the second Animaecast was episode 8 of Quintessential Quintuplets and episode 1 of Attack on Titan season 3, which I watched this week (AOT S3E1 Reaction and review: https://youtu.be/mjgE_ycujSo). I have decided against discussing Attack on Titan live until I'm caught up. Sometimes when people get excited about something, especially when it comes to AOT, they spoil unintentionally. I'd like to avoid that from happening, because I'd probably be mad at that person unfairly since I've also accidentally spoiled things that way in the past - it could happen to anyone and I just don't want to risk being spoiled. 

About Quintessential Quintuplets: Summarily I just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying the anime a lot more than I thought I would have and I'm happy, especially after watching episode 8, that Matty recommended it to me. It's truly a "wholesome harem" with a unique twist and I'm really looking forward to seeing how the story unfolds. 

That's it from me! Thank you for taking the time to listen to the podcast and read my thoughts. Sending you good vibes and a lot of love <3 

[canaryatlaw]

OKAY so today was a lot of course. I had my alarm set for fucking 3:45 am but OF COURSE kitty decided to jump on me at precisely 3:31 am and I was like really kitty?? really???? that she proceeded to bite things while I tried to lay down for ten more minutes until I just kicked her out of the room, then sorrowfully dragged my ass out of bed when my alarm went off. Didn’t have to do much to get ready of course so I was good to go by 4, went on uber and put the first stop as Jess’ place so we could pick her up then to the airport, and so we did. the airport was fairly chill lol nobody all that awake since it was like 4:45 am. we needed caffeine so we did a fairly ridiculous starbucks order (and by that I mean I goaded Jess into ordering a soy chai with two espresso shots which they then made as a soy chai with three espresso shots and I was so thrilled with myself) then walked down to the gate. We waited like 20 minutes or so till we started boarding. Jess SOMEHOW managed to get upgraded to “comfort plus” which is coach but slightly less shitty, so she got to be like 3 rows ahead of me while I was in coach with the commoners. Apparently they gave her bananas and several snack choices, whereas when they handed me a cranberry almond breakfast bar and I was like “do you have anything that doesn’t have nuts in it?” they were like “no” which made me want to pretend I was allergic to nuts and write to delta complaining about this. but during the actual plane ride I spent most of it reading the complaint I got yesterday about the torts issues I forget if I talked about this or not?? I’ll get to it at some point lol. I got sorta sleepy at the end and was kinda fading in and out of sleep when we landed. Upon landing we found my bag rather easily, then went on a wild goose chase trying to find where you can get to the ubers, then was like oh fuck that’s a really expensive uber but guess we don’t really have any other choice??? so we took our really expensive uber over through manhattan to where our airbnb is in “West New York” New Jersey, because staying in Manhattan is like upwards of $250 per night and that’s not happening. so we’re in a bedroom of an apartment which is fine. we got changed and then took another uber over to where NYCC actually is, which got caught in traffic around like construction getting out of new jersey and took forever. but THEN we got to the con center. it’s huge, of course. Oh, we’re cosplaying Gary and Ava, last minute change from our Riverdale plans because Jess wanted to be able to carry her Beebo around all day and I hear that was a massive hit. So she got a signing with the Titans cast at like 1:15, so we walked around a bit and then I went to get food because I hadn’t eaten since 5 am starbucks because I wasn’t seated on the nice section of the plane, so I went out to the food trucks and waited in a very long line for some second rate mac and cheese from a food truck (I was disappointed) while Jess got to go to her lovely signing. then I ate the food, then I went to the bathroom which also had a long line and tried to make the wig that I hate look semi-decent and idk if it worked, but then Jess was done so I tried to guide her to where I was and just ended up going to find her anyway. Once we were reunited we went through the show floor for a while, then the artist alley, and this was about the point where Facebook informed me they reached a verdict in the Laquan McDonald murder trial for former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke. Imma go off on a bit of a thing here, but like, you cannot underestimate how much this case has effected the public to police relations in Chicago. Basically, short story, a white cop shot and killed a black teenager (who happened to be a foster child, which I know because people I worked with knew him) when there are like 7 other cops on the scene and right away goes on the record saying Laquan lunged at him with a knife so he had to shoot him in self-defense, and the other cops on the scene all backed up his story. Case closed, right? It would’ve been if a certain dashboard camera hadn’t surfaced with the entire incident on video with Laquan walking AWAY from Van Dyke and Van Dyke just shooting him in cold blood, and every. single. officer. on the scene lied to protect him. like, if that isn’t a gigantic message to minority communities that they can't trust the police, idk what is. But that was 2014, it took them a full year to release the video and finally bring charges, and up till now that they actually tried him. I’ve been following the trial fairly closely thanks to a podcast called 16 Shots (oh yeah, did I forget to mention that Van Dyke put 16 bullets in this 17 year old foster child?) which had been recapping the court coverage every day. At first hearing the jury had a verdict after about a day and a half of deliberation, I felt kinda worried because it felt to me like it would take more than that to convict a cop of first degree murder. the outcome though was one I was halfway expecting, they convicted him of second degree murder, which is known as a lesser-included offense, meaning it’s something the jury can decide on if they don’t feel like the full charge is warranted but he’s not innocent either. second degree murder in this case is following the imperfect self-defense rule, which is when a person believes that they need to kill the other person in self-defense, but that belief was unreasonable (whereas a reasonable belief would potentially get you acquitted). So I wasn’t terribly shocked when the verdict came back with that. The interesting part for me at least ended up being that they convicted him of 16 counts of aggravated battery (one for each shot) and that has sparked some conversations among law students/lawyers on my page as to whether those sentences would run consecutively or concurrently, because if it’s the former he may very well die in prison, being as the mandatory minimum on the charge is 6 years (which would place him at a total of 96 years, on top of the murder sentence) so we’ll have to see how sentencing plays out. but of course they immediately revoked his bail and he’s sitting in prison tonight, the first of many nights to come, and that is at least some justice to what has been such a divisive incident, even when I personally feel like there were enough aspects of premeditation (such as before he got to the scene hearing what the cops were saying and remarking “I guess we have to shoot him then”) to warrant first degree murder. but anyway, back to con world. we walked through artist alley for a bit and then ended up meeting up with a new friend who is gonna be one of the co-hosts with Jess and I on the upcoming Batwoman podcast, so we just sat and chilled for a while to talk and get to know each other and it went really well! So I’m definitely looking forward to that adventure. After that we wandered the show floor some more until it was 4:30 and I could line up for my funko buying slot. they have a lottery to be able to purchase any of the NYCC exclusive funko pops, and if you get a slot you can purchase them but only one of each type. At first the booth was kinda a mess and there was like a huge people traffic jam but I waded through it and found the actual line. I ended up talking to this kid behind me who was from Scotland who was pretty nice (I say kid because I was like “you’re a baby right?” and he was like “well I’m about to turn 21″ and I was like “yeah that’s what I thought” 😂😂) but we just talked about the pops and the options and some of the shows, so that was nice. he ended up buying like 21 of them I think because he was bringing a bunch home to different friends. I ended up buying four, killer frost for a friend, the Supergirl one that I may or may not resell at some point, Aquaman just because I wanted him, and one of the characters from New Girl for Jess because the main character is named Jess and she has a friend (”friend”) with the characters name so she really wanted that. the line took a bit but once we got up to the counter they were super quick. they then proceeded to give me the biggest bag known to man, made out of those like reusable shopping bag material but like, maybe about 4 feet by 4 feet in height and length? it’s fucking huge lol. but after that I met back up with Jess and we headed out, ended up taking the subway one stop up to times square just because we weren’t sure if the neighborhoods we would have to walk through if we did walk would be safe. Once we got there we needed food so I suggested Juniors because I always end up there and they haven’t let me down once. I of course got my favorite matzo ball soup and a potato pancake, and it was lovely as always. After we finished dinner we walked up to where the theatre was and got in line for the very first preview of King Kong, the broadway musical. We had seen the theatre marquee for it back in July when we saw mean girls (which was right around the corner) and Jess really wanted to see it, and it just so happened to start while we were already gonna be in NY so clearly that was fate. So we lined up, the opened the theatre a little earlier than usual so we got to our seats and waited for a bit. Now of course, as an actor and someone with a degree in Theatre, I automatically analyze just about every element of a show, whether I’m trying to or not. I basically expected it to be a dumpster fire, and there were definitely some cringeworthy moments, but they were fewer than I expected. I of course expected the technical elements to be phenomenal and absolutely groundbreaking as far as broadway goes because this has definitely never been done up till this point and they absolutely nailed every element of the technical side of things. Sadly what was lacking was what would classify as the heart and soul of any broadway musical- the book and the score. It reminded me a lot of Spider-Man: TOTD in that they invested heavily in technical elements but lacked in actual story and musical quality. I will say, the lead woman absolutely carried the show, and she was fucking phenomenal, so I will definitely give her credit for that. Now I haven’t actually seen the old movie from he 30′s that this was based on so I can’t say for sure, but I don’t believe the character of Ann Darrow was originally a POC, so I liked that they went in that direction. but as far as music goes, I can recall like, maybe a few words and a few stanzas of music, but the rest of it was very forgettable. again, though, the technical elements were absolutely phenomenal. So they definitely get credit for that. I couldn't help but thinking man, they’re gonna sweep on those technical effects Tonys they never actually air on tv 😂😂😂. I feel like the appeal is very similar to spider-man as well, and their main patrons are gonna be tourists, which I mean is a fairly good model to work off in NYC, so I predict it’ll run for a few years then quietly disappear, and not many will miss it. so when it was over we got an uber back to our airbnb, showered and got ready for bed and now I’m here and OY am I tired as I’m sure you could assume from the beginning of this post, but consider this me signing off for now. Goodnight loves. Happy weekend.

[doomedandstoned]

THAL Pave Way For The Heathen Invasion

~By Billy Goate~

I knew there was something special about this band when I first picked up their trail a few years back and listening to their debut album confirms this. It's especially effective listening in the dead cold of night, I've noticed. You've picked up on a badass stripe of stoner metal known as THAL. The Columbus duo of John "Vince Green" Walker (vox, guitar, bass) and Kevin Hartnell (drums, guitars, synth) proves yet again that the Ohio heavy underground is a definite force of reckoning. THAL's new album is called 'Reach for the Dragon's Eye' (2018), the band's second full-length following 2016's Glitter   (which I remember playing a track from back then on The Doomed & Stoned Podcast).

The new record has THAL continuing to kick major, major behind, but with a renewed sense of purpose and resolve. It's as if Down and Kyuss had met for a handshake and bumped into Acid Bath on the way to the head shop as I listen to a song like, "Under Earth." Others, like "Her Gods Demand War," give us a groovy Goatsnake beat fueled by some genuine Midwestern metal steam. You'll delight in the vocal collaboration with Sophie Steff at this point in the record, a musician I know little about but suspect we'll be hearing more from in the future.

You came here for hard-driving, riff-driven southern-fueled American stoner-doom, though, right? "Thoughtform" scratches that itch and then some, putting it in good company with bands like Pale Divine. There's a purity and simple forthrightness to the music-making here (see: "Soulshank") that pulls in a lot of what I love about Jerry Cantrell's Boggy Depot . The vocals jockey between clean and Neil Fallon dirty. All eight tracks have kept me company on the drive to and from work and I suspect you'll be riding them just as hard.

THAL's Reach For The Dragon's Eye drops Friday, February 16th in digital and CD formats via Argonauta Records. You can hear the record right here, right now on our bitchin' lil blog!

Give ear...

Interviewing THAL's Vince Green

What inspired you guys to start THAL?

I actually never touched a guitar until I was in my 20’s. I was into producing and recording hip-hop back in the 90’s. As I started getting older and maturing, my tastes started to change and I was feeling very limited by the hip-hop genre. Around that time my friend in college introduced me to Clutch and I was immediately hooked. THAT is the kind of music I wanted to make. So I started learning the guitar by playing an acoustic along to Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters records; learning basic chords and such. I also began to digest as much heavy music as I could. Obviously Sabbath was at the top of the list and I also got into Hendrix, Buffalo, Sir Lord Baltimore, Pentagram, The Obsessed, Kyuss and literally hundreds of others -- I have a very large record collection.

Finally, after getting to the point that I felt competent enough to record. I started making heavy music under the THAL name. It was just my solo thing for a few years. I played all the instruments and wrote/sang all of the lyrics. After I met David Jones -- my guitar partner in wytCHord-- and he introduced me to Kevin Hartnell, who came onboard as our drummer. Making the first wytCHord album with those guys was some of the most fun I’ve ever had creating music. In the meantime, I kept writing THAL songs on the side and decided to see if Kevin would have interest in drumming on my next record. He said yes and not only drummed, but provided quite a bit of additional instrumentation including two songs on the album, "Thoughtform" and "Death of the Sun," that are completely his instrumentals. I’m hoping Kevin would like to continue making music as THAL with me and that we can continue to evolve the band.

I know THAL is an acronym, but I thought I’d let you explain its meaning to the readers and tell us exactly how you came up with this for the name of your band.

THAL stands for The Heathens Are Loose. It was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek representation of modern society. Rock & roll is “music for heathens,” right? So I wear the title proudly. I also wanted something that when you broke it down into an acronym sounded primitive and heavy. THAL. As an interesting side note, I recently found out that Thal, Austria is the birthplace of Arnold Schwarzenegger whom I admired greatly as a bodybuilder. Totally unplanned.

You’re no new kids on the block – you’ve been making music for 4 or 5 years, right? Has the band evolved musically, stylistically, thematically from your earliest singles to your last record, ‘Glitter’ (2016), and the new album, ‘Reach For The Dragon’s Eye’ (2018)?

I posted the first THAL song up on YouTube in 2013. Listening to that, I think the biggest thing that has changed is the quality of the recordings. As I’ve added to my arsenal of tools and had more practice, the sound quality gets better each time. Also, I was not as confident vocally in 2013 and was still trying to find my voice. In 2016 Sam Durango of the mighty Rage of Samedi released Glitter on his Voodoo Chamber Records label in Germany. That was a great experience and was the first time a larger group of people were exposed to what I was doing and it was very well received. At this point, I am relatively comfortable with my range and do my best to work within that. I am far from the world’s best singer, so taking more chances with harmony and phrasing has “improved” things, at least in my mind. Ha! Thematically, I think my earlier stuff was more occult based and over time I am reflecting more on the struggles of modern life; although still from an esoteric viewpoint.

I’m really excited about debuting the new album. Can you take some time to walk us through each of the songs and tell us a little something about each? Could be the song’s history and development or meaning.

Absolutely! We are excited and honored that you are debuting the album, so thank you! Keep in mind that I think a song can mean something different to each person, so my intentions when I wrote the song may not match up to the meaning when you hear it and that is 100% okay.

"Rebreather": This is actually the last song we recorded. I was sent a piece of poetry by a friend named Randy Blood. That poem ended up being the words in the chorus and I built the narrative around it. It’s about us as a society being thrown into the deep end of the pool with all the snakes and trying to breathe for as long as we can. The title is homage to an amazing band from Ohio.

"Under Earth": I had written the riffs on this one for another vocalist that I thought I might work with at some point. That ended up not happening and it became the first THAL song that Kevin and I collaborated on. He sent it back to me with drums and a working title of “Under Earth”. Those words conjured images in my mind and it almost wrote itself. Each generation buries meaningful truths before it until we have a false representation of the way some things are meant to be.

"Her Gods Demand War": Ever since I came across Sophie Steff’s Sound Cloud, I wanted to collaborate with her. She has a crystal clear voice that conveys a lot of emotion. I sent her the instrumental along with the title and told her to write what came to her. She recorded that as the chorus and sent it back to me -- all the way from France! It was gorgeous. I wrote my parts around her choruses and added some harmony as well. In addition to the drums, Kevin added the beautiful guitar harmonies. One of my favorite songs on the record.

"ThoughtForm": Kevin sent me an instrumental he had been working on and it felt like Christmas morning to receive this track. Of course I was going to add vocals to it! This song has more groove than any other song on the album and is more about a personal struggle with the world kicking you when you’re down.

"Soulshank": I wrote this song not long after I was out of the hospital. I had just been through a surgery; hence the lyrics “Stick the knife into my soul and twist.” It’s an imagining of someone dying and returning to take the world back from the pieces of garbage that are running it now.

"Death of the Sun": This is the other track where all instruments are played by Kevin. It’s as “soulful” as I’m going to get when I sing. Haha! The concept was Kevin’s about the world ending and the words son/sun being used interchangeably at times. Basically, when the end comes we are all going to be in it together. The time for judging each other is done and whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

"Punish": I don’t normally call people out specifically when I write my music. I prefer to be more metaphorical. But in this case, I will gladly say it is about three pieces of shit (Shawn Whaley, Brandy Shaver and Gary Bubis) that tied a little girl to their truck and dragged her in addition to other abuses. Her mother was also complicit! The story horrified me and broke my heart. This song is basically my hope for their complete and utter destruction.

"Reach For The Dragon’s Eye": The “Dragon’s Eye” is an esoteric representation of knowledge and light, both spiritually and physically. You can assign whatever deity you want -- or no deity at all. Maybe the Dragon is your inner strength. Either way, the Dragon is meant to be a positive although sometimes we must go through a lot of negative to get there. That is what the album is about…ascending against the forces of negativity.

What message are you hoping to get across, if any, through THAL’s sophomore LP?

In the fall of 2016, I was in the hospital for a time and was in pretty bad shape. I had a lot of time to lay there and reflect. With that came internal realizations and “proof” to me of the things that are important in life. At that time, the US election season was in full force with many negative things happening in the United States and the world at large. It’s a helpless feeling seeing the country being manipulated and turning on each other. The only outlet I really have is writing songs, so those thoughts and feelings got tangled up into the lyrics.

How’d you get hooked up with Gero at Argonauta Records?

My good buddy Aaron Wall of the killer band Red Beard Wall is an Argonauta Records artist. I had contacted him for advice on what my next steps should be regarding signing with a label and distribution in general. He was very encouraging and recommended sending the album -- it had already been recorded and mastered at this point -- to Gero, the lead man at Argonauta to see what he thought. About a week later, he reached out and said he would like to sign THAL and put the album out on his label. Gero has been very good to work with. Since he is involved as a musician himself, he knows what it is like on both sides. He is relatively hands off and is all about the artist keeping control of their own music. I still handle my own Bandcamp and he gives advice on when to do certain things, etc. Not to mention, his stable of artists is amazing and Argonauta is the fastest rising label in the underground. It was really a no-brainer for me. It is an honor to be part of the family!

Tell us a bit about the recording, production, and mastering process – who did you work with to lay down tracks, how long did it take, and what instruments, pedals, and amps did you find most helpful in this process?

In terms of who I worked with, the whole thing is DIY. I recorded all guitars, bass and vocal parts in my home studio. Kevin tracked his drums and synths from his home studio (we live about two hours apart). Typically a song will start with a guitar riff idea. I’ll usually program some scratch drums to flesh out the arrangement and record bass parts as well. I’ll do a pre-mix of those tracks so that they sound generally “right” and then send the files to Kevin. He will track drums and additional parts on top. He will then do a more final mix of the whole instrumental and send those files back over to me. I then have the instrumental to write and record vocals over. I will do a final tweak to the mix, make sure the vocals are sitting correctly and then I will master the mix in my studio. I use a combination of rack gear and a software called Ozone for mastering. Everything is tracked in Cubase.

My go-to guitars are Les Pauls. I have a 2013 Gibson Tobacco Burst, a '77 Ibanez Custom and an Epiphone Les Paul Custom Silverburst that I am in the process of modifying. The low end comes from a black Squier Classic 70’s Precision Bass run directly into the board through an Ampeg DI box. An Orange OR50 stack and a 70’s Sunn Concert Lead are my workhorse amps, although I recently acquired a 100 watt Marshall DSL head and 4x12 cab that I am falling in love with. As far as pedals go, I use mostly Black Arts Toneworks for my dirt (Pharaoh Fuzz, Black Forest, Oath, Boneshaker), a Jimi Hendrix Crybaby Wah, and a Carbon Copy delay, EHX Small Stone and Small Clone for phaser/chorus effects. Kevin’s drum kit is a Tama with Zildjian and Paiste cymbals, and Vic Firth drum sticks. He uses a Korg Triton for keyboard parts.

What is in THAL’s crystal ball for 2018 and beyond?

I will always make music as THAL. It started out as a solo thing for me to get my musical ideas out and has now grown to include an outstanding drummer/multi-instrumentalist. I like how things are developing organically at their own pace. It is possible that we continue to add members such as a bassist and a second guitarist. Possibly some regional shows? The most satisfying part for me is the songwriting and recording process. It is truly a release. Reach For The Dragon’s Eye comes out on February 16th. After that, we may take a short break but we’ve already thrown a couple of new ideas back and forth. It wouldn’t surprise me if we released another album or EP by the end of this year. Otherwise, 2019 for sure. We want to thank our beautiful families and friends including everyone that has shown us support by purchasing an album, writing a review, or leaving us encouraging messages. Thank you Doomed & Stoned for highlighting what we are doing and for spreading the word about great music for as long as you have. Getting respect from those that appreciate music is the best part of the whole thing!

Follow The Band.

Get Their Music.

[dent-de-leon]

@wonderfulwaytooweird  ok putting this under a read more caus it got a bit Long sorry ;; 

alright, why i ship sheith, here we go:

This idea of sheith comes from a lot of these small, subtle cues that are pretty blink and you miss it. For instance, that part when keith sees shiro again—the way he holds his face and tenderly turns it a little reads as distinctly romantic to me. There’s this…vulnerability to their interactions we rarely see afforded with anyone else. In the first episode of season 2 you see just how comfortable they are with one another, how shiro lets the whole leader persona slip when its just him and keith. They also have a lot of these quiet little moments in season 2 especially where they check in on each other, and it just comes across as really touching. Also, any time where keith or shiro is looking deeply upset about something and you just see the other one really feeling for them in the background like, that Gets me.

Another thing, there are a bunch of parallels between the two in seasons 1 and 2 that no other characters have. like when shiro tells keith patience yields focus in the first episode and then, at the start of season 2, keith repeats it back to him. When shiro crashes back to earth you get “Good to have you back” “Good to be back”—we get that same exact exchange in reverse when keith and allura come back in The Arc of Taujeer. If you factor in visuals then there’s even more—the way shiro carries keith with his arm over his shoulder in BOM bears a striking resemblance to how keith rescued him in the first episode. They both have that same style change in animation when they first activate their bayards.

Their interactions are mirrored a lot, and there’s also a bunch of symbolism around them. Shiro loses his right arm and it’s replaced by a galra prosthetic; it’s portrayed as both a point of strength and weakness for him. Keith, the right arm of voltron, is also galra. He’s also something shiro temporarily lost during his year of capture, and is both an anchor and weak spot for him. Not to mention this thematic thing where they keep getting torn apart and crashing back together again, like theyre just meant to keep finding each other. 

In a recent podcast, Bex mentions a scene in the last episode where voltron gets blasted and everyone blacks out. She notes that everyone is shown to be by themselves with an exception—in the shot where shiro is down, you can see the red lion in the background. And in the shot of keith, black lion is also visible. Even on the verge of death, they’re still together. Lauren Montgomery confirms she storyboarded this, so it was intentional. And honestly, i feel like the basis of the ship is a lot of little things like these, a lot of subtleties that show how each is a constant for the other. When shiro hugs keith they don’t say anything, but they don’t have to. They’re close in this way that’s just quietly intimate.

And any time shiro is in trouble keith is always right there; whether he’s snapping shiro out of a flashback or charging in to defend him, you know keith really cares. And of course shiro is invested as well, is clearly touched when he realizes keith took his advice to heart—“That really stayed with you, didn’t it?” He also has this immense respect for keith and his abilities, treats him as a leader in his own right. A lot of people will say that shiro looks at keith as being just a cadet or younger brother he needs to look after, but i don’t think thats true at all. 

How he trusts keith with risky missions like chasing down rolo because he’s the most capable pilot, how he trains keith to be his successor—these are all signs that shiro admires keith just as much as keith does him. Not to mention the way Shiro quickly gets over the shock of everything going on in BOM and runs to keith’s aid, immediately ready to fight off everyone at the base to protect him instead of insisting he give up the knife—he didnt have to back his decision to keep the blade, but he did, because he knows it’s important to him. Shiro values keith’s wants and needs. He cares about him.

He also trusts keith’s instincts, let’s him grow into his own person and doesn’t try to control him. When keith decides to go shut down zarkon’s base on his own, there’s this moment when shiro hesitates. Like Kollivan pointed out, it could very well be a suicide mission. Shiro says keith’s name, then stops. There’s this pained look as he closes his eyes, takes a moment to compose himself before he goes Alright, ill cover you. It’s such a small thing, but you can really see how much keith means to him. How he wants keith not to go but, like keith said himself, there’s just no commanding him. So he does the next best thing. He puts his faith in keith and says he’ll cover him. There’s this implicit trust between the two that just speaks volumes.  

And, the part about keith freindzoning shiro. the thing is, shiro is the one who mentions family first. he tells keith “we’re your family” and we get the brother line in response to it. But, shiro said “we.” as in, all the paladins. and we know keith thinks of them all as a family, know that he said “we’re all related” at the end of the olkari episode. (hunk also says all the paladins are brothers, and later allura mentions them all being a family. team voltron is pretty Big on family.) So he could have definitely said, yeah, we’re all a family. But no, he puts all the focus on shiro, and goes “ you‘re   like a brother to me.” That one exchange shows keith thinks of his relationship with shiro as being on a whole other level from the rest of team voltron—all of whom he’s already expressed a platonic, familial kind of love for. 

Yes, he’s known shiro much longer, but i also think whatever happened back at the garrison, he managed to really click with shiro in a way that’s never quite happened before. Without their backstory, it’s kind of hard to tell. But shiro  must  have made one hell of an impression on keith if he ended up being the only one this poor guy opened up to prekerberos. I mean, kollivan tells shiro that keith is   desperate to have him at his side. I don’t typically see This Person “desperately wants to see you” used to describe siblings, that definitely has more of an unrequited love vibe to me. If it was strictly familial, i feel like they would have used a term that implies a More Mutual, healthy relationship rather than having this connotation of the person being in agony over their desire.

Also I realize this is by no means rock solid evidence but, you know how the voltron site has that little quiz for which lion you would pilot, and all the answers correspond to different paladins? For “worst fear” this is the answer we get for keith. Again, not exactly hard evidence, but its something we still see pointed too and implied a lot in cannon, being that keith is definitely someone who feels this need to surpress his feelings:

Again, a lot of cannon is indicative of this. From his willingness to always sacrifice for the mission (like suggesting they leave allura even though he really doesn’t want to) to the way he guards his own emotions (denying that something is wrong time and again when shiro pressures him during his galra phase) keith is someone very reserved, and keeps a lot of his feelings bottled up. That being said, in blade of marmora he thinks the person he’s talking to actually is  shiro. And even if he did feel something other than just familial, i don’t think he’s quite ready to tell him that. tbh, whether the person is shiro or lance or anyone else, i don’t think keith is in a place rn where he’d be comfortable admitting he loved somebody.

In the case of shiro this gets even more messy, because keith is galra and the galra have already tortured and tormented shiro so much. Not to mention that shiro has been his one and only support for years, and he probably doesn’t want to jepordize that by bringing up any complicated feelings that could scare shiro off and ruin his one significant long term relationship. Then there are other factors—right before they get to the base, shiro tries  to talk to him about how obviously anxious he is. Again, keith closes up. And shiro tells him that, whatever’s going on, he needs to stay focused. He has to keep his shit together--for the team, for the universe. 

He doesnt have the luxury of freaking out over being galra, and any other volatile feelings he has he basically reacts to the same. Now isn’t the time for him to be breaking down over his personal feelings for somebody, particularly when keith of all people knows how dangerous it can be to value personal loyalties over the mission. But he does. At the end of season 1, lance tries to tell keith not to split from the group, because it puts the whole rescue and everyone else at risk—which is a pretty good point. But he does. Even though he just said fighting zarkon at his own base is the stupidest thing possible like ten minutes ago, he goes one on one with zarkon because he saw shiro was in trouble and shiro’s lion needed protection. when lance asks what he’s going to do (because he’s right, keith doesn’t have a plan) keith just goes “whatever i can.”

So we know keith is willing to pull risky stunts for shiro’s sake, know that he probably prioritizes shiro more than he should, and that in itself is a risk. Again, we see him choosing shiro above all else in BOM. He tries to let go of shiro, tries to reach for something else—but all shiro has to say is “then you’ve chosen to be alone” and he comes running right back, practically begs him not to go. He’s even able to turn his back on his own father (for the greater good) but ends up chasing after shiro. So i think keith has plenty of reasons to keep any possible feelings secret. It’s Not the time for that and, understandably, someone who’s had as much difficulty forming relationships as keith doesn’t want to be hurt by the possibility of anything romantic.

And, as a bi boy myself, i will say that the whole bringing up “yeah, you’re like a brother/sister to me” can totally be something you latch onto as an out if you’re only just realizing you may have feelings for people of the same gender and you’re worried you’ll freak the other person out, particularly when theyre a close friend. Also, we’re only 22 episodes in and they already made a 78 episode commitment. Any major ship that goes cannon isn’t about to happen within the next episode or two, so i think theres plenty of time to build more on shiro and keith’s relationship to the point where it could be more overtly romantic, but i think the ship already has a pretty solid foundation to grow off of.

Also, side note, but it doesn’t make sense from a writing standpoint to me for keith and shiro to ultimately end on a brotherly kind of relationship. Because i feel like by now there should have been more parallels drawn between keith and pidge—someone who did lose their brother at kerberos—and hey, both shiro and matt are missing now, so maybe we will get that kind of parallel. But i also don’t really see why they’d work the missing brother angle with keith when that’s already pidge’s thing you know? It’s a nitpick, but it’s just something that always kinda seemed weird to me.

Anyway, i am  S O  SORRY this got so sUPER LONG  ; ;  but i hope this kind of answers your question?? I understand why a lot of people see sheith as strictly platonic, and right now everything is really up for interpretation. But for me personally, i always felt like their bond was given more time and attention than anyone else’s, and like there was something Really There.

[fuckyeahoutsidexbox]

Show of the Week - CS:GO Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Second Show of the Week transcribed and giffed! Once again, if there are any mistakes please tell me!

(Mike)

Hello and welcome to OutsideXbox’s Show of the Week. Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated as have rumours of my lucrative life insurance policy it turns out, Jane.

 (Jane)

Yes, well, I mean it got us this moderately priced new studio so don’t knock it deado.

 (Mike)

Our game of the week this week is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or if you prefer the syllable saving CS: GO. A Valve game that shuns storyline in favour of action, it’s a… [interrupted]

 (Jane)

Woah, woah, woah what do you mean it shuns storyline? It’s a Valve game. It’s got to have story.

 (Mike)

It doesn’t have a storyline, it’s a straight up multiplayer.

 (Jane)

No, no, no it’ll be in the world somewhere. It’ll be emergent storytelling Valve style cause they’re clever like that.

 (Mike)

If you say so. Super-secret hidden storylines aside. Here’s what you need to know about CS: GO. CS: GO is a multiplayer only team based shooter in which a squad of pretty non-specific terrorists go up against a squad of noble counter terrorists. Terrorists mostly want to plant bombs and hold hostages while the counter terrorists want to defuse bombs and rescue hostages. Also, each side wants to kill the other side. And that’s the entire fictional premise for Counter-Strike Jane, honestly. It’s also a game with a long and storied past. Counter-Strike began life all the way back in the last millennium, if you can believe it. When PC gamers like me fought off dinosaurs by day and scored headshots by night. The game started out in 1999 as a multiplayer mod for Valve’s seminal sci-fi FPS Half Life made by modders Minh Lee and Jess Cliffe. It took the torch from straight up death match multiplayer shooters such as Quake 1 and 2 to lead the burgeoning field of online multiplayer gun shooting. It arrived with new and uniquely cool ideas, not least the cycle of earning cash at the end of each round and spending it on weapons and equipment at the start of the next. And it made huge waves in pro gaming. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, out now on Xbox Live Arcade, is only the latest in a series of iterations on that Counter-Strike formula. A long line of updates, revisions, community mods and even the odd boxed game. The no perks, no unlocks, no regenerating health, no instant respawns and no iron sights and there is friendly fire, in some modes. In short, it’s a pure bracing shot of something different and demanding in a crowd of me too FPS multiplayer and that’s why it’s our game of the week.

 (Jane)

Who’s that guy?

 (Mike)

That’s a terrorist.

 (Jane)

And who’s that guy?

 (Mike)

That’s a counter terrorist.

 (Jane)

Right. And how do they fit into Aperture Science and Black Mesa?

 (Mike)

They don’t. So now that… [interrupted]

 (Jane)

Okay, erm, but what does it say on that wall there? That one. Is that a newspaper article?

 (Mike)

No.

 (Jane)

Aw.

 (Mike)

So, now you’re excited about CS: GO, here’s how to play it.

 (Jane)

That guy’s not talking, maybe he’s Gordon Freemen.

 (Andy)

It’s possible to do well at Call of Duty and Battlefield by playing like this. Play like this in Counter-Strike: Global offensive however and you’ll be doing a lot of this. So, if you’re not a long-time fan of Counter-Strike, you’re going to have to adjust your tactics. Luckily, we’re here to help like heroes.

 First up, and most importantly, you run faster with a knife. Not entirely sure why. It’s like the head of Valve is in love with knives or something. Oh, yeah. Right, right. Still this is a core Counter-Strike skill. Bind the knife to something like up on the D pad and switch to it after buying your weapon at the start of the round. With the extra speed, you should be able to reach critical choke points ahead of your enemies until all the new players wise up to it and do likewise. The downside, of course, is that you might also reach these chokepoints ahead of you own team and turn up to a wall of enemies on your own having literally bought a knife to a gun fight. Make sure you can switch to a shooty weapon quickly.

 Next, you’re more accurate if you walk or crouch and you also move silently whereas you may as well be wearing a hat made of claxons if you’re running. Crouch is bound to left trigger by default, the same as iron sights in Call of Duty and you should use it the same sort of way for increasing your accuracy. If you’re the last person left alive on your team, you don’t want to give up your position unless it’s absolutely necessary.

 On Xbox, you can control your horizontal and vertical analogue sensitivity independently in CS: GO. Headshots make a big difference to how quickly your enemies go down, due to that being where their brains are. There isn’t a huge amount of verticality in the maps either. Because of all that, we tend to go for a high horizontal sensitivity with a lower vertical one so that even when we’re spinning around wildly to target someone, panicking and crying, more of our shots will go in the chest to head kill zone.

 If you’re playing on competitive servers, buy Kevlar and the diffuse kit whenever you can. It will keep you alive and save you precious seconds while defusing a bomb if the terrorists manage to plant it. And it’s also totally on trend with this autumn’s military inspired look.

 Short tip this, but it’s as true now as it was on LV426.

 (Corporal Dwayne Hicks)

Remember, short controlled bursts.

 (Andy)

Thanks, Hicks. Sorry about the rubbish way you were killed off at the start of Alien 2.

 Next tip, the Desert Eagle pistol is a monster. If you can afford it, buy it. It’s ridiculously better than all the other pistols and you can have it in additional to your main weapon.

 Next, and this may seem obvious but it bears repeating, learn the maps. Most of the maps in Counter-Strike are pretty well balanced with certain areas that favour sniping, close quarter shoot outs or middle distance machine gunning. If you know the maps, you can predict what a lot of enemy teams are going to do and then plan your strategy accordingly. For example, if you’re playing against a terrorist team on Aztec that favours the bomb site overlooking the swamp, try getting a sniper rifle and hanging out by the big double doors behind it, picking them off as they charge your way. Fun.

 And finally, don’t flash bang your own team for pity’s sake. I said don’t! Argh, I needed those retinas.

 [music plays]

 (Andy)

Is she alright over there?

 (Mike)

Yeah, yeah, she’s just working on a theory that the Zeus X27 taser is actually a piece of sentient designed by GLaDOS to test the terrorists and counter terrorists who she believes are robots sent from Black Mesa to infiltrate Aperture Science and steal her research.

 (Andy)

Probably leave her to it then.

 (Mike)

Yeah. I’ve got the feedback if you want to do that.

 (Andy)

Great plan.

 (Mike)

So, it’s that time where we share the words you’ve been writing at us in comments, on Facebook and on twitter.

 (Andy)

In regard to last week’s Show of the Week, Ben Borthwick write “Mike died and you didn’t use the Channelling the dead pun? Awww.”.

 (Mike)

My bad. Actually, your bad. I was dead.

 (Andy)

You were dead. Good times. Peter meanwhile takes issue with your pronunciation of Boba Fett saying “There are only two Bs in Boba, not three Channel!”. Then he links to this helpful pronunciation guide.

 [Pronunciation guide repeats “Boba Fett” three times]

 (Andy)

Well, what do you have to say for yourself?

 (Mike)

I say that is the last time I pronounce anything from straw was.

 (Andy)

Onto Mark of the Ninja now, of which we posted a preview earlier in the week and which comes out today if you’re watching on Friday September the 7th or in the past if you’re watching any day after Friday September the 7th.

 (Mike)

Sam Williamson commented “This is looking really cool, like 2D Tenchu with a draw distance. After something of a dry spell it’s a good time to be a stealth fan, with this, Dishonored and Hitman: Absolution out in the next few months.”.

 (Andy)

And in response to the OutsideXbox survey on the plural of ninja, Richard Cadman responds “Ninji obviously”.

 (Mike)

Totally incorrect.

 (Andy)

Finally, the user known only as TheMansuraj asks “Any chance of an OutsideXbox podcast?”.

 (Mike)

To which the answer is yes there is every chance of an OutsideXbox podcast! It’s right at the top of our to-do list and when we do get round to do it, we’ll let you know right here.

 (Andy)

That’s all for this week guys. Thanks for watching, don’t forget to hit like and subscribe on YouTube. We’ll see you next week. Did you figure out the story then?

 (Jane)

Yeah, yeah I did. It’s amazing, it would blow your mind if you knew.

 (Andy)

It’s not something stupid like this is all one of Cave Johnson’s tests or something, is it?

 (Jane)

Uh no.

 (Andy)

Wanna play some DOTA 2?

 (Jane)

What now?

[whorchataaa]

Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed?

A mentally ill man is standing in your yard yelling at the mailbox. What do you do? You call the police, right? Not so fast, according to today’s guest, mental health advocate Gabriel Nathan. There is a better way to do things. Gabriel believes that rather than training police officers to de-escalate people in mental health crises, the police shouldn’t be called at all in these situations.

Our host Gabe has a different take on things, as he is an advocate for training police officers in crisis intervention practices. Join us for an enlightening and nuanced conversation regarding the role of the police when it comes to mental health crises.

(Transcript Available Below)

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  Guest Information for ‘Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training’ Podcast Episode

Gabriel Nathan is an author, editor, actor, and a mental health and suicide awareness advocate. He is Editor in Chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries, an online publication that features stories of mental health, empowerment, and change. Recently, OC87 Recovery Diaries produced a unique film series called “Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health” that features candid and moving recovery stories from firefighters, EMS personnel, law enforcement, dispatchers, and a crisis intervention specialist instructor. These films are being used by first responder agencies across the U. S. and by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Independent of his work at OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabe raises mental health awareness, generates conversations around suicide and its prevention, and spreads a message of hope with his 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, Herbie the Love Bug replica that bears the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on its rear window. Gabriel lives in a suburb of Philadelphia with his wife, twins, a Basset hound named Tennessee, a long-haired German Shepherd named Sadie, and his Herbie. You can view Gabriel’s TEDx Talk on his approach to suicide awareness here. Gabriel and Herbie teamed up to produce a documentary film about their suicide awareness mission; you can view the entire film and learn more information about Gabriel, Herbie, and suicide awareness here. You can also follow Gabriel and Herbie on IG @lovebugtrumpshate.

  About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe Howard: Hey, everyone, my name is Gabe Howard, I am the host of the Not Crazy podcast and I am here with Lisa Kiner.

Lisa Kiner: Hey, everyone, and today’s quote is by John F. Kennedy, The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Gabe Howard: It sort of reminds me of this idea that if it can happen to somebody else, it can happen to you, and if it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody. And I say this in mental health advocacy a lot. I was like, you realize if people with mental health conditions can’t get access to care, that means sick people can’t get access to care. So if you get sick, it is certainly possible that you might not be able to get access to care. But we always kind of dismiss that as it’s going to happen to other people.

Lisa Kiner: I think that’s just human nature. Everybody thinks that only good things are going to be coming to them and any bad things out there are going to be going to other people.

Gabe Howard: Well, and other people who deserve the bad things, right? Like we have this idea that every bad thing that happens to somebody else, it’s because they deserved it. They must they must have been doing something wrong.

Lisa Kiner: But I think that’s also self protective. The idea that the universe is random and bad things could happen to anybody at any time is scary. But if I think to myself, oh, no, that person brought that upon them, they did something that made the bad thing happen, that makes me feel better. I will not do that thing. Therefore, the bad thing will not happen to me. Therefore, me and mine are safe.

Gabe Howard: This, of course, all plays into a larger conversation that America is having with law enforcement and policing. We believe that police are 100% right in any police interaction. Whoever they are interacting with is 100% wrong. And in the mental health circles, this isn’t exactly believed in the same way because, you know, we have CIT, we have Crisis Intervention Training because we understand that when we’re in

crisis, people are going to call the police. If Gabe Howard is in crisis, somebody’s going to pick up the phone and call 911 and say, hey, there’s this giant guy acting erratically and we need help. And then the police are going to come, and we have decided that we’re OK with that. But we want to train police officers. And that’s where crisis intervention training came from. Full disclosure, that I believe in the CIT program so much, I teach it in central Ohio. I am proud of the work that I do. I am very pro, I am very, very, very pro training police officers on how to work with people with mental illness. Recently, I had the very good fortune to be involved in a virtual screening of a series put out by OC87 Recovery Diaries called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. And it was talking about the suicide rates for first responders., talking about all kinds of things that I had never heard before. After it was all over, I was talking to Gabriel Nathan, who is the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, and we were talking specifically about the crisis intervention training, of which I am a huge fan. And Gabriel said to me, well, I’m not a big fan of CIT. I think that CIT should go away. Lisa, you have known me for a long time. You can only imagine the words that were coming out of my mouth.

Lisa Kiner: It seems like a pretty unreal statement.

Gabe Howard: And a conversation ensued, and I have no idea if I agree with Gabriel or not. On one hand, he makes some extraordinarily valid points that cannot be ignored. On the other hand, I remember what life was like in Columbus, Ohio, before the CIT program came along and of course, how much good it did. And I came to you, Lisa, and I said, Lisa, you’re never going to believe what this idiot Gabriel Nathan said to me. And this, of course, started a big debate between us.

Lisa Kiner: Yes, and from your version of what you and Gabriel talked about, I am really interested to hear what he has to say.

Gabe Howard: In addition to being the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabriel Nathan lives with depression. He’s a prominent mental health advocate who understands what it’s like. And on our show, we don’t want people with mental illness just to show up and tell their personal stories. We want to be more than that.

Lisa Kiner: And it’s not that we don’t think that the personal story has value, it absolutely  does, but there’s plenty of sources out there for that. We want to have something different here at Not Crazy. On our show, we want to have people come on to discuss, argue, debate and talk about the world around us from the point of view of someone living with mental illness like us.

Gabe Howard: All right, Lisa, I think we’re ready to bring Gabriel on. Gabriel, welcome to the show.

Gabriel Nathan: Hi, and thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Gabe Howard: I love working with you because I think, now I’m not sure, but I think that our hobby is to disagree with each other because we love the debate so much. Is that true today? Like everything that you’re about to say, these are your genuine beliefs. You’re not playing devil’s advocate. We are having a real conversation. We’re not doing this thing where we each pick a side and pretend that we care. We care.

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah, these are my real views, I don’t play devil’s advocate because I really don’t have time to expostulate on some view that isn’t my own just for the sake of of arguing or being a guest on something. I really believe in speaking my own truth passionately. I don’t speak on behalf of any organization. These views are my own and I’m proud to share them with you.

Gabe Howard: Well, thank you again, Gabriel, and we’re super glad to have you. So let’s get right into it. You believe that that CIT, police officers, all of that, should have zero involvement in mental health. And if you were king of the world, you’d kick them out immediately. Can you explain that?

Gabriel Nathan: I think zero involvement is perhaps not quite accurate.

Gabe Howard: Ok.

Gabriel Nathan: So, for example, if someone is suicidal and they have a firearm, that’s a police emergency. Because, as they say, you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. And we know that there are people who take their own lives via suicide by cop. People who will

point a firearm at a law enforcement officer who will fire, who will perhaps even shoot a police officer to provoke a response from other responding officers to kill them as well. So when firearms are involved, all bets are off. I just want to make that absolutely clear. First of all, before I really get into the weeds of the question, what I have found is whenever you are taking a position that is critical in any way of law enforcement or attempts to raise questions even about the way law enforcement agencies do anything, it is extremely important to establish your own bona fides. Because anybody who steps up to challenge law enforcement is immediately regarded with suspicion, paranoia, is dismissed as a quote, you know, libtard, troll, anti-cop antifa, whatever. I’m none of those things. I am someone who, for the last 20 years, has been an advocate for slain police officers and their families through editorials, commentaries in newspapers. I have attended over 10 police funerals in Philadelphia down to Maryland.

Gabriel Nathan: I have done a lot of advocacy work for law enforcement and also in regard to mental health of first responders. I produced a film series called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health for OC87 Recovery Diaries that features police officers, EMS personnel, dispatchers, fire service individuals talking about trauma and complex PTSD. I’m very well aware of the suicide rate for police officers. I am someone who knows law enforcement culture. I am someone who has a respect for police officers and what they do. However, just like when you criticize America, that doesn’t mean that you should leave it or that you don’t have any right to do that. I think that you need to know what you’re talking about. But I think we have every right to criticize institutions. I think we have every right to criticize this nation. And so I just want people to know that I am doing this from a place of love and concern and from a position of someone who believes ardently that there absolutely needs to be change and radical reimagining of law enforcement, not just related to mental health response but across the board. But, yes, I do believe that law enforcement should have very, very little place in mental health response.

Gabe Howard: Thank you, Gabriel, for establishing your bona fides, and I really appreciate that. The example that I always use is just because I think that my wife did something wrong doesn’t mean that I don’t love her. And just because my wife thinks that I can improve doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love me. And I think people really understand that in terms of our interpersonal relationships, friends, family, etc. But for some reason, when we extend it into the public space, it’s like, aha! You must be for or against me.

Gabriel Nathan: Yes, right.

Gabe Howard: This show is very much trying to establish more of a middle ground. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. But we try to believe that we’re Not Crazy when we do it. The first question is CIT, people fought very, very hard to get CIT established in America. This is something that mental health advocates worked really, really hard for decades to bring CIT. So to listen to a prominent mental health advocate like yourself say, well, yeah, maybe we picked the wrong horse. Maybe we shouldn’t have backed that at all. Maybe we should have backed this instead. It sounds almost like you’re saying, hey, you just wasted 40 years bringing this here. It’s very nuanced, and I want you to tease that out because

Gabriel Nathan: Sure.

Gabe Howard: I suppose the real question, if not CIT, what?

Gabriel Nathan: Right. That’s a perfectly valid statement about what people would say and about what’s next. First of all, CIT, also known as quote, the Memphis model, was established in 1986. OK. There is a whole other model of crisis intervention that was begun more than 10 years before that at the psychiatric facility where I used to work. It’s called Montgomery County Emergency Service. It’s located in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Gabe, you know, while you were on the campus,

Gabe Howard: I do.

Gabriel Nathan: MCES created something called CIS. So it stands for Crisis Intervention Specialist training. And this was created in 1975 – 1976 to teach crisis intervention and deescalation to police officers. The philosophy behind this, as opposed to CIT, is train everybody in the department, train every single police officer in this stuff, in recognizing signs and symptoms of mental illness, in learning about what it feels like to issue commands to someone who may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, learning  

about substance abuse, escalation of force, all that kind of stuff. Right? So this was already in play for ten years prior to the Memphis model. And the Memphis model said, let’s train specific officers in the department to respond to mental health emergencies. Working at MCES, as I did from 2010 to 2015, I was very immersed in the CIS culture and I gravitated much more to that because I think first, a component of CIT that’s inherently flawed is you’re only picking certain officers, right? Now, there are certain officers on duty all the time, but they may be tied up with other things. When a psychiatric emergency is happening, they may not always be available to respond. So you might be bipolar and manic and trying to rip out a traffic sign at 3:00 a.m. in an intersection in your town. Well, gee, the CIT officer, unfortunately, had to go to a domestic. So now you might be getting a sort of not very well trained, not empathic, not understanding officer to your situation. And he may be an action junkie. He may be someone who doesn’t have his emotions in check.

Gabe Howard: Or they may be somebody who is just not trained.

Gabriel Nathan: Exactly, exactly. And that may have a bad outcome. OK. Now there might be a bad outcome even with a trained officer. Also, being CIT trained is not a bulletproof vest, and it doesn’t mean that an encounter with a law enforcement officer is going to go hunky dory all the time. That’s important to recognize also. I have had police commanders say to me, to my face when I’ve questioned CIS, they’ve said, well, you know, we like CIT better because, quite frankly, not all of our officers would be good at that kind of thing. And I said, what is that kind of thing? Spending time to talk to someone as opposed to just taking them to the floor? Trying to de-escalate someone as opposed to escalating the situation? And of course, there’s no answer for that. And what I said is, if certain officers that you have, quote, wouldn’t be good at that kind of thing, they shouldn’t be police officers. And I really believe that. So that’s my problem CIT. You’re kind of cherry picking officers who you think would be good at that when really they all should be good at that, and lack of availability. But really, when you widen the scope and really look at the situation of law enforcement officers responding to mental health emergencies, psychiatric emergencies, you use the term de-escalation, right? While we’re teaching these police officers to de-escalate a situation that is potentially volatile. And what do we have? We have someone who’s not doing well. They may be off their medication, they may be psychotic, they may be paranoid. And we have a black and white radio car rolling up.

Gabriel Nathan: The door opens, the big boot steps out, they wear these big boots, you know, and the officer gets out and he’s got his bulletproof vest and he’s all jacked up, puffed up, looking twice as big as he actually is. He’s got the gun. He’s got the taser, he’s got the extra ammunition. He’s got the handcuffs. He’s got the retractable baton. He’s got the sunglasses with the mirrored finish, so you can’t even see his eyes. He’s got the buzz cut. I’m stereotyping. They don’t all look like that, but a lot of them do. That’s who we’re asking to, quote, deescalate a situation. And they’re showing up with the power of arrest to take your freedoms away from you, to lock you up. What is an individual who’s experiencing a psychiatric emergency most afraid of? They’re afraid of being restrained. They’re afraid of being contained. They’re afraid of having their freedoms taken away from them. And that’s who we bring to the scene. And so, I believe that crisis intervention training for law enforcement officers really puts them in an impossible situation where we’re saying you, just by your very presence, you are an escalation of force, but we want you to de-escalate the situation. It just on its face doesn’t make any sense to me.

Lisa Kiner: Interesting, no, I would agree with you on that completely

Gabe Howard: The police force, or society has decided that the police respond to people with mental illness and we’ve got this one little program that people we had to advocate for.

Gabriel Nathan: Right, right.

Gabe Howard: Remember, police have been responding to people in a mental health crisis since before CIT.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: And we had to convince them that it was a good idea to train the responders. I just.

Gabriel Nathan: But that presupposes. That says, well, it’s not good that the police are responding to mental health emergencies, but if they’ve gotta, then at least train them. But they don’t gotta. That’s the flaw in the system,

Gabe Howard: Ok, gotcha, gotcha.

Gabriel Nathan: In my opinion, that’s what mental health advocates got wrong. They kind of just laid down and said, well, this is how it’s going to be. You know, the police are just going to do it, so we might as well train them. And that was the wrong supposition. This is incorrect. You know, if we can agree that people should not be showing up to a psychiatric hospital in the back of a patrol car with their hands cuffed behind their back, if we can all agree on that, and I think we can all agree on that, then we can all agree that the precipitating events that make that end result happen should also not be happening.

Gabe Howard: I just want to point out that I am involved in CIT. I’m a trainer for CIT, as I said at the top of the show. And I want you to know that what I tell people that CIT is not mandatory, they are confused.

Gabriel Nathan: Of course.

Gabe Howard: The belief of the general public is that CIT is mandatory for all officers.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely not. If they receive anything at the police academy level, it is very, very minimal and very, very terse. They don’t really address the trauma that police officers are going to experience. They don’t address the issue of police suicide, and they also don’t really address deescalating situations. It’s all about control. How do you control a suspect? How do you take control of a situation? How do you take command of a scene? The police academy curriculum is very, very full. And as we’ve seen with all of these discussions about reimagining law enforcement, we know in Germany it takes three years to become a police officer. In other places, it takes two years. My police academy curriculum, it was full time and it was nine months. All right. But nowhere in that nine months curriculum was there room for crisis intervention, de-escalation, signs and symptoms of mental illness, all that kind of stuff. That’s all taught later.

Gabe Howard: Right, and it’s voluntary in most places, and I think it’s important to point out that in many municipalities it takes longer to become a hairstylist than it does to become a police officer.

Gabriel Nathan: Correct. Right. Yes.

Lisa Kiner: You talked about the changing nature of police work, what’s up with that? How is police work changing and why?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, in the bad old days, it was like, come in, bust up whatever is going on, throw whoever it is who’s causing the most trouble in the back of the paddy wagon, maybe rap him over the head with the baton a couple of times and that’s it. And there were no cameras, no one saw anything. You know, it was, they call it the bad old days for a reason. Nobody used words like de-escalation and crisis intervention in the 60s, in the 70s. It’s let’s get in, let’s turn this guy up against the wall, and that’s it. Nowadays, we are expecting law enforcement officers to behave in different ways, to respond to very emotionally complex and dynamic situations and to resolve situations without their fists, without their baton, without their gun, without their taser. So expectations have risen and they need to rise to the challenge of that. And I don’t think these are unreasonable expectations, that you should be able to resolve a situation without violence. I think eight or nine times out of ten that is possible to do. Now, sure, you’re going to have bad actors who just want to hurt somebody and they need to be dealt with appropriately. And that’s fine. But I think there are times when there’s a situation occurring and a law enforcement officer is nearing the end of his shift and he just wants to get it over with and all right. That’s it. No, that’s not it.

Gabriel Nathan: You have all the time in the world to take care of this situation. And people have rights and people have a right to not be thrown on the ground face first simply because you have somewhere to be in an hour. Sorry, that’s not good enough. And we need to expect better of our police officers. Police officers are expected to be more social workers. And maybe that’s who we need to be attracting in terms of law enforcement, people who are articulate, people who understand family dynamics, people who take their time, people who don’t want to roll around on the floor with someone if they don’t have to. When I first applied to the psychiatric hospital, I applied to be an EMT to work on their psychiatric ambulance. And when I interviewed for the

position, I said to the ambulance director, I am not an action junkie. I am not a cowboy. I am not interested in busting down doors and rolling around on the floor with somebody. If I have to do it, I will do it. But I will do everything in my power to make sure that I don’t do that. And she said, well, most of the people we get applying for this job are cowboys, and that’s the problem. We need to stop kind of glorifying this profession and saying that this is what it’s all about. It’s all about takedowns and arrests. It ain’t all about that. It shouldn’t be all about that. And we need to be recruiting people who are not all about that.

Lisa Kiner: Well, Gabe had on The Psych Central Podcast a few months ago, a police officer, and the question was, why do the police respond to this at all? Why do we not send social workers? Why do we not send therapists? And his answer was because it is such a volatile and dynamic situation that you don’t know what will be required. His assumption was that violence will be required. And the thing he referenced specifically was, you know, something like half of all Americans own guns. So because this has such a large potential to escalate to a violent situation so quickly and we’re all wandering around with guns, that’s why we need police officers to respond. What would you say to that?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, what I would say to that is I think it’s very interesting that the police officer’s answer was about guns. It wasn’t about, quote, crazy people. We have a major problem in this country with firearms. And I think it’s really interesting, too, because so many police officers are avid gun collectors. They’re all into the NRA. They’re all about the Second Amendment, and yet they’re afraid about responding to houses of people with guns.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t think about that one.

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, so that’s a bunch of bullshit, in my opinion. I am so, so sick of having arguments with people about firearms, particularly with law enforcement officers. So they want to be all Second Amendment and guns, guns, guns. But all of a sudden, well, we need to respond to mental health calls because there are so many guns in this country. Well, yeah, there are, and that’s a huge problem. And yes, half of all suicides occur with a firearm. Two thirds of all gun deaths are suicides. You’re more likely to kill yourself than you are to be killed with a firearm.

Gabriel Nathan: So let’s just put that out there right now. It also presupposes that people with mental illness are dangerous. And we know statistically that that is not true. However, people with serious and persistent mental illness who are off their medication and who may be using street narcotics and who may be increasingly paranoid, yeah, they can be dangerous, that’s for sure. And I have certainly seen that in the hospital. But what I will also tell you is my sister in law is a social worker for the VA. The VA has no compunction about sending my unarmed sister in law who weighs one hundred and twenty pounds. Sorry Tova, I just revealed your weight. But unarmed, they give her self-defense training, crisis intervention training and using your your hands to defend yourself. Now, they always go out in teams, of course, they don’t send her alone. But they will send two unarmed females to deal with veterans who have traumatic brain injuries, a lot of whom are using drugs and alcohol, to apartments alone. Oh, but a police officer with a bulletproof vest and a gun and extra ammo and a shotgun in his car and all the rest of it needs to go to a psychiatric emergency call. I’m sorry, I don’t think so.

Gabe Howard: Well, it’s the same thing with children. I have often thought of that as well. If I call Children’s Services right now on my neighbor, they send a social worker.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: Now, I know that different states are different, but in my state, in Ohio, if there is a welfare check for children, they send a single social worker to talk to people about their children.

Gabriel Nathan: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: They’re investigating whether or not these people are child abusers.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And that can be done by somebody with absolutely no protection, no weapon, no anything.

Gabriel Nathan: And there may very well be a gun in that house.

Lisa Kiner: That’s a good point.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And, of course, you’re messing with people’s children.

Lisa Kiner: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Lisa Kiner: And we’re back with Gabriel Nathan talking about police response to people with mental illness.

Gabe Howard: I know we’ve kind of skirted around the issue of how we should get police officers away from responding to us. But I don’t know that you’ve provided an actual answer of if not them, then who? 

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: When Gabe Howard is having a mental health crisis, I need, like, I personally want somebody to save me. We can all agree with that.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: So who’s coming?

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, first of all, not every situation needs a call to anybody. I think we’re also presupposing that police officers dealing with mental health cases are only called when there is, quote, an emergency. A lot of calls to police involving mental health issues are nuisance issues.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t consider that.

Gabriel Nathan: Perfect example. There’s someone who lives in my community who is seriously and persistently mentally ill. He yells and screams a lot. He curses a lot. He knocks on the window at people and gives them the finger. OK, stuff like that. People call the cops on him. That’s not a psychiatric emergency. That is not a case of life or death. That’s someone who doesn’t like their neighbor. And so the police show up and there could be a violent, bad outcome for no reason whatsoever. That person is not endangering themselves. That person is not endangering anybody else. It is not against the law to be mentally ill. However, we’ve created a situation where people just pick up the phone and call the police willy nilly because they’re scared of crazy people. I mean, let’s just put it out there, right. That’s very unfortunate. And so we certainly don’t need the police responding to situations like that. You know, that is a situation that can be just dealt with in the community. There is a lot of different areas to explore between nothing and either inpatient hospitalization or an arrest. That’s what we need to to be aware of I think. Now, when we talk about, quote, defunding the police, that’s different than abolishing the police or disbanding the police. A lot of money that goes into buying weapons and car porn could be used to fund mobile crisis units. Mobile crisis units are comprised of mental health workers who are not armed. They do not respond in emergency looking vehicles. They wear civilian clothes. They are very trained in crisis intervention and de-escalation. So, maybe assessing is someone not engaging in proper self care? Are they possibly a danger to themselves or others? Do they need a higher level of care? If you do not have a mobile crisis unit in your county, you better start advocating for one now. And a lot of them work in conjunction with law enforcement. I do  

believe at a potentially dangerous scene, law enforcement could be there to establish scene safety and then back off. Leave entirely. OK, are there guns here? We do a search. Is this person violent? Pat the person down. OK, we’re out of here. And then let the mobile crisis team handle it. So, we don’t have to remove them one hundred percent from the equation, but just decrease our dependance on them. There are also very, very, very, very few psychiatric ambulance squads in the country. And by very few, I mean basically one, which operates out of Montgomery County Emergency Services, the hospital I used to work at.

Gabriel Nathan: These are fully trained and certified emergency medical technicians who run on fully equipped basic life support ambulances. They can respond to all manner of physical emergencies, but they also respond to psychiatric emergencies. They execute psychiatric commitment warrants. They show up in an ambulance. They have polo shirts and khakis. They don’t have the badges and all that stuff. If you need to go to the hospital, you’ll go on a stretcher in an ambulance. Not handcuffed in the back of a police car. That’s how it should be in America. So we’ve got psychiatric ambulance squads, we’ve got mobile crisis. We have social workers embedded in law enforcement. We have the possibility of reimagining the kind of people we’re recruiting to do this job. There are lots of different ideas out there. London, for example, in the Metropolitan Police Department, the average constable that you see on duty does not carry a firearm. Now, in every municipality, there are armed response units that can be in a situation in a matter of minutes if they need to be. But maybe we need unarmed police officers in certain areas. It’s less threatening. And I know people will freak out at me about that, but, golly, it works in other places.

Lisa Kiner: So one of the things you said earlier was that part of the problem is that people are perceiving people with mental illness as scary. And when there’s something scary, you call the police. So do you think that part of this doesn’t actually have anything to do with the police? It’s more about how society views mental illness and the average person’s reaction to the mentally ill?

Gabriel Nathan: One hundred percent. It is the same thing as, unfortunately, a lot of Caucasian people’s gut reaction when they see a six foot two black man in their neighborhood. Oh, black people are scary. Oh, he looked in my window. What is that?

Oh, my God. OK, that’s learned subconscious racism. And we as white people need to recognize that we feel hinky, we feel uncomfortable and scared when we see a black person in our neighborhood. You know, you better do some really serious soul searching and try to figure out why that is. It’s the same thing with someone who has mental illness. You know, they’re in their garden and they’re talking to themselves and they’re yelling at your dog or whatever. Oh, that’s scary. I better pick up the phone and call the police. No. You better give that person some space and give yourself some time to reflect on why is that scary to you? And maybe sit with that feeling of discomfort. Where does that come from? What does that mean? Is that person really a threat to you? Is that person really a threat to your neighborhood and your existence? Someone said to me about that specific person that I mentioned, well, it’s a crime because he’s disturbing the peace and that’s a crime. And I really wanted to say to her, oh, so when you stub your toe in your garage and go, oh, f-word, should I call the police? You just disturbed the peace. When your dog is barking too loud? No, so we don’t do that right. But if someone’s yelling argh, government over me and I have a microchip in my tooth and, we’re calling the police. And we just hide behind that because we’re scared and we want the police to make it all better. And I’m sorry those days are over. Or if they’re not over, they should be over. We need to do better because people with mental illness are not going away. Gone are the days when we’re locking them away in institutions for years at a time. And we need to reckon with the fact that they’re in our community. And we need to do better.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. It’s been an incredible discussion and enlightening discussion, and you mentioned OC87 Recovery Diaries, which I think is incredible. So I’d like you to tell the listeners what that is first and foremost.

Gabriel Nathan: Sure. So I’m the editor in chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries. It’s a nonprofit mental health publication. We tell stories of mental health empowerment and change in two ways. First person mental health recovery essays. We publish a brand new personal essay every single week, and we also produce short subject, professionally made documentary films all about people living with mental health challenges. You can see all of our mental health films and read all of our mental health essays at OC87RecoveryDiaries.org. And if you want to follow me, really the only place to do that is on Instagram. I’m at Lovebug Trumps Hate and I would love to, I’d love to be your friend.

Gabe Howard: Lovebug Trumps Hate is about Gabriel driving around in his Herbie replica, his lovebug replica. The pictures are incredible. The suicide prevention that you do is incredible. But also on the OC87 Recovery Diarieswebsite is where you can find Beneath the Vest. That entire series is on their completely free, correct?

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Please watch it, it’s incredible. And you interviewed first responders. It’s not Gabriel talking. It’s actual first responders.

Gabriel Nathan: No, I’m not in it at all. So, it’s police officers, a dispatcher, firefighters, EMS personnel and my friend Michelle Monzo, who is the crisis intervention specialist trainer at MCES. All of the videos are free to watch.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, OC87 Recovery Diariesis a nonprofit, they survive by donations, please, if you see value in what they do, support them because they are worth it.

Gabriel Nathan: Thank you.

Gabe Howard: Ok. Gabriel, thank you so much for being here. To our listeners, hang on, as soon as we get rid of Gabriel, we’re going to talk behind his back.

Lisa Kiner: Well, again, it’s not behind his back because he can listen to it later.

Gabe Howard: That is very true,

Lisa Kiner: You keep forgetting that part.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. Thank you once again.

Lisa Kiner: Oh, thank you so much.

Gabriel Nathan: It’s a privilege. Thank you for having me on.

Gabe Howard: Lisa, were there any aha moments for you?

Lisa Kiner: Yes, actually. The point that Gabriel raised was that the police do not need to respond to these situations at all, that this is not a police matter. It honestly had not occurred to me that, yes, our default thing to do in America when there’s a problem is to call the police. It’s my default thought. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem that it makes sense to call the police about. It doesn’t have to be a school shooting or a hostage situation. That is just what we all do reflexively. If there’s a problem, we call the police. And it hadn’t occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: The exact example that Gabriel used was somebody being loud while walking down the street, not showing any form of aggression or violence or breaking things, but just making people feel uncomfortable. People are picking up the phone and saying, well, I’m scared because my neighbor is loud in their own yard.

Lisa Kiner: This person is exhibiting clear symptoms of mental illness. And therefore something needs to be done, therefore, we as a society must do something to make that stop. And the thing that we think will make that stop is to call the police. But in reality, no, that’s probably not going to work and could turn out very poorly. Why do we think the police are the people to call to make that stop? And why do we need to make it stop at all? Why can’t we just tolerate this? Why can’t we just allow this to go on?

Gabe Howard: I agree. That was kind of an aha moment for me, too. In teaching CIT, one of the things that police officers say all the time is you have to remember that it’s not illegal to be mentally ill and you call the police when something illegal has happened. Somebody’s being loud in their own yard, even if it is symptomatic, that is not illegal. Calling the police when no crime has been committed, it’s clearly escalating the situation that unfortunately, it often works out poorly for the person who is symptomatic. Not only do they not get help, but now the police are there. And just by showing up, there’s an escalation.

Lisa Kiner: I really hadn’t thought about, why is that the default, reflexive thing that you do? In this situation to call the police? Why is that?

Gabe Howard: I don’t know.

Lisa Kiner: Why do we as Americans do that? And, yeah, I don’t know either.

Gabe Howard: And that’s obviously on the general society, that’s not on police officers at all. This is just another example of where they get thrust in the middle of something that they are unprepared for, untrained for and not the best situation.

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: Lending credence, of course, to Gabriel Nathan’s point that police officers should be out of this entirely.

Lisa Kiner: Well, it’s just very interesting. Why do we decide that police are the ones who need to resolve every situation? That every difficult or uncomfortable situation, we should get the police to fix it? Why are they the designated fixer of such problems? And it had not occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: Agreed. That we’re sending law enforcement for a medical issue. I don’t agree with that at all, but I still think that it’s just very pie in the sky and optimistic and almost sunshine and rainbows to think that police officers will stop responding to mental health crises. It doesn’t sound logical to me.

Lisa Kiner: Well, I think you’re right about that, in part because police officers won’t be able to stop responding because the public will still call the police for these things. I think the argument that Gabriel is making is that it doesn’t have to be that way. The question will be what happens in the meantime while we’re working towards this goal? I don’t think he’s advocating getting rid of CIT.

Gabe Howard: Oh, yeah, I don’t think that either.

Lisa Kiner: He’s not saying that we should not train police officers to de-escalate or that we should not train police officers to handle people with mental illness. He’s saying that

we need to move towards this different vision, this different way of doing things. But obviously this type of training will always be valuable. Part of it is de-escalation. Isn’t that good for every crisis? Isn’t that good for every high energy, intense situation? How could that not be a good thing? Why wouldn’t you want to resolve a situation in a way other than with violence?

Gabe Howard: The use of force is problematic, especially when you consider the use of force on sick people. I’m obviously seeing the world very much through the eyes of somebody living with bipolar disorder. I was in crisis. I think about how close I came to having the police called on me. And I’m so very lucky that the people who were surrounding me were able to deescalate, control and, of course, didn’t feel threatened. You and I have talked about this before, Lisa. I don’t know why you didn’t call the police on me when I thought there were demons under my bed, I.

Lisa Kiner: Because I didn’t feel threatened.

Gabe Howard: I don’t understand why you didn’t feel threatened, but let’s put that on the back burner for a moment. You, of course, had a history with me.

Lisa Kiner: Yeah, you were not a stranger.

Gabe Howard: Imagine if I had thought the demons were under the cash register at Wal-Mart?

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: You know, I’m a large guy, I’m six foot three, 250 pounds, broad shouldered, and I’m screaming that there are demons in the cash register to a 19 year old who’s working the evening shift at the local supermarket. That would seem very threatening. And I’m sure that the police would be called. And I just don’t like the idea that the first thing that they would do upon seeing this loud, screaming, mentally ill man is tase me or tackle me or worse. I don’t know that the person picking up the phone and calling would say, hello, 911 operator, I believe that we have a mentally ill man here. I think that they would say that we have a violent asshole threatening a teenage girl. And how would they know to send the mental health team?

Lisa Kiner: Well, that’s why we’re hoping that all police officers would have this training, and it’s kind of like a triage type thing, right? You don’t have a surgeon standing at the gate of the emergency room. You have a trained person, usually a nurse, who can assess whether or not to immediately send you to the surgeon or tell you to go wait for your turn. The idea being that all police officers would have this ability to kind of triage the situation to say to themselves, huh, that’s mental illness, and then call the appropriate response. That once they figure out what’s going on, they can turn this over to someone else, someone with either more or different qualifications.

Gabe Howard: I like that, I like that a lot. I do feel the need to be extraordinarily thankful to all of the police officers who have gone through CIT since in many municipalities, it is not mandatory.

Lisa Kiner: Including here in Columbus.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, including here in my state. Which means the police officers who have done it have volunteered. They have decided that there is value in learning how to help people with mental health issues in a way other than what they’ve already learned. I sincerely am so grateful for police officers who have taken that extra step because they don’t have to.

Lisa Kiner: But it’s not entirely altruistic. They also see the utility in it. It’s not just about people wanting to be nice to people with mental illness. It’s also about wanting to be safe themselves, not wanting these situations to get out of control, about not wanting bad things to happen. This isn’t just a benefit to people living with mental illness. This is a benefit to everyone, including police officers.

Gabe Howard: I have mad respect for the police officers who realize that. Who realize that they can learn more and help their community in a better way. Somebody with mental illness who is in a mental health crisis is most likely going to be seen by a police officer before anybody else. That training is not required, even though it is understood that people with a mental health crisis will be seen by a police officer before anybody

else. That’s really the only take away that you need to understand. Right?

Lisa Kiner: There’s a lot of weird stuff that happens in society that makes no sense.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, yeah, if Gabe gets sick, they’re sending the police. Are they going to train the police? Nope.

Lisa Kiner: Well, maybe.

Gabe Howard: If the police officer sees the utility in it and has the introspection, the understanding and the time to sign up for CIT training all by themselves, the bottom line is I hope that any law enforcement, first responder or politician listening to this will understand that mental health training is vital, period. We learned so much from Gabriel Nathan that we decided to do another show with him over on The Psych Central Podcast. And you can find that show on your favorite podcast player, just search for The Psych Central Podcast. Or you can go to PsychCentral.com/Show, and it will be there on Thursday. And Gabriel talks about the suicide rate among law enforcement. Forget about protecting people like me with mental health issues and bipolar disorder. Forget about all of that. The suicide rate among first responders.

Lisa Kiner: It’s quite shocking that more police officers will die by suicide this year than will be killed in the line of duty. A lot more

Gabe Howard: Yeah, by a lot,

Lisa Kiner: Almost three times.

Gabe Howard: It made us do an entire another episode on an entire other podcast hosted by me, so please go to PsychCentral.com/Show or look for The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player. And listen to more from Gabriel Nathan, the executive director of OC87 and one of the people behind Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. Lisa, are you ready to get out of here?

Lisa Kiner: I think we’re good to go. Thanks again to Gabriel Nathan for being here with  

us.

Gabe Howard: All right, everybody, here’s what we need you to do. Please subscribe to Not Crazy on your favorite podcast player. Rank us, review us, use your words and type in why you like the show. This really helps us a lot. Share us on social media and also tell people why to listen. We love doing this show for you and you can help us out greatly just by doing those simple things.

Lisa Kiner: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details.

Gabe: Hey Not Crazy Fans! We are so cool our outtakes have sponsors! We want to give a shout out to Southern Cross University. Learn about mental health risk factors in older people at https://online.scu.edu.au/blog/risk-factors-mental-illness-older-people/. Check them both out and tell them Not Crazy sent you!

 The post Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed? first appeared on World of Psychology.

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Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed?

A mentally ill man is standing in your yard yelling at the mailbox. What do you do? You call the police, right? Not so fast, according to today’s guest, mental health advocate Gabriel Nathan. There is a better way to do things. Gabriel believes that rather than training police officers to de-escalate people in mental health crises, the police shouldn’t be called at all in these situations.

Our host Gabe has a different take on things, as he is an advocate for training police officers in crisis intervention practices. Join us for an enlightening and nuanced conversation regarding the role of the police when it comes to mental health crises.

(Transcript Available Below)

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  Guest Information for ‘Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training’ Podcast Episode

Gabriel Nathan is an author, editor, actor, and a mental health and suicide awareness advocate. He is Editor in Chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries, an online publication that features stories of mental health, empowerment, and change. Recently, OC87 Recovery Diaries produced a unique film series called “Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health” that features candid and moving recovery stories from firefighters, EMS personnel, law enforcement, dispatchers, and a crisis intervention specialist instructor. These films are being used by first responder agencies across the U. S. and by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Independent of his work at OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabe raises mental health awareness, generates conversations around suicide and its prevention, and spreads a message of hope with his 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, Herbie the Love Bug replica that bears the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on its rear window. Gabriel lives in a suburb of Philadelphia with his wife, twins, a Basset hound named Tennessee, a long-haired German Shepherd named Sadie, and his Herbie. You can view Gabriel’s TEDx Talk on his approach to suicide awareness here. Gabriel and Herbie teamed up to produce a documentary film about their suicide awareness mission; you can view the entire film and learn more information about Gabriel, Herbie, and suicide awareness here. You can also follow Gabriel and Herbie on IG @lovebugtrumpshate.

  About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe Howard: Hey, everyone, my name is Gabe Howard, I am the host of the Not Crazy podcast and I am here with Lisa Kiner.

Lisa Kiner: Hey, everyone, and today’s quote is by John F. Kennedy, The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Gabe Howard: It sort of reminds me of this idea that if it can happen to somebody else, it can happen to you, and if it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody. And I say this in mental health advocacy a lot. I was like, you realize if people with mental health conditions can’t get access to care, that means sick people can’t get access to care. So if you get sick, it is certainly possible that you might not be able to get access to care. But we always kind of dismiss that as it’s going to happen to other people.

Lisa Kiner: I think that’s just human nature. Everybody thinks that only good things are going to be coming to them and any bad things out there are going to be going to other people.

Gabe Howard: Well, and other people who deserve the bad things, right? Like we have this idea that every bad thing that happens to somebody else, it’s because they deserved it. They must they must have been doing something wrong.

Lisa Kiner: But I think that’s also self protective. The idea that the universe is random and bad things could happen to anybody at any time is scary. But if I think to myself, oh, no, that person brought that upon them, they did something that made the bad thing happen, that makes me feel better. I will not do that thing. Therefore, the bad thing will not happen to me. Therefore, me and mine are safe.

Gabe Howard: This, of course, all plays into a larger conversation that America is having with law enforcement and policing. We believe that police are 100% right in any police interaction. Whoever they are interacting with is 100% wrong. And in the mental health circles, this isn’t exactly believed in the same way because, you know, we have CIT, we have Crisis Intervention Training because we understand that when we’re in

crisis, people are going to call the police. If Gabe Howard is in crisis, somebody’s going to pick up the phone and call 911 and say, hey, there’s this giant guy acting erratically and we need help. And then the police are going to come, and we have decided that we’re OK with that. But we want to train police officers. And that’s where crisis intervention training came from. Full disclosure, that I believe in the CIT program so much, I teach it in central Ohio. I am proud of the work that I do. I am very pro, I am very, very, very pro training police officers on how to work with people with mental illness. Recently, I had the very good fortune to be involved in a virtual screening of a series put out by OC87 Recovery Diaries called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. And it was talking about the suicide rates for first responders., talking about all kinds of things that I had never heard before. After it was all over, I was talking to Gabriel Nathan, who is the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, and we were talking specifically about the crisis intervention training, of which I am a huge fan. And Gabriel said to me, well, I’m not a big fan of CIT. I think that CIT should go away. Lisa, you have known me for a long time. You can only imagine the words that were coming out of my mouth.

Lisa Kiner: It seems like a pretty unreal statement.

Gabe Howard: And a conversation ensued, and I have no idea if I agree with Gabriel or not. On one hand, he makes some extraordinarily valid points that cannot be ignored. On the other hand, I remember what life was like in Columbus, Ohio, before the CIT program came along and of course, how much good it did. And I came to you, Lisa, and I said, Lisa, you’re never going to believe what this idiot Gabriel Nathan said to me. And this, of course, started a big debate between us.

Lisa Kiner: Yes, and from your version of what you and Gabriel talked about, I am really interested to hear what he has to say.

Gabe Howard: In addition to being the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabriel Nathan lives with depression. He’s a prominent mental health advocate who understands what it’s like. And on our show, we don’t want people with mental illness just to show up and tell their personal stories. We want to be more than that.

Lisa Kiner: And it’s not that we don’t think that the personal story has value, it absolutely  does, but there’s plenty of sources out there for that. We want to have something different here at Not Crazy. On our show, we want to have people come on to discuss, argue, debate and talk about the world around us from the point of view of someone living with mental illness like us.

Gabe Howard: All right, Lisa, I think we’re ready to bring Gabriel on. Gabriel, welcome to the show.

Gabriel Nathan: Hi, and thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Gabe Howard: I love working with you because I think, now I’m not sure, but I think that our hobby is to disagree with each other because we love the debate so much. Is that true today? Like everything that you’re about to say, these are your genuine beliefs. You’re not playing devil’s advocate. We are having a real conversation. We’re not doing this thing where we each pick a side and pretend that we care. We care.

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah, these are my real views, I don’t play devil’s advocate because I really don’t have time to expostulate on some view that isn’t my own just for the sake of of arguing or being a guest on something. I really believe in speaking my own truth passionately. I don’t speak on behalf of any organization. These views are my own and I’m proud to share them with you.

Gabe Howard: Well, thank you again, Gabriel, and we’re super glad to have you. So let’s get right into it. You believe that that CIT, police officers, all of that, should have zero involvement in mental health. And if you were king of the world, you’d kick them out immediately. Can you explain that?

Gabriel Nathan: I think zero involvement is perhaps not quite accurate.

Gabe Howard: Ok.

Gabriel Nathan: So, for example, if someone is suicidal and they have a firearm, that’s a police emergency. Because, as they say, you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. And we know that there are people who take their own lives via suicide by cop. People who will

point a firearm at a law enforcement officer who will fire, who will perhaps even shoot a police officer to provoke a response from other responding officers to kill them as well. So when firearms are involved, all bets are off. I just want to make that absolutely clear. First of all, before I really get into the weeds of the question, what I have found is whenever you are taking a position that is critical in any way of law enforcement or attempts to raise questions even about the way law enforcement agencies do anything, it is extremely important to establish your own bona fides. Because anybody who steps up to challenge law enforcement is immediately regarded with suspicion, paranoia, is dismissed as a quote, you know, libtard, troll, anti-cop antifa, whatever. I’m none of those things. I am someone who, for the last 20 years, has been an advocate for slain police officers and their families through editorials, commentaries in newspapers. I have attended over 10 police funerals in Philadelphia down to Maryland.

Gabriel Nathan: I have done a lot of advocacy work for law enforcement and also in regard to mental health of first responders. I produced a film series called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health for OC87 Recovery Diaries that features police officers, EMS personnel, dispatchers, fire service individuals talking about trauma and complex PTSD. I’m very well aware of the suicide rate for police officers. I am someone who knows law enforcement culture. I am someone who has a respect for police officers and what they do. However, just like when you criticize America, that doesn’t mean that you should leave it or that you don’t have any right to do that. I think that you need to know what you’re talking about. But I think we have every right to criticize institutions. I think we have every right to criticize this nation. And so I just want people to know that I am doing this from a place of love and concern and from a position of someone who believes ardently that there absolutely needs to be change and radical reimagining of law enforcement, not just related to mental health response but across the board. But, yes, I do believe that law enforcement should have very, very little place in mental health response.

Gabe Howard: Thank you, Gabriel, for establishing your bona fides, and I really appreciate that. The example that I always use is just because I think that my wife did something wrong doesn’t mean that I don’t love her. And just because my wife thinks that I can improve doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love me. And I think people really understand that in terms of our interpersonal relationships, friends, family, etc. But for some reason, when we extend it into the public space, it’s like, aha! You must be for or against me.

Gabriel Nathan: Yes, right.

Gabe Howard: This show is very much trying to establish more of a middle ground. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. But we try to believe that we’re Not Crazy when we do it. The first question is CIT, people fought very, very hard to get CIT established in America. This is something that mental health advocates worked really, really hard for decades to bring CIT. So to listen to a prominent mental health advocate like yourself say, well, yeah, maybe we picked the wrong horse. Maybe we shouldn’t have backed that at all. Maybe we should have backed this instead. It sounds almost like you’re saying, hey, you just wasted 40 years bringing this here. It’s very nuanced, and I want you to tease that out because

Gabriel Nathan: Sure.

Gabe Howard: I suppose the real question, if not CIT, what?

Gabriel Nathan: Right. That’s a perfectly valid statement about what people would say and about what’s next. First of all, CIT, also known as quote, the Memphis model, was established in 1986. OK. There is a whole other model of crisis intervention that was begun more than 10 years before that at the psychiatric facility where I used to work. It’s called Montgomery County Emergency Service. It’s located in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Gabe, you know, while you were on the campus,

Gabe Howard: I do.

Gabriel Nathan: MCES created something called CIS. So it stands for Crisis Intervention Specialist training. And this was created in 1975 – 1976 to teach crisis intervention and deescalation to police officers. The philosophy behind this, as opposed to CIT, is train everybody in the department, train every single police officer in this stuff, in recognizing signs and symptoms of mental illness, in learning about what it feels like to issue commands to someone who may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, learning  

about substance abuse, escalation of force, all that kind of stuff. Right? So this was already in play for ten years prior to the Memphis model. And the Memphis model said, let’s train specific officers in the department to respond to mental health emergencies. Working at MCES, as I did from 2010 to 2015, I was very immersed in the CIS culture and I gravitated much more to that because I think first, a component of CIT that’s inherently flawed is you’re only picking certain officers, right? Now, there are certain officers on duty all the time, but they may be tied up with other things. When a psychiatric emergency is happening, they may not always be available to respond. So you might be bipolar and manic and trying to rip out a traffic sign at 3:00 a.m. in an intersection in your town. Well, gee, the CIT officer, unfortunately, had to go to a domestic. So now you might be getting a sort of not very well trained, not empathic, not understanding officer to your situation. And he may be an action junkie. He may be someone who doesn’t have his emotions in check.

Gabe Howard: Or they may be somebody who is just not trained.

Gabriel Nathan: Exactly, exactly. And that may have a bad outcome. OK. Now there might be a bad outcome even with a trained officer. Also, being CIT trained is not a bulletproof vest, and it doesn’t mean that an encounter with a law enforcement officer is going to go hunky dory all the time. That’s important to recognize also. I have had police commanders say to me, to my face when I’ve questioned CIS, they’ve said, well, you know, we like CIT better because, quite frankly, not all of our officers would be good at that kind of thing. And I said, what is that kind of thing? Spending time to talk to someone as opposed to just taking them to the floor? Trying to de-escalate someone as opposed to escalating the situation? And of course, there’s no answer for that. And what I said is, if certain officers that you have, quote, wouldn’t be good at that kind of thing, they shouldn’t be police officers. And I really believe that. So that’s my problem CIT. You’re kind of cherry picking officers who you think would be good at that when really they all should be good at that, and lack of availability. But really, when you widen the scope and really look at the situation of law enforcement officers responding to mental health emergencies, psychiatric emergencies, you use the term de-escalation, right? While we’re teaching these police officers to de-escalate a situation that is potentially volatile. And what do we have? We have someone who’s not doing well. They may be off their medication, they may be psychotic, they may be paranoid. And we have a black and white radio car rolling up.

Gabriel Nathan: The door opens, the big boot steps out, they wear these big boots, you know, and the officer gets out and he’s got his bulletproof vest and he’s all jacked up, puffed up, looking twice as big as he actually is. He’s got the gun. He’s got the taser, he’s got the extra ammunition. He’s got the handcuffs. He’s got the retractable baton. He’s got the sunglasses with the mirrored finish, so you can’t even see his eyes. He’s got the buzz cut. I’m stereotyping. They don’t all look like that, but a lot of them do. That’s who we’re asking to, quote, deescalate a situation. And they’re showing up with the power of arrest to take your freedoms away from you, to lock you up. What is an individual who’s experiencing a psychiatric emergency most afraid of? They’re afraid of being restrained. They’re afraid of being contained. They’re afraid of having their freedoms taken away from them. And that’s who we bring to the scene. And so, I believe that crisis intervention training for law enforcement officers really puts them in an impossible situation where we’re saying you, just by your very presence, you are an escalation of force, but we want you to de-escalate the situation. It just on its face doesn’t make any sense to me.

Lisa Kiner: Interesting, no, I would agree with you on that completely

Gabe Howard: The police force, or society has decided that the police respond to people with mental illness and we’ve got this one little program that people we had to advocate for.

Gabriel Nathan: Right, right.

Gabe Howard: Remember, police have been responding to people in a mental health crisis since before CIT.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: And we had to convince them that it was a good idea to train the responders. I just.

Gabriel Nathan: But that presupposes. That says, well, it’s not good that the police are responding to mental health emergencies, but if they’ve gotta, then at least train them. But they don’t gotta. That’s the flaw in the system,

Gabe Howard: Ok, gotcha, gotcha.

Gabriel Nathan: In my opinion, that’s what mental health advocates got wrong. They kind of just laid down and said, well, this is how it’s going to be. You know, the police are just going to do it, so we might as well train them. And that was the wrong supposition. This is incorrect. You know, if we can agree that people should not be showing up to a psychiatric hospital in the back of a patrol car with their hands cuffed behind their back, if we can all agree on that, and I think we can all agree on that, then we can all agree that the precipitating events that make that end result happen should also not be happening.

Gabe Howard: I just want to point out that I am involved in CIT. I’m a trainer for CIT, as I said at the top of the show. And I want you to know that what I tell people that CIT is not mandatory, they are confused.

Gabriel Nathan: Of course.

Gabe Howard: The belief of the general public is that CIT is mandatory for all officers.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely not. If they receive anything at the police academy level, it is very, very minimal and very, very terse. They don’t really address the trauma that police officers are going to experience. They don’t address the issue of police suicide, and they also don’t really address deescalating situations. It’s all about control. How do you control a suspect? How do you take control of a situation? How do you take command of a scene? The police academy curriculum is very, very full. And as we’ve seen with all of these discussions about reimagining law enforcement, we know in Germany it takes three years to become a police officer. In other places, it takes two years. My police academy curriculum, it was full time and it was nine months. All right. But nowhere in that nine months curriculum was there room for crisis intervention, de-escalation, signs and symptoms of mental illness, all that kind of stuff. That’s all taught later.

Gabe Howard: Right, and it’s voluntary in most places, and I think it’s important to point out that in many municipalities it takes longer to become a hairstylist than it does to become a police officer.

Gabriel Nathan: Correct. Right. Yes.

Lisa Kiner: You talked about the changing nature of police work, what’s up with that? How is police work changing and why?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, in the bad old days, it was like, come in, bust up whatever is going on, throw whoever it is who’s causing the most trouble in the back of the paddy wagon, maybe rap him over the head with the baton a couple of times and that’s it. And there were no cameras, no one saw anything. You know, it was, they call it the bad old days for a reason. Nobody used words like de-escalation and crisis intervention in the 60s, in the 70s. It’s let’s get in, let’s turn this guy up against the wall, and that’s it. Nowadays, we are expecting law enforcement officers to behave in different ways, to respond to very emotionally complex and dynamic situations and to resolve situations without their fists, without their baton, without their gun, without their taser. So expectations have risen and they need to rise to the challenge of that. And I don’t think these are unreasonable expectations, that you should be able to resolve a situation without violence. I think eight or nine times out of ten that is possible to do. Now, sure, you’re going to have bad actors who just want to hurt somebody and they need to be dealt with appropriately. And that’s fine. But I think there are times when there’s a situation occurring and a law enforcement officer is nearing the end of his shift and he just wants to get it over with and all right. That’s it. No, that’s not it.

Gabriel Nathan: You have all the time in the world to take care of this situation. And people have rights and people have a right to not be thrown on the ground face first simply because you have somewhere to be in an hour. Sorry, that’s not good enough. And we need to expect better of our police officers. Police officers are expected to be more social workers. And maybe that’s who we need to be attracting in terms of law enforcement, people who are articulate, people who understand family dynamics, people who take their time, people who don’t want to roll around on the floor with someone if they don’t have to. When I first applied to the psychiatric hospital, I applied to be an EMT to work on their psychiatric ambulance. And when I interviewed for the

position, I said to the ambulance director, I am not an action junkie. I am not a cowboy. I am not interested in busting down doors and rolling around on the floor with somebody. If I have to do it, I will do it. But I will do everything in my power to make sure that I don’t do that. And she said, well, most of the people we get applying for this job are cowboys, and that’s the problem. We need to stop kind of glorifying this profession and saying that this is what it’s all about. It’s all about takedowns and arrests. It ain’t all about that. It shouldn’t be all about that. And we need to be recruiting people who are not all about that.

Lisa Kiner: Well, Gabe had on The Psych Central Podcast a few months ago, a police officer, and the question was, why do the police respond to this at all? Why do we not send social workers? Why do we not send therapists? And his answer was because it is such a volatile and dynamic situation that you don’t know what will be required. His assumption was that violence will be required. And the thing he referenced specifically was, you know, something like half of all Americans own guns. So because this has such a large potential to escalate to a violent situation so quickly and we’re all wandering around with guns, that’s why we need police officers to respond. What would you say to that?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, what I would say to that is I think it’s very interesting that the police officer’s answer was about guns. It wasn’t about, quote, crazy people. We have a major problem in this country with firearms. And I think it’s really interesting, too, because so many police officers are avid gun collectors. They’re all into the NRA. They’re all about the Second Amendment, and yet they’re afraid about responding to houses of people with guns.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t think about that one.

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, so that’s a bunch of bullshit, in my opinion. I am so, so sick of having arguments with people about firearms, particularly with law enforcement officers. So they want to be all Second Amendment and guns, guns, guns. But all of a sudden, well, we need to respond to mental health calls because there are so many guns in this country. Well, yeah, there are, and that’s a huge problem. And yes, half of all suicides occur with a firearm. Two thirds of all gun deaths are suicides. You’re more likely to kill yourself than you are to be killed with a firearm.

Gabriel Nathan: So let’s just put that out there right now. It also presupposes that people with mental illness are dangerous. And we know statistically that that is not true. However, people with serious and persistent mental illness who are off their medication and who may be using street narcotics and who may be increasingly paranoid, yeah, they can be dangerous, that’s for sure. And I have certainly seen that in the hospital. But what I will also tell you is my sister in law is a social worker for the VA. The VA has no compunction about sending my unarmed sister in law who weighs one hundred and twenty pounds. Sorry Tova, I just revealed your weight. But unarmed, they give her self-defense training, crisis intervention training and using your your hands to defend yourself. Now, they always go out in teams, of course, they don’t send her alone. But they will send two unarmed females to deal with veterans who have traumatic brain injuries, a lot of whom are using drugs and alcohol, to apartments alone. Oh, but a police officer with a bulletproof vest and a gun and extra ammo and a shotgun in his car and all the rest of it needs to go to a psychiatric emergency call. I’m sorry, I don’t think so.

Gabe Howard: Well, it’s the same thing with children. I have often thought of that as well. If I call Children’s Services right now on my neighbor, they send a social worker.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: Now, I know that different states are different, but in my state, in Ohio, if there is a welfare check for children, they send a single social worker to talk to people about their children.

Gabriel Nathan: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: They’re investigating whether or not these people are child abusers.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And that can be done by somebody with absolutely no protection, no weapon, no anything.

Gabriel Nathan: And there may very well be a gun in that house.

Lisa Kiner: That’s a good point.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And, of course, you’re messing with people’s children.

Lisa Kiner: We’ll be right back after these messages.

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Lisa Kiner: And we’re back with Gabriel Nathan talking about police response to people with mental illness.

Gabe Howard: I know we’ve kind of skirted around the issue of how we should get police officers away from responding to us. But I don’t know that you’ve provided an actual answer of if not them, then who? 

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: When Gabe Howard is having a mental health crisis, I need, like, I personally want somebody to save me. We can all agree with that.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: So who’s coming?

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, first of all, not every situation needs a call to anybody. I think we’re also presupposing that police officers dealing with mental health cases are only called when there is, quote, an emergency. A lot of calls to police involving mental health issues are nuisance issues.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t consider that.

Gabriel Nathan: Perfect example. There’s someone who lives in my community who is seriously and persistently mentally ill. He yells and screams a lot. He curses a lot. He knocks on the window at people and gives them the finger. OK, stuff like that. People call the cops on him. That’s not a psychiatric emergency. That is not a case of life or death. That’s someone who doesn’t like their neighbor. And so the police show up and there could be a violent, bad outcome for no reason whatsoever. That person is not endangering themselves. That person is not endangering anybody else. It is not against the law to be mentally ill. However, we’ve created a situation where people just pick up the phone and call the police willy nilly because they’re scared of crazy people. I mean, let’s just put it out there, right. That’s very unfortunate. And so we certainly don’t need the police responding to situations like that. You know, that is a situation that can be just dealt with in the community. There is a lot of different areas to explore between nothing and either inpatient hospitalization or an arrest. That’s what we need to to be aware of I think. Now, when we talk about, quote, defunding the police, that’s different than abolishing the police or disbanding the police. A lot of money that goes into buying weapons and car porn could be used to fund mobile crisis units. Mobile crisis units are comprised of mental health workers who are not armed. They do not respond in emergency looking vehicles. They wear civilian clothes. They are very trained in crisis intervention and de-escalation. So, maybe assessing is someone not engaging in proper self care? Are they possibly a danger to themselves or others? Do they need a higher level of care? If you do not have a mobile crisis unit in your county, you better start advocating for one now. And a lot of them work in conjunction with law enforcement. I do  

believe at a potentially dangerous scene, law enforcement could be there to establish scene safety and then back off. Leave entirely. OK, are there guns here? We do a search. Is this person violent? Pat the person down. OK, we’re out of here. And then let the mobile crisis team handle it. So, we don’t have to remove them one hundred percent from the equation, but just decrease our dependance on them. There are also very, very, very, very few psychiatric ambulance squads in the country. And by very few, I mean basically one, which operates out of Montgomery County Emergency Services, the hospital I used to work at.

Gabriel Nathan: These are fully trained and certified emergency medical technicians who run on fully equipped basic life support ambulances. They can respond to all manner of physical emergencies, but they also respond to psychiatric emergencies. They execute psychiatric commitment warrants. They show up in an ambulance. They have polo shirts and khakis. They don’t have the badges and all that stuff. If you need to go to the hospital, you’ll go on a stretcher in an ambulance. Not handcuffed in the back of a police car. That’s how it should be in America. So we’ve got psychiatric ambulance squads, we’ve got mobile crisis. We have social workers embedded in law enforcement. We have the possibility of reimagining the kind of people we’re recruiting to do this job. There are lots of different ideas out there. London, for example, in the Metropolitan Police Department, the average constable that you see on duty does not carry a firearm. Now, in every municipality, there are armed response units that can be in a situation in a matter of minutes if they need to be. But maybe we need unarmed police officers in certain areas. It’s less threatening. And I know people will freak out at me about that, but, golly, it works in other places.

Lisa Kiner: So one of the things you said earlier was that part of the problem is that people are perceiving people with mental illness as scary. And when there’s something scary, you call the police. So do you think that part of this doesn’t actually have anything to do with the police? It’s more about how society views mental illness and the average person’s reaction to the mentally ill?

Gabriel Nathan: One hundred percent. It is the same thing as, unfortunately, a lot of Caucasian people’s gut reaction when they see a six foot two black man in their neighborhood. Oh, black people are scary. Oh, he looked in my window. What is that?

Oh, my God. OK, that’s learned subconscious racism. And we as white people need to recognize that we feel hinky, we feel uncomfortable and scared when we see a black person in our neighborhood. You know, you better do some really serious soul searching and try to figure out why that is. It’s the same thing with someone who has mental illness. You know, they’re in their garden and they’re talking to themselves and they’re yelling at your dog or whatever. Oh, that’s scary. I better pick up the phone and call the police. No. You better give that person some space and give yourself some time to reflect on why is that scary to you? And maybe sit with that feeling of discomfort. Where does that come from? What does that mean? Is that person really a threat to you? Is that person really a threat to your neighborhood and your existence? Someone said to me about that specific person that I mentioned, well, it’s a crime because he’s disturbing the peace and that’s a crime. And I really wanted to say to her, oh, so when you stub your toe in your garage and go, oh, f-word, should I call the police? You just disturbed the peace. When your dog is barking too loud? No, so we don’t do that right. But if someone’s yelling argh, government over me and I have a microchip in my tooth and, we’re calling the police. And we just hide behind that because we’re scared and we want the police to make it all better. And I’m sorry those days are over. Or if they’re not over, they should be over. We need to do better because people with mental illness are not going away. Gone are the days when we’re locking them away in institutions for years at a time. And we need to reckon with the fact that they’re in our community. And we need to do better.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. It’s been an incredible discussion and enlightening discussion, and you mentioned OC87 Recovery Diaries, which I think is incredible. So I’d like you to tell the listeners what that is first and foremost.

Gabriel Nathan: Sure. So I’m the editor in chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries. It’s a nonprofit mental health publication. We tell stories of mental health empowerment and change in two ways. First person mental health recovery essays. We publish a brand new personal essay every single week, and we also produce short subject, professionally made documentary films all about people living with mental health challenges. You can see all of our mental health films and read all of our mental health essays at OC87RecoveryDiaries.org. And if you want to follow me, really the only place to do that is on Instagram. I’m at Lovebug Trumps Hate and I would love to, I’d love to be your friend.

Gabe Howard: Lovebug Trumps Hate is about Gabriel driving around in his Herbie replica, his lovebug replica. The pictures are incredible. The suicide prevention that you do is incredible. But also on the OC87 Recovery Diarieswebsite is where you can find Beneath the Vest. That entire series is on their completely free, correct?

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Please watch it, it’s incredible. And you interviewed first responders. It’s not Gabriel talking. It’s actual first responders.

Gabriel Nathan: No, I’m not in it at all. So, it’s police officers, a dispatcher, firefighters, EMS personnel and my friend Michelle Monzo, who is the crisis intervention specialist trainer at MCES. All of the videos are free to watch.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, OC87 Recovery Diariesis a nonprofit, they survive by donations, please, if you see value in what they do, support them because they are worth it.

Gabriel Nathan: Thank you.

Gabe Howard: Ok. Gabriel, thank you so much for being here. To our listeners, hang on, as soon as we get rid of Gabriel, we’re going to talk behind his back.

Lisa Kiner: Well, again, it’s not behind his back because he can listen to it later.

Gabe Howard: That is very true,

Lisa Kiner: You keep forgetting that part.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. Thank you once again.

Lisa Kiner: Oh, thank you so much.

Gabriel Nathan: It’s a privilege. Thank you for having me on.

Gabe Howard: Lisa, were there any aha moments for you?

Lisa Kiner: Yes, actually. The point that Gabriel raised was that the police do not need to respond to these situations at all, that this is not a police matter. It honestly had not occurred to me that, yes, our default thing to do in America when there’s a problem is to call the police. It’s my default thought. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem that it makes sense to call the police about. It doesn’t have to be a school shooting or a hostage situation. That is just what we all do reflexively. If there’s a problem, we call the police. And it hadn’t occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: The exact example that Gabriel used was somebody being loud while walking down the street, not showing any form of aggression or violence or breaking things, but just making people feel uncomfortable. People are picking up the phone and saying, well, I’m scared because my neighbor is loud in their own yard.

Lisa Kiner: This person is exhibiting clear symptoms of mental illness. And therefore something needs to be done, therefore, we as a society must do something to make that stop. And the thing that we think will make that stop is to call the police. But in reality, no, that’s probably not going to work and could turn out very poorly. Why do we think the police are the people to call to make that stop? And why do we need to make it stop at all? Why can’t we just tolerate this? Why can’t we just allow this to go on?

Gabe Howard: I agree. That was kind of an aha moment for me, too. In teaching CIT, one of the things that police officers say all the time is you have to remember that it’s not illegal to be mentally ill and you call the police when something illegal has happened. Somebody’s being loud in their own yard, even if it is symptomatic, that is not illegal. Calling the police when no crime has been committed, it’s clearly escalating the situation that unfortunately, it often works out poorly for the person who is symptomatic. Not only do they not get help, but now the police are there. And just by showing up, there’s an escalation.

Lisa Kiner: I really hadn’t thought about, why is that the default, reflexive thing that you do? In this situation to call the police? Why is that?

Gabe Howard: I don’t know.

Lisa Kiner: Why do we as Americans do that? And, yeah, I don’t know either.

Gabe Howard: And that’s obviously on the general society, that’s not on police officers at all. This is just another example of where they get thrust in the middle of something that they are unprepared for, untrained for and not the best situation.

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: Lending credence, of course, to Gabriel Nathan’s point that police officers should be out of this entirely.

Lisa Kiner: Well, it’s just very interesting. Why do we decide that police are the ones who need to resolve every situation? That every difficult or uncomfortable situation, we should get the police to fix it? Why are they the designated fixer of such problems? And it had not occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: Agreed. That we’re sending law enforcement for a medical issue. I don’t agree with that at all, but I still think that it’s just very pie in the sky and optimistic and almost sunshine and rainbows to think that police officers will stop responding to mental health crises. It doesn’t sound logical to me.

Lisa Kiner: Well, I think you’re right about that, in part because police officers won’t be able to stop responding because the public will still call the police for these things. I think the argument that Gabriel is making is that it doesn’t have to be that way. The question will be what happens in the meantime while we’re working towards this goal? I don’t think he’s advocating getting rid of CIT.

Gabe Howard: Oh, yeah, I don’t think that either.

Lisa Kiner: He’s not saying that we should not train police officers to de-escalate or that we should not train police officers to handle people with mental illness. He’s saying that

we need to move towards this different vision, this different way of doing things. But obviously this type of training will always be valuable. Part of it is de-escalation. Isn’t that good for every crisis? Isn’t that good for every high energy, intense situation? How could that not be a good thing? Why wouldn’t you want to resolve a situation in a way other than with violence?

Gabe Howard: The use of force is problematic, especially when you consider the use of force on sick people. I’m obviously seeing the world very much through the eyes of somebody living with bipolar disorder. I was in crisis. I think about how close I came to having the police called on me. And I’m so very lucky that the people who were surrounding me were able to deescalate, control and, of course, didn’t feel threatened. You and I have talked about this before, Lisa. I don’t know why you didn’t call the police on me when I thought there were demons under my bed, I.

Lisa Kiner: Because I didn’t feel threatened.

Gabe Howard: I don’t understand why you didn’t feel threatened, but let’s put that on the back burner for a moment. You, of course, had a history with me.

Lisa Kiner: Yeah, you were not a stranger.

Gabe Howard: Imagine if I had thought the demons were under the cash register at Wal-Mart?

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: You know, I’m a large guy, I’m six foot three, 250 pounds, broad shouldered, and I’m screaming that there are demons in the cash register to a 19 year old who’s working the evening shift at the local supermarket. That would seem very threatening. And I’m sure that the police would be called. And I just don’t like the idea that the first thing that they would do upon seeing this loud, screaming, mentally ill man is tase me or tackle me or worse. I don’t know that the person picking up the phone and calling would say, hello, 911 operator, I believe that we have a mentally ill man here. I think that they would say that we have a violent asshole threatening a teenage girl. And how would they know to send the mental health team?

Lisa Kiner: Well, that’s why we’re hoping that all police officers would have this training, and it’s kind of like a triage type thing, right? You don’t have a surgeon standing at the gate of the emergency room. You have a trained person, usually a nurse, who can assess whether or not to immediately send you to the surgeon or tell you to go wait for your turn. The idea being that all police officers would have this ability to kind of triage the situation to say to themselves, huh, that’s mental illness, and then call the appropriate response. That once they figure out what’s going on, they can turn this over to someone else, someone with either more or different qualifications.

Gabe Howard: I like that, I like that a lot. I do feel the need to be extraordinarily thankful to all of the police officers who have gone through CIT since in many municipalities, it is not mandatory.

Lisa Kiner: Including here in Columbus.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, including here in my state. Which means the police officers who have done it have volunteered. They have decided that there is value in learning how to help people with mental health issues in a way other than what they’ve already learned. I sincerely am so grateful for police officers who have taken that extra step because they don’t have to.

Lisa Kiner: But it’s not entirely altruistic. They also see the utility in it. It’s not just about people wanting to be nice to people with mental illness. It’s also about wanting to be safe themselves, not wanting these situations to get out of control, about not wanting bad things to happen. This isn’t just a benefit to people living with mental illness. This is a benefit to everyone, including police officers.

Gabe Howard: I have mad respect for the police officers who realize that. Who realize that they can learn more and help their community in a better way. Somebody with mental illness who is in a mental health crisis is most likely going to be seen by a police officer before anybody else. That training is not required, even though it is understood that people with a mental health crisis will be seen by a police officer before anybody

else. That���s really the only take away that you need to understand. Right?

Lisa Kiner: There’s a lot of weird stuff that happens in society that makes no sense.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, yeah, if Gabe gets sick, they’re sending the police. Are they going to train the police? Nope.

Lisa Kiner: Well, maybe.

Gabe Howard: If the police officer sees the utility in it and has the introspection, the understanding and the time to sign up for CIT training all by themselves, the bottom line is I hope that any law enforcement, first responder or politician listening to this will understand that mental health training is vital, period. We learned so much from Gabriel Nathan that we decided to do another show with him over on The Psych Central Podcast. And you can find that show on your favorite podcast player, just search for The Psych Central Podcast. Or you can go to PsychCentral.com/Show, and it will be there on Thursday. And Gabriel talks about the suicide rate among law enforcement. Forget about protecting people like me with mental health issues and bipolar disorder. Forget about all of that. The suicide rate among first responders.

Lisa Kiner: It’s quite shocking that more police officers will die by suicide this year than will be killed in the line of duty. A lot more

Gabe Howard: Yeah, by a lot,

Lisa Kiner: Almost three times.

Gabe Howard: It made us do an entire another episode on an entire other podcast hosted by me, so please go to PsychCentral.com/Show or look for The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player. And listen to more from Gabriel Nathan, the executive director of OC87 and one of the people behind Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. Lisa, are you ready to get out of here?

Lisa Kiner: I think we’re good to go. Thanks again to Gabriel Nathan for being here with  

us.

Gabe Howard: All right, everybody, here’s what we need you to do. Please subscribe to Not Crazy on your favorite podcast player. Rank us, review us, use your words and type in why you like the show. This really helps us a lot. Share us on social media and also tell people why to listen. We love doing this show for you and you can help us out greatly just by doing those simple things.

Lisa Kiner: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details.

Gabe: Hey Not Crazy Fans! We are so cool our outtakes have sponsors! We want to give a shout out to Southern Cross University. Learn about mental health risk factors in older people at https://online.scu.edu.au/blog/risk-factors-mental-illness-older-people/. Check them both out and tell them Not Crazy sent you!

 The post Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed? first appeared on World of Psychology.

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[brentrogers]

Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed?

A mentally ill man is standing in your yard yelling at the mailbox. What do you do? You call the police, right? Not so fast, according to today’s guest, mental health advocate Gabriel Nathan. There is a better way to do things. Gabriel believes that rather than training police officers to de-escalate people in mental health crises, the police shouldn’t be called at all in these situations.

Our host Gabe has a different take on things, as he is an advocate for training police officers in crisis intervention practices. Join us for an enlightening and nuanced conversation regarding the role of the police when it comes to mental health crises.

(Transcript Available Below)

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  Guest Information for ‘Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training’ Podcast Episode

Gabriel Nathan is an author, editor, actor, and a mental health and suicide awareness advocate. He is Editor in Chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries, an online publication that features stories of mental health, empowerment, and change. Recently, OC87 Recovery Diaries produced a unique film series called “Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health” that features candid and moving recovery stories from firefighters, EMS personnel, law enforcement, dispatchers, and a crisis intervention specialist instructor. These films are being used by first responder agencies across the U. S. and by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Independent of his work at OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabe raises mental health awareness, generates conversations around suicide and its prevention, and spreads a message of hope with his 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, Herbie the Love Bug replica that bears the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on its rear window. Gabriel lives in a suburb of Philadelphia with his wife, twins, a Basset hound named Tennessee, a long-haired German Shepherd named Sadie, and his Herbie. You can view Gabriel’s TEDx Talk on his approach to suicide awareness here. Gabriel and Herbie teamed up to produce a documentary film about their suicide awareness mission; you can view the entire film and learn more information about Gabriel, Herbie, and suicide awareness here. You can also follow Gabriel and Herbie on IG @lovebugtrumpshate.

  About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe Howard: Hey, everyone, my name is Gabe Howard, I am the host of the Not Crazy podcast and I am here with Lisa Kiner.

Lisa Kiner: Hey, everyone, and today’s quote is by John F. Kennedy, The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Gabe Howard: It sort of reminds me of this idea that if it can happen to somebody else, it can happen to you, and if it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody. And I say this in mental health advocacy a lot. I was like, you realize if people with mental health conditions can’t get access to care, that means sick people can’t get access to care. So if you get sick, it is certainly possible that you might not be able to get access to care. But we always kind of dismiss that as it’s going to happen to other people.

Lisa Kiner: I think that’s just human nature. Everybody thinks that only good things are going to be coming to them and any bad things out there are going to be going to other people.

Gabe Howard: Well, and other people who deserve the bad things, right? Like we have this idea that every bad thing that happens to somebody else, it’s because they deserved it. They must they must have been doing something wrong.

Lisa Kiner: But I think that’s also self protective. The idea that the universe is random and bad things could happen to anybody at any time is scary. But if I think to myself, oh, no, that person brought that upon them, they did something that made the bad thing happen, that makes me feel better. I will not do that thing. Therefore, the bad thing will not happen to me. Therefore, me and mine are safe.

Gabe Howard: This, of course, all plays into a larger conversation that America is having with law enforcement and policing. We believe that police are 100% right in any police interaction. Whoever they are interacting with is 100% wrong. And in the mental health circles, this isn’t exactly believed in the same way because, you know, we have CIT, we have Crisis Intervention Training because we understand that when we’re in

crisis, people are going to call the police. If Gabe Howard is in crisis, somebody’s going to pick up the phone and call 911 and say, hey, there’s this giant guy acting erratically and we need help. And then the police are going to come, and we have decided that we’re OK with that. But we want to train police officers. And that’s where crisis intervention training came from. Full disclosure, that I believe in the CIT program so much, I teach it in central Ohio. I am proud of the work that I do. I am very pro, I am very, very, very pro training police officers on how to work with people with mental illness. Recently, I had the very good fortune to be involved in a virtual screening of a series put out by OC87 Recovery Diaries called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. And it was talking about the suicide rates for first responders., talking about all kinds of things that I had never heard before. After it was all over, I was talking to Gabriel Nathan, who is the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, and we were talking specifically about the crisis intervention training, of which I am a huge fan. And Gabriel said to me, well, I’m not a big fan of CIT. I think that CIT should go away. Lisa, you have known me for a long time. You can only imagine the words that were coming out of my mouth.

Lisa Kiner: It seems like a pretty unreal statement.

Gabe Howard: And a conversation ensued, and I have no idea if I agree with Gabriel or not. On one hand, he makes some extraordinarily valid points that cannot be ignored. On the other hand, I remember what life was like in Columbus, Ohio, before the CIT program came along and of course, how much good it did. And I came to you, Lisa, and I said, Lisa, you’re never going to believe what this idiot Gabriel Nathan said to me. And this, of course, started a big debate between us.

Lisa Kiner: Yes, and from your version of what you and Gabriel talked about, I am really interested to hear what he has to say.

Gabe Howard: In addition to being the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabriel Nathan lives with depression. He’s a prominent mental health advocate who understands what it’s like. And on our show, we don’t want people with mental illness just to show up and tell their personal stories. We want to be more than that.

Lisa Kiner: And it’s not that we don’t think that the personal story has value, it absolutely  does, but there’s plenty of sources out there for that. We want to have something different here at Not Crazy. On our show, we want to have people come on to discuss, argue, debate and talk about the world around us from the point of view of someone living with mental illness like us.

Gabe Howard: All right, Lisa, I think we’re ready to bring Gabriel on. Gabriel, welcome to the show.

Gabriel Nathan: Hi, and thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Gabe Howard: I love working with you because I think, now I’m not sure, but I think that our hobby is to disagree with each other because we love the debate so much. Is that true today? Like everything that you’re about to say, these are your genuine beliefs. You’re not playing devil’s advocate. We are having a real conversation. We’re not doing this thing where we each pick a side and pretend that we care. We care.

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah, these are my real views, I don’t play devil’s advocate because I really don’t have time to expostulate on some view that isn’t my own just for the sake of of arguing or being a guest on something. I really believe in speaking my own truth passionately. I don’t speak on behalf of any organization. These views are my own and I’m proud to share them with you.

Gabe Howard: Well, thank you again, Gabriel, and we’re super glad to have you. So let’s get right into it. You believe that that CIT, police officers, all of that, should have zero involvement in mental health. And if you were king of the world, you’d kick them out immediately. Can you explain that?

Gabriel Nathan: I think zero involvement is perhaps not quite accurate.

Gabe Howard: Ok.

Gabriel Nathan: So, for example, if someone is suicidal and they have a firearm, that’s a police emergency. Because, as they say, you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. And we know that there are people who take their own lives via suicide by cop. People who will

point a firearm at a law enforcement officer who will fire, who will perhaps even shoot a police officer to provoke a response from other responding officers to kill them as well. So when firearms are involved, all bets are off. I just want to make that absolutely clear. First of all, before I really get into the weeds of the question, what I have found is whenever you are taking a position that is critical in any way of law enforcement or attempts to raise questions even about the way law enforcement agencies do anything, it is extremely important to establish your own bona fides. Because anybody who steps up to challenge law enforcement is immediately regarded with suspicion, paranoia, is dismissed as a quote, you know, libtard, troll, anti-cop antifa, whatever. I’m none of those things. I am someone who, for the last 20 years, has been an advocate for slain police officers and their families through editorials, commentaries in newspapers. I have attended over 10 police funerals in Philadelphia down to Maryland.

Gabriel Nathan: I have done a lot of advocacy work for law enforcement and also in regard to mental health of first responders. I produced a film series called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health for OC87 Recovery Diaries that features police officers, EMS personnel, dispatchers, fire service individuals talking about trauma and complex PTSD. I’m very well aware of the suicide rate for police officers. I am someone who knows law enforcement culture. I am someone who has a respect for police officers and what they do. However, just like when you criticize America, that doesn’t mean that you should leave it or that you don’t have any right to do that. I think that you need to know what you’re talking about. But I think we have every right to criticize institutions. I think we have every right to criticize this nation. And so I just want people to know that I am doing this from a place of love and concern and from a position of someone who believes ardently that there absolutely needs to be change and radical reimagining of law enforcement, not just related to mental health response but across the board. But, yes, I do believe that law enforcement should have very, very little place in mental health response.

Gabe Howard: Thank you, Gabriel, for establishing your bona fides, and I really appreciate that. The example that I always use is just because I think that my wife did something wrong doesn’t mean that I don’t love her. And just because my wife thinks that I can improve doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love me. And I think people really understand that in terms of our interpersonal relationships, friends, family, etc. But for some reason, when we extend it into the public space, it’s like, aha! You must be for or against me.

Gabriel Nathan: Yes, right.

Gabe Howard: This show is very much trying to establish more of a middle ground. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. But we try to believe that we’re Not Crazy when we do it. The first question is CIT, people fought very, very hard to get CIT established in America. This is something that mental health advocates worked really, really hard for decades to bring CIT. So to listen to a prominent mental health advocate like yourself say, well, yeah, maybe we picked the wrong horse. Maybe we shouldn’t have backed that at all. Maybe we should have backed this instead. It sounds almost like you’re saying, hey, you just wasted 40 years bringing this here. It’s very nuanced, and I want you to tease that out because

Gabriel Nathan: Sure.

Gabe Howard: I suppose the real question, if not CIT, what?

Gabriel Nathan: Right. That’s a perfectly valid statement about what people would say and about what’s next. First of all, CIT, also known as quote, the Memphis model, was established in 1986. OK. There is a whole other model of crisis intervention that was begun more than 10 years before that at the psychiatric facility where I used to work. It’s called Montgomery County Emergency Service. It’s located in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Gabe, you know, while you were on the campus,

Gabe Howard: I do.

Gabriel Nathan: MCES created something called CIS. So it stands for Crisis Intervention Specialist training. And this was created in 1975 – 1976 to teach crisis intervention and deescalation to police officers. The philosophy behind this, as opposed to CIT, is train everybody in the department, train every single police officer in this stuff, in recognizing signs and symptoms of mental illness, in learning about what it feels like to issue commands to someone who may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, learning  

about substance abuse, escalation of force, all that kind of stuff. Right? So this was already in play for ten years prior to the Memphis model. And the Memphis model said, let’s train specific officers in the department to respond to mental health emergencies. Working at MCES, as I did from 2010 to 2015, I was very immersed in the CIS culture and I gravitated much more to that because I think first, a component of CIT that’s inherently flawed is you’re only picking certain officers, right? Now, there are certain officers on duty all the time, but they may be tied up with other things. When a psychiatric emergency is happening, they may not always be available to respond. So you might be bipolar and manic and trying to rip out a traffic sign at 3:00 a.m. in an intersection in your town. Well, gee, the CIT officer, unfortunately, had to go to a domestic. So now you might be getting a sort of not very well trained, not empathic, not understanding officer to your situation. And he may be an action junkie. He may be someone who doesn’t have his emotions in check.

Gabe Howard: Or they may be somebody who is just not trained.

Gabriel Nathan: Exactly, exactly. And that may have a bad outcome. OK. Now there might be a bad outcome even with a trained officer. Also, being CIT trained is not a bulletproof vest, and it doesn’t mean that an encounter with a law enforcement officer is going to go hunky dory all the time. That’s important to recognize also. I have had police commanders say to me, to my face when I’ve questioned CIS, they’ve said, well, you know, we like CIT better because, quite frankly, not all of our officers would be good at that kind of thing. And I said, what is that kind of thing? Spending time to talk to someone as opposed to just taking them to the floor? Trying to de-escalate someone as opposed to escalating the situation? And of course, there’s no answer for that. And what I said is, if certain officers that you have, quote, wouldn’t be good at that kind of thing, they shouldn’t be police officers. And I really believe that. So that’s my problem CIT. You’re kind of cherry picking officers who you think would be good at that when really they all should be good at that, and lack of availability. But really, when you widen the scope and really look at the situation of law enforcement officers responding to mental health emergencies, psychiatric emergencies, you use the term de-escalation, right? While we’re teaching these police officers to de-escalate a situation that is potentially volatile. And what do we have? We have someone who’s not doing well. They may be off their medication, they may be psychotic, they may be paranoid. And we have a black and white radio car rolling up.

Gabriel Nathan: The door opens, the big boot steps out, they wear these big boots, you know, and the officer gets out and he’s got his bulletproof vest and he’s all jacked up, puffed up, looking twice as big as he actually is. He’s got the gun. He’s got the taser, he’s got the extra ammunition. He’s got the handcuffs. He’s got the retractable baton. He’s got the sunglasses with the mirrored finish, so you can’t even see his eyes. He’s got the buzz cut. I’m stereotyping. They don’t all look like that, but a lot of them do. That’s who we’re asking to, quote, deescalate a situation. And they’re showing up with the power of arrest to take your freedoms away from you, to lock you up. What is an individual who’s experiencing a psychiatric emergency most afraid of? They’re afraid of being restrained. They’re afraid of being contained. They’re afraid of having their freedoms taken away from them. And that’s who we bring to the scene. And so, I believe that crisis intervention training for law enforcement officers really puts them in an impossible situation where we’re saying you, just by your very presence, you are an escalation of force, but we want you to de-escalate the situation. It just on its face doesn’t make any sense to me.

Lisa Kiner: Interesting, no, I would agree with you on that completely

Gabe Howard: The police force, or society has decided that the police respond to people with mental illness and we’ve got this one little program that people we had to advocate for.

Gabriel Nathan: Right, right.

Gabe Howard: Remember, police have been responding to people in a mental health crisis since before CIT.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: And we had to convince them that it was a good idea to train the responders. I just.

Gabriel Nathan: But that presupposes. That says, well, it’s not good that the police are responding to mental health emergencies, but if they’ve gotta, then at least train them. But they don’t gotta. That’s the flaw in the system,

Gabe Howard: Ok, gotcha, gotcha.

Gabriel Nathan: In my opinion, that’s what mental health advocates got wrong. They kind of just laid down and said, well, this is how it’s going to be. You know, the police are just going to do it, so we might as well train them. And that was the wrong supposition. This is incorrect. You know, if we can agree that people should not be showing up to a psychiatric hospital in the back of a patrol car with their hands cuffed behind their back, if we can all agree on that, and I think we can all agree on that, then we can all agree that the precipitating events that make that end result happen should also not be happening.

Gabe Howard: I just want to point out that I am involved in CIT. I’m a trainer for CIT, as I said at the top of the show. And I want you to know that what I tell people that CIT is not mandatory, they are confused.

Gabriel Nathan: Of course.

Gabe Howard: The belief of the general public is that CIT is mandatory for all officers.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely not. If they receive anything at the police academy level, it is very, very minimal and very, very terse. They don’t really address the trauma that police officers are going to experience. They don’t address the issue of police suicide, and they also don’t really address deescalating situations. It’s all about control. How do you control a suspect? How do you take control of a situation? How do you take command of a scene? The police academy curriculum is very, very full. And as we’ve seen with all of these discussions about reimagining law enforcement, we know in Germany it takes three years to become a police officer. In other places, it takes two years. My police academy curriculum, it was full time and it was nine months. All right. But nowhere in that nine months curriculum was there room for crisis intervention, de-escalation, signs and symptoms of mental illness, all that kind of stuff. That’s all taught later.

Gabe Howard: Right, and it’s voluntary in most places, and I think it’s important to point out that in many municipalities it takes longer to become a hairstylist than it does to become a police officer.

Gabriel Nathan: Correct. Right. Yes.

Lisa Kiner: You talked about the changing nature of police work, what’s up with that? How is police work changing and why?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, in the bad old days, it was like, come in, bust up whatever is going on, throw whoever it is who’s causing the most trouble in the back of the paddy wagon, maybe rap him over the head with the baton a couple of times and that’s it. And there were no cameras, no one saw anything. You know, it was, they call it the bad old days for a reason. Nobody used words like de-escalation and crisis intervention in the 60s, in the 70s. It’s let’s get in, let’s turn this guy up against the wall, and that’s it. Nowadays, we are expecting law enforcement officers to behave in different ways, to respond to very emotionally complex and dynamic situations and to resolve situations without their fists, without their baton, without their gun, without their taser. So expectations have risen and they need to rise to the challenge of that. And I don’t think these are unreasonable expectations, that you should be able to resolve a situation without violence. I think eight or nine times out of ten that is possible to do. Now, sure, you’re going to have bad actors who just want to hurt somebody and they need to be dealt with appropriately. And that’s fine. But I think there are times when there’s a situation occurring and a law enforcement officer is nearing the end of his shift and he just wants to get it over with and all right. That’s it. No, that’s not it.

Gabriel Nathan: You have all the time in the world to take care of this situation. And people have rights and people have a right to not be thrown on the ground face first simply because you have somewhere to be in an hour. Sorry, that’s not good enough. And we need to expect better of our police officers. Police officers are expected to be more social workers. And maybe that’s who we need to be attracting in terms of law enforcement, people who are articulate, people who understand family dynamics, people who take their time, people who don’t want to roll around on the floor with someone if they don’t have to. When I first applied to the psychiatric hospital, I applied to be an EMT to work on their psychiatric ambulance. And when I interviewed for the

position, I said to the ambulance director, I am not an action junkie. I am not a cowboy. I am not interested in busting down doors and rolling around on the floor with somebody. If I have to do it, I will do it. But I will do everything in my power to make sure that I don’t do that. And she said, well, most of the people we get applying for this job are cowboys, and that’s the problem. We need to stop kind of glorifying this profession and saying that this is what it’s all about. It’s all about takedowns and arrests. It ain’t all about that. It shouldn’t be all about that. And we need to be recruiting people who are not all about that.

Lisa Kiner: Well, Gabe had on The Psych Central Podcast a few months ago, a police officer, and the question was, why do the police respond to this at all? Why do we not send social workers? Why do we not send therapists? And his answer was because it is such a volatile and dynamic situation that you don’t know what will be required. His assumption was that violence will be required. And the thing he referenced specifically was, you know, something like half of all Americans own guns. So because this has such a large potential to escalate to a violent situation so quickly and we’re all wandering around with guns, that’s why we need police officers to respond. What would you say to that?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, what I would say to that is I think it’s very interesting that the police officer’s answer was about guns. It wasn’t about, quote, crazy people. We have a major problem in this country with firearms. And I think it’s really interesting, too, because so many police officers are avid gun collectors. They’re all into the NRA. They’re all about the Second Amendment, and yet they’re afraid about responding to houses of people with guns.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t think about that one.

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, so that’s a bunch of bullshit, in my opinion. I am so, so sick of having arguments with people about firearms, particularly with law enforcement officers. So they want to be all Second Amendment and guns, guns, guns. But all of a sudden, well, we need to respond to mental health calls because there are so many guns in this country. Well, yeah, there are, and that’s a huge problem. And yes, half of all suicides occur with a firearm. Two thirds of all gun deaths are suicides. You’re more likely to kill yourself than you are to be killed with a firearm.

Gabriel Nathan: So let’s just put that out there right now. It also presupposes that people with mental illness are dangerous. And we know statistically that that is not true. However, people with serious and persistent mental illness who are off their medication and who may be using street narcotics and who may be increasingly paranoid, yeah, they can be dangerous, that’s for sure. And I have certainly seen that in the hospital. But what I will also tell you is my sister in law is a social worker for the VA. The VA has no compunction about sending my unarmed sister in law who weighs one hundred and twenty pounds. Sorry Tova, I just revealed your weight. But unarmed, they give her self-defense training, crisis intervention training and using your your hands to defend yourself. Now, they always go out in teams, of course, they don’t send her alone. But they will send two unarmed females to deal with veterans who have traumatic brain injuries, a lot of whom are using drugs and alcohol, to apartments alone. Oh, but a police officer with a bulletproof vest and a gun and extra ammo and a shotgun in his car and all the rest of it needs to go to a psychiatric emergency call. I’m sorry, I don’t think so.

Gabe Howard: Well, it’s the same thing with children. I have often thought of that as well. If I call Children’s Services right now on my neighbor, they send a social worker.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: Now, I know that different states are different, but in my state, in Ohio, if there is a welfare check for children, they send a single social worker to talk to people about their children.

Gabriel Nathan: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: They’re investigating whether or not these people are child abusers.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And that can be done by somebody with absolutely no protection, no weapon, no anything.

Gabriel Nathan: And there may very well be a gun in that house.

Lisa Kiner: That’s a good point.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And, of course, you’re messing with people’s children.

Lisa Kiner: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Lisa Kiner: And we’re back with Gabriel Nathan talking about police response to people with mental illness.

Gabe Howard: I know we’ve kind of skirted around the issue of how we should get police officers away from responding to us. But I don’t know that you’ve provided an actual answer of if not them, then who? 

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: When Gabe Howard is having a mental health crisis, I need, like, I personally want somebody to save me. We can all agree with that.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: So who’s coming?

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, first of all, not every situation needs a call to anybody. I think we’re also presupposing that police officers dealing with mental health cases are only called when there is, quote, an emergency. A lot of calls to police involving mental health issues are nuisance issues.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t consider that.

Gabriel Nathan: Perfect example. There’s someone who lives in my community who is seriously and persistently mentally ill. He yells and screams a lot. He curses a lot. He knocks on the window at people and gives them the finger. OK, stuff like that. People call the cops on him. That’s not a psychiatric emergency. That is not a case of life or death. That’s someone who doesn’t like their neighbor. And so the police show up and there could be a violent, bad outcome for no reason whatsoever. That person is not endangering themselves. That person is not endangering anybody else. It is not against the law to be mentally ill. However, we’ve created a situation where people just pick up the phone and call the police willy nilly because they’re scared of crazy people. I mean, let’s just put it out there, right. That’s very unfortunate. And so we certainly don’t need the police responding to situations like that. You know, that is a situation that can be just dealt with in the community. There is a lot of different areas to explore between nothing and either inpatient hospitalization or an arrest. That’s what we need to to be aware of I think. Now, when we talk about, quote, defunding the police, that’s different than abolishing the police or disbanding the police. A lot of money that goes into buying weapons and car porn could be used to fund mobile crisis units. Mobile crisis units are comprised of mental health workers who are not armed. They do not respond in emergency looking vehicles. They wear civilian clothes. They are very trained in crisis intervention and de-escalation. So, maybe assessing is someone not engaging in proper self care? Are they possibly a danger to themselves or others? Do they need a higher level of care? If you do not have a mobile crisis unit in your county, you better start advocating for one now. And a lot of them work in conjunction with law enforcement. I do  

believe at a potentially dangerous scene, law enforcement could be there to establish scene safety and then back off. Leave entirely. OK, are there guns here? We do a search. Is this person violent? Pat the person down. OK, we’re out of here. And then let the mobile crisis team handle it. So, we don’t have to remove them one hundred percent from the equation, but just decrease our dependance on them. There are also very, very, very, very few psychiatric ambulance squads in the country. And by very few, I mean basically one, which operates out of Montgomery County Emergency Services, the hospital I used to work at.

Gabriel Nathan: These are fully trained and certified emergency medical technicians who run on fully equipped basic life support ambulances. They can respond to all manner of physical emergencies, but they also respond to psychiatric emergencies. They execute psychiatric commitment warrants. They show up in an ambulance. They have polo shirts and khakis. They don’t have the badges and all that stuff. If you need to go to the hospital, you’ll go on a stretcher in an ambulance. Not handcuffed in the back of a police car. That’s how it should be in America. So we’ve got psychiatric ambulance squads, we’ve got mobile crisis. We have social workers embedded in law enforcement. We have the possibility of reimagining the kind of people we’re recruiting to do this job. There are lots of different ideas out there. London, for example, in the Metropolitan Police Department, the average constable that you see on duty does not carry a firearm. Now, in every municipality, there are armed response units that can be in a situation in a matter of minutes if they need to be. But maybe we need unarmed police officers in certain areas. It’s less threatening. And I know people will freak out at me about that, but, golly, it works in other places.

Lisa Kiner: So one of the things you said earlier was that part of the problem is that people are perceiving people with mental illness as scary. And when there’s something scary, you call the police. So do you think that part of this doesn’t actually have anything to do with the police? It’s more about how society views mental illness and the average person’s reaction to the mentally ill?

Gabriel Nathan: One hundred percent. It is the same thing as, unfortunately, a lot of Caucasian people’s gut reaction when they see a six foot two black man in their neighborhood. Oh, black people are scary. Oh, he looked in my window. What is that?

Oh, my God. OK, that’s learned subconscious racism. And we as white people need to recognize that we feel hinky, we feel uncomfortable and scared when we see a black person in our neighborhood. You know, you better do some really serious soul searching and try to figure out why that is. It’s the same thing with someone who has mental illness. You know, they’re in their garden and they’re talking to themselves and they’re yelling at your dog or whatever. Oh, that’s scary. I better pick up the phone and call the police. No. You better give that person some space and give yourself some time to reflect on why is that scary to you? And maybe sit with that feeling of discomfort. Where does that come from? What does that mean? Is that person really a threat to you? Is that person really a threat to your neighborhood and your existence? Someone said to me about that specific person that I mentioned, well, it’s a crime because he’s disturbing the peace and that’s a crime. And I really wanted to say to her, oh, so when you stub your toe in your garage and go, oh, f-word, should I call the police? You just disturbed the peace. When your dog is barking too loud? No, so we don’t do that right. But if someone’s yelling argh, government over me and I have a microchip in my tooth and, we’re calling the police. And we just hide behind that because we’re scared and we want the police to make it all better. And I’m sorry those days are over. Or if they’re not over, they should be over. We need to do better because people with mental illness are not going away. Gone are the days when we’re locking them away in institutions for years at a time. And we need to reckon with the fact that they’re in our community. And we need to do better.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. It’s been an incredible discussion and enlightening discussion, and you mentioned OC87 Recovery Diaries, which I think is incredible. So I’d like you to tell the listeners what that is first and foremost.

Gabriel Nathan: Sure. So I’m the editor in chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries. It’s a nonprofit mental health publication. We tell stories of mental health empowerment and change in two ways. First person mental health recovery essays. We publish a brand new personal essay every single week, and we also produce short subject, professionally made documentary films all about people living with mental health challenges. You can see all of our mental health films and read all of our mental health essays at OC87RecoveryDiaries.org. And if you want to follow me, really the only place to do that is on Instagram. I’m at Lovebug Trumps Hate and I would love to, I’d love to be your friend.

Gabe Howard: Lovebug Trumps Hate is about Gabriel driving around in his Herbie replica, his lovebug replica. The pictures are incredible. The suicide prevention that you do is incredible. But also on the OC87 Recovery Diarieswebsite is where you can find Beneath the Vest. That entire series is on their completely free, correct?

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Please watch it, it’s incredible. And you interviewed first responders. It’s not Gabriel talking. It’s actual first responders.

Gabriel Nathan: No, I’m not in it at all. So, it’s police officers, a dispatcher, firefighters, EMS personnel and my friend Michelle Monzo, who is the crisis intervention specialist trainer at MCES. All of the videos are free to watch.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, OC87 Recovery Diariesis a nonprofit, they survive by donations, please, if you see value in what they do, support them because they are worth it.

Gabriel Nathan: Thank you.

Gabe Howard: Ok. Gabriel, thank you so much for being here. To our listeners, hang on, as soon as we get rid of Gabriel, we’re going to talk behind his back.

Lisa Kiner: Well, again, it’s not behind his back because he can listen to it later.

Gabe Howard: That is very true,

Lisa Kiner: You keep forgetting that part.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. Thank you once again.

Lisa Kiner: Oh, thank you so much.

Gabriel Nathan: It’s a privilege. Thank you for having me on.

Gabe Howard: Lisa, were there any aha moments for you?

Lisa Kiner: Yes, actually. The point that Gabriel raised was that the police do not need to respond to these situations at all, that this is not a police matter. It honestly had not occurred to me that, yes, our default thing to do in America when there’s a problem is to call the police. It’s my default thought. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem that it makes sense to call the police about. It doesn’t have to be a school shooting or a hostage situation. That is just what we all do reflexively. If there’s a problem, we call the police. And it hadn’t occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: The exact example that Gabriel used was somebody being loud while walking down the street, not showing any form of aggression or violence or breaking things, but just making people feel uncomfortable. People are picking up the phone and saying, well, I’m scared because my neighbor is loud in their own yard.

Lisa Kiner: This person is exhibiting clear symptoms of mental illness. And therefore something needs to be done, therefore, we as a society must do something to make that stop. And the thing that we think will make that stop is to call the police. But in reality, no, that’s probably not going to work and could turn out very poorly. Why do we think the police are the people to call to make that stop? And why do we need to make it stop at all? Why can’t we just tolerate this? Why can’t we just allow this to go on?

Gabe Howard: I agree. That was kind of an aha moment for me, too. In teaching CIT, one of the things that police officers say all the time is you have to remember that it’s not illegal to be mentally ill and you call the police when something illegal has happened. Somebody’s being loud in their own yard, even if it is symptomatic, that is not illegal. Calling the police when no crime has been committed, it’s clearly escalating the situation that unfortunately, it often works out poorly for the person who is symptomatic. Not only do they not get help, but now the police are there. And just by showing up, there’s an escalation.

Lisa Kiner: I really hadn’t thought about, why is that the default, reflexive thing that you do? In this situation to call the police? Why is that?

Gabe Howard: I don’t know.

Lisa Kiner: Why do we as Americans do that? And, yeah, I don’t know either.

Gabe Howard: And that’s obviously on the general society, that’s not on police officers at all. This is just another example of where they get thrust in the middle of something that they are unprepared for, untrained for and not the best situation.

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: Lending credence, of course, to Gabriel Nathan’s point that police officers should be out of this entirely.

Lisa Kiner: Well, it’s just very interesting. Why do we decide that police are the ones who need to resolve every situation? That every difficult or uncomfortable situation, we should get the police to fix it? Why are they the designated fixer of such problems? And it had not occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: Agreed. That we’re sending law enforcement for a medical issue. I don’t agree with that at all, but I still think that it’s just very pie in the sky and optimistic and almost sunshine and rainbows to think that police officers will stop responding to mental health crises. It doesn’t sound logical to me.

Lisa Kiner: Well, I think you’re right about that, in part because police officers won’t be able to stop responding because the public will still call the police for these things. I think the argument that Gabriel is making is that it doesn’t have to be that way. The question will be what happens in the meantime while we’re working towards this goal? I don’t think he’s advocating getting rid of CIT.

Gabe Howard: Oh, yeah, I don’t think that either.

Lisa Kiner: He’s not saying that we should not train police officers to de-escalate or that we should not train police officers to handle people with mental illness. He’s saying that

we need to move towards this different vision, this different way of doing things. But obviously this type of training will always be valuable. Part of it is de-escalation. Isn’t that good for every crisis? Isn’t that good for every high energy, intense situation? How could that not be a good thing? Why wouldn’t you want to resolve a situation in a way other than with violence?

Gabe Howard: The use of force is problematic, especially when you consider the use of force on sick people. I’m obviously seeing the world very much through the eyes of somebody living with bipolar disorder. I was in crisis. I think about how close I came to having the police called on me. And I’m so very lucky that the people who were surrounding me were able to deescalate, control and, of course, didn’t feel threatened. You and I have talked about this before, Lisa. I don’t know why you didn’t call the police on me when I thought there were demons under my bed, I.

Lisa Kiner: Because I didn’t feel threatened.

Gabe Howard: I don’t understand why you didn’t feel threatened, but let’s put that on the back burner for a moment. You, of course, had a history with me.

Lisa Kiner: Yeah, you were not a stranger.

Gabe Howard: Imagine if I had thought the demons were under the cash register at Wal-Mart?

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: You know, I’m a large guy, I’m six foot three, 250 pounds, broad shouldered, and I’m screaming that there are demons in the cash register to a 19 year old who’s working the evening shift at the local supermarket. That would seem very threatening. And I’m sure that the police would be called. And I just don’t like the idea that the first thing that they would do upon seeing this loud, screaming, mentally ill man is tase me or tackle me or worse. I don’t know that the person picking up the phone and calling would say, hello, 911 operator, I believe that we have a mentally ill man here. I think that they would say that we have a violent asshole threatening a teenage girl. And how would they know to send the mental health team?

Lisa Kiner: Well, that’s why we’re hoping that all police officers would have this training, and it’s kind of like a triage type thing, right? You don’t have a surgeon standing at the gate of the emergency room. You have a trained person, usually a nurse, who can assess whether or not to immediately send you to the surgeon or tell you to go wait for your turn. The idea being that all police officers would have this ability to kind of triage the situation to say to themselves, huh, that’s mental illness, and then call the appropriate response. That once they figure out what’s going on, they can turn this over to someone else, someone with either more or different qualifications.

Gabe Howard: I like that, I like that a lot. I do feel the need to be extraordinarily thankful to all of the police officers who have gone through CIT since in many municipalities, it is not mandatory.

Lisa Kiner: Including here in Columbus.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, including here in my state. Which means the police officers who have done it have volunteered. They have decided that there is value in learning how to help people with mental health issues in a way other than what they’ve already learned. I sincerely am so grateful for police officers who have taken that extra step because they don’t have to.

Lisa Kiner: But it’s not entirely altruistic. They also see the utility in it. It’s not just about people wanting to be nice to people with mental illness. It’s also about wanting to be safe themselves, not wanting these situations to get out of control, about not wanting bad things to happen. This isn’t just a benefit to people living with mental illness. This is a benefit to everyone, including police officers.

Gabe Howard: I have mad respect for the police officers who realize that. Who realize that they can learn more and help their community in a better way. Somebody with mental illness who is in a mental health crisis is most likely going to be seen by a police officer before anybody else. That training is not required, even though it is understood that people with a mental health crisis will be seen by a police officer before anybody

else. That’s really the only take away that you need to understand. Right?

Lisa Kiner: There’s a lot of weird stuff that happens in society that makes no sense.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, yeah, if Gabe gets sick, they’re sending the police. Are they going to train the police? Nope.

Lisa Kiner: Well, maybe.

Gabe Howard: If the police officer sees the utility in it and has the introspection, the understanding and the time to sign up for CIT training all by themselves, the bottom line is I hope that any law enforcement, first responder or politician listening to this will understand that mental health training is vital, period. We learned so much from Gabriel Nathan that we decided to do another show with him over on The Psych Central Podcast. And you can find that show on your favorite podcast player, just search for The Psych Central Podcast. Or you can go to PsychCentral.com/Show, and it will be there on Thursday. And Gabriel talks about the suicide rate among law enforcement. Forget about protecting people like me with mental health issues and bipolar disorder. Forget about all of that. The suicide rate among first responders.

Lisa Kiner: It’s quite shocking that more police officers will die by suicide this year than will be killed in the line of duty. A lot more

Gabe Howard: Yeah, by a lot,

Lisa Kiner: Almost three times.

Gabe Howard: It made us do an entire another episode on an entire other podcast hosted by me, so please go to PsychCentral.com/Show or look for The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player. And listen to more from Gabriel Nathan, the executive director of OC87 and one of the people behind Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. Lisa, are you ready to get out of here?

Lisa Kiner: I think we’re good to go. Thanks again to Gabriel Nathan for being here with  

us.

Gabe Howard: All right, everybody, here’s what we need you to do. Please subscribe to Not Crazy on your favorite podcast player. Rank us, review us, use your words and type in why you like the show. This really helps us a lot. Share us on social media and also tell people why to listen. We love doing this show for you and you can help us out greatly just by doing those simple things.

Lisa Kiner: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details.

Gabe: Hey Not Crazy Fans! We are so cool our outtakes have sponsors! We want to give a shout out to Southern Cross University. Learn about mental health risk factors in older people at https://online.scu.edu.au/blog/risk-factors-mental-illness-older-people/. Check them both out and tell them Not Crazy sent you!

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Randeep Hooda Dives Into the Making of Netflix’s Action-Heavy Extraction

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Randeep Hooda is about to make his Netflix debut reverse Chris Hemsworth this week in the motion thriller Extraction. Hooda — finest recognized for the 2014 street film Freeway, and taking part in serial killer Charles Sobhraj, Malayali artist Raja Ravi Varma, and farmer Sarabjit Singh, who spent over twenty years in a Pakistani jail on costs of terrorism and spying, throughout biopics — was in for a shock when he first learn the script for Extraction.

It described his character as “a wrecking ball of a person”, for Hooda performs military particular forces veteran Saju Rav, who’s now employed by India’s greatest drug lord (Pankaj Tripathi). In line with the film, Hooda’s position is an action-heavy one. However that wasn’t one thing he had been instructed when he auditioned for Extraction.

“They referred to as me three weeks earlier to Ahmedabad earlier than the shoot,” Hooda instructed Devices 360 over the telephone on Tuesday. “And I used to be like, ‘Why?’”

Evaluation: Chris Hemsworth’s Extraction Is Heavy on Motion, however Little Else

When Hooda met Extraction director Sam Hargrave — who’s making his directorial debut, having been a stunt coordinator on a number of Marvel Cinematic Universe chapters — he learnt why. Extraction is a couple of mercenary (Hemsworth) tasked with rescuing a drug lord’s (Tripathi) kidnapped son from Dhaka. (Ahmedabad stood in for the Bangladeshi capital.)

As a consequence of a flip of occasions, which we cannot spoil, Hemsworth and the child discover themselves being chased by Saju (Hooda), along with all of Dhaka’s police, who’re in the palm of Bangladesh’s greatest drug lord (Priyanshu Painyuli) — the man who ordered the kidnapping. An early portion of this chase is filmed in a severe of lengthy takes, stitched collectively to seem like one 12-minute sequence.

“Once I obtained [to Ahmedabad] subsequent day in the morning, they confirmed me, ‘That is what we’ll be doing with you in the movie and it is all going to be one shot,” Hooda stated. “So here is what you need to do. I noticed it and I went, ‘Whaaaaat?! How are you gonna try this? Who’s gonna try this?’ They stated, ‘You are going to try this.’ I stated, ‘ME?! How?’”

What started was a masterclass in motion for Hooda.

“First, we began with methods to maintain your physique, the place to maintain your weight, the hinge, the bending of the knee being decrease, [to] decrease centre of gravity,” Hooda explains. “Then, you are going to throw a punch in actual life, after which throw a punch in the film. Then methods to react to that punch, after which methods to get the steps and the sequences proper.

“And to do all of it very, very slowly. Sluggish is quick, quick is nice. So doing it very, very slowly, getting every step, over a interval of three weeks. And when each actors had been ready and had memorised the sequences, they introduced me and Chris collectively. Then we did [weapons], of course the props had been all faux. After which lastly, we obtained the knife and weapons we’ll be utilizing, after which went about that: methods to maintain the gun, how the hearth the gun.”

Hooda has carried out his share of motion in Indian productions, however this was his first style of a global one. He famous that there is much more rehearsal with action-driven movies like Extraction — Hooda claimed the staff prepped for 4 months earlier than they shot the 12-minute sequence — and there are much more security precautions as effectively.

Watch the Trailer for Netflix’s Extraction, Starring Chris Hemsworth

“For instance, you can not simply hearth an empty bullet,” Hooda added. “It will likely be given to you; all people will probably be instructed that the weapon’s scorching. Right here, generally, you’ll be able to simply apply or simply for enjoyable, you’ll be able to go bang, bang. I’ve been damage earlier than in movies made right here. However aside from a pair of nicks I obtained from Chris throughout the fights, every little thing else was very, very, very, very safely carried out.”

Hooda jokingly referred to as getting hit by Thor — the Marvel character Hemsworth is known for — his favorite half of filming on Extraction.

On a extra severe observe, the 43-year-old actor was “shocked” by an prolonged automobile chase that is half of the aforementioned 12-minute sequence. Although Hooda was technically on the steering wheel, the automobile was being pushed by a stuntman sitting on the roof of the automobile or mendacity in the trunk, relying on the place the digicam was positioned. On high of that, it wanted to be filmed in a protracted take.

“I used to be driving the automobile, however I had no management and there is a man sitting in the boot who was truly driving, and I do not understand how he was seeing the rattling factor,” Hooda added. “And there was a automobile which was driving apart from me, and I shoot at it and it goes up in the air and turns over whereas I smash one other automobile. it was all occurring stay in a single take. The quantity of coordination and apply and dry runs that they will need to have needed to undergo is unbelievable.”

“And also you’re simply in it and you are like, ‘God, it is like a high-octane online game.’”

Hooda credit Extraction’s motion chops to Hargrave, who at the same time as director, was hanging off harnesses and ropes on set himself: “Had he not had this motion background, had he not have this excessive diploma of health, then the outcomes would in all probability not have been the identical. As a result of he’s the director and he is obtained the digicam and he is hanging off the ropes, so he is aware of the place to maneuver it.”

Hargrave has an awesome staff round him, Hooda thinks — in stunt coordinator Daniel Stevens (X-Males: Days of Future Previous), second unit director and Hagrave’s finest good friend Thayr Harris (Deadpool 2), combat coordinator Michael Lehr (Gemini Man), and stuntmen Anthony Nanakornpanom (Avengers: Endgame) and Dan Dargan Carter (Baahubali 2: The Conclusion) who doubled for Hooda — whose dedication rubbed off on Hooda.

“There’s a sequence which is clearly not there in the movie the place I throw a grenade and it bounced off the truck and got here again at me and I caught it and threw it once more,” Hooda stated and added with fun, “That was fairly humorous, all people had an enormous snort about it, however I additionally felt fairly good that I had the presence of thoughts to dispose of the grenade.”

Extraction is out April 24 in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu on Netflix.

Can Netflix power Bollywood to reinvent itself? We mentioned this on Orbital, our weekly expertise podcast, which you’ll subscribe to through Apple Podcasts or RSS. You too can download the episode or simply hit the play button beneath.

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