#the day/the events leading up to the murder and based on those accounts he solves it... sooooo good

[figureinthedistance]

im not even near my period and i teared up about this imagining a governess in love w her mistress and devoted to her... i have to tell myself sternly that agatha christie never heard of lesbians and that wasnt what was going on here... but by the way by this stage of the book we've had this event described to us by other characters who are men and who remarked just on how beautiful mrs crale looked in this hat but only the governess knew that she wore it to hide that she'd been crying.

[indigosabyss]

Jaded

Izuku didn’t know when it started exactly. He supposed it might have been when he first got his own laptop, when he was twelve years old. In the years before this, his mom usually made sure that he didn’t get sucked into forums for hours on end, but once he got his laptop, he was almost immediately sucked into the rabbit hole of hero forums and discussions. Sure, Bakugo might bully him in school, and all the teachers would turn a blind eye, and every person who knew that he was quirkless treated him like he had been given a death sentence or something, but on the forums, no one knew him, and no one could tell that he was quirkless. His voice mattered.

Well, it mattered just as much as every other faceless voice on the internet, but that was at least more than you could say about his actual life. Until, one day, he found himself looking at a news clipping on one of these forums.

Middle School Mass Murderer Still At Large

Tragedy struck as a middle school in Yokohama that we are not allowed to name because of privacy laws. A dozen students was found locked in a janitor’s office, with stab wounds covering them. At least half of those students succumbed to the wounds, while the remaining students are in critical condition.

According to the statement of one of the victims, they had been led there by a classmate, who had also been found dead in the office, and furthermore, had already decayed more than the other casualties when the kids were found that same day. Of course, the traumatizing circumstances make the statement somewhat untrustworthy, but with this just following an incident a few blocks away, at a school which had a seemingly healthy and bright student allegedly kill a fellow student, is sparking worry that there is a mysterious villain in the shadows, with a Quirk that is manipulating these poor children to butcher each other.

All citizens are firmly advised to stay safe, and all middle school students should be on high alert. If you think anything is off, or have suspicions about the identity of this atrocious criminal, do not hesitate to contact the local heroics agency.

Pictured below are the innocent children who’s lives were taken far too young, just hours before the tragedy.

Izuku stared at the pictures of several students, smiling happily at the camera, and some candid shots too.

There was fervent debate below the post, discussing who exactly could’ve done such a thing, and how it was possible. It all seemed redundant to Izuku.

Couldn’t they see? The killer was right in front of them. Everything lined up so well.

Of course, he could be wrong though, it would be just like a Quirkless Deku like him to be barking up the completely wrong tree, but a quick Google searches later, and he didn’t think that that’s what it was. It just seemed so crystal clear for it to be wrong.

So, he through his hat into the ring, and dove into the comments.

MightyGreenBoy217: It’s pretty obvious that it was the girl who killed her classmate from a couple schools away.

IceQueen: Umm… proof?

MightyGreenBoy217: I looked up her case, and it has slightly more information. Her name is Himiko Toga, and her Quirk has to do with blood, considering the fact that she was seen drinking the blood of the victim. Her Quirk is not public as she is still a minor, but taking into account that both of her parents have somewhat shapeshifting-based Quirks, it would be prudent to assume it’s the same for her. Remember that there is eye witness testimony of a girl who should’ve been dead before the incident took place, leading them to the scene of the crime.

Furthermore, the idea of a Quirk unlocking violent tendencies in the minds of other people, while plausible, doesn’t seem to match anything I can find in the database. It could be a form of brainwashing, but it seems unlikely, since there were no suspicious figures loitering about the school according to reports from other newspapers.

Plus, if you look into the backdrop of the pictures we’re shown, you can actually see Himiko Toga standing there in the corner. Plus, I got super curious, and started thinking about motive, because no one would do anything without a motive, and I found out that one of the children pictured here was also in a picture in another article, about the Himiko Toga incident. I dug into it, because I was super curious, and it turns out that one of the victims was actually a former friend of Himiko Toga’s, who had actually been the one to report her to the authorities, so it’s safe to assume that she did this for revenge.

He released a breath as he tapped the Enter button. He’d gone on for a bit too long, but he needed to cram all his information in it so they might just follow where he was coming from, just in case it turned out that he was wrong.

He bit his lip and waiting for someone or the other to respond.

Meteoric-iron: Holy shit…. You got that from some news articles?!

MightyGreenBoy217: Yeah, I did. Why, you think I'm off the mark??

IceQueen: Wow... That's a lot of evidence. It's nowhere near enough proof though. But you gotta admit the coincidences are a bit too perfect.

Yeah, that was all it was, just a massive coincidence he was looking too deep into.

He ended up putting his laptop away when his mother called him out for dinner, and didn't think about that incident again.

Until that is, a couple days later when the user called Meteoric-iron sent him a DM.

Meteoric-iron: ARE YOU A PSYCHIC OR SOMETHING?!

Along with that, there was a link to an article, that Izuku hesitantly clicked on.

Middle School Murderer Identified

The culprit of the slew of deaths happening in middle schools in one corner of the Yokohama Prefecture has been identified as one Himiko Toga, aged 14.

Police were able to connect the dots when someone brought up the fact that a person with great resemblance to Himiko Toga was found in pictures taken on the same day as the attack. Further investigation revealed her saliva was found on the scene, and usage of her Quirk seemed to be the reason behind the conflicting sequence of events.

The local authorities admit that it might have been solved quicker, and the villain might have been apprehended, if they had had a more competent analyst, since Quirk Records of children are not disclosable to anyone without good reason.

He stared at the article, hardly daring to believe it. He actually got it right? But how?

He typed back to the person.

MightyGreenBoy217: Haha, nothing that cool. It was just a hunch. Glad I was right tho!

Meteoric-iron: That is so crazy. You got to the bottom of it in… what? A couple hours? And it took the police several days. You a hero or something?

MightyGreenBoy217: Oh, nothing like that! I just like quirks and stuff. It just clicked when I saw the pieces laid out.

Meteoric-iron: Huh… you should be a QA. Bet everyone will fall over their feet for someone that good.

Izuku felt like scoffing. Yeah, right, like anyone would want some of his crappy analyses.

But... Well, this person wasn't the first person to say that. It couldn't hurt to try.

That night, he looked over the profile of his new analyst account on the quirk discussion forum he'd been a part of for a while.

Everything was there, from his fees per commission (Nothing; he didn't want to make someone pay for his work when they didn't know how poor quality it was), to any restrictions he had, (nothing about lethal spots, especially for heroes; he'd heard enough horror stories about villains approaching analysts to get them to help kill a hero)

All that remained was a name. What could he do?

He tapped his chin as he tried to think. What was special about him?

Considering how he was always being told how plain looking he was, there wasn't a lot.

He was Quirkless, but that wasn't something he wanted to be known for. No way someone would trust him with a quirk after that.

He ran a hand through his hair, before freezing. Wait, he had green hair. Wasn't there some English word for the color green? What was it? Jared? Jaded?

Yeah, jaded, that was probably it.

Just to be sure, he Googled it.

Turns out, it did not mean green. It meant exhausted. What was the word he was looking for?

As he thought it over, his eyes drifted over the definition again. Huh, oddly, it seemed fitting to him.

It was an impulsive choice, but he typed it in quickly.

Jaded_qa.

He didn't have time to overthink it, as he pressed Enter before he could start to back down.

And just like that, it was done.

He didn't know it then, but his life was about to get a whole lot crazier.

[holidaysat221b]

2017′s 12 Days of Sherlolly Master List

To help get you in the Winter spirit, here are all the submissions we received during the 2017 12 Days of Sherlolly Fest.  Please give them another look, leave a comment or a kudo (or both!), and show a little love to the creators who took the time to participate in 2017.

We’ve listed where the works are archived, mult-chapter or not, complete or not, and rating.  In progress fics are marked in bold as a reminder for a mod to periodically check for updates.  Tumblr accounts have been tagged where possible, some could only be linked to, and some are completely unknown to the mods.  As always, the complete Master List for all years can be found here. (Authors/Creators tagged where Tumblr will allow me.)

Aftermath: The Christmas Album - Written by @geekmama Side A: 1. I’ll Be Home For Christmas, 2. The Holly and the Ivy, 3. O Tannenbaum, 4. The Gloucestershire Wassail, 5. It Must Have Been The Mistletoe, 6. Deck the Halls Side B: 1. The Boar’s Head Carol, 2. Caroling, Caroling, 3. There Is No Rose of Such Virtue, 4. We Three Kings of Orient Are, 5. The Twelve Days of Christmas, 6. Welcome Christmas   (On Ao3, Complete in 2 parts, Rated T)

Baby, Please Come Home - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo The first Christmas since Sherlock’s fall comes around and Molly can’t help but think about him during that time. A surprise delivered by Mycroft has her rethink the meaning behind her and Sherlock’s parting.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Can’t Catch Me - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Eleven – (“Cookies/Biscuits" submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Chorus Elf Number Four - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Five – (“Elf”– submitted by @limajoro)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

The Christmas Ball - Written by flimflam99 (Tumblr Unknown) Molly is getting ready for Bart’s Christmas Dinner and Dance Ball.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Christmases When You Were Mine - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Having grown up together as best friends, Sherlock and Molly’s families had always spent Christmases together. But this year, after having been together since they were 16, they’re apart due to Sherlock’s fears and their breakup from 2 months prior. Will things ever be okay again?  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Christmas Lights - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo A different take on Christmas night in ASiB. Inspired by Coldplay’s Christmas Lights.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Christmas Magic - Written by flimflam99 (Tumblr Unknown) Molly feels guilty about making Sherlock say “I Love You” and Sherlock thinks Molly hates him. Their friendship is in tatters but can the magic of Christmas pull them both back together?  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Christmas Waltz - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Sherlock and Molly share a sweet domestic evening together.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Cinnamon Tea - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Nine – (“Cinnamon” submitted by @saffysmom)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Day One of 12 Days of Sherlolly 2017 - Created by @mel-loves-all A beautiful gif of Sherlock and Molly.  (On Tumblr)

Day Two of 12 Days of Sherlolly 2017 - Created by @mel-loves-all A beautiful edit of Sherlock and Molly.  (On Tumblr)

Day Three of 12 Days of Sherlolly 2017 - Created by @mel-loves-all A beautiful edit of Sherlock and Molly.  (On Tumblr)

Day Four of 12 Days of Sherlolly 2017 - Created by @mel-loves-all A beautiful edit of Sherlock and Molly.  (On Tumblr)

Death By Poinsettia? - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Three – (“Poinsettia” submitted by @heathera9)   (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Facing a Ghost - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Ten – (“Photographs” submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Happy Birthday, Sherlock Holmes - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Twelve – (“Staircase” submitted by @rewil)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Happy Holidays to Everybody! - Created by @eastwindiscomming Little Sherlolly-Christmassy thing for you!  (On Tumblr)

Happy New Year 2018 to everybody!!! - Created by @eastwindiscomming   (On Tumblr)

Help a Girl Out? - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Four – (“Out/Help/Girl” submitted by @mizjoely)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Her Lips, Her Mouth - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Six – (“Lipstick” submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Holmes for the Holidays - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo After the phone call, it’s Sherlock and Molly’s first Christmas together as a couple. After inviting her to Sussex for Christmas with his parents, Sherlock is surprised when Molly refuses him. Will a bit of Christmas magic be enough to mend their relationship?  (On Ao3, Complete in 6 parts, Rated T)

Hope you all have had a great Christmas this year! - Created by @eastwindiscomming   (On Tumblr)

I Saw Aunt Molly Kissing Santa Claus - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Two – (“Mistletoe” submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Last Sherlolly edit this year! - Created by @eastwindiscomming   (On Tumblr)

Love Molly xxx - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day One – (“Presents” submitted by @whclocked)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Merry Christmas From 221B - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo A holiday mix inspired by the Christmases on Sherlock  (On Tumblr and 8track radio)

A New Year - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Seven – (“Fireworks” submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

New Year’s Day - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo A look inside two consecutive New Year’s Days of our consulting detective and pathologist. Based off of Taylor Swift’s song ‘New Year’s Day.‘  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

One More Sleep - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo After the fall, Sherlock had revealed to Molly how he felt about her. He calls her to let her know he’ll be home by Christmas and Molly becomes restless waiting five more days.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

On This Winter’s Night - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Christmas Eve, a year after Sherlock’s fall, Molly finds herself on the rooftop of Bart’s only to end up sharing her night with Sherlock. Conversation and revelations lead to a happy 3 year time jump.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

The Pointy-Eared Pathologist - Written by Phoebe_Snow (@greenfleeze) Sherlock never expected to discover that Molly Hooper was an elf, but perhaps he wasn’t as observant as he thought…  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Strange, Isn’t It? - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo The same night of the Sherrinford incident, Sherlock convinces himself that everyone’s lives would be better off had he not been born. Mary, now a guardian angel, makes him see the error of his thoughts. Post-TFP. Based on the concept of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.  (On Ao3, Complete in 7 parts, Rated T)

Stretching Before Dinner - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Eight – (“Yoga” submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Symbolism of a Bow - Written by @lilsherlockian1975 Molly’s been observing Sherlock for months; she’s very worried about him. Something’s off, something’s wrong. Christmas is no time to be sad, so she decides to intervene. When she finally finds out exactly what’s going, she is more than a little surprised.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Then when you’re quite dressed - Written by @forthegenuine “Sorry, Sherlock gave you those earrings?” Mary asked again, though it did not appear to be because she did not hear Molly the first time. A delighted smile seemed to creep more visibly on her face. Written for 12 Days of Sherlolly 2017.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Twinkling Lights - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Part of the author’s First Kisses Series, AU of the first Christmas kiss.   (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

When the Ball Drops - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Months after the events of TFP, Sherlock asks Molly to accompany him on a case in New York. Unbeknownst to Molly, it is a case of the heart.  (On Ao3, Complete in 3 parts, Rated T)

Winter Dream - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Sherlock and Molly spend their first winter together as a couple. Based off of Kelly Clarkson’s Winter Dreams.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Wrapped In Red - Written by LadySolitaire83 (@ladysolitaire) Molly and Sherlock’s ‘quality time’ on Christmas Day is interrupted when she is called into work to autopsy a body. Meanwhile, he takes the case and investigates the murder. Will he solve the murder in time to give her an extra Christmas present?   (On Ao3, Complete, Rated E)

Wrapped In Red - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo How did Molly end up at 221B that night? What if Sherlock’s phone didn’t go off until a few minutes later at the Christmas party?  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

[melnchly-a]

i was debating posting this but here are a range of things to think about re: police and reform. 

i’m seeing a lot of “abolish the police” posts, and while i know exactly where that’s coming from, it’s also a simple-seeming answer to a deep and complex problem, and one that’s likely to cause more problems than you’re likely thinking. (in the absence of police, it’s likely - - though certainly not guaranteed - - that those who can afford it will invest more heavily in private security for businesses/personal protection/etc, whether that need is warranted or not. in the event of situations occurring that would have required police presence, you would likely see more federal law enforcement/military presence. worst-case, imagine a country led by someone like our current president where the only option is to send in federal agents and believe me, you don’t want that.) neither do you probably actually want to call for a mass exodus of police of their own volition. i can tell you right now the ones you want out wouldn’t be leaving. you’d be left with departments entirely composed of people with no qualms about excessive force. you WANT those people staying on the force, and you WANT them to have the resources they need to report on fellow officers when needed. 

it’s also just not likely to happen in any widespead way. not in our current society. if you want to create real change, there are other things that need to be addressed, campaigned for, and fixed. things which will not be fixed if we’re trying to focus on overly simple answers for deeply complex problems.

this isn’t to disagree with the notion of reallocating funding to benefit schools/public services/etc. i think that’s entirely necessary. but there’s more to the story than simply cutting funding. 

police need to address and apologize for excessive use of force and abuse over the history of policing. if not for individual officers who may or may not have participated, than for the historical precedent as a whole. pretending there isn’t a problem isn’t a help to anyone. 

as i’ve said multiple times in the past, police unions and those who negotiate with them make it notoriously difficult for departments to get rid of officers with complaints against them. the department in minneapolis is headed by a black chief of police who had sued his own department based on issues of race in the past. he should have been able to get rid of officers like c.hauvin with no issues and yet....obviously, that man was still on the force. there need to be ways for a.) departments to fire problem officers without someone over their heads reinstating them and b.) ways for officers to report on their fellow officers without repercussions. i can tell you right now that those methods don’t currently exist in any wide-spread or efficient/effective form.

body cams, dash cams, and other oversight tools need to a.) be “sold” more effectively to the police as measures of protecting BOTH themselves AND the citizens they serve. there ALSO need to be real consequences for tampering with these, turning them off, etc.

police need more training and they need higher-quality recruits. understaffed departments lead to issues you’ll see in places like flint, where it can take three hours or more for police to respond to a call. not because they’re (most of the time) doing anything wrong, but because there aren’t enough of them in comparison to the total population. this could include decisions like requiring college or college-like degrees, but that would also mean higher pay for police officers. which i realize isn’t a popular idea at the moment, but is a fact of those requirements. (furthermore, many city police in small to mid size cities, not to mention suburban police, don’t have adequate crowd-control training. this is not an excuse for the way police have been handling crowds in recent days, but it is something that has come up in discussions. many of them are reacting with excessive crowd-control measures where lesser measures were needed.) this training should absolutely include recognizing police brutality in the past, the racism in the system as a whole, recognition and response to explicit and implicit bias, recognizing mental health issues, etc. training is a problem every law-enforcement officer i’ve spoken to in the last few weeks, in an attempt to understand what’s happening, has brought up. the people i’ve spoken to have dedicated their lives to establishing mental health education for police, who have actively removed aggressive or racist officers in the past, etc. they’re just as frustrated and angry with the reactions police are displaying as you and i are. and they’re actively doing things to try to help. unions, government, etc make that more difficult than it should be. 

many police, particularly in large cities, don’t live in the cities/neighborhoods they’re policing. (many smaller, particularly suburban, departments require that their officers live in the town they work in.) sometimes this is because they can’t afford to (nypd officers start at around  $42,500/year - about $3,541/month or  $885/week BEFORE tax -  in a city where the median rent for a studio apartment sits at about  $2,700/month. these officers can obviously make more as they spend more time on the force, but that’s the stated starting salary according to their website. the salary after 5 1/2 years is $85,292). this means they don’t know the areas/people/etc they’re policing, are more likely to make snap judgments based on false information, etc. it wouldn’t solve everything, but rules for employment regarding residency could mean better policing in cities and their neighborhoods. 

for a profession that includes seeing things like scenes of murders, assaults, suicides, and wellness checks that lead to decomposing bodies, mental health care for police is abysmal. i mean it’s....bad in the u.s. in general, but it’s notoriously bad for active-duty military, veterans, and first responders...including police. this isn’t to mention that officers who self-report mental health problems are often put on leave rather than given the resources they need. this means compounded stress, trauma, etc, going unaddressed in a highly dangerous and stressful profession.

police DO handle more than they likely SHOULD be handling, including things like wellness checks, nonviolent domestic disputes, etc. more often than not, they’re doing so without specialized training for those situations. these should absolutely be divided out into unarmed (or lightly armed, i.e. with pepper spray etc), specially trained units. you’re still going to want armed police units to exist in the u.s. - - i can tell you for a fact that in my fairly quiet suburban hometown ALONE there have been active shooter/barricade/hostage situations that could not be deescalated without use of force, despite attempts to do so.

qualified immunity needs reform. you can read more about that here. this allows not only for officers to get away with police brutality, but for all public officials to get away with a wide range of crimes. 

we need to campaign for citizens to be integrated into police oversight. police are paid by taxpayer dollars, and they are meant to serve and protect the people. again, this is an issue for your local government and police unions. when you’re communicating with gov’t officials, make it clear that you want something like this implemented. 

and, yes, there need to be strong and immediate consequences for excessive use of force. 

i’m not saying any of this to make it seem like police brutality or the racism inherent in the law enforcement and justice systems doesn’t exist. it does, and it needs to be addressed. what i am saying is that addressing that is a more complex problem that requires deeper thought for successful reform. Black people, particularly men, are at leas 3x more likely to experience police brutality, and that needs to end. 

tl;dr, some things to be aware of, petition for, etc: 

charging and convicting police brutality as a crime (with the understanding that this means it should be treated as any crime in a court of law)

holding all first responders accountable for their actions.

allowing and enabling officers to respond to police brutality they’re witnessing, including training on how to intervene, better reporting methods, policies that would not punish them for reporting, etc 

reform in police unions

better police training in general

national standards for police training (believe it or not, these don’t currently exist)

better mental health care and mental health policies for police and other first responders 

citizen involvement, including in oversight

voting in state and local elections for officials who have plans to respond to these issues, and who are actively listening to their constituents 

reallocation of funding so that the funding is more equally spread to education and community support

Some Sources/ Further Reading: 

“How to reform American police, according to experts” from Vox

Police officer salary and benefits, NY Gov

“Adopt minimum national police use-of-force standards and train cops for interaction” USA Today

“‘An Impossible Situation’: How Chief Arradondo Has Struggled To Change The Minneapolis Police Department” CBS Minnesota

“What We Should Expect of the Police: Experts Weigh In On Recent Police Violence,” Center for American Progress

Police Reform, The Flip Side

The Center for Policing Equity

[realdennysalas-blog]

My Police Reform Agenda

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Those are the words that are etched into our memory, echoing the sentiment of our founding fathers towards the directive they were embarking on to create a nation free from tyranny. Those rights, restricted by servility towards the English Crown, moved a colony to form a nascent country that abided by these ideals.

Those ideals would form the bedrock of what we tell ourselves and others of what America is and means. We often repeat, ad nauseam, that by sacrifice and hard work, that every citizen — irrespective of race, color, sex, or creed — can reach the highest ideals of Americanism.

That is false.

Our history has been defined by the subjugation of black people. The original sin (stain) of slavery has never been reckoned with. We see it every day. We see it in the objectification of black people characterized as mindless bodies to be used for labor and sacrifice. We see it when our fellow citizens go through extraordinary lengths to avoid passing us on the same sidewalk for fear of their safety. We see it when a man is held down by a knee on his neck, gasping for air, crying out for his mother, no one coming to his aide, his eyes slowly closing as he takes his last breaths in this life.

The history of America has weighed on black Americans with blunt force trauma, that even the slightest flicker of hope, is often ignored and discarded as false vows towards a better future. These actions are often validated by the majority, thus solidifying the pain and frustration that we will never forge a path of true independence.

Those emotions of hopelessness, of specious promises from politicians - from both parties, have led to an eruption of anger and restlessness that have crowded towns and cities across America with a simple message: Enough is enough.

And that message must be heeded.

We can start with police reform. The time is now to implement the policy reforms that are needed to move forward to re-establish trust between our law enforcement officials and our communities.

In New York, we have had a long history of incidents between our police and communities of color that have exacerbated the relationship to the point of malignant mistrust. These reforms, if implemented at the city and state level, can engender a pathway forward that not only heals us but leads to safer streets with greater cooperation from communities that police are there to serve.

The following is no means an exhaustive list, but it’s a start for how we can proceed:

·      Repeal Law 50-a (making disciplinary records of NYPD public) and establish a statewide database of police misconduct complaints against officers. This section within the New York Civil Rights Law has been used as a cudgel against citizens who have sought personnel records of police officers and their possible history of misconduct. (Since passed by New York state)

·      Establish a statewide and citywide database on average response times for crimes in legislative districts. Often, when elected officials have called upon police reforms, we’ve seen response times suffer in distinct legislative districts due to retaliation. This must be tracked, and police precincts who practice these methods will have to be held accountable.

·      Require individual officers to pay for liability insurance. In FY 2018, 14,094 claims and lawsuits against New York City were resolved for $1.0 billion. That’s $1 billion of taxpayer funds that are being stripped away from essential services like education and public health — exhausting the racial inequality in our city — and instead used to pay for malfeasance. Liability insurance premiums and claims can be split by the city and officer, who likely will not have the resources to pay for claims, and leaving injured families unable to collect.

·      Strip the New York Police Department of its authority to issue press credentials and transfer the authority to the Mayor’s office.

·      Elevate false emergency calls to hate crimes with excessive fines if the perpetrator is found to have factored racial or sexual-orientation bias in calling the police against another citizen.

·      Eliminate tear gas from our police’s arsenal. Tear gas is not safe and can cause long-term respiratory issues that make it easier for humans to contract illnesses like COVID-19. Additionally, tear gas is banned in international warfare, but allowed for domestic “riot control” uses. How does that make sense?

·      On the federal level, remove qualified immunity. That statute has protected officers from liability in impeding an individual’s constitutional rights. In one case, officers were found immune to liability when they attempted to steal $225,000 when executing a search warrant.

·      Establish policies that require tamper-proof recordings of all police/civilian interactions, via body cams, that are available to the public. Body cam programs should include regulations that they aren’t used to surveil marginalized communities.

·      Increase the hiring of mental health professionals that ride-along with police addressing health checks. Often, those calls have a violent conclusion because officers are ill-equipped in dealing with citizens with mental health issues. The average officer receives only 8 hours of de-escalation training while receiving 58 hours of firearm training. More training is needed in this field while increasing the number of mental health professionals embedded with police officers.

This list of priorities is where we can start. With a little bit of courage and tenacity, we can implement policies that “bend the arc of the moral universe more towards justice” than we have before. Moreover, our law enforcement officers must hear from us that we appreciate them and need them. They are an indispensable cog in communities across our country, and when police officers carry out their mission of serving and protecting the citizenry, they display the courage and idolization that is often bestowed upon them for their acts of bravery that have saved so many.

We must also acknowledge that our police officers are often called upon to witness some of the worst incidents that humanity has to offer. Those incidents — whether it be child abuse, rape, and murders — affect the mental well-being of our officers. Witnessing those circumstances can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, and reaching out for assistance to cope with these issues has not been successful.

In New York City, the rate of suicides among NYPD officers is higher than for other residents of our city. And, according to some studies, as many as 34 percent of our officers suffer from symptoms reminiscent of PTSD. PTSD has severe adverse effects that can alter a person’s behavior and well-being. Now imagine the consequences of not addressing those issues when law enforcement officials interact with civilians in a high-stress situation. The result could lead to a fatal event.

To offer support for our law enforcement officials, we need to implement the following:

·      Mandatory Mental Health Check-Ups. Our city has to fund programs that make it mandatory for our police officers to receive help on a schedule designated by their commanding officer to seek assistance from mental health professionals.

·      Substance abuse counseling. Many of our officers have sought substances to cope with the daily rigors of the role they serve. We must get rid of the stigma from within their ranks that question their toughness by seeking help when experiencing a traumatic event on the job.

·      Higher base-pay and establishing a bonus structure for good policing. These are dangerous jobs, and we want to welcome the best and brightest to serve within NYPD’s ranks. We should restructure the salary to include higher wages and a performance-based bonus structure for good policing.

Our city and country are on the cusp of implementing real change to improve the conditions in which we live. Racial equity and justice are not going to solved by effecting these policies, but if we do, we can move forward in addressing the other systems of inequities that have long permeated within our city. Systems that are often addressed as individual silos, well aware that they’re not mutually exclusive or divorced from improvements needed in our education system, or having economic opportunity, but this is where we can begin.

Denny Salas is a 2021 NYC City Council candidate for District 1 in Manhattan. 

[dtsugabby]

BTS Fic Rec

Bear with me, I’m trying to organize all of my recs from various sources. In the meantime, check out below and also my ao3 bookmarks here if what’s below isn’t enough!

A U T H O R S

Basically, I’d rec anything by these authors. They are incredibly talented and I always enjoy their works.

 dirtysope (ao3, also on twitter)

wispyoongi (ao3, also on twitter)

pauline (twitter)

bri (twitter)

kaythebest (ao3)

metastacia (ao3)

babiesko_o (twitter)

moonlitaehyung (twitter)

bloom (twitter)

F I C S

Twitter

<History> sope au in which murder mystery writer Yoongi joins a new dating app that connects people based on their internet search history. He’s matched up with Hoseok, who, unbeknownst to him, is a notorious serial killer all over the news.

jikook au where idol jimin is having a competition, whoever has the highest scores on his superstar app gets to go on a date with him. only one problem, 90% of the songs have an unbeatable high score all from the same user, "jjklovespjm". that user happens to be the idol jungkook

jikook au where jimin and jungkook are new roommates and jimin finds jungkooks hidden stash of yaoi and boylove manga under his bed but it's funny bc jungkook is straight.

jikook au where jimin and jungkook are both gay af but they think the other is straight. so, they act extremely heterosexual around each other, causing them to believe the other is straight even more. this only leads to awkward conversations and situations.

「 euphoria 」   ✧ jikook au ✧ -in which they were childhood friends. later on they both become part of different rival musical groups, and one day jm finds a love letter from jk which he wrote years ago.

jikook au where well known ceo, jeon jungkook, is seen as a huge playboy by media and the public. nobody knows that hes been married to his childhood best friend for 6 years and has a son.

Jikook AU} Whiskey   In which Jungkook comes back traumatized from war and Jimin is the bartender who lives next door. One day, as he’s coming back from work, he sees Jungkook sitting in his front porch, a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

NamJin AU In which for some reason Seokjin is just really really convinced that Namjoon is a witch. Joon found it interesting and keep taking Jin on a date, disguising it as a "prove research"

taekook au Jeongguk tries breaking up with his boyfriend through an AirDrop note but accidentally sends it to Taehyung instead, which of course, leads to a series of unfortunate events.

[jikook au] where youtuber jimin reacts to jungkook's video and jimin is introduced to the mess that is jeon jungkook

「 vminkook 」♡ hidden where taehyung finds this very popular vminkook stan account that he shows to jimin and jungkook and they spend the whole night laughing at the edits, aus and posts. what they don't know is that jungkook is the person running the account.

「 jikook au 」♤ little do you know when popular kid jeon jungkook's crush is revealed to be a certain park jimin everyone assumes it's cheerleader and social butterfly girl jimin and not nerdy bookworm boy jimin

「 jikook au 」◇ encounter park jimin's idol group makes an appearance on the hottest variety show in korea. he has a big fat secret crush on one of the hosts, jeon jungkook who is very clearly flirting with his fellow member, min yoongi - so jimin becomes petty on national tv.

[NAMJIN AU] “SKY HIGH” Seokjin is a flight attendant who keeps clashing with HR. He gets a final warning letter with one last chance. Desperate, he offers to give a passenger a blowjob in exchange for not writing a complaint, not knowing the other’s true identity...

Jimin is a single father and his little son is the biggest fan of the worldwide known singer Jeon Jeongguk~

[ jikook au ] - show me:  where jimin sent jungkook nudes over twitter but those pictures wouldn’t load on jungkook’s phone so he just replies with an ‘lmao’

[jikook au] solo artist, jeon jungkook, is getting married.

jikook social media au in which jungkook is a very famous kpop idol in the middle of his world tour and jimin is a small nsfw twt acc their worlds collide when korea’s favorite idol accidentally likes a tweet on the latter’s account

yoonseok!au in which hoseok accidentally drunk texts yoongi instead of his ex

yoonseok au where yoongi accidentally sends the wrong picture to his coworker hoseok

Yoonseok/SOPE AU In which amateur police detective Min Yoongi has to solve a series of public murder cases with no witnesses while being assisted by murderer and conman Jung Hoseok who agreed to help as it can shorten his prison sentence

<YOONSEOK/SOPE AU> in which Hoseok confesses to his long-time crush, Yoongi, by sending him a Spotify playlist. Oblivious to what’s going on, Yoongi goes ahead and drags his music choices. [mostly crack and fluff tbh]

[ jikook au ] - time where jimin can see a person’s lifespan and knows that his own time is limited but discovers that whenever he shares physical contact with jungkook he gains time but the thing is they hate each other

[jikook au] — the list nsfw in which jungkook just wants to go grocery shopping and jimin sends him an unexpected list

jikook au where jimin is a popular beauty youtuber, known for his lipstick looks. jungkook is a gaming/vlog youtuber who finally gets the confidence to post his own makeup tutorials that hes been filming for months (secretly) after discovering jimin.

jikook au where jungkook has tattoos, lots of piercings, and always wears black. jimin thinks hes dangerous and bad, until he sees jungkook with a pokemon lunchbox surrounded by dogs at the park one day.

AO3

Dynasty (series, completed, sope, taenamjin, jikook) Royal AU, slight fantasy?, I cried several times 

“Hundreds of years ago, the Gods intertwine the lives of seven boys. They suffer through war, heartache, & separation, but with the help of the Fates & their inner wolves, they all try to find their happy endings.

abo au universe on twitter;; https://twitter.com/dirtysope/status/1054116662620778496″

Peaches (series, incomplete, sope, namjin, vminkook) BDSM 101, somehow the most adorable thing ever, all commissioned

“A very nsfw modern setting AU which is centered around the boys exploring their sexualities predominantly through BDSM. The main ships are Sope, Namjin, and Vminkook, but various pairings will be explored in poly situations in shared BDSM scenes.”

Infinity (series, incomplete, sope, vmin) Vampire AU, all commissioned (I’m part of the commission group!!), sope are soulmates wbk

“This is an OT7 vampire universe that involves all seven of the boys. Main pairings will be Sope, Vminkook, and Namjin. This is your warning for darker themes⚠️ There will be compulsion, mind control, gaslighting, possessive behavior, violence, death, murder, & angst. ~no toxicity occurs within the ships~ Blood drinking will be very relevant and featured heavily!”

Charmed (series, complete?, sope-centric) HP AU! So cute, my first dirtywisp fic and tied for my favorite HP au in the fandom

“Bangtan in the Harry Potter universe.”

Infectious (chaptered, complete, sope, yoonmin, namjin, taekook, jikook, vmin, vminkook) THE zombie apocalypse AU, very angst filled, major character death, semi-happy ending (if you discount the MCD)

“During the first leg of their US tour, BTS, depleted, weary, tempers flaring, step on the stage for the second night of concerts. Little do they know, this is not going to be like any other show of their lives--instead before the end of the first song they are going to be on the run against what they can only call a zombie attack. Determined to stay alive until BigHit can rescue them, BTS is forced to be smart, resourceful, and get over themselves to survive.”

Hand In Hand (chaptered, incomplete, namgi) adoption au, disabilities au, i cried literal tears several times

“Namjoon, a sign language professor, and Yoongi, a songwriter, got certified to foster. But, they never expected that would open the door to love, heartache, pain, and most importantly, family. But, as they figure out this "dad-thing" hand-in-hand, they realize that family isn't made up of blood, it's the love that they have for each other.~or~ Namjoon's a deaf college professor Yoongi is his husband and a songwriter Seokjin is their case manager Hoseok, Jungkook, Tae and Jimin are kiddos with their own set of challenges and triumphs“

Heart of War (chaptered, incomplete, namjin, taegi, jihope) royal au

“For the protection of his people, Prince Seokjin has to marry his fiancé’s killer: the alpha king of the most ruthless and feared kingdom in all the lands with a reputation of being a cold blooded monster on the battlefield. Worst of all, the omega prince doesn't even speak their language.“

Until Dawn (series, incomplete, jikook, sope, namjin) fantasy creatures au, 100/10, tae is in it too, they all come together to save the world from various disasters major and minor, read this series

“The Documented Adventures of Your Favorite Local Supernatural Gang”

Raspberry Vodka (chaptered, complete, jikook) college au, misunderstandings

““You don’t have to make excuses.” Jimin crosses the room and Jungkook follows him to the doorway, all the words he wants to say jumbling together in his head but never making it to his lips. He wants to tell Jimin he’s just inexperienced and way too drunk and all he needs is a second to calm down and reassess his thoughts before he throws up from stress, but Jimin is already opening the door and stepping out into the hallway and oh god, he needs to say something.“I’m a virgin!” Jungkook shouts.“

Like A Hard Carry (chaptered, complete, namjin, yoonminseok, taekook) overwatch au, social media au

“In which: Jungkook, a popular Twitch streamer with both the self-esteem of a wilted piece of lettuce and the impulse control of suicidal squirrel, convinces his best friend Jimin to do a livestream for him; RM, captain of a pro Overwatch team, is suddenly missing a sniper; Jin, in an attempt to make things better, just makes them worse; Hoseok screams in various different volumes and moods; V, a pro-gamer, finds an incredible sniper, a cute boy, and a crush, making the mistake to think that they’re all the same person; Yoongi isn’t sure which one of his friends is going to make him die from second-hand stupidity first; and Jimin is caught in the middle of a love triangle that he’s not ACTUALLY a part of, one that he actually is a part of, and that fact that no matter how much Jungkook tries, Jimin will always be absolutely terrible at Overwatch.“

Vocal Princess (chaptered, complete, yoonmin) crossdressing on a dare au, yoongi is very gay and very confused, Jimin is embarrassed and trying his best

“Fed up with his inability to understand women, Jimin's sister dresses him like a girl. Jimin finds himself working with a producer, Yoongi, and donning his disguise for much longer than he intended. Jimin wonders if he’s losing his mind or if he’s really falling for a guy. Meanwhile, Yoongi is VERY GAY AND VERY CONFUSED WHY HE’S SO ATTRACTED TO THIS WOMAN IN HIS STUDIO. aka Jimin dresses as a girl and Yoongi has a heterosexual crisis.“

City of Stars (chaptered, complete, namgi) hanahaki au, so so good, but fr, FUCK THE ENDING

“hanahaki disease: an illness where the victim regurgitates and coughs up flower petals when they suffer from unrequited love. this can only be cured through surgical removal, however the victim's romantic feelings for their love disappear along side with the infection. yoongi starts coughing petals for namjoon, a witch with a constellation of stars glowing on his cheeks – except, flowers aren't the only things ripping his insides apart.“

jung hoseok writes instruction manuals (while stupidly in love) (series, complete?, sope) so so fluffy and cute, list au

listen to my heart (can you hear it sing) (chaptered, complete, namjin-centric) abo au, namjoon is a big dummy but we love him

“Seokjin wasn't his, but he was still as every bit of 'his' as the rest of the wolves in the pack, and Namjoon was going to have to learn to live with that.In which Namjoon constantly, to everyone's disappointment, fucks up.“

delta (chaptered, complete, namgiseok) very very good poly rapline, canon divergence?, angst but happy resolution

“He was the last person Namjoon expected to hear from - thought he was dreaming when he saw the email in his work inbox. It was short and simple, typical Hoseok. Just: We saw what happened. We’re so sorry. If you need get away for awhile, you’re always welcome to come stay with us - JH. He wonders now if Hoseok was surprised when he said yes. If Hoseok only extended the invitation because he didn’t think Namjoon would actually come.(Or: Namjoon chose a solo career and left Yoongi and Hoseok behind. Seven years later, after being outed by a Korean tabloid, he ends up on their couch in Queens, trying to face an uncertain future. And confront feelings that have persisted for nearly a decade.)“

Good Friends (series, complete?, yoonmin, namjin, taekook, vhope) hilarious, misunderstandings, college au

“Yoongi likes to brag to his friends about his boyfriend. Jimin likes to brag to his friends about his boyfriend. Little do they know there's actually crossover in their friend groups.”

Just Another Game (chaptered, incomplete, yoongi x everyone, many side pairings) a n g s t, I am a beta on this fic, great writing, author is interactive

“Set during 2019, after their world tour and after Answer's release. Min Yoongi's career has put him in bisexual hell: living with six hot bandmates who think it's really funny to flirt and get handsy with him and with each other all the time. Between constant struggles like not knowing whether he and Jimin nearly made out while drunk, to bed sharing with Jungkook every other night, to not being sure how to stop imagining what it'd be like to kiss Namjoon, it's only a matter of time before he loses his mind as he realizes he's in love with six perfect but very straight boys. After Yoongi drunkenly comes out as bi, he can’t remember the confession the next day. Taken by surprise, the boys lightheartedly start a competition to see who Yoongi finds the most attractive in the group. The objective is set to getting a kiss from Yoongi before he finds out about the competition. Though they mean well, things go downhill fast for all of them. As they each realize they are attracted to Yoongi, they start taking things too far beyond what they’d signed up for.”

eternal sunshine (oneshot, complete, sope) canon au, i commissioned this fic!!, I love it so much, slight angst then fluffy sexy times

“Yoongi is having a rough day at practice. He's not focused on the choreo, and no matter how hard he tries he just can't seem to get anything right. But luckily for him he has Hoseok, and he always knows how to put Yoongi's broken pieces back together. “

offer me your deathless death (yoongi is a serial killer!AU) (series, incomplete, yoonmin, namjin, vhope) a bit of an odd read but I loved it, dark, not what you think, pulls at heartstrings

“a peak into the lives of the rich and the powerful (non-linear; no specific order of stories)Notes:mainly yoonmin, but there's namjin and vhope too! :D (also known as the jimin is a ceo!AU and the namjoon is a hospital-owner-person!AU)”

to the moon and back (chaptered, complete, vmin, vminkook) vmin are supernatural hunters, poor kookie, something’s not quite right in this town 

“"The other kids think that Jimin is strange. And he is, to be fair. Sometimes Jimin talks to people that aren’t there. Sometimes he starts crying, randomly, and then a moment later the wailing siren of an ambulance or police car can be heard outside. Sometimes he just shuts down and won’t talk to anyone." Jimin and Taehyung are basically professionals. When they're called in to deal with a werewolf terrorizing a small town, they know the deal. Things are rarely as they seem.”

Spine Breaker (chaptered, complete, sope, namjin, taekook) hunger games/ready player one au, video game brought to real life, plot twists, angst but a happy ending

“The clock is ticking, Jeon Jeongguk only has two bottles of water, one lunchbox, and ten bombs with which he has to kill six people if he wants to live. He's just eighteen and the only experience he has throwing bombs includes sitting in front of his screen, smashing buttons on his controller and swearing at his longstanding in-game rival, VforVictory. Someone has recreated the hit warfare videogame, Spine Breaker, and although Kim Seokjin is the mascot of the game, he knows nothing about how to play it but now finds himself launched in the middle of a stranded island, his bombs missing, his glasses smashed, and a pursuer who wants something more sinister than just his death. Min Yoongi knows why he's here. He knows why everyone is here, but his battles had begun long ago. The clock is ticking and Yoongi is running out of time, but he knows that zero is not the end. It's kill or be killed.”

The Shaman and the Exorcist (chaptered, complete, namjin-centric) SO GOOD, ghost hunter au, seokjin is a fake bitch and namjoon is pissed, angst angst angst, ok ending though

“Seokjin doesn't believe in ghosts. Which would cause a huge uproar if everyone knew since he's kind of a big deal at his university; he's a shaman who protects people from evil spirits. He doesn't remember where he got the idea to do this from, all he knows is that superstitious people pay good money. Namjoon does believe in ghosts. Better yet, he can see them and he can expel them. But there's a certain phoney shaman at his university who's stealing all his clients in his exorcism business, and he's not happy about it because haunted people pay good money. So, what do they do? Figure out whose closet is holding all the skeletons, of course.“

charmed (oneshot, complete, namjin) very cute, existential, seokjin got tricked boo hoo

“"So you’re not going to eat me?" Seokjin asks, just to confirm."Why would I eat you?" "Because you’re a dragon," Seokjin says slowly, because it should be obvious, despite Namjoon not looking very dragon-y at all. Namjoon looks unimpressed. "I may be a dragon, but I’m not an animal."”

Monster Private Eye (series, incomplete, namjin, vhope, jikook) funniest thing ever, namjoon is a detective and kook is his assistant, tae is a mess, jimin is an idol, solve crimes be gay 

“Kim Namjoon (klutz, genius, poet, private investigator) solves cases for the unusual and secretive clientele of Monster Private Investigator. His assistant, Jeon Jungkook (big muscles, bigger heart) helps out. Each story revolves around Namjoon taking on the request of a different member (noted in the title), for a total of 7 cases in this collection, all from Namjoon’s POV. Members also appear in chapters that are not focused on them. All works can stand alone, but I suggest that you read them in order to fully enjoy the characters and relationships as they grow. Enjoy!“

bts hogwarts au (series, incomplete, vmin, namjin, sope) my other favorite HP au, set in the same time as the books but focused on the boys instead with their own storyline, angst, fluff, dealing with coming out and accepting yourself and others

“a series of non-linear snapshots of bangtan’s life at hogwarts. [all ships are main ships] green: yoongi, jimin, jeongguk. red: seokjin, namjoon. yellow: hoseok, taehyung.”

creating a home (series, incomplete, namjin) foster parents namjin kids all the other members, heart wrenching, fluff, would read again and again, follows them as they grow up

“A BTS Foster Care AU”

the professor’s family (series, incomplete?, namjin, taekook) professor! namjin, jungkook is his student, poor kookie, he has the hots for tae

“Professor Kim Namjoon is married. He doesn't have a wife. They have a sort-of son. And Jeon Jungkook just crossed paths with them.”

More to be added!!

[foreveratlas]

Chronicles of an Elf 6

Links to Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, and Episode 5.

Episode 6: New Routines

Light spilled through the high window that was suspended well above the plain mattress in the small room that Luka was granted. The beam cascaded at just the right angle to shine obnoxiously across her face if she were laying. The irony was that it wasn’t morning. The light was being shined through by an outside sconce illuminating the fortresses outer walls. Instead she stood, appraising her new home after a long day of being in the sweltering heat of the forge with Tomlan. She grinded her teeth at the thought of him and turned to face the doorway.

Time was a concept that Luka was about as familiar with as anything else. Morning was morning. Afternoon was afternoon. Evening was evening. So staring up at the circular device with three extensions, one ticking away in a direction around the face while the two others moved far more slowly, gave her pause. It was placed just above the doorway into her quarters.

    “That’s a clock,” a familiar yet unfamiliar voice said. Tetra stood in her doorway in the female form that Luka had seen earlier. “It’s used to tell time.”

    Luka frowned. “Why didn’t the bunker have one?”

    Tetra shrugged. “It requires power or batteries. Scavenging for pre-cataclysm batteries is a bit of a hassle and the electricity we were able to use had be used conservatively. Knowing the time wasn’t really a necessity.”

    “A necessity? You kept me locked in a bunker for years and you want to talk about necessity?”

    Tetra let out a long sigh that caused her shoulders to slump. “When it comes to elves, it’s incredibly hard to know who to trust outside of us. You were chained to a tree for a reason, and though that reason hasn’t been made apparent, the fact was that the culprits could have been on either side of the border.” She came closer and dragged the chair from the desk against the wall with her and sat down. “You need to understand that outside of our own kind, elves are either hated or coveted.”

    “Coveted?” Luka asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

    “The human nations have a habit of wanting us for perverse reasons. Draconians are either neutral to us or want to destroy us for whatever war they happened to be in with us. Umbrans aren’t known to be the most likable of the realm. Sylvarians are usually detested for being…”

    “Snobby?” Luka interjected.

    Tetra chuckled. “That’s better than the word I was going to use.”

    “And Temprests?”

    “Surprisingly, the least despised. Probably because they keep to themselves in the great forests.”

    “So you kept me sheltered and ignorant, out of what… concern? And why didn’t you get Laon involved prior to now?”

    “Because the idea was to work the case on my own so not to draw attention from possible connections and leads. I wasn’t sure I could trust Laon completely, and you even migrating South into the capital has not only put a target on your back but has also basically informed the world that an Umbran managed to get into continent’s most fortified city without much effort.”

    Luka pursed her lips in response before adding, “But what about us being attacked on the side of the road?”

    Tetra shook her head. “An unfortunate event. They had been looking for you for over a decade prior to that point. It was carelessness on my part.”

    “They followed us back to the bunker.”

    “More carelessness on my part.”

    “They got Whilsk!” Luka cried, kicking the leg of the bed.

    “That I can assure you did not happen.”

    “And how can you be so sure? Whilsk can’t use magic because she’s not a pure elf.”

    “That doesn’t mean she isn’t capable. Whilsk’s official title is the Weapons Master. Not to mention, she is a Shadow Arts genius. The Fire Dragon Priestess’s guards were trained by Whilsk over a hundred years ago. Those teachings remain the core of their abilities today.”

    Luka realized that she was very much a child in comparison to Tetra and Whilsk. Her life was still very much beginning. Tetra, known as the Blight of Sylvarnia and Whilsk, the Weapons Master. She felt like she truly didn’t know them after all. Who was she to them? They were trying to baby sit her while also trying to solve a case.

    “Whilsk will be ok. I’d be more surprised if she hadn’t already murdered everyone involved in the infiltration,” Tetra chuckled.

    Luka sighed. “So what will happen now?”

    “Now,” Tetra said, puffing her chest out. “I go find her.”

    “Will she even recognize you?”

    Tetra took a moment to appraise herself. First her arms and then her torso and stomach, then her thighs and shins. She spun around absently and before nodding. “Whilsk is very much aware of my ability to change my gender based on how I feel.”

    “How is that even a thing?”

    “It’s specific to elven blights as we kind of already bridge the idea of—look that’s not the point. The point is, I can do this. Do you have a problem with that?”

    Luka shook her head. “Absolutely not. Just offended that you would keep me in the dark for so long about this and other things.”

    Tetra sighed. “I understand. Believe me when I tell you that it was all for your benefit, I promise.”

    Luka rolled her eyes.

    “I’ll be gone for a while. I plan to find Whilsk and the source of the attack on the bunker. Stay here and try not to draw unnecessary attention.”

    “I’m apparently going to be working with a blacksmith. I’ll never see the light of day, so you won’t have to worry about that.”

    “Don’t give me that. Laon wants you to earn your stay. Everyone who is in this fortress has a job. You get a place to sleep, food, and a wage for doing what you’re supposed to do.”

    “Sounds like a lucrative means of keeping everyone in line,” Luka spat.

    “It’s about making sure everyone has a place to sleep and a roof over their heads. Not everyone may enjoy their jobs, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like the perks.”

    “And do you not like your job, Commander?” a new voice asked. Ultima stood in the doorway holding two duffle bags over one shoulder. A large claymore hung across his back.

    Tetra smirked. “I never said I didn’t. But that’s neither here nor there.”

    Ultima snorted. “We’re phantoms in fifteen.”

    Tetra nodded as the prince walked away. She then turned to face Luka once. Her appearance began to change once again, slowly returning to the masculine form Luka was used to seeing. At a head taller than before, Tetra stared down at Luka and took her by the shoulders. “Going forward, you will need to be your own person. You will need to take accountability for yourself. Whilsk and I won’t be able to help you anymore. Now you’ve got to stand on your own two feet. Even when I bring Whilsk, it will be obvious that she won’t be able to walk away from this place like she could before. Now she will be forced to return to this life. I didn’t want that for you or for her. Do you understand?”

    Luka nodded.

    “I’ll see you in a few days if everything goes according to plan.”

    “And if it doesn’t?” Luka asked.

    “Then I won’t be seeing you at all, I imagine.” Tetra gave a sad smile, patted Luka on the head, and turned to leave. “You’ll have to find those answers on who you are and where you came from on your own without me.”

    “Can’t say I’m happy about that.”

    Tetra shook his head. “No. I imagine you won’t be happy with the outcome either.” And with that, Tetra turned to leave, moving out into the hall and out of sight.

    Luka watched the door for a long while, hoping for something to change in its appearance, or for Tetra to return out of nowhere with Whilsk acting like all of this was a joke and that they were ready to go home. But the idea of home felt miles away, and Luka realized that the bunker was not a place she could easily return to anytime soon. Or maybe ever. She felt a tremor creep across her heart, causing her breath to come cascading through her lips. It was a new anxiety, one she wouldn’t understand until much later.

    Her stomach growled, but she ignored the hunger that had been building up. Slowly, she closed the door in her disdain, deciding sleep was better than sating her appetite.

    Luka woke before the sun rose the next morning and after dressing in an outfit that was more suitable to work in the forge than the armor she had on the day prior (yet keeping her traveling gloves on anyway), she made her way around the fort. Beyond the guards and soldiers that made their rounds, eyeing her suspiciously, she didn’t meet anyone else. She imagined that the reason they didn’t stop her to give her any trouble was due to Tetra or Ultima or maybe even Laon making a statement to leave her alone. Her wandering led her to a kitchen where a few draconians were setting up for the first meal of the day.

    “Breakfast won’t be served until seven-thirty,” a massive man with a great big beard said upon Luka’s appearance. She noticed that he looked human in origin, which was insane for how tall he was. But his girth was just as impressive. He was thick, well fed, but equipped with muscles all across his arms and chest. His skin was pale and mottled in light brown spots across his nose and cheeks and forehead and his hair and beard were both the brightest orange and red she had over seen on someone.

    “Seven thirty?” Luka repeated, twisting her nose slightly at the number.

    “About two hours,” he said again as he began to stack pan after pan after on the wide counter. When Luka didn’t respond, he sighed. “Can you tell time?” he asked.

    Luka slowly shook her head, her cheeks darkening in a mixture of shame and embarrassment.

His face turned to look at a large clock was mounted to the wall above a massive freezer door. “Do you see that?” he pointed. Luka nodded. “The long hand tells you the minute. The fat, short hand tells you the hour. So the fat short hand is pointed at a five, and the long hand is pointed at seven. Minutes go by five. So fat short hand is at five, long hand is at seven, count from the twelve: five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five, thirty, and thirty five. It’s five thirty five. Do you understand?”

Luka nodded. Telling time was easier than she anticipated. Not as easy as understand that mornings were when the some comes up and the world was mostly cool; noon was when the sun was at its highest point; and evening was when the sun was beginning to set. Night was dark. But this pinpointed time for her a bit more easily. Her stomach growled suddenly, loud enough for the larger man to hear.

He let out a loud snort. “Looks like you wont make it to breakfast.” He turned from her, opened a large cabinet and grabbed two apples, a banana, and hunk of bread, delivering the bounty to Luka on plate that must have been made of tin. As he approached, Luka realized just how big the guy was as his hand was almost twice the size of the plate.

“Thank you,” she said, almost surprised as he pushed the food in front of her. “Why are you being so nice?”

“Life isn’t easy for someone who doesn’t look like everyone else here. I’m Borg,” he nodded.

“Lukanay Fial. Luka for short,” she said as she took the hunk of bread and tore it in half. She then held up a half section to Borg.

He smiled warmly, “No, no little Luka. That’s for you. I ate already. Have you seen the size of me? I can’t keep this astounding physique without constantly eating!” he gave a hearty laugh and returned to setting up for the day. Luka ate the banana and an apple along with one of the pieces of bread. Borg gave her a bag to keep the rest in for later if she got hungry.

As Luka stood up to leave, Borg called over his shoulder, “Come by any time, little Luka.” She smiled and waved as she left with her bag in hand.

Luka arrived at the large doors to the forge. To her dismay they were unlocked and the fires were already beginning to glow. The large room that was dedicated to Draconia and Fort Dragoon’s armor and weapon making was mostly void of people, but she could make out a few individuals going through their morning routines to set up their fires.

Tomlan was one of those people. When Luka found him, he was stoking the coal with a long prod. A stack of billets of different colors were already set out to the side. He looked up to see Luka as she approached. “You’re early, Umbran.”

“When did you expect me to show up?” She asked.

“I didn’t. Put your apron and gloves on, we have a large order to fill.”

Luka set aside her bag with her bread and apple and pulled on the heavy leather apron and the thick gloves. She flexed her hands in them slowly, feeling how two sets of gloves worked together. She realized she would be handling iron, and thus her skin began to itch in response. The multiple pairs of gloves would definitely help her avoid her allergy.

“We have three swords to make and a battle axe head to get started on before noon. Grab two billets and lets get to work.”

Luka realized after a few hours of holding a billet down as Tomlan folded the piece over and over that he wasn’t well liked by the other blacksmiths. Draconians weren’t affected by flames or heat the same way Tomlan and she was. If they wore gloves, it was for the sake of grip and not for the sake of avoiding being burned. If they wore aprons, they were made of cloth, while Tomlan and Luka’s were made of leather in the event sparks were to hit them. He spent more time on individual blades as well. Many times Luka heard area blacksmiths chiding him as he worked diligently heat, hammer, and fold billets. Some even said he folded the metal too much. But Tomlan ignored them. Even when one particular Dragonian “accidentally” knocked Tomlan’s stacked billets over, he didn’t stop his progress. He kept working to ensure his products would get to a satisfying point.

Once a soon-to-be-blade reached enough folds, he taught Luka how to take a metal, “Spring Steel,” he called it, and fold it into the middle of the billet. “This will add shock absorption,” he noted. Once that combination was well heated, he began to hammer in quick succession turning the billet over until it began to elongate into the vague shape of a blade. His heating process was methodical, and he made sure his timing was exact, never wasting a minute in the process. When one billet was set into the fire to be heated, another was pulled forth from the embers, glowing yellow to be hammered further.

Three long broadswords were the end result of such a process, and though they were rough, Luka could tell how they were powerful and well made. The sun was shining through the open end of the room.

Tomlan cursed as he pulled the billet he had been heating from the forge for the axe head. Luka came close to see what his issue was. “This billet is inferior,” he said without giving much of an explanation, but she could see what he meant. Unlike his other billets that she had worked on with him, this one had crumbled along the one side and a large gaping hole could be seen.

Laughter could be heard from across the forge. “How’s the billet treating you, Tomlan?” one of the Draconians called. “Does it not meet your high standards?”

Tomlan spat into the fire and dropped the bad billet back into the flames. He turned to look at the pile of billets that had been knocked over earlier. He grabbed two and felt their weight before tossing them aside. Luka watched curiously before he finally grabbed one he was satisfied with and thrust it into the fire. “We should have been done with the first fold by now.”

“How long will it take for this one to heat?”

“Too long.”

“That can’t be helped,” Luka said before pulling off the top set of thick gloves.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m hungry,” Luka stamped. Tomlan pursed his lips in response. She grabbed the bag that Borg had given to her earlier and pulled out the hunk of bread and the apple. She noticed Tomlan watching her. “Have you eaten yet?” she asked.

“That’s not concern of yours,” he snapped.

She frowned and broke the bread in half along the with the apple and handed him a piece of each. He refused at first but she forced the food into his hands. “You need to eat.”

For a moment, Luka worried he was going to throw the food into the fire and perhaps Tomlan was seriously considering it. But instead, he pulled off his gloves with his teeth and proceeded to eat the modest bounty Luka had shared.

As she ate in silence, Tomlan asked, “Why are you wearing two sets of gloves?”

She looked over curiously to find his expression had changed. She then looked to the tight leather traveling gloves on her palms. “I’m allergic,” she began before choosing her words carefully, “to certain things. Touching them causes extreme reactions to my skin. I always wear a pair of gloves so I don’t accidentally touch something and burn myself without realizing it.”

Tomlan was silent for a moment to her response before nodding. Just as he was about to say something, a messenger came up to him, departing a letter with him.

He took a moment to read it before frowning. “Twelve daggers and four full breast plates by the end of the week?” The messenger shrugged.

“Breaks over,” he sighed. “Our order has just increased on top of what we haven’t finished already.”

Luka frowned but for the first time since she started working with Tomlan, noticed a bit of warmth emanating toward him.

CONTINUE ON TO EPISODE 7!

[s-c-i-guy]

Troubled Times for Alternatives to Einstein’s Theory of Gravity

New observations of extreme astrophysical systems have “brutally and pitilessly murdered” attempts to replace Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

Miguel Zumalacárregui knows what it feels like when theories die. In September 2017, he was at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Saclay, near Paris, to speak at a meeting about dark energy and modified gravity. The official news had not yet broken about an epochal astronomical measurement — the detection, by gravitational wave detectors as well as many other telescopes, of a collision between two neutron stars — but a controversial tweet had lit a firestorm of rumor in the astronomical community, and excited researchers were discussing the discovery in hushed tones.

Zumalacárregui, a theoretical physicist at the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, had been studying how the discovery of a neutron-star collision would affect so-called “alternative” theories of gravity. These theories attempt to overcome what many researchers consider to be two enormous problems with our understanding of the universe. Observations going back decades have shown that the universe appears to be filled with unseen particles — dark matter — as well as an anti-gravitational force called dark energy. Alternative theories of gravity attempt to eliminate the need for these phantasms by modifying the force of gravity in such a way that it properly describes all known observations — no dark stuff required.

At the meeting, Zumalacárregui joked to his audience about the perils of combining science and Twitter, and then explained what the consequences would be if the rumors were true. Many researchers knew that the merger would be a big deal, but a lot of them simply “hadn’t understood their theories were on the brink of demise,” he later wrote in an email. In Saclay, he read them the last rites. “That conference was like a funeral where we were breaking the news to some attendees.”

The neutron-star collision was just the beginning. New data in the months since that discovery have made life increasingly difficult for the proponents of many of the modified-gravity theories that remain. Astronomers have analyzed extreme astronomical systems that contain spinning neutron stars, or pulsars, to look for discrepancies between their motion and the predictions of general relativity — discrepancies that some theories of alternative gravity anticipate. These pulsar systems let astronomers probe gravity on a new scale and with new precision. And with each new observation, these alternative theories of gravity are having an increasingly hard time solving the problems they were invented for. Researchers “have to sweat some more trying to get new physics,” said Anne Archibald, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam.

Searching for Vulcan

Confounding observations have a way of leading astronomers to desperate explanations. On the afternoon of March 26, 1859, Edmond Lescarbault, a young doctor and amateur astronomer in Orgères-en-Beauce, a small village south of Paris, had a break between patients. He rushed to a tiny homemade observatory on the roof of his stone barn. With the help of his telescope, he spotted an unknown round object moving across the face of the sun.

He quickly sent news of this discovery to Urbain Le Verrier, the world’s leading astronomer at the time. Le Verrier had been trying to account for an oddity in the movement of the planet Mercury. All other planets orbit the sun in perfect accord with Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation, but Mercury appeared to advance a tiny amount with each orbit, a phenomenon known as perihelion precession. Le Verrier was certain that there had to be an invisible “dark” planet tugging on Mercury. Lescarbault’s observation of a dark spot transiting the sun appeared to show that the planet, which Le Verrier named Vulcan, was real.

It was not. Lescarbault’s sightings were never confirmed, and the perihelion precession of Mercury remained a puzzle for nearly six more decades. Then Einstein developed his theory of general relativity, which straightforwardly predicted that Mercury should behave the way it does.

In Le Verrier’s impulse to explain puzzling observations by introducing a heretofore hidden object, some modern-day researchers see parallels to the story of dark matter and dark energy. For decades, astronomers have noticed that the behavior of galaxies and galaxy clusters doesn’t seem to fit the predictions of general relativity. Dark matter is one way to explain that behavior. Likewise, the accelerating expansion of the universe can be thought of as being powered by a dark energy.

All attempts to directly detect dark matter and dark energy have failed, however. That fact “kind of leaves a bad taste in some people’s mouths, almost like the fictional planet Vulcan,” said Leo Stein, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. “Maybe we’re going about it all wrong?”

For any alternative theory of gravity to work, it has to not only do away with dark matter and dark energy, but also reproduce the predictions of general relativity in all the standard contexts. “The business of alternative gravity theories is a messy one,” Archibald said. Some would-be replacements for general relativity, like string theory and loop quantum gravity, don’t offer testable predictions. Others “make predictions that are spectacularly wrong, so the theorists have to devise some kind of a screening mechanism to hide the wrong prediction on scales we can actually test,” she said.

The best-known alternative gravity theories are known as modified Newtonian dynamics, commonly abbreviated to MOND. MOND-type theories attempt to do away with dark matter by tweaking our definition of gravity. Astronomers have long observed that the gravitational force due to ordinary matter doesn’t appear to be sufficient to keep rapidly moving stars inside their galaxies. The gravitational pull of dark matter is assumed to make up the difference. But according to MOND, there are simply two kinds of gravity. In regions where the force of gravity is strong, bodies obey Newton’s law of gravity, which states that the gravitational force between two objects decreases in proportion to the square of the distance that separates them. But in environments of extremely weak gravity — like the outer parts of a galaxy — MOND suggests that another type of gravity is in play. This gravity decreases more slowly with distance, which means that it doesn’t weaken as much. “The idea is to make gravity stronger when it should be weaker, like at the outskirts of a galaxy,” Zumalacárregui said.

Then there is TeVeS (tensor-vector-scalar), MOND’s relativistic cousin. While MOND is a modification of Newtonian gravity, TeVeS is an attempt to take the general idea of MOND and make it into a full mathematical theory that can be applied to the universe as a whole — not just to relatively small objects like solar systems and galaxies. It also explains the rotation curves of galaxies by making gravity stronger on their outskirts. But TeVeS does so by augmenting gravity with “scalar” and “vector” fields that “essentially amplify gravity,” said Fabian Schmidt, a cosmologist at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany. A scalar field is like the temperature throughout the atmosphere: At every point it has a numerical value but no direction. A vector field, by contrast, is like the wind: It has both a value (the wind speed) and a direction.

There are also so-called Galileon theories — part of a class of theories called Horndeski and beyond-Horndeski — which attempt to get rid of dark energy. These modifications of general relativity also introduce a scalar field. There are many of these theories (Brans-Dicke theory, dilaton theories, chameleon theories and quintessence are just some of them), and their predictions vary wildly among models. But they all change the expansion of the universe and tweak the force of gravity. Horndeski theory was first put forward by Gregory Horndeski in 1974, but the wider physics community took note of it only around 2010. By then, Zumalacárregui said, “Gregory Horndeski [had] quit science and [become] a painter in New Mexico.”

There are also stand-alone theories, like that of physicist Erik Verlinde. According to his theory, the laws of gravity arise naturally from the laws of thermodynamics just like “the way waves emerge from the molecules of water in the ocean,” Zumalacárregui said. Verlinde wrote in an email that his ideas are not an “alternative theory” of gravity, but “the next theory of gravity that contains and transcends Einstein’s general relativity.” But he is still developing his ideas. “My impression is that the theory is still not sufficiently worked out to permit the kind of precision tests we carry out,” Archibald said. It’s built on “fancy words,” Zumalacárregui said, “but no mathematical framework to compute predictions and do solid tests.”

The predictions made by other theories differ in some way from those of general relativity. Yet these differences can be subtle, which makes them incredibly difficult to find.

Consider the neutron-star merger. At the same time that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) spotted the gravitational waves emanating from the event, the space-based Fermi satellite spotted a gamma ray burst from the same location. The two signals had traveled across the universe for 130 million years before arriving at Earth just 1.7 seconds apart.

These nearly simultaneous observations “brutally and pitilessly murdered” TeVeS theories, said Paulo Freire, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. “Gravity and gravitational waves propagate at the speed of light, with extremely high precision — which is not at all what was predicted by those [alternative] theories.”

The same fate overtook some Galileon theories that add an extra scalar field to explain the universe’s accelerated expansion. These also predict that gravitational waves propagate more slowly than light. The neutron-star merger killed those off too, Schmidt said.

Further limits come from new pulsar systems. In 2013, Archibald and her colleagues found an unusual triple system: a pulsar and a white dwarf that orbit one another, with a second white dwarf orbiting the pair. These three objects exist in a space smaller than Earth’s orbit around the sun. The tight setting, Archibald said, offers ideal conditions for testing a crucial aspect of general relativity called the strong equivalence principle, which states that very dense strong-gravity objects such as neutron stars or black holes “fall” in the same way when placed in a gravitational field. (On Earth, the more familiar weak equivalence principle states that, if we ignore air resistance, a feather and a brick will fall at the same rate.)

The triple system makes it possible to check whether the pulsar and the inner white dwarf fall exactly the same way in the gravity of the outer white dwarf. Alternative-gravity theories assume that the scalar field generated in the pulsar should bend space-time in a much more extreme way than the white dwarf does. The two wouldn’t fall in a similar manner, leading to a violation of the strong equivalence principle and, with it, general relativity.

Over the past five years, Archibald and her team have recorded 27,000 measurements of the pulsar’s position as it orbits the other two stars. While the project is still a work in progress, it looks as though the results will be in total agreement with Einstein, Archibald said. “We can say that the degree to which the pulsar behaves abnormally is at most a few parts in a million. For an object with such strong gravity to still follow Einstein’s predictions so well, if there is one of these scalar fields, it has to have a really tiny effect.”

The test, which should be published soon, will put the best constraints yet on a whole group of alternative gravity theories, she added. If a theory only works with some additional scalar field, then the field should change the behavior of the pulsar. “We have such sensitive tests of general relativity that they need to somehow hide the theory’s new behavior in the solar system and in pulsar systems like ours,” Archibald said.

The data from another pulsar system dubbed the double pulsar, meanwhile, was originally supposed to eliminate the TeVeS theories. Detected in 2003, the double pulsar was until recently the only binary neutron-star system where both neutron stars were pulsars. Freire and his colleagues have already confirmed that the double pulsar’s behavior is perfectly in line with general relativity. Right before LIGO’s October announcement of a neutron-star merger, the researchers were going to publish a paper that would kill off TeVeS. But LIGO did the job for them, Freire said. “We need not go through that anymore.”

Slippery Survivors

A few theories have survived the LIGO blow — and will probably survive the upcoming pulsar data, Zumalacárregui said. There are some Horndeski and beyond-Horndeski theories that do not change the speed of gravitational waves. Then there are so-called massive gravity theories. Ordinarily, physicists assume that the particle associated with the force of gravity — the graviton — has no mass. In these theories, the graviton has a very small but nonzero mass. The neutron-star merger puts tough limits on these theories, Zumalacárregui said, since a massive graviton would travel more slowly than light. But in some theories the mass is assumed to be extremely small, at least 20 orders of magnitude lower than the neutrino’s, which means that the graviton would still move at nearly the speed of light.

There are a few other less well-known survivors, some of which are important to keep exploring, Archibald said, as long as dark matter and dark energy remain elusive. “Dark energy might be our only observational clue pointing to a new and better theory of gravity — or it might be a mysterious fluid with strange properties, and nothing to do with gravity at all,” she said.

Still, killing off theories is simply how science is supposed to work, argue researchers who have been exploring alternative gravity theories. “This is what we do all the time, put forward a working hypothesis and test it,” said Enrico Barausse of the Astrophysics Institute of Paris, who has worked on MOND-like theories. “99.9 percent of the time you rule out the hypothesis; the remaining 0.1 percent of the time you win the Nobel Prize.”

Zumalacárregui, who has also worked on these theories, was “sad at first” when he realized that the neutron star merger detection had proven Galileon theories wrong, but ultimately “very relieved it happened sooner rather than later,” he said. LIGO had been just about to close down for 18 months to upgrade the detector. “If the event had been a bit later, I would still be working on a wrong theory.”

So what’s next for general relativity and modified-gravity theories? “That question keeps me up at night more than I’d like,” Zumalacárregui said. “The good news is that we have narrowed our scope by a lot, and we can try to understand the few survivors much better.”

Schmidt thinks it’s necessary to measure the laws of gravity on large scales as directly as possible, using ongoing and future large galaxy surveys. “For example, we can compare the effect of gravity on light bending as well as galaxy velocities, typically predicted to be different in modified-gravity theories,” he said. Researchers also hope that future telescopes such as the Square Kilometer Array will discover more pulsar systems and provide better accuracy in pulsar timing to further improve gravity tests. And a space-based replacement for LIGO called LISA will study gravitational waves with exquisite accuracy — if indeed it launches as planned in the mid-2030s. “If that does not see any deviations from general relativity, I don’t know what will,” said Barausse.

But many physicists agree that it will take a long time to get rid of most alternative gravity models. Theorists have dozens of alternative gravity theories that could potentially explain dark matter and dark energy, Freire said. Some of these theories can’t make testable predictions, Archibald said, and many “have a parameter, a ‘knob’ you can turn to make them pass any test you like,” she said. But at some point, said Nicolas Yunes, a physicist at Montana State University, “this gets silly and Occam’s razor wins.”

Still, “fundamentally we know that general relativity is wrong,” Stein said. “At the very core there must be some breakdown” at the quantum level. “Maybe we won’t see it from astronomical observations … but we owe it to ourselves, as empirical scientists, to check whether or not our mathematical models are working at these scales.”

[shirlleycoyle]

What Alternate Reality Games Teach Us About the Dangerous Appeal of QAnon

This story was originally published on mssv.net by Adrian Hon (@adrianhon)

The far-right QAnon conspiracy theory is so sprawling, it’s hard to know where people join. Last week, it was 5G cell towers, this week it’s Wayfair; who knows what next week will bring? But QAnon’s followers always seem to begin their journey with the same refrain: “I’ve done my research.”

I’d heard that line before. In early 2001, the marketing for Steven Spielberg’s latest movie, A.I., had just begun. YouTube wouldn’t launch for another four years, so you had to be eagle-eyed to spot the unusual credit next to Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, and Frances O’Connor: Jeanine Salla, the movie’s “Sentient Machine Therapist.”

Close-up of the A.I. movie poster

Soon after, Ain’t It Cool News (AICN) posted a tip from a reader:

“Type her name in the Google.com search engine, and see what sites pop up…pretty cool stuff! Keep up the good work, Harry!! –ClaviusBase”

(Yes, in 2001 Google was so new you had to spell out its web address.)

The Google results began with Jeanine Salla’s homepage but led to a whole network of fictional sites. Some were futuristic versions of police websites or lifestyle magazines; others were inscrutable online stores and hacked blogs. A couple were in German and Japanese. In all, over twenty sites and phone numbers were listed.

By the end of the day, the websites racked up 25 million hits, all from a single AICN article suggesting readers ‘do their research’. It later emerged they were part of one of the first-ever alternate reality games (ARG), The Beast, developed by Microsoft to promote Spielberg’s movie.

The way I’ve described it here, The Beast sounds like enormous fun. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a doorway into 2142 filled with websites and phone numbers and puzzles, with runaway robots who need your help and even live events around the world? But consider how much work it required to understand the story and it begins to sound less like “watching TV” fun and more like “painstaking research” fun. Along with tracking dozens of websites that updated in real time, you had to solve lute tablature puzzles, decode base 64 messages, reconstruct 3D models of island chains that spelt out messages, and gather clues from newspaper and TV adverts across the US.

This purposeful yet bewildering complexity is the complete opposite of what many associate with conventional popular entertainment, where every bump in your road to enjoyment has been smoothed away in the pursuit of instant engagement and maximal profit. But there’s always been another kind of entertainment that appeals to different people at different times, one that rewards active discovery, the drawing of connections between clues, the delicious sensation of a hunch that pays off after hours or days of work. Puzzle books, murder mysteries, adventure games, escape rooms, even scientific research—they all aim for the same spot.

What was new in The Beast and the ARGs that followed it was less the specific puzzles and stories they incorporated, but the sheer scale of the worlds they realised—so vast and fast-moving that no individual could hope to comprehend them. Instead, players were forced to cooperate, sharing discoveries and solutions, exchanging ideas, and creating resources for others to follow. I’d know: I wrote a novel-length walkthrough of The Beast when I was meant to be studying for my degree at Cambridge.

QAnon is not an ARG. It’s a dangerous conspiracy theory, and there are lots of ways of understanding conspiracy theories without ARGs. But QAnon pushes the same buttons that ARGs do, whether by intention or by coincidence. In both cases, “do your research” leads curious onlookers to a cornucopia of brain-tingling information.

In other words, maybe QAnon is… fun?

ARGs never made it big. They came too early and It’s hard to charge for a game that you stumble into through a Google search. But maybe their purposely-fragmented, internet-native, community-based form of storytelling and puzzle-solving was just biding its time…

This blog post expands on the ideas in my Twitter thread about QAnon and ARGs, and incorporates many of the valuable replies. Please note, however, that I’m not a QAnon expert and I’m not a scholar of conspiracy theories. I’m not even the first to compare QAnon to LARPs and ARGs.

But my experience as lead designer of Perplex City, one of the world’s most popular and longest-running ARGs, gives me a special perspective on QAnon’s game-like nature. My background as a neuroscientist and experimental psychologist also gives me insight into what motivates people.

Today, I run Six to Start, best known for Zombies, Run!, an audio-based augmented reality game with half a million active players, and I’m writing a book about the perils and promise of gamification.

It’s Like We Did It On Purpose

Perplex City “Ascendancy Point” Story Arc

When I was designing Perplex City, I loved sketching out new story arcs. I’d create intricate chains of information and clues for players to uncover, colour-coding for different websites and characters. There was a knack to having enough parallel strands of investigation going on so that players didn’t feel railroaded, but not so many that they were overwhelmed. It was a particular pleasure to have seemingly unconnected arcs intersect after weeks or months.

Merely half of the “Q-web“

No-one would mistake the clean lines of my flowcharts for the snarl of links that makes up a QAnon theory, but the principles are similar: one discovery leading to the next. Of course, these two flowcharts are very different beasts. The QAnon one is an imaginary, retrospective description of supposedly-connected data, while mine is a prescriptive network of events I would design.

Except that’s not quite true. In reality, Perplex City players didn’t always solve our puzzles as quickly as we intended them to, or they became convinced their incorrect solution was correct, or embarrassingly, our puzzles were broken and had no solution at all. In those cases we had to rewrite the story on the fly.

When this happens in most media, you just hold up your hands and say you made a mistake. In video games, you can issue an online update and hope no-one’s the wiser. But in ARGs, a public correction would shatter the uniquely-prolonged collective suspension of disbelief in the story. This was thought to be so integral to the appeal of ARGs, it was termed TINAG, or “This is Not a Game.”

So when we messed up in Perplex City, we tried mightily to avoid editing websites, a sure sign this was, in fact, a game. Instead, we’d fix it by adding new storylines and writing through the problem (it helped to have a crack team of writers and designers, including Naomi Alderman, Andrea Phillips, David Varela, Dan Hon, Jey Biddulph, Fi Silk, Eric Harshbarger, and many many others).

We had a saying when these diversions worked out especially well: “It’s like we did it on purpose.”

Every ARG designer can tell a similar war story. Here’s Josh Fialkov, writer for the Lonelygirl15 ARG/show:

“Our fans/viewers would build elaborate (and pretty neat) theories and stories around the stories we’d already put together and then we’d merge them into our narrative, which would then engage them more. The one I think about the most is we were shooting something on location and we’re run and gunning. We fucked up and our local set PA ended up in the background of a long selfie shot. We had no idea. It was 100% a screw up. The fans became convinced the character was in danger. And then later when that character revealed herself as part of the evil conspiracy — that footage was part of the audiences proof that she was working with the bad guys all along — “THATS why he was in the background!” They literally found a mistake – made it a story point. And used it as evidence of their own foresight into the ending — despite it being, again, us totally being exhausted and sloppy. And at the time hundreds of thousands of people were participating and contributing to a fictional universe and creating strands upon strands.”

Conspiracy theories and cults evince the same insouciance when confronted with inconsistencies or falsified predictions; they can always explain away errors with new stories and theories. What’s special about QAnon and ARGs is that these errors can be fixed almost instantly, before doubt or ridicule can set in. And what’s really special about QAnon is how it’s absorbed all other conspiracy theories to become a kind of ur-conspiracy theory such that seems pointless to call out inconsistencies. In any case, who would you even be calling out when so many QAnon theories come from followers rather than “Q”?

Yet the line between creator and player in ARGs has also long been blurry. That tip from “ClaviusBase” to AICN that catapulted The Beast to massive mainstream coverage? The designers more or less admitted it came from them. Indeed, there’s a grand tradition of ARG “puppetmasters” (an actual term used by devotees) sneaking out from “behind the curtain” (ditto) to create “sockpuppet accounts” in community forums to seed clues, provide solutions, and generally chivvy players along the paths they so carefully designed.

As an ARG designer, I used to take a hard line against this kind of cheating but in the years since, I’ve mellowed somewhat, mostly because it can make the game more fun, and ultimately, because everyone expects it these days. That’s not the case with QAnon.

Yes, anyone who uses 4chan and 8chan understands that anonymity is baked into the system such that posters frequently create entire threads where they argue against themselves in the guise of anonymous users who are impossible to distinguish or trace back to a single individual – but do the more casual QAnon followers know that?

Local Fame

A Beautiful Mind

Pop culture’s conspiracy theorist sits in a dark basement stringing together photos and newspaper clippings on their "crazy wall." On the few occasions this leads to useful results, it’s an unenviable pursuit. Anyone choosing such an existence tends to be shunned by society.

But this ignores one gaping fact: piecing together theories is really satisfying. Writing my walkthrough for The Beast was rewarding and meaningful, appreciated by an enthusiastic community in a way that my molecular biology essays most certainly were not. Online communities have long been dismissed as inferior in every way to “real” friendships, an attenuated version that’s better than nothing, but not something that anyone should choose. Yet ARGs and QAnon (and games and fandom and so many other things) demonstrate there’s an immediacy and scale and relevance to online communities that can be more potent and rewarding than a neighbourhood bake sale. This won’t be news to most of you, but I think it’s still news to decision-makers in traditional media and politics.

Good ARGs are deliberately designed with puzzles and challenges that require unusual talents—I designed one puzzle that required a good understanding of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs—with problems so large that they require crowdsourcing to solve, such that all players feel like welcome and valued contributors.

Needless to say, that feeling is missing from many people’s lives:

“ARGs are generally a showcase for special talent that often goes unrecognized elsewhere. I have met so many wildly talented people with weird knowledge through them.”

If you’re first to solve a puzzle or make a connection, you can attain local fame in ARG communities, as Dan Hon, COO at Mind Candy (makers of the Perplex City ARG), notes. The vast online communities for TV shows like Lost and Westworld, with their purposefully convoluted mystery box plots, also reward those who guess twists early, or produce helpful explainer videos. Yes, the reward is “just” internet points in the form of Reddit upvotes, but the feeling of being appreciated is very real. It’s no coincidence that Lost and Westworld both used ARGs to promote their shows.

Wherever you have depth in storytelling or content or mechanics, you’ll find the same kind of online communities. Games like Bloodborne, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Dwarf Fortress, Animal Crossing, Eve Online, and Elite Dangerous, they all share the same race for discovery. These discoveries eventually become processed into explainer videos and Reddit posts that are more accessible for wider audiences.

The same has happened with modern ARGs, where explainer videos have become so compelling they rack up more views than the ARGs have players (not unlike Twitch). Michael Andersen, owner of the Alternate Reality Gaming Network news site, is a fan of this trend, but wonders about its downside—with reference to conspiracy theorists:

“[W]hen you’re reading (or watching) a summary of an ARG? All of the assumptions and logical leaps have been wrapped up and packaged for you, tied up with a nice little bow. Everything makes sense, and you can see how it all flows together. Living it, though? Sheer chaos. Wild conjectures and theories flying left and right, with circumstantial evidence and speculation ruling the day. Things exist in a fugue state of being simultaneously true-and-not-true, and it’s only the accumulation of evidence that resolves it. And acquiring a “knack” for sifting through theories to surface what’s believable is an extremely valuable skill—both for actively playing ARGs, and for life in general.And sometimes, I worry that when people consume these neatly packaged theories that show all the pieces coming together, they miss out on all those false starts and coincidences that help develop critical thinking skills. …because yes, conspiracy theories try and offer up those same neat packages that attempt to explain the seemingly unexplained. And it’s pretty damn important to learn how groups can be led astray in search of those neatly wrapped packages.”

“SPEC”

I’m a big fan of the SCP Foundation, a creative writing website set within a shared universe not unlike The X-Files. Its top-rated stories rank among the best science fiction and horror I’ve read. A few years ago, I wrote my own (very silly) story, SCP-3993, where New York’s ubiquitous LinkNYC internet kiosks are cover for a mysterious reality-altering invasion.

CITYBRIDGE/NYC

Like the rest of SCP, this was all in good fun, but I recently discovered LinkNYC is tangled up in QAnon conspiracy theories. To be fair, you can say the same thing about pretty much every modern technology, but it’s not surprising their monolith-like presence caught conspiracy theorists’ attention as it did mine.

It’s not unreasonable to be creeped out by LinkNYC. In 2016, the New York Civil Liberties Union wrote to the mayor about “the vast amount of private information retained by the LinkNYC system and the lack of robust language in the privacy policy protecting users against unwarranted government surveillance.” Two years later, kiosks along Third Avenue in Midtown mysteriously blasted out a slowed-down version of the Mister Softee theme song. So there’s at least some cause for speculation. The problem is when speculation hardens into reality.

Not long after the AICN post, The Beast’s players set up a Yahoo Group mailing list called Cloudmakers, named after a boat in the story. As the number of posts rose to dozens and then hundreds per day, it became obvious to list moderators (including me) that some form of organisation was in order. One rule we established was that posts should include a prefix in their subject so members could easily distinguish website updates from puzzle solutions.

My favourite prefix was “SPEC,” a catch-all for any kind of unfounded speculation, most of which was fun nonsense but some of which ended up being true. There were no limits on what or how much you could post, but you always had to use the prefix so people could ignore it. Other moderated communities have similar guidelines, with rationalists using their typically long-winded “epistemic status” metadata.

Absent this kind of moderation, speculation ends up overwhelming communities since it’s far easier and more fun to bullshit than do actual research. And if speculation is repeated enough times, if it’s finessed enough, it can harden into accepted fact, leading to devastating and even fatal consequences.

I’ve personally been the subject of this process thanks to my work in ARGs—not just once, but twice.

The first occasion was fairly innocent. One of our more famous Perplex City puzzles, Billion to One, was a photo of a man. That’s it. The challenge was to find him. Obviously, we were riffing on the whole “six degrees of separation” concept. Some thought it’d be easy, but I was less convinced. Sure enough, fourteen years on, the puzzle is still unsolved, but not for lack of trying. Every so often, the internet rediscovers the puzzle amid a flurry of YouTube videos and podcasts; I can tell whenever this happens because people start DMing me on Twitter and Instagram.

This literally came a few days ago

A clue in the puzzle is the man’s name, Satoshi. It is not a rare name, and it happens to be same as the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. So of course people think Perplex City’s Satoshi created bitcoin. Not a lot of people, to be fair, but enough that I get DMs about it every week. But it’s all pretty innocent, like I said.

More concerning is my presumed connection to Cicada 3301, a mysterious group that recruited codebreakers through very difficult online puzzles. Back in 2011, my company developed a pseudo-ARG for the BBC Two factual series, The Code, all about mathematics. This involved planting clues into the show itself, along with online educational games and a treasure hunt.

To illustrate the concept of prime numbers, The Code explored the gestation period of cicadas. We had no hand in the writing of the show; we got the script and developed our ARG around it. But this was enough to create a brand new conspiracy theory, featuring yours truly:

My bit starts around 20 minutes in:

Interviewer: Why [did you make a puzzle about] cicadas?

Me: Cicadas are known for having a gestation period which is linked to prime numbers. Prime numbers are at the heart of nature and the heart of mathematics.

Interviewer: That puzzle comes out in June 2011.

Me: Yeah.

Interviewer: Six months later, Cicada 3301 makes its international debut.

Me: It's a big coincidence.

Interviewer: There are some people who have brought up the fact that whoever's behind Cicada 3301 would have to be a very accomplished game maker.

Me: Sure.

Interviewer: You would be a candidate to be that person.

Me: That's true, I mean, Cicada 3301 has a lot in common with the games we've made. I think that one big difference (chuckles) is that normally when we make alternate reality games, we do it for money. And it's not so clear to understand where the funding for Cicada 3301 is coming from.

Clearly this was all just in fun – I knew it and the interviewer knew it. That’s why I agreed to take part. But does everyone watching this understand that? There’s no “SPEC” tag on the video. At least a few commenters are taking it seriously:

I am the “ARG guy” in question

I’m not worried, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t a touch concerned that Cicada 3301 now lies squarely in the QAnon vortex and in the “Q-web“:

Here’s a good interview with the creator of the “Q-web”

My defence that the cicada puzzle in The Code was “a big coincidence” (albeit delivered with an unfortunate shit-eating grin) didn’t hold water. In the conspiracy theorest mindset, no such thing exists:

“According to Michael Barkun, emeritus professor of political science at Syracuse University, three core principles characterize most conspiracy theories. Firstly, the belief that nothing happens by accident or coincidence. Secondly, that nothing is as it seems: The “appearance of innocence” is to be suspected. Finally, the belief that everything is connected through a hidden pattern.”

These are helpful beliefs when playing an ARG or watching a TV show designed with twists and turns. It’s fun to speculate and to join seemingly disparate ideas, especially when the creators encourage and reward this behaviour. It’s less helpful when conspiracy theorists “yes, and…” each other into shooting up a pizza parlour or burning down 5G cell towers.

Because there is no coherent QAnon community in the same sense as the Cloudmakers, there’s no convention of “SPEC” tags. In their absence, YouTube has added annotated QAnon videos with links to its Wikipedia article, and Twitter has banned 7,000 accounts and restricted 150,000 more, among other actions. Supposedly, Facebook is planning to do the same.

These are useful steps but will not stop QAnon from spreading in social media comments or private chat groups or unmoderated forums. It’s not something we can reasonably hope for, and I don’t think there’s any technological solution (e.g. browser extensions) either. The only way to stop people from mistaking speculation from fact is for them to want to stop.

Cryptic

It’s always nice to have a few mysteries for players to speculate on in an ARG, if only because it helps them pass the time while the poor puppetmasters scramble to sate their insatiable demand for more website updates and puzzles. A good mystery can keep a community guessing for, as Lost did with its numbers or Game of Thrones with Jon Snow’s parentage. But these mysteries always have to be balanced against specifics, lest the whole story dissolve into a puddle of mush; for as much we derided Lost for the underwhelming conclusion to its mysteries, no-one would’ve watched in the first place if the episode-to-episode storytelling wasn’t so strong.

The downside of being too mysterious in Perplex City is that cryptic messages often led players on wild goose chases such that they completely ignored entire story arcs in favour of pursuing their own theories. This was bad for us because we had a pretty strict timetable that we needed our story to play out on, pinned against the release of our physical puzzle cards that funded the entire enterprise. If players took too long to find the $200,000 treasure at the conclusion of the story, we might run out of money.

QAnon can favour cryptic messages because, as far as I know, they don’t have a specific timeline or goal in mind, let alone a production budget or paid staff. Not only is there no harm in followers misinterpreting messages, but it’s a strength: followers can occupy themselves with their own spin-off theories far better than “Q” can. Dan Hon notes:

“For every ARG I’ve been involved in and ones my friends have been involved in, communities always consume/complete/burn through content faster than you can make it, when you’re doing a narrative-based game. This content generation/consumption/playing asymmetry is, I think, just a fact. But QAnon “solved” it by being able to co-opt all content that already exists and … encourages and allows you to create new content that counts and is fair play in-the-game.”

But even QAnon needs some specificity, hence their frequent references to actual people, places, events, and so on.

A brief aside on designing very hard puzzles

It was useful to be cryptic when I needed to control the speed at which players solved especially consequential puzzles, like the one revealing where our $200,000 treasure was buried. For story and marketing purposes, we wanted players to be able to find it as soon as they had access to all 256 puzzle cards, which we released in three waves. We also wanted players to feel like they were making progress before they had all the cards and we didn’t want them to find the location the minute they had the last card.

My answer was to represent the location as the solution to multiple cryptic puzzles. One puzzle referred to the Jurassic strata in the UK, which I split across the background of 14 cards. Another began with a microdot revealing which order to arrange triple letters I’d hidden on a bunch of cards. By performing mod arithmetic on the letter/number values, you would arrive at 1, 2, 3 or 4, corresponding to the four DNA nucleotides. If you understood the triplets as codons for amino acids, they became letters. These letters led you to the phrase “Duke of Burgundy”, the name of a butterfly whose location, when combined with the Jurassic strata, would help you narrow down the location of the treasure.

The nice thing about this convoluted sequence is that we could provide additional online clues to help the players community when they got stuck. The point being, you can’t make an easy puzzle harder, but you can make a hard puzzle easier.

Beyond ARGs

It can feel crass to compare ARGs to a conspiracy theory that’s caused so much harm. But this reveals the crucial difference between them: in QAnon, the stakes so high, any action is justified. If you truly believe an online store or a pizza parlour is engaging in child trafficking and the authorities are complicit, extreme behaviour is justified.

Gabriel Roth, editorial director for audio at Slate, extends this idea:

“What QAnon has that ARGs didn’t have is the claim of factual truth; in that sense it reminds me of the Bullshit Anecdotal Memoir wave of the 90s and early 00s. If you have a story based on real life, but you want to make it more interesting, the correct thing to do is change the names of the people and make it as interesting as you like and call it fiction. The insight of the Bullshit Anecdotal Memoirists (I’m thinking of James Frey and Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris) was that you could call it nonfiction and readers would like it much better because it would have the claim of actual factual truth, wowee!! And it worked! How much more engaging and addictive is an immersive, participatory ARG when it adds that unique frisson you can only get with the claim of factual truth? And bear in mind that ARG-scale stories aren’t about mere personal experiences—they operate on a world-historical scale.”

ARGs’ playfulness with the truth and their sometimes-imperceptible winking of This Is Not A Game (accusations Lonelygirl15 was a hoax) is only the most modern incarnation of epistolary storytelling. In that context, immersive and realistic stories have long elicited extreme reactions, like the panic incited by Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds (often exaggerated, to be fair).

We don’t have to wonder what happens when an ARG community meets a matter of life and death. Not long after The Beast concluded, the 9/11 attacks happened. A small number of posters in the Cloudmakers mailing list suggested the community use its skills to “solve” the question of who was behind the attack.

The brief but intense discussion that ensued has become a cautionary tale of ARG communities getting carried away and being unable to distinguish fiction from reality. In reality, the community and the moderators quickly shut down the idea as being impractical, insensitive, and very dangerous. “Cloudmakers tried to solve 9/11” is a great story, but it’s completely false.

Unfortunately, the same isn’t true for the poster child for online sleuthing gone wrong, the r/findbostonbombers subreddit. There’s a parallel between the essentially unmoderated, anonymous theorists of r/findbostonbombers and those in QAnon: neither feel any responsibility for spreading unsupported speculation as fact. What they do feel is that anything should be solvable, as Laura Hall, immersive environment and narrative designer, describes:

“There’s a general sense of, ‘This should be solveable/findable/etc’ that you see in lots of reddit communities for unsolved mysteries and so on. The feeling that all information is available online, that reality and truth must be captured/in evidence somewhere”

There’s truth in that feeling. There is a vast amount of information online, and sometimes it is possible to solve “mysteries”, which makes it hard to criticise people for trying, especially when it comes to stopping perceived injustices. But it’s the sheer volume of information online that makes it so easy and so tempting and so fun to draw spurious connections.

That joy of solving and connecting and sharing and communication can do great things, and it can do awful things. As Josh Fialkov, writer for Lonelygirl15, says:

That brain power negatively focused on what [conspiracy theorists] perceive as life and death (but is actually crassly manipulated paranoia) scares the living shit out of me.

What ARGs Can Teach Us

Can we make “good ARGs”? Could ARGs inoculate people against conspiracy theories like QAnon?

The short answer is: No. When it comes to games that are educational and fun, you usually have to pick one, not both—and I say that as someone who thinks he’s done a decent job at making “serious games” over the years. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it’s really hard, and I doubt any such ARG would get played by the right audience anyway.

The long answer: I’m writing a book about the perils and promise of gamification. Come back in a year or two.

For now, here’s a medium-sized answer. No ARG can heal the deep mistrust and fear and economic and spiritual malaise that underlies QAnon and other dangerous conspiracy theories, any more than a book or a movie can solve racism. There are hints at ARG-like things that could work, though—not in directly combatting QAnon’s appeal, but in channeling people’s energy and zeal of community-based problem-solving toward better causes.

Take The COVID Tracking Project, an attempt to compile the most complete data available about COVID-19 in the U.S. Every day, volunteers collect the latest numbers on tests, cases, hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every state and territory. In the absence of reliable governmental figures, it’s become one of the best sources not just in the U.S., but in the world.

It’s also incredibly transparent. You can drill down into the raw data volunteers have collected on Google Sheets, view every line of code written on Github, and ask them questions on Slack. Errors and ambiguities in the data are quickly disclosed and explained rather than hidden or ignored. There’s something game-like in the daily quest to collect the best-quality data and to continually expand and improve the metrics being tracked. And like in the best ARGs, volunteers of all backgrounds and skills are welcomed. It’s one of the most impressive and well-organising reporting projects I’ve ever seen; “crowdsourcing” doesn’t even come close to describing its scale.

If you applied ARG skills to investigative journalism, you’d get something like Bellingcat, an an open-source intelligence group that discovered how Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down over Ukraine in 2014. Bellingcat’s volunteers painstakingly pieced together publicly-available information to determine MH17 was downed by a Buk missile launcher originating from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade in Kursk, Russia. The Dutch-led international joint investigation team later came to the same conclusion.

Conspiracy theories thrive in the absence of trust. Today, people don’t trust authorities because authorities have repeatedly shown themselves to be unworthy of trust – misreporting or manipulating COVID-19 testing figures, delaying the publication of government investigations, burning records of past atrocities, and deploying unmarked federal forces. Perhaps authorities were just as untrustworthy twenty or fifty or a hundred years ago, but today we rightly expect more.

Mattathias Schwartz, contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, believes it’s that lack of trust that leads people to QAnon:

“Q’s [followers] … are starving for information. Their willingness to chase bread crumbs is a symptom of ignorance and powerlessness. There may be something to their belief that the machinery of the state is inaccessible to the people. It’s hard to blame them for resorting to fantasy and esotericism, after all, when accurate information about the government’s current activities is so easily concealed and so woefully incomplete.”

So the goal cannot be to simply restore trust in existing authorities. Rather, I think it’s to restore faith in truth and knowledge itself. The COVID Tracking Project and Bellingcat help reveal truth by crowdsourcing information. They show their work via hypertext and open data, creating a structure upon which higher-level analysis and journalism can be built. And if they can’t find the truth, they’re willing to say so.

QAnon seems just as open. Everything is online. Every discussion, every idea, every theory is all joined together in a warped edifice where speculation becomes fact and fact leads to action. It’s thrilling to discover, and as you find new terms to Google and new threads to pull upon, you can feel just like a real researcher. And you can never get bored. There’s always new information to make sense of, always a new puzzle to solve, always a new enemy to take down.

QAnon fills the void of information that states have created—not with facts, but with fantasy. If we don’t want QAnon to fill that void, someone else has to. Government institutions can’t be relied upon to do this sustainably, given how underfunded and politicised they’ve become in recent years. Traditional journalism has also struggled against its own challenges of opacity and lack of resources. So maybe that someone is… us.

ARGs teach us that the search for knowledge and truth can be immensely rewarding, not in spite of their deliberately-fractured stories and near-impossible puzzles, but because of them. They teach us that communities can self-organise and self-moderate to take on immense challenges in a responsible way. And they teach us that people are ready and willing to volunteer to work if they’re welcomed, no matter their talent.

It’s hard to create these communities. They rely on software and tools that aren’t always free or easy to use. They need volunteers who have spare time to give and moderators who can be supported, financially and emotionally, through the struggles that always come. These communities already exist. They just need more help.

Despite the growing shadow of QAnon, I’m hopeful for the future. The beauty of ARGs and ARG-like communities isn’t their power to discover truth. It’s how they make the process of discovery so deeply rewarding.

What Alternate Reality Games Teach Us About the Dangerous Appeal of QAnon syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[nightingveilxo]

Justifying Holmes/Watson or Johnlock as a Player in the Drama (Part I)

What if you’re trying to justify John’s place in Sherlock’s life, but you can’t do it via the meta or screenshots we use? If you’re any of the actual players in the drama (and this makes it possible to pair with trance or EMP theories), you have to quickly push it all together to tie up those ‘loose ends’?

John’s odd blog jpeg from T6T is shown above. Nappies, which means diapers he shouldn’t even be needing yet (unless this is a projection *coughs*) or it also means a large circular platter (if your thoughts run to reflective items and circles of thought--which they should--read the linked meta. We already know that S4 is basically the previous seasons, done backward.)

In order to hold up his place, according to some, John would have to continue on cases with Sherlock and keep writing his blog. Lestrade becomes fixated on the idea in S4, which seemed very strange, except if you’re reviewing the blog and fitting in additional information. Also, in canon ACD and Granada adaptations, this is in keeping with why Watson began writing down the cases for publication. Most of the time, and it’s mentioned more than once, Holmes wasn’t receiving credit in the newspapers for his solving of the crimes--it goes to the multiple lead investigators. Remember this point for later.

Lestrade is afraid...And Sherlock comments his Boswell is learning...

Not fast enough, Sherlock...

Sherlock thought John meant him, but John says he was talking to Mary, so this fanciful solution (7% or otherwise), isn’t working out for Sherlock. Mycroft asks modern John to look after Sherlock, but the end of the special tells us that such a thing never happened, because we’re still in 1895. It’s echoed in S4, by John having a full time job, being a husband, and then also a father. TFP ends Sherlock asking Lestrade to do exactly the same thing with Mycroft, and Lestrade finally saying Sherlock is a good man (going back to ASiP).

NEW OPENING (VICTORIAN) TITLES (with a Victorian twist to the theme tune). Close-up on an issue of The Strand Magazine.  Nearby, a news vendor is calling out to the passing pedestrians.  He is holding newspapers and another copy of The Strand with a small red sleeve around it on which are the words “SHERLOCK HOLMES” and an in-profile white silhouette of the detective.  Offscreen, carollers can be heard singing “Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing.” NEWS VENDOR: Papers!  Papers! (A hansom cab approaches along the street.) NEWS VENDOR: Papers!  Papers! (The cab slows down as Watson leans out of the window a little and gestures to attract the attention of the vendor.) WATSON: Here. (The cab stops.) WATSON: How’s ‘The Blue Carbuncle’ doing? NEWS VENDOR: Very popular, Doctor Watson.  Is there gonna be a proper murder next time? WATSON: I’ll have a word with the criminal classes. NEWS VENDOR: If you wouldn’t mind. (He points towards the figure sitting next to Watson.) NEWS VENDOR: Is that ’im?  Is ’e in there? (Holmes, mostly obscured from the vendor’s view, apparently kicks Watson, who grunts.) WATSON: No.  No, no, not at all.  (He tips a finger to his hat.)  Ah, good day to you. CABBIE (to his horse, shaking the reins at it): Walk on. (The cab sets off again.  The news vendor calls after it.) NEWS VENDOR: Merry Christmas, Mr Holmes!

The Blue Carbuncle. This is interesting, because that case isn’t on 21st century John’s blog. According to John, it wasn’t a case interesting enough for Sherlock to take on, and they go through a series of comments about Bond films and cat videos. The other option is The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone. 

The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone was one of two instances where the original canon story was written in third person. It was based on a play, and Watson was barely in it. The other story was His Last Bow (HLB). The action in TAotMS all takes places in one room, rather similar to the beginning of TAB. The plot twist comes that the play has been what Holmes has overheard of a conversation between two criminals. Now, apply this idea to the one that Sherlock is still unconscious in hospital, but capable of overhearing and processing what is heard around him. It echoes Sherlock’s comment in TAB about his MP being able to do things more than what Mycroft knows, and Mycroft agrees.

Be sure to read @jenna221b meta about how the cases are twins, and fixes are being added in as well as Sherlock S4 as Epic Theatre.

In Terror By Night, which we know Mofftiss used in MHR, includes aspects from TAofMS. In Granada adaptations, this case was merged with The Three Garridebs, which were practically absent in S4 of Sherlock.

Mofftiss would have us believe all we got was the three men hanging around at the mercy of Eurus, but I’ve been working with the idea that Moffttis is re-enacting the post Reichenbach behavior of Holmes and Watson from Granada. Hardwicke replaced Burke after TFP (comparable to Sherlock TRF), and Johnlock wasn’t the same afterward. It takes several episodes before it returns to the warm, close physical proximity, flirtatious pairing we see before Holmes “dies” and Burke was replaced.

Interestingly, the cases that do show it, are the ones where Mofftiss borrowed the most from Granada. Granada The Devil’s Foot, Sherlock S4 Imagery, and Moriarty or Mortimer & A Little Glimpse Into Granada’s ‘Eligible Bachelor’ by @ebaeschnbliah (Also interesting that we posted these meta within hours of one another, without having talked about the influence factor at all.) As you can tell from the second meta, Eurus had an obvious reference in EB (although The Musgrave Ritual--which is used in Sherlock TFP), also gave a visual hint via Rachel, the one that allowed a man to die down a hole, and it showed the coming revival of Johnlock closeness--although it wouldn’t happen until TDF. If you don’t think that’s important, remember that Moffttiss said TD12 as a name only happened, because the name they wanted to use was taken. While writing this, I found a similar meta to mine about TDF by @devoursjohnlock Maybe I am helping connect dots...

From this meta by @may-shepard we see that Doyle’s story The Parasite, coincides with S4, and the also the dates from the story fill in the missing dates on John’s blog.

At the end of TLD, John and Lestrade are discussing the morgue incident. They specifically mention HLV (HLB in canon). It seems like they are wrapping up those loose ends Sherlock doesn’t like to have on his watch, but he’s been in hospital, even though according to what Sherlock and Mycroft know from T6T--the loose ends from HLV are already edited and he’s free of that.

According to TAB, all the modern elements we know of from Sherlock, are all lunatic fantasy...or metaphorical flights of fancy...Holmes theorizes it could come to pass, but only after the echo of the idea of having proper murders. Moffttis was adamant that Mary had to die, because that’s how it was in the stories, but it isn’t. We’re never told what happened to Mary.

TAB

Shortly afterwards, the car pulls away and drives off along the tarmac.  As the scene fades out, the familiar ‘Pursuit’ music starts ... and almost immediately grinds to a halt. The screen remains dark for a moment and then ... WATSON (offscreen): Flying machines; these, er, telephone contraptions ... (The screen fades up to reveal Holmes and Watson sitting in their armchairs in the sitting room of 221B.  Each of them is smoking a pipe.) WATSON: What sort of lunatic fantasy is that? HOLMES: It was simply my conjecture of what a future world might look like, and how you and I might fit inside it. (Watson nods.) HOLMES: From a drop of water, a logician should be able to infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara. WATSON: Or a Reichenbach. HOLMES: Have you written up your account of the case? WATSON: Yes. HOLMES: Hmm.  Modified to put it down as one of my rare failures, of course? WATSON: Of course. (Holmes looks thoughtful for a moment.) HOLMES: “The Adventure of ... the Invisible Army.” (Watson looks upwards, considering it.) HOLMES: “The League of Furies”?  (He leans forward, smiling.) “The Monstrous Regiment.” WATSON: I rather thought ... “The Abominable Bride.” HOLMES (sitting back): A trifle lurid. WATSON: It’ll sell.  It’s got proper murders in it, too. HOLMES (pointing his pipe at him): You’re the expert. WATSON: As for your own tale, are you sure it’s still just a seven percent solution that you take?  I think you may have increased the dosage. HOLMES: Perhaps I was being a little fanciful ... (He looks down thoughtfully.) HOLMES: ... but perhaps such things could come to pass. (He stands up.) HOLMES: In any case, I know I would be very much at home in such a world. (Watson chuckles as Holmes walks across the room towards the right-hand window.) WATSON: Don’t think I would be. HOLMES: I beg to differ. (He looks out of the window.) HOLMES: But then I’ve always known I was a man out of his time. (He puts his pipe in his mouth and continues to look out of the window.  The ‘Pursuit’ theme starts again, this time with a Victorian twist to it, as the camera slowly pulls back.  Down in the street below, customers are going into SPEEDY’S Sandwich Bar & Cafe while more people – all dressed in modern-day clothing – walk past, and the road is busy with cars. A black cab passes a number 11 bus – destination Baker Street – as they drive past 221B ... ... where it is always 1895.) 

Transcript ( x )

So, if you’re going through the list of cases (as one of the players), you don’t always have to be present or in the physical framed shots of the events in order to do so. Remember how John was disappearing in shots from T6T, when Lestrade and Hopkins were present, and how Sherlock was working with multiple investigators regularly--not just Lestrade? It happened against in TFP, while Sherlock is trying to negotiate in Sherrinford with Eurus.

This is more in keeping with ACD and Granada, because Lestrade wasn’t the lead on all the cases. That he should be in most of Sherlock S1-3 made no real sense, so this is someone trying to cover their bases and possibly justify John’s continued existence in Sherlock’s life, through the filter of something other than being a couple. It still works though if you’re John, Lestrade, Mycroft or even unconscious or tranced Sherlock trying to show why John’s place by his side is vital--without giving away the romantic element (because to Sherlock, the romantic part is a mystery--he’s been unconscious since S2 or HLV).

[granada-brett-crumbs]

Dear people, finally! here’s the promised list of fics recommendations. In most of the cases I put just one work of each writer to don’t make this list more extensive, but I highly recommend checking their other works because of course. As always, if you haven’t read the works of Katy Forsythe and Mistyzeo you should. So here we go, hope you enjoy :)

Gen:◎ - Slash:◉

1K - 9K WORDS

◎ 100 Words to Baker Street by rabidsamfan, Teen, angst: 100 words drabbles, from Holmes and Watson POV passing for the different moments in their life together... and away from each other.

◎ A Burden Shared by passioninprose, 1k, General, humor: After a grating afternoon's investigation, Dr. Watson sits brooding in a quiet railcar back to London, not expecting his companion Sherlock Holmes to be the one to lighten the mood.

◉ A History of Anonymity by AlwaysWanderingIn1854, 1k, General: Whenever Holmes is in a dark mood, Watson reminds him that while the seasons may change with grace, the bond between them is one that has endured history.

◉ A Wonderful Place by wordybirdy, 1k, Teen, fluff and humor: An escape from the real world, for just a few hours. (with the casual mention of certain light colored suit)

◉ Darling by Artemis, 1k, General: Watson calls Holmes 'darling' by accident...

◉ Eternal youth by laideur, 1k, General: 5 times Holmes and Watson feel old and 1 time they feel young

◉ Floriography Lessons by waid, 1k, General, fluff: Now that they are in a "romantic relationship", Watson subjects Holmes to the intricacies of Victorian courtship. Holmes learns about the Language of Flowers, among other things

◎ Perfectly Insufferable by Jack of All Suits, 1k, General, humor: Set shortly after A Study in Scarlet. Poor Watson never gets to sleep when Holmes finds himself with a weeping client and in need of someone who knows how to treat the fair sex.

◉ The Unexpected Affair of the Injured Detective by marycrawford, 1k, General: Holmes comes home from work, and Watson takes care of him and is all really sweet and fluffy.

◎ The Relevance of Goodness by maynecoon76, 1k, General, Hiatus:  One friend offers him safety, the other believes him dead. At the end of the day Victor Trevor begins to understand Sherlock Holmes’ decision. POV Victor Trevor.

◎ Powers of Deduction by KnightFury, 1k, General: A beaten Holmes can only be saved by the deductive powers of a friend.

◉ A Man of Wealth and Taste by mechanicaljewel, 2k, Teen and up: Holmes’s first encounter with that hideous blackmailer, Charles Augustus Milverton.

◎ A Case of Immortality by KCS, 2k, General: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson meet for the first time since the close of World War I, finding that though the world has changed certain important things have not. 

◉ Le Beau Gent sans Merci by SweetSorcery, 2k, Teen: News of Captain Jack Croker and Lady Mary Brackenstall start Holmes and Watson talking about the perfect relationship.

◉ A Matter of Integrity by mainecoon76, 3k, General, POV Irene Adler: It is a curious thing when a celebrity whom you’ve never truly met is widely considered your most prominent suitor. Irene Norton sets out in search of some answers, and discovers that sometimes the truth is a delicate matter.

◉ As Yes to If by daisynorbury, 3k, General: "Leave for your own sake if you must, but on no account shall you leave for mine. I can imagine no sadder outcome of the insight you have gained tonight." An epilogue to Granada’s "The Devil's Foot" 

◎ Sixfold in Scarlet by methylviolet10b, 3k, General, domestic, angst and humor: Five times Holmes should have called for Watson, and one time he did. Inspired by the initial conversation between Holmes and Watson in “A Study in Scarlet.”

◉ Notes On A Love Story by A_Candle_For_Sherlock, 4k, gen: Watson finds a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray in Holmes’ room. Or: what happens when a queer novel upends Baker Street.

◉ Rubicon by Janeturenne, on livejournal, 4k: “One minute we were both on the deck, and the next minute we were both in the river…“ after an explosion while working on a case, Holmes and Watson think they’ve lost each other.

◉ A Priory by rabidsamfan, 5k, Explicit: A missing scene from Granada’s “The Priory School”. For Holmes the resolution of the kidnapping of Lord Saltire is cause to celebrate. But for Watson, a day filled with death and betrayal has awakened echoes of a past best forgotten.

◉ Finding Equilibrium by ancalime8301, 5k, Teen: Holmes isn't happy about gaining weight, all self-conscious and annoyed at his lack of control over his body, Watson makes his best (and struggles to don’t give away too much) to ensure him that he’s looking well and healthy.

◉ Grit by earlybloomingparentheses, 5k, Mature: John Watson, still bruised and damaged from the Afghan War, decides to hide his inversion so Sherlock Holmes will remain his friend and flatmate. He thinks the trade-off won't be difficult, but in a moment of weakness he goes to an underground club with an erstwhile lover. What he discovers there is more than he'd bargained for.

◎ Observations in Endurance by Maimat, 5k, General, H/C: During a chase, Watson falls and is left behind just to find himself face to face with the gang they where chasing: “Now thoroughly soaked and cold, I reminded myself several times that I was the one who instigated my confinement down here as an alternative to being murdered.”

◉ For England, Home and Beauty by cimorene, 5k, Explicit: Episode-related for "The Bruce-Partington Plans", based on a fusion of Granada TV canon and the short story by Doyle, enough said.

◉ Holiday in Cornwall by gardnerhill, 5k: from the events that led Holmes and Watson take a holiday in Cornwall and the later happenings after the case was finished, based on the Granada production of "The Devil's Foot."

◎ The First Irregular by aristofranes, 5k, General: Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective to ... nobody in particular, actually, is struggling to make his mark on the world of criminal investigation. But, when his pocket is picked, Holmes spots a business opportunity that might just help to revitalise his flagging fortunes.

◉ The Land of the Living by spacemutineer, 5k, Explicit, all the angst: Empty House AU. Watson recognized Holmes in his bookseller's disguise, but it wasn't the first time he had seen him since returning from Reichenbach Falls. He was determined to ensure that it was the last time, however.

◉ The Childing Autumn by taz, 7k, Teen, casefic: It's a slice of classic Sherlock Holmes and a bit of Ripper Street, salted with the merest soupçon of Lovecraft. A word to the wise—Jack the Ripper—if you can’t do the crimes, don’t do the time.

◉ Two Days by tweedisgood, 7k, explicit: Sherlock Holmes is arrested before he gets the chance to commit that particular crime. He has thought about it, though.

◉ The True Nature of Love by Ferryman, 7k, Explicit: Post Reichenbach, circa 1895. Holmes is depressed, and Watson tries to help him and in the way comes to the realization of the real nature of his feelings.

◉ Something to Retire to by flawedamythyst, 9k, Teen: “Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to”. Watson contemplates the future while he and Holmes investigate the three Garridebs.

◉ Five Times John Watson Said "I Love You" and One Time He Didn't by jonphaedrus, 9k, Mature, fluff and lots of tears (I c r i e d  a lot): In which Watson admits his love through the years, and Holmes understands as best he can.

10K - 30K WORDS

◉ The Red Notebook by Garone, 10k, Teen, Mycroft POV: Holmes is dead... or seems to be. Watson starts to write, and Mycroft starts to read.

◉ That Which is Hidden by shadowycat, 10k, Teen, Holmes POV: On the eve of Watson's wedding, Holmes takes on a task that results in unintended consequences for them both. This is just a possible explanation for the main way in which the Granada series differs from the books. 

◉ The Truth of the Musgrave Ritual by mydwinter, 12k, Explicit: Based on “The Musgrave Ritual” from the Granada series. “ It is my custom, you may have noticed, to save those little cases which we have solved until such time as danger to those involved has passed, or until Holmes otherwise suggests I may write about them.The happenings at Hurlstone Hall, however, received a very different treatment indeed.”

◉ That Most Precious of All Things by earlybloomingparentheses,11k, T, Holmes POV: From first meeting to retirement, Sherlock Holmes won’t put John Watson in harm’s way, no matter how much they love each other. In fact, he’ll do anything to keep him safe–including dying and coming back to life again. But Watson doesn’t want safety: he wants Holmes.

◉ All the Makings of a Great Romance by fleetwood_mouse, 12k, Explicit, Holmes POV: Sherlock Holmes lays down his account of the events of The Adventure Of The Empty House, the years leading up to it, and the night that followed.

◉ Pilgrims of a Sort by earlybloomingparentheses, 12k, Teen, retirement era: A pair of young travelers turn up at the Sussex cottage of an aging Holmes and Watson, searching for proof that love like theirs can last a lifetime. Watson tells them the story of himself and Holmes–which also happens to be the story of Mary Morstan, and her own unconventional love affair. Fluff, angst, more fluff.

◉ A Triffling Matter by wordybirdy, 13k, Explicit: Wherein Holmes broods, Watson ogles, and a mystery of no small import gradually unravels. 

◉ The Domesticated Detective series by sans_patronymic, 13k, Teen, retirement era, lots of fluff: Holmes's inability to attend to basic domestic chores causes friction between him and Watson. Featuring musings, squabbling, and etc. (you know what it means)

◉ Coming Home by shadowycat, 17k, Mature, angsty: An accident has robbed John Watson of his memory. Can he find his way back home again? A story in three parts told from Watson's POV. - I cried

◉ Masked Ball by Waid, 30k, Teen, casefic: Six months after Holmes’ return from the dead, the delicate equilibrium in Baker Street is disturbed when a stranger walks out of the London fog with a case – for Watson. Holmes is wary, Watson is fascinated. But who is the man calling himself Álvaro de León? And what does he really want?

40K+ WORDS

◉ Since First I Saw Your Face by Stavia_Scott_Grayson, 55k, Mature, POV Holmes, wip: During the Great Hiatus, Holmes, studying in Tibet, reflects on his first meeting with Dr John Watson. Full of historical references, with a hopelessly in love Holmes, beautiful writing, one of the best fics of the moment (yes, I’m going to recommend it every time)

◉ Particular Pecularity by saavik13m, 43k, Mature: “How high is your regard for me, Watson?” He asked abruptly, his eyes still trained on the fire. “If I were to confess my darkest secret would you leave? Would you abandon me here to my melancholy?”A case forces Holmes to reveal the truth to Watson and risks both their reputations and their liberty. Just how understanding is John Watson?

◎ Holidays with Holmes by KCS, 43k, General, humor, angst, friendship, lovely: A series of holiday-themed ficlets in the company of our favourite duo. 

◉ The Case Of The Stolen Doctor by flawedamythyst, 47k words in one shot, POV Holmes and Watson: Moriarty kidnaps Watson, a journey of angst and feelings with a happy ending.

◉ A Study in Scarlet by tiger_in_the_flightdeck, 49k, Explicit, AU modern era: An indiscreet photograph ends up online, forcing Watson to postpone his pursuit of a medical degree. Turning to the life of a soldier, he takes a bullet through the shoulder and is sent home to London a lost and broken man. Friendless and facing homelessness, he is introduced to an eager young man in the chemical labs at Bart's Hospital. As a friendship begins to form between them, a murder investigation pulls Watson into Holmes' world. Between crime scenes, a killer with an eye on revenge, and frustrating police officers, their friendship grows into something neither of them had expected. g o o d s t u f f 

[holidaysat221b]

2017′s 12 Days of Sherlolly Master List

To help get you in the Winter spirit, here are all the submissions we received during the 2017 12 Days of Sherlolly Fest.  Please give them another look, leave a comment or a kudo (or both!), and show a little love to the creators who took the time to participate in 2017.

We’ve listed where the works are archived, mult-chapter or not, complete or not, and rating.  In progress fics are marked in bold as a reminder for a mod to periodically check for updates.  Tumblr accounts have been tagged where possible, some could only be linked to, and some are completely unknown to the mods.  As always, the complete Master List for all years can be found here.

Aftermath: The Christmas Album - Written by @geekmama Side A: 1. I’ll Be Home For Christmas, 2. The Holly and the Ivy, 3. O Tannenbaum, 4. The Gloucestershire Wassail, 5. It Must Have Been The Mistletoe, 6. Deck the Halls Side B: 1. The Boar’s Head Carol, 2. Caroling, Caroling, 3. There Is No Rose of Such Virtue, 4. We Three Kings of Orient Are, 5. The Twelve Days of Christmas, 6. Welcome Christmas   (On Ao3, Multi-Chapter, Complete in 2 parts, Rated T)

Baby, Please Come Home - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo The first Christmas since Sherlock’s fall comes around and Molly can’t help but think about him during that time. A surprise delivered by Mycroft has her rethink the meaning behind her and Sherlock’s parting.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Can’t Catch Me - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Eleven – (“Cookies/Biscuits" submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Chorus Elf Number Four - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Five – (“Elf”– submitted by @limajoro)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

The Christmas Ball - Written by flimflam99 (Tumblr Unknown) Molly is getting ready for Bart’s Christmas Dinner and Dance Ball.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Christmases When You Were Mine - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Having grown up together as best friends, Sherlock and Molly’s families had always spent Christmases together. But this year, after having been together since they were 16, they’re apart due to Sherlock’s fears and their breakup from 2 months prior. Will things ever be okay again?  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Christmas Lights - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo A different take on Christmas night in ASiB. Inspired by Coldplay’s Christmas Lights.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Christmas Magic - Written by flimflam99 (Tumblr Unknown) Molly feels guilty about making Sherlock say “I Love You” and Sherlock thinks Molly hates him. Their friendship is in tatters but can the magic of Christmas pull them both back together?  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Christmas Waltz - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Sherlock and Molly share a sweet domestic evening together.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Cinnamon Tea - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Nine – (“Cinnamon” submitted by @saffysmom)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Day One of 12 Days of Sherlolly 2017 - Created by @mel-loves-all A beautiful gif of Sherlock and Molly.  (On Tumblr)

Day Two of 12 Days of Sherlolly 2017 - Created by @mel-loves-all A beautiful edit of Sherlock and Molly.  (On Tumblr)

Day Three of 12 Days of Sherlolly 2017 - Created by @mel-loves-all A beautiful edit of Sherlock and Molly.  (On Tumblr)

Day Four of 12 Days of Sherlolly 2017 - Created by @mel-loves-all A beautiful edit of Sherlock and Molly.  (On Tumblr)

Death By Poinsettia? - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Three – (“Poinsettia” submitted by @heathera9)   (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Facing a Ghost - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Ten – (“Photographs” submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Happy Birthday, Sherlock Holmes - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Twelve – (“Staircase” submitted by @rewil)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Happy Holidays to Everybody! - Created by @eastwindiscomming Little Sherlolly-Christmassy thing for you!  (On Tumblr)

Happy New Year 2018 to everybody!!! - Created by @eastwindiscomming   (On Tumblr)

Help a Girl Out? - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Four – (“Out/Help/Girl” submitted by @mizjoely)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Her Lips, Her Mouth - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Six – (“Lipstick” submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Holmes for the Holidays - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo After the phone call, it’s Sherlock and Molly’s first Christmas together as a couple. After inviting her to Sussex for Christmas with his parents, Sherlock is surprised when Molly refuses him. Will a bit of Christmas magic be enough to mend their relationship?  (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, Complete in 6 parts, Rated T)

Hope you all have had a great Christmas this year! - Created by @eastwindiscomming   (On Tumblr)

I Saw Aunt Molly Kissing Santa Claus - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Two – (“Mistletoe” submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Last Sherlolly edit this year! - Created by @eastwindiscomming   (On Tumblr)

Love Molly xxx - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day One – (“Presents” submitted by @whclocked)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Merry Christmas From 221B - Created by @simplyshelbs16xoxo A holiday mix inspired by the Christmases on Sherlock  (On Tumblr and 8track radio)

A New Year - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Seven – (“Fireworks” submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

New Year’s Day - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo A look inside two consecutive New Year’s Days of our consulting detective and pathologist. Based off of Taylor Swift’s song ‘New Year’s Day.‘  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

One More Sleep - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo After the fall, Sherlock had revealed to Molly how he felt about her. He calls her to let her know he’ll be home by Christmas and Molly becomes restless waiting five more days.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

On This Winter’s Night - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Christmas Eve, a year after Sherlock’s fall, Molly finds herself on the rooftop of Bart’s only to end up sharing her night with Sherlock. Conversation and revelations lead to a happy 3 year time jump.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

The Pointy-Eared Pathologist - Written by Phoebe_Snow (@greenfleeze) Sherlock never expected to discover that Molly Hooper was an elf, but perhaps he wasn’t as observant as he thought…  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Strange, Isn’t It? - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo The same night of the Sherrinford incident, Sherlock convinces himself that everyone’s lives would be better off had he not been born. Mary, now a guardian angel, makes him see the error of his thoughts. Post-TFP. Based on the concept of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.  (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, Complete in 7 parts, Rated T)

Stretching Before Dinner - Written by @darnedchild A 200 word drabble written for Day Eight – (“Yoga” submitted by Anonymous)  (On Ao3, Complete (part of a set of 12), Rated T)

Symbolism of a Bow - Written by @lilsherlockian1975 Molly’s been observing Sherlock for months; she’s very worried about him. Something’s off, something’s wrong. Christmas is no time to be sad, so she decides to intervene. When she finally finds out exactly what’s going, she is more than a little surprised.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Then when you’re quite dressed - Written by @forthegenuine “Sorry, Sherlock gave you those earrings?” Mary asked again, though it did not appear to be because she did not hear Molly the first time. A delighted smile seemed to creep more visibly on her face. Written for 12 Days of Sherlolly 2017.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Twinkling Lights - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Part of the author’s First Kisses Series, AU of the first Christmas kiss.   (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

When the Ball Drops - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Months after the events of TFP, Sherlock asks Molly to accompany him on a case in New York. Unbeknownst to Molly, it is a case of the heart.  (On Ao3, Multi-chapter, Complete in 3 parts, Rated T)

Winter Dream - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo Sherlock and Molly spend their first winter together as a couple. Based off of Kelly Clarkson’s Winter Dreams.  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

Wrapped In Red - Written by LadySolitaire83 (@ladysolitaire) Molly and Sherlock’s ‘quality time’ on Christmas Day is interrupted when she is called into work to autopsy a body. Meanwhile, he takes the case and investigates the murder. Will he solve the murder in time to give her an extra Christmas present?   (On Ao3, Complete, Rated E)

Wrapped In Red - Written by @simplyshelbs16xoxo How did Molly end up at 221B that night? What if Sherlock’s phone didn’t go off until a few minutes later at the Christmas party?  (On Ao3, Complete, Rated T)

[mygangtome]

Where They've Been, Where They Are Now - Jonas Armstrong

He was the man in the hood with the bow, with a cheeky grin and stirring speeches.  Now it’s time to find out what Jonas Armstrong has been doing since Robin Hood ended. 

This is a long post! 

Book of Blood (2009) – Simon McNeal

Summary: A paranormal expert discovers a house that is at the intersection of so-called “highways” transporting souls in the afterlife.

Character Bio: Simon declares he is a clairvoyant, though the reluctantly agrees to work with Mary and her partner Reg to investigate the paranormal events leading to the violent death of teen girl.  He winds up further tangled in the events and the supernatural powers at work than he could have ever thought.

Fan comments: This was one of the first projects that came out after RHBBC ended, and I had been really eager to see it. However, despite being touted as a physiological thriller, it was a more violent, bloody and intense than I expected.  I haven’t rewatched it since, but it was certainly a change of pace to seen Jonas in this role after Robin Hood.  

The Street (2009) – Nick Calshaw

Nick Calshaw returns from fighting in Afghanistan, wounded and disfigured due to the blast of a suicide bomb.  He struggled to adjust to normal life again, as his family and girlfriend try to help and balance their own horror at what happened.

Character Bio: Nick is an ordinary guy who has to deal with the stress and trauma of coming back to war, with the added pain of having been wounded and disfigured.  He lashes out, is depressed, and tries and fails to be ordinary but can’t figure out how to get past his disfigurement and reactions of those around him.  

Fan comments: This was difficult watch, as it is obviously a very loaded and emotional topic. Jonas does an extraordinary job handling the roller coaster of emotions that Nick struggles with.  The script is sometimes a bit obvious and a little on the nose, but the characters hold it together.  And this is the second time post RH that he had to deal with and act with some intense prosthetics and make up, and he does it well.  

Agatha Christie’s Marple: The Secret of Chimneys (2010) – Cade

A lavish weekend party sees Miss Marple accompany Lady Virginia Revel to her family home of Chimneys - a house which was once prized for its diplomatic gatherings until a rare diamond was stolen from the premises over twenty years ago. The tenacious career politician, George Lomax, has persuaded Virginia’s father, Lord Caterham, to host an evening for an important Austrian Count, Ludwig Von Stainach. Virginia, the daughter of Miss Marple’s late cousin, must decide by the end of the weekend whether to accept a marriage proposal from George Lomax or to follow her heart and the courtship of another more adventurous suitor, Anthony Cade. Dismayed by the odd array of guests, including socialist spinster Miss Blenkinsopp, Caterham’s formidable eldest daughter Bundle and the quietly inscrutable maidservant Treadwell, Lomax castigates his affable assistant Bill Eversleigh, who also has a soft spot for Virginia. It becomes apparent that Count Ludwig has taken a personal interest in Chimneys …

Character Bio: Suitor of Virginia. 

Fan comments: I have not seen this, and the information about it is rather sparse, hence the lack of character bio. The only information I could find was that Cade was the adventurous sort (and that his character was rather pared down compared to the character in the book.)

The Field of Blood (2011) – Terry Hewitt (2 episodes)  

Set in Glasgow in 1982, Paddy Meehan is a young girl in a world of men; a feisty copy boy in the sexist, hard-boozing, cutthroat world of journalism. Paddy dreams of being an investigative reporter, and she grabs the opportunity when a young boy, Brian Wilcox, is kidnapped and found murdered. Paddy sees connections to a year-old crime that nobody else sees and she is determined to make it her story. But when Paddy crosses the line, she becomes outcast from her devoutly Catholic family and puts the lives of her colleagues, as well as her own, at risk. The closer she gets to the murderer, the closer she gets to murder; and the price of achieving her dream will prove greater than she can ever imagine.

Character bio: Terry is bright, resourceful and together. What he needs is the story that will make his name. After an initial misstep he becomes one of the few people in the newsroom who believes in Paddy. Terry is prepared to back Paddy’s instincts as they break the rules to prove that the police are wrong about a recent child murder. (bio from BBC One).

Fan comments: This was one I started watching, but then lost the ability to do so, and never tracked it down again, so I cannot offer much insight.  

The Body Farm (2011) – Nick Warner (1 episode)

A British police procedural, which follows the team from a forensic pathology facility that conducts scientific research to help solve crimes.

Character Bio: Nick Warner is the son of the episode’s victim.

Fan comments: Again, another one that I never have seen, so no comments available.

Rage of the Yeti (2011) – Bill

A quest for riches becomes a fight for survival after treasure hunters find snow monsters on a mountain in the Arctic.

Character Bio: Bill is part of the rescue team that goes in to help the treasure hunters deal with the yeti, and he may also be a turn coat.

Fan comments: Also have not seen this one, but have heard it is basically a terrible B movie that is nearly unwatchable. Unless you want to make fun of bad movies, then apparently, it is good for that.

Prisoner’s Wives (2012) – Steve (6 episodes)

Gemma’s perfect life comes crashing down when her husband is arrested for murder. As Gemma learns to navigate the prison system, she starts to think the unthinkable of her husband.

Character bio: Steve is serving time after being arrested for murder. He declares his complete innocence to his wife, Gemma, but he is not being entirely truthful.

Fan comments: Another one that I started to watch but never finished, so I don’t have many impressions to pass along. (There is a distinct connection between my ability / time to find places to watch these BBC productions and my senior year in college and then graduation.)

Hit and Miss (2012) – Ben (6 episodes)

Follows the life of transgender contract killer Mia, who travels to West Yorkshire to seek out her ex girlfriend.

Character bio: Ben is a romantic interest of Mia, who struggles to figure out his feelings and their relationship when she comes out to him.

Fan comment: Have not seen this one, but the premise sounds very intriguing, but possibly too violent.  

Twenty8k – (2012) – Clint O’Connor

A teenage boy is gunned down outside a nightclub and a young girl dies in a hit and run in two seemingly unrelated deaths. Deeva Jani, returns home to clear her brother Vipon of the shooting and soon discovers a much deeper conspiracy.

Character bio: Clint is a former gangster who became a youth counselor, who helps Deeva work to prove her brother’s innocence.

Fan comments: I have not seen, but from reviews it says the cast is strong, but the writing is not, and is rather predictable.

Walking With The Enemy – (2013) – Elek Cohen

A young man, separated from his family in WWII, disguises himself as a Nazi SS Officer and uncovers more than just his family whereabouts.

Character bio: Elek starts out as a typical college guy, flirting with girls and getting into fights.  However, as Nazi occupation sweeps across Europe, he and his family and friends find that lives are forever changed along with the millions of other Jewish people who faced genocide.  In efforts to save his family and friends, he gets his hands on an SS uniform, and begins a crusade to help as much as he can, as the uniform and confidence does a lot to keep his identity hidden.

Fan comments: I saw this one!  I managed to catch it in theaters at the tail end of its run, and now cannot find it on DVD for love or money.  Which is a pity because I did enjoy it, though there are times you can tell that the production was a bit low.  There are a lot of moments that just made me think “Oh, this is a WWII RH AU!” - there is a connection between Robin Hood and Elek’s work to save people.  Not robbing the rich to feed the poor, but lying to Nazis to save people.  Also, there is a scene where he and some of the other men in his resistance circle were unloading sacks of flour, and his mannerisms and cadence just screamed Robin. If anyone has any info on finding this to stream or on DVD, let me know!

The Whale (2013) – Owen Chase

A whaling ship called called the Essex becomes shipwrecked and those on board struggle for survival.

Character Bio: First mate on the Essex.

Fan comments: Have not seen this one, either, but it has Jonas and John Boyega in it, so I might have to track it down.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) – Skinner

A soldier fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.

Character bio: Skinner is a member of J-Squad, and is confrontational with the main character Cage (played by Tom Cruise).  However, his fighting ability means he plays an integral part of the main battle in this action movie.

Fan comments: One that I missed again, partly due to the fact that I would have had to sit through a movie with Tom Cruise, and I am not the biggest fan.  By all accounts, the movie is a pretty standard summer type action film.

The Dove Keepers (2015) – Yoav

Based in Alice Hoffman’s historical novel about the Siege of Masada, the miniseries focuses on four extraordinary women whose lives intersect in a fight for survival at the siege of Masada.

Character Bio: Yoav is a scholarly young man who develops a romantic relationship with one of the female leads of the story.  He is also tasked with a grim duty at the end of the siege of Masada.

Fan comments: By all accounts, this adaptation of the book was terrible.  I never heard much about this and am reluctant to watch it, because of the terrible reviews and tragic story line.

Line of Duty (2016) – Joe Nash (3 episodes)

DS Steve Arnott is transferred to the police anti-corruption unit after the death of a man in a mistaken shooting during a counter-terrorist operation.

Character bio: Joe is a former resident of a boy’s home, where he suffered sexual abuse.  He works with the police force to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Fan comment: Jonas lands a spot in three episodes in this series, and it obviously sounds like an intense storyline.  Have not seen.

Dark Angel (2016) – Joe Nattrass

A two-part drama about the Victorian serial killer Mary Ann Cotton.

Character bio: Joe one of Mary Ann Cotton’s lovers, who had the misfortune of dating a serial killer.

Fan comments: Hey, Jonas and Joanne Froggatt meet again!  And by all accounts, it didn’t end much better than it did for Robin and Kate… I might track this one down, because of the two for one RH cast reunion, and because I’d never heard of Mary Ann Cotton, and would be intrigued to supplement my own research on her with this mini series.  

Ripper Street (2016) – Nathaniel (12 episodes)

The streets of Whitechapel are the haunt of Detective Inspector Edmund Reid and his team of officers, who aim to maintain law and order in a place once terrorized by Jack the Ripper.

Character bio: Assistant to Abel Croker, and Augustus Dove’s long-lost brother. Known as the ‘Whitechapel Golem’.

Fan comments: Jonas does not play a good guy, though it must be a slow reveal as he is credited in 12 episodes of seasons 4 and 5.

Now, I have a long list of shows and movies I should maybe catch up, and I can’t wait to see what else Jonas goes onto do with his career!

[sarahtheblack]

The Stansa Starter Pack

I’ve never really made a fic rec list before, but I thought I would give it a try.

The Stansa Starter Pack

So, have you noticed this little ship, Stannis/Sansa on Tumblr or AO3? Feel like it’s way too weird? Feel like it can’t possibly be for you?

Well, I’m here to rec the fics that might possibly change your mind! And even if they don’t, they’re still hella good.

1. The first fic to read is definitely Wedding by linndechir. It is a canon AU that shows Stannis Baratheon as king, wedding Sansa Stark. Jon is a Kingsguard, and his relationship with Sansa in this story is good. There was a little line early on in the story that had to do with their relationship that legit made me cry. The smut is hot and tasteful, and the characters are on point. You won’t regret reading this one, kids.

2. The second fic on my list is  Half of Winter by manic_intent. It is also a canon AU, featuring soulmates. In this verse, your soulmate’s name is inscribed on your wrist on your 12th nameday. Watch how being betrothed to Stannis Baratheon from birth changes Sansa Stark’s life. (The best part - spoiler alert - is that Lady doesn’t die!) You might not be able to read this fic unless you have an account at AO3, it’s for AO3 users only.

3.  His True Queen by LionsAndTigers is up next. This is a fic told from a few different POVs and it goes back and forth in time. It happens many years after Stannis Baratheon has taken the throne, and shows glimpses of how Sansa helped him take the crown. The smut in this story is some of the hottest I have ever read in my life.

4.  Would That She Would Cleanse Me by  LadyTP is a fic that is pretty recently written, and it is amazing. It is a “what if?” fic that shows what could have happened if Stannis had been victorious after the Battle of Blackwater. It has sizzling voyeurism and masturbation scenes, but it is also full of really sweet little moments.

5.  Proudwing by Silberias is a short story, but it is so full of great moments and emotion. Sansa is giving birth to King Stannis’ first child, and she is terrified of what might happen if it is a girl. Read and learn what happens, and whether the birth of the child brings them closer together or further apart.

6. Lead Me to the Truth by EmynIthilien is a story that I feel really nails the way Stannis and Sansa could possibly end up together if certain events in the books had gone a little differently. Their characters are spot on, and there are tons of great details. (EmynIthilien is an amazing writer, and if you like Stannis at all, you should check out her Squire of Dragonstone series. An incredibly compelling AU where Stannis comes to Winterfell with King Robert at the start of GoT and ends up taking Jon Snow on as his squire. This has far-reaching consequences.)

7.  The Haunting of Stannis Baratheon by ShipMaester is an AU that is set in the fifties, and it is based on the classic film: “Laura”. Stannis Baratheon is a detective faced with solving the murder of socialite Sansa Stark. But he gets much too invested in the case as he learns more about her. This story is amazingly written, with so many twists and turns. A murder mystery and a romance.

8. Bowled Over by Jillypups is an AU set in modern day Detroit. It has some of the wittiest conversation, some of the funniest lines, and the most gorgeous, toe-curling sex scenes. It is definitely my all time favourite Modern AU, and I’m always re-reading it. A billion stars out of five.

9. The Assignment by shadowsfan is a cold war era James Bond/Mission Impossible style AU, where Stannis is a secret agent, and Sansa has to pose as his mistress for Reasons. Awesome action scenes, hot smut (including one of the sexiest blowjobs ever) and just an all around fun read.

10. One is the loneliest number by darkstark is a strangers to lovers story, set in a modern Westeros. Stannis and Sansa are both stood up at the same bar and strike up a conversation that leads to more. Very sexy, and gorgeous prose. I also recommend The New Girl by the same author; a story from Shireen’s perspective about gaining Sansa as a stepmother. 

11. Ours is the Winter by doubletaurus is a show canon AU, where Sansa and Theon escape to be rescued by Stannis rather than Brienne. This story is not complete yet, but it is *completely* worth a read.

12. The End of Childhood by undercovercaptain is a regency/gothic romance type story, with amazing prose and delightful characterisations. It’s a WIP, but totally worth a read as it stands now. I recommend all of Cappy’s Stansa stories for those who enjoy absolutely stunning descriptions and lovely prose.

13. Midnight Conversation by honey_wheeler has the hottest, most in-character phone sex that has ever been written for this pairing. Modern AU.

14.  All is Aglow by spittingfeathers is one of my favourite fics where Stannis won the Battle of the Blackwater, but in this one, Sansa plays a crucial part in securing him that victory! It’s well written and fun, and well worth a read even though it’s not finished, and updates pretty sporadically. I would also recommend taking a look at the author’s page - she’s written a *bunch* of amazing Stansa stories.

There are so many more great stories and authors I could recommend, but I’m going to leave it at this for now. I’m willing to rec more fics, though - if you find yourself reading these and needing more. Just send me a message. :)

[bountyofbeads]

Excellent in-depth analysis of how the tragic death of Seth Rich turned into a conspiracy (HINT:Russia) and spread on social media finding it's way to (YES) Fox News. ALSO LISTEN 👂 to the Podcast.

Exclusive: The true origins of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory. A Yahoo News investigation.

Michael Isikoff | Published July 9, 2019, 10:00 AM UTC | Yahoo News | Posted July 9, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — In the summer of 2016, Russian intelligence agents secretly planted a fake report claiming that Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was gunned down by a squad of assassins working for Hillary Clinton, giving rise to a notorious conspiracy theory that captivated conservative activists and was later promoted from inside President Trump’s White House, a Yahoo News investigation has found.

Russia’s foreign intelligence service, known as the SVR, first circulated a phony “bulletin” — disguised to read as a real intelligence report —about the alleged murder of the former DNC staffer on July 13, 2016, according to the U.S. federal prosecutor who was in charge of the Rich case. That was just three days after Rich, 27, was killed in what police believed was a botched robbery while walking home to his group house in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C., about 30 blocks north of the Capitol.

The purported details in the SVR account seemed improbable on their face: that Rich, a data director in the DNC’s voter protection division, was on his way to alert the FBI to corrupt dealings by Clinton when he was slain in the early hours of a Sunday morning by the former secretary of state’s hit squad.

Yet in a graphic example of how fake news infects the internet, those precise details popped up the same day on an obscure website, whatdoesitmean.com, that is a frequent vehicle for Russian propaganda. The website’s article, which attributed its claims to “Russian intelligence,” was the first known instance of Rich’s murder being publicly linked to a political conspiracy.

“To me, having a foreign intelligence agency set up one of my decedents with lies and planting false stories, to me that’s pretty outrageous,” said Deborah Sines, the former assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the Rich case until her retirement last year. “Maybe other people don’t think it’s that outrageous. I did ... once it became clear to me that this was coming from the SVR, then that triggers a lot of very serious [questions about] ‘What do I do with this?’”

The previously unreported role of Russian intelligence in creating and fostering one of the most insidious conspiracy theories to arise out of the 2016 election is disclosed in “Yahoo News presents: Conspiracyland,” a six-part series by the news organization’s podcast “Skullduggery” that debuts this week on the third anniversary of Rich’s murder.

The Russian effort to exploit Rich’s tragic death didn’t stop with the fake SVR bulletin. Over the course of the next two and a half years, the Russian government-owned media organizations RT and Sputnik repeatedly played up stories that baselessly alleged that Rich, a relatively junior-level staffer, was the source of Democratic Party emails that had been leaked to WikiLeaks. It was an idea first floated by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who on Aug. 9, 2016, announced a $20,000 reward for information about Rich’s murder, saying — somewhat cryptically — that “our sources take risks.”

At the same time, online trolls working in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the Internet Research Agency (IRA) — the same shadowy outfit that conducted the Russian social media operation during the 2016 election — aggressively boosted the conspiracy theories. IRA-created fake accounts, masquerading as those of American citizens or political groups, tweeted and retweeted more than 2,000 times about Rich, helping to keep the bogus claims about his death in the social media bloodstream, according to an analysis of a database of Russia troll accounts by Yahoo News.

Speaking publicly about the case for the first time, Sines, the former prosecutor, said that the Russian conspiracy-mongering vastly complicated her efforts to solve the murder by forcing her and the Washington, D.C., police department to investigate a blizzard of false allegations in order to make sure there was nothing to any of them. “To waste your time investigating BS is just horrible,” said Sines.

The Russian-inspired conspiracy theories also have had a devastating effect on the Rich family, especially after the theories migrated to alt-right websites and, ultimately, primetime Fox News shows. As they did so, there were repeated suggestions by alt-right commentators that the DNC staffer’s parents and brother were concealing information about his conduct.

“You’re used, you’re lied to, you’re a pawn in your own son’s death,” said Mary Rich, Seth Rich’s mother, who, along with her husband, Joel, was interviewed for the podcast. “I wish they had the chance to experience the hell we have gone through. Because this is worse than losing my son the first time. This is like losing him all over again.”

In her efforts to better understand where the conspiracy theories were coming from, Sines used her security clearance to access copies of two SVR intelligence reports about Seth Rich that had been intercepted by U.S. intelligence officials. She later wrote a memo documenting the Russian role in fomenting the conspiracy theories that she sent to the Justice Department’s national security division, and personally briefed special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors on her findings.

“It appeared to me that it was a very clear campaign to deflect an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” Sines said. “So then you have to look at why is Russia doing this? … It’s not rocket science before you add it up and you go, ‘Oh, if Seth is the leaker to WikiLeaks — it doesn’t have anything to do with the Russians. So of course Russia’s interest in doing this is incredibly transparent.” The Russian strategy, Sines said, was diabolically simple: “Let’s blame it on Seth Rich. He’s a very convenient target.”

The “Conspiracyland” podcast traces the spread of the conspiracy theories about Rich. From their origins as a Russian disinformation plant, the bogus theories about his murder emerged as a persistent theme on alt-right websites and then were fanned by right-wing conspiracy entrepreneurs such as Alex Jones of Infowars and Matt Couch, the founder of an Arkansas-based group called America First Media, which bills itself as “the leading investigative team in America in the Seth Rich murder.”

Along the way, the idea that Rich was murdered in retaliation for leaking DNC emails to WikiLeaks was championed by multiple allies of Trump, including Roger Stone. The same day Assange falsely hinted that Rich may have been his source for DNC emails, Stone tweeted a picture of Rich, calling the late DNC staffer in a tweet “another dead body in the Clinton’s wake.” He then added: “Coincidence? I think not.”

Within months, the Rich conspiracy story was also being quietly promoted inside Trump’s White House. Questions about whether the White House pushed the conspiracy theories about Rich have been raised periodically over the last two and a half years — and were consistently denied by White House officials. But the Yahoo News investigation uncovered new evidence that the false claim that Rich was the victim of a political assassination was advanced by one of the White House’s most senior officials at the time.

“Huge story … he was a Bernie guy … it was a contract kill, obviously,” then-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon texted to a CBS “60 Minutes” producer about Rich on March 17, 2017, according to some of Bannon’s text messages that were reviewed by Yahoo News. (Bannon did not respond to requests for comment.)

The conspiracy claims reached their zenith in May 2017 — the same week as Mueller’s appointment as special counsel in the Russia probe — when Fox News’ website posted a sensational story claiming that an FBI forensic report had discovered evidence on Rich’s laptop that he had been in communication with WikiLeaks prior to his death. Sean Hannity, the network’s primetime star, treated the account as major news on his nightly broadcast, calling it “explosive” and proclaiming it “might expose the single biggest fraud, lies, perpetrated on the American people by the media and the Democrats in our history.”

Among Hannity’s guests that week who echoed his version of events was conservative lawyer Jay Sekulow. Although neither he nor Hannity mentioned it, Sekulow had just been hired as one of Trump’s lead lawyers in the Russia investigation. “It sure doesn’t look like a robbery,” said Sekulow on Hannity’s show on May 18, 2017, during a segment devoted to the Rich case. “There’s one thing this thing undercuts is this whole Russia argument, [which] is such subterfuge,” he added.

In fact, the Fox story was a “complete fabrication,” said Sines, who consulted with the FBI about the Fox News claims. There was “no connection between Seth and WikiLeaks. And there was no evidence on his work computer of him downloading and disseminating things from the DNC.” (A spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office said the office had never opened an investigation into Rich’s murder, considering it a local crime for which the Washington Metropolitan Police Department had jurisdiction. Andrew McCabe, the FBI’s acting director at the time, said in an interview that he reached out to his agents after he heard about the conspiracy stories about Rich and was told, “There’s no there there.”)

After eight days of controversy, Fox News was forced to retract the story after one of its two key sources, former Washington, D.C., homicide detective Rod Wheeler, backed away from comments he had given the Fox News website reporter Malia Zimmerman and a local Fox affiliate reporter confirming the account. The article, the network said in a statement at the time, “was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.” Fox News later announced it was conducting an internal investigation into how the story came to be posted on its website. The results have never been disclosed, and a spokeswoman for Fox News declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation against the news network brought by the Rich family.

But “Conspiracyland” quotes a source familiar with the network’s investigation saying that Fox executives grew frustrated they were unable to determine the identity of the other, and more important, source for the story: an anonymous “federal investigator” whose agency was never revealed. The Fox editors came to have doubts that the person was in fact who he claimed to be or whether the person actually existed, said the source.

In his recent report, Mueller briefly addressed the questions about Rich, writing that Assange had “implied falsely” that the DNC staffer was the source of the party emails leaked to WikiLeaks. His comments about Rich, Mueller wrote, “were apparently designed to obscure” how WikiLeaks really got them: from Guccifer 2.0, an online persona created by Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, who sent the group an encrypted file of DNC material on July 14, 2016, four days after Rich’s death.

In the meantime, the barrage of conspiracy theories — implying that Rich was a leaker who betrayed his DNC colleagues — has spawned multiple lawsuits that are still ongoing. Joel and Mary Rich have filed a lawsuit against Fox News and Ed Butowsky, a Dallas financier who played a key behind-the-scenes role in the Zimmerman story, alleging intentional infliction of emotional stress. Aaron Rich, Seth’s older brother, has sued both Butowsky and Couch, the America First Media founder.

(Fox News, Butowsky and Couch have all denied the claims; the cable news network has argued in court papers that its reporting, while retracted, is a “classic case” of journalism protected by the First Amendment. The Rich family’s claim was initially rejected by a federal judge in New York on the grounds, in part, that the parents could not sue for the harm caused by the defamation of their deceased son. The parents are now appealing that decision. Mary Rich, in an interview for the podcast, said the fact that Fox retracted the false story is irrelevant. “It’s blasted across America with Fox and Hannity,” she said. “All they’ve done is taken it down, but it’s still up there on the internet. This can’t be retracted the way they did it.”)

Through interviews with family members and friends, “Conspiracyland” tells the story of Seth Rich. A Creighton University graduate from Omaha, Neb., Rich landed a job at the DNC to work on voting rights issues. Friends described him as an outgoing, fun-loving young man — he once showed up at a friend’s hospital room wearing a polar bear costume — who was nonetheless passionate about his job of expanding voting rights.

“I’ve never encountered someone so genuine in his belief that every American should be able to participate in that political process,” said Donna Brazile, the former interim chair of the DNC.

Contrary to the conspiracy theorists, Rich was not a disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporter; he never expressed a preference for the Vermont senator in the primary battle with Clinton, according to Pablo Manriquez, a friend and colleague from the DNC, echoing comments made by other friends of his in Washington. Moreover, Rich’s job gave him no access to the emails that were on the DNC server, making it unlikely from the start that he could have been the leaker of the internal party communications to WikiLeaks.

After a night of drinking at Lou’s City Bar, Rich was walking home in the early hours of July 10, 2016, and on the phone with his girlfriend when he was accosted by two assailants about a block and a half from his home. A fight ensued — Rich was found with bruises on his face, knuckles and knees — and he was shot twice in the back before the assailants fled. His billfold, watch and other valuables weren’t taken. But police quickly concluded that the scenario was most likely that of an attempted robbery that was foiled by Rich’s resistance.

The police and Sines, the prosecutor, believe there was good reason to draw that conclusion. In the six weeks prior to Rich’s shooting, there had been seven armed robberies in the same neighborhood, causing residents to complain to local police.

“We’ve had so many holdups on the same corner, with the same method of holdup, where two guys grab the person,” said Mark Mueller, a neighbor of Rich’s (and no relation to the special counsel) who was among the first to rush to the scene the night of the shooting. “They hold a gun to the head, while one person takes the phone and makes the owner of the phone go into the apps and unarm anything that could be traced.”

Agitated local residents took their concerns to the police. “We’ve had meetings with the police days before this, screaming at the police in our civic association meetings, begging for help,” said Mueller.

But over the past three years, it is unclear how much progress, if any, the Washington police has made in solving the case. No suspects in Rich’s murder have ever been identified, and the case was recently moved to Washington police department’s “major case/cold case” squad under the direction of a new detective in an effort to bring a fresh set of eyes to a stale case file.

Sines chalks up the lack of progress to what she calls the anti-snitch culture of the streets in Washington, D.C.

“In Washington, D.C., being a witness to a murder can mean a death sentence,” the former prosecutor said. “I’ve lost witnesses that were murdered because they were witnesses. Because they told me what happened. And it’s — there’s a very strong and anti-snitch culture in Washington, D.C., much stronger than it is in some other areas in the country. Add assassination language, Russians, add all those buzzwords, who wants to be a witness in a case like that?”

Nevertheless, even though she is no longer involved, Sines says she is hopeful that the case will ultimately be cracked.

“So I know that someone is going to talk. I know that,” she said. “It’s a lot easier after a couple of years go by for people to talk about this, because they think they got away with it.”

Sines said she believes there are two culprits at large — a shooter and an “aider and abettor” — and she suspects they are connected to drug-dealing activity in nearby housing projects. “I’m convinced one or both of them will eventually be brought to justice.”

In a recent interview, Seth’s father, Joel, said he was told in a call with the new prosecutor — who replaced Sines and the new detective — that the investigation into his son’s murder remains active. The prosecutor and the detective talk about it every day, Joel said he was told.

But while they wait for signs the murderers will be arrested, the Riches live with a painful reality that they say is reaffirmed on a near daily basis by Google alerts: The lies about their son’s death continue to circulate in the dark recesses of the internet, a powerful reminder that in the new world of social media, even the most discredited of conspiracy theories have a shelf life that never ends.

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