#them: I am a new hire and my associates advised that…

[averagemrfox]

Love getting emails from new hires that are incredibly formal and responding to them informally

Like chiiiiiiill you don’t have to impress me you’re already hired lol

[minetteskvareninova]

Minette watches Medici, part 24 (The Fate of the City)

-I am doing this because I am a completionist, but like. Guys, I'm gonna level with you. This finale might've broken me. (No, my broken state has no relation to the horrible truth that has recently surfaced about my favourite author of all time, whyever would you ask?)

-First things first - the central conceit of this episode is an attempt at Savonarola's life. Which is an idea so monumentally stupid it made me instantly check out of this episode. Like, even Lorenzo realizes that he's going to make a martyr out of him, to which Guido's only reply is "well, they don't know for CERTAIN so they will hesitate and that will give you time to crush dissent, or something". Because if the angry mob (and killing their favourite preacher right in front of them is going to make them VERY angry) is known for something, it's its deference towards the presumption of innocence. And no, noone's gonna buy the whole "some dudes from Ferrara who disliked him for unrelated reasons" schtick. Not after Savonarola makes what Lorenzo expected to be a fiery anti-Medici sermon. Sure, his tone is ultimately more conciliatory than that, but Lorenzo didn't know that when he was planning the murder!

-Besides, Savonarola didn't exactly keep the contents of his sermon secret untill he said it out loud; at least a couple of his associates must know what he was going to say (I mean, if his greatest enemy does), and it wouldn't be that hard for them to spread the news about this, or even organize an anti-Medici mob on the spot. Sure, MAYBE they will be intimidated by the murder itself BUT YOU CANNOT KNOW THAT

-And the kicker is, there are a dozen better ways to get rid of him! For one, it's not like reinstituting the old system and maybe even rigging it a little bit is going to cost the Medici. But even if they couldn't rig it, strategic retreat is a thing! And no, what was instituted after the Ten was disbanded clearly wasn't the old system of oligarchic rule, which would still favor the Medici and let Lorenzo regroup. Or, and hear me out - maybe try discrediting Savonarola somehow? Accuse him of heresy or some other made-up charge? Challenge his ideas on a public forum, like by actively advocating for the stability the Ten provides or something? Or mayhaps, if the murder is truly the only solution, something more subtle, to make it look like an accident? Poison, perhaps? Like, there are literally dozens of better, more clever ways someone as cunning as Lorenzo could use before resorting to armored thugs.

-And the thing is, from a writing standpoint, you don't need to do any of that; just make Lorenzo orchestrate the murder, then save Savonarola from the thugs he himself hired INTENTIONALLY. Like, saving the life of this super popular prophet would be the instant reputation saver Lorenzo needs and make much more sense than the Cesare Borgia shit he's trying to pull here.

-But that would kinda distract the show from Lorenzo's... Redemption arch? Like, what the fuck was that. I find the way the show is trying to shift the blame for Lorenzo's misdeeds on Guido especially heinous, as if the only thing that man ever did wasn't just to always push for the most violent and radical solution - a pattern so consistent that I cannot read Lorenzo even keeping him around as anything other than Lorenzo's own eagerness to always go for the most violent option. In a perverse way, Lorenzo (albeit untintentionally) and the show (absolutely intentionally) used the man as a scapegoat, a sacrificial lamb to cleanse Lorenzo's sins. The servant is brutally murdered by an angry mob so that the master might die in his bed surrounded by his loving family. Seriously, fuck this. Evil Advisor the worst trope. As @julyzaa once put it: "why is everything blamed on the evil adviser/ambitious wife/concubine these characters have not considered the person may be fucking dumb"

-Not that Savonarola doesn't make his own dumb choice. Seriously, dude, heckling your political oponent at his wife's funeral?! Time and place, my man, time and place. Then again, might just be a flex on how mad he can make people be at Lorenzo. After all, heckling a man at his wife's funeral, that is some anger and contempt, you know? The show doesn't even hint at this, but I'll be charitable this time.

-But oh, look, Minette, a Michelangelo cameo! Seriously, are you guys for fucking real?! I've only gotten used to Boticelli as a recurring character and I barely tolerated the Da Vinci cameo. DON'T PUSH IT.

-Of course, that isn't the most infuriating cameo by far, as my Machiavelli girlies would attest to. That's right, we did not have the time for the father of humanism in this humanism and renaissance show, but you know what renaissance philosopher DID make it into this show?! That's right, the one that every basic bitch knows, or at least think they know, because while it's only implication, the narrative of Machiavelli The Cunning Intrigue Man is still very much there, nary a hint of his well-attested republican sympathies at least earlier in his life, which greatly contrast with the philosophy espoused by The Prince and lend themselves to scholarly debate about what his actual intentions behind The Prince even were- Ahem. My point is, these writers didn't even so much as watch an Overly Sarcastic Productions video, which is some dedication to not doing research, let me tell ya!

-Great, so Bianca had returned this episode. Show, I don't care about Bianca and you cannot make me. Especially not by making her a generic Voice Of Reason, a role already fulfilled in a more interesting manner by the youngins (Giulio and Piero). Heck, I don't care about any of these assholes enough for Lorenzo's emotional deathbed moment to really land. Or any other moment of this episode, for that matter. Especially when they condemn Lorenzo on moral grounds, but none of them really points out that his plan is not only reprehensible, but also very, very stupid.

-The only time this episode did literally anything that actually worked for me was Lucrezia D's radicalization, because that was the only part of the plot untouched by Lorenzo's shitshow of a character arch. When she lets the altar boys take her stuff with a serene smile on her face? Amazing, what a moment. Especially since her husband doesn't seem too wild about that, hinting at how Savonarola's reign will turn against the anti-Medici oligarchs who supported him. Why, we could've had this plot as an official apology from the Hollywood for botching the Sparrow subplot in Game of Thrones... Alas, the show ends with Lorenzo's death and only mentions one of the most interesting periods in Florentine history in passing, so no dice.

-I sincerely hate that the only reply the show has to Savonarola's religious fanatism is "but the art is nice tho". Like, the show had a ready-made philosophy to counteract him right there IF IT BOTHERED TO INCLUDE FUCKING PICO DELLA MIRANDOLLA (even tho the man supported Savonarola and had his own religious phase, it's complicated). Seriously. Why the fuck is there no humanism in this renaissance and humanism show???

-And that is kinda my summary of the whole show, really. A few excellent moments, a whole lot of stupidity, too much renaissance, absolutely no humanism. 4/10, don't watch it. Unless The Borgias is even worse, so this is overall the best Italian renaissance show out there. I can't tell, I haven't seen The Borgias. Or maybe watch it, but only season 1.

[shamimahammedz]

Workers Comp Audit: 3 Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

One of the last email subjects I want to see in my inbox is COMENSATION REVIEW. Getting workers' compensation insurance is not an easy task. It is easy to make mistakes. Maybe you promised to change certain items on your payslip when you got home, but forgot about it. Overtime pay may not be accounted for. 

Whatever the reason, you don't want to end up paying high fees or customized insurance. In this post, I'll share three common mistakes companies make in the Workers Comp audit process and how to avoid them. Let's jump in! 

What is a Workers Comp Audit?

Like any year-end process, employee compensation audits can ensure that everything is done right in your small business. During the Workers Comp audit, the insurer verifies that payslips and other financial reports are accurate. 

Workers Compensation Insurance is a government-mandated program that allows workers who are injured or sick on the job to receive certain benefits. These benefits alleviate incapacity and may include wage replacement. 

Workers Compensation benefits businesses and employees because it waives the right to sue an employer for receipt of workers' compensation benefits. 

Complying with regulations can be difficult as you need to understand the laws of your state. Each state sets premiums based on economic prospects and the nature of the business. So where does Workers Comp audit matter? 

To avoid mistakes and stay compliant, you can rest easy by working with a payroll service provider. 

J&L Risk Managements puts you in touch with a trusted local agent who understands employee compensation, local regulations and coding systems inside and out. Our partnered providers can advise you on the best way to manage your workers' compensation insurance while finding the best premium for you. 

1. Misclassification of Employees

If you misclassify an employee, insurance companies can easily find out. In practice, workers who are at higher risk of being injured on the job pay higher premiums and, as a result, have higher insurance premiums. For example, a construction worker who regularly works on a construction site has a higher risk of injury than a data collector who sits at a desk most of the day. 

Having hundreds of vocational classes doesn't help. It's easy to make mistakes. Check the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) list to find the 4-digit code your business needs. Of course, with an NCCI class code, you'll pay more in insurance coverage if your workplace is more risky. This makes sense, because otherwise all companies would pay the same premium. 

Pro tip: 35 states use the NCCI Class Code List. Ten states use a modified class code list. Five states (California, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania) use their own systems. See where the state is falling behind with this resource. 

Incorrect code can result in higher worker's compensation insurance payouts and penalties for underreporting risk. If Workers Comp audit reveals that you are using more secure code than necessary, you may be eligible for additional bounties for up to three years. 

2. Paperwork Errors

Spelling errors are often human errors. If your payslips are not organized and properly archived, you run the risk of not providing the information your insurer needs to ensure the best possible coverage. Insurance companies may think they are underestimating salaries in order to lower premiums. 

Workers compensation insurance is priced based on the number of employees, salary, claims history and level of risk associated with business operations. And of course, hiring new employees or increasing wages for top talent can change these metrics. 

In all cases, keep accurate records and notify your insurance company of any changes.

I am grateful that I can receive a salary when I join workers' compensation insurance for the first time. Insurance companies calculate premiums based on salary data. If your company's circumstances change, your provider will adjust the premium for workers' compensation assessments. 

3. Not Reporting Subcontractors

The lines can get blurry here. First, let's distinguish between independent contractors and subcontractors. 

Independent Contractor: Many independent contractors typically contract with their clients and have their own workers' compensation insurance to cover lost wages and medical expenses.

Subcontractor: You are hired by an independent contractor, but you must also write your own policy.  

For example, if you are an independent contractor and you hire an electrician to work on your latest project, that electrician is your subcontractor.  

Workers Comp Audits must ensure that contractors and subcontractors have their own insurance policies and valid policies to prove it. Uninsured employed workers are a premium-generating contribution. Try to use an insured subcontractor if possible.  

If the auditor employs an uninsured subcontractor, the company will be billed as if the subcontractor were a direct employee. After that, you will be charged a significant additional premium.  

How to Avoid Workers Comp Audit Mistakes

1. Always Be Prepared

Must be an active participant in the Workers Comp audit process. The more transparent you are with your provider, the smoother the process. Make sure you have all the documents you need in order to be compliant.  

This includes collecting information throughout the year, especially if we use contractors or subcontractors.  

Also, log whenever you change job descriptions or class codes. Your best bet is to contact your insurance company for advice. Again, transparency works wonders when it comes to building trust and avoiding nasty surprises during exams. 

2. Create a Workers Comp Audit Checklist

Creating a checklist to know what to change and what paperwork you need to prepare will give you peace of mind. Note the following points: 

Employee Information: It also includes forms and tax information.

Salary information: This includes your name, job title, wages, state in which you work, and more.

Certificate verification: To ensure that contractors and subcontractors are insured.

Description and class code: A detailed description of each business function and job function. 

3. Partner With a Payroll Provider

You can also cross all of the above off your worry list and ask your payroll service provider to guide you through an Workers Comp audit. Instead of worrying about record keeping and ensuring compliance, let your payroll service provider take care of it. 

ConnectPay connects you to local workers' compensation professionals who are familiar with state rules and regulations and can help classify your employees. We also recommend pay-as-you-go plans through our Connected Payroll model. If you're claiming Worker's Compensation, we'll put you in touch with an insurance company that can create a pay-as-you-go plan tailored to your needs so you don't have to overpay. 

Be Ready For a Workers Comp Audit

The best way to avoid mistakes is to be prepared and keep careful records. Tracking salaries helps you know when you need to make changes to your bonuses. 

Keeping accurate records and being transparent with insurance companies can help you avoid overpayments. You also want to prevent overpayments, as some money may come back. He could have used the money to pay off other debts or to grow his business. 

Our companion guide on small business payroll provides the key information you need to make the payroll process easy. Don't be unprepared for a Workers Comp audit. Talk to local experts and focus on running your business.  

[chouhatsumimi]

Hi! I am trying to become a japanese to English (& vice versa) translator. I can't find any sources to check the English to Japanese translation. It is difficult to get which grammar must be used since I am not a japanese native and don't know any natives to ask either. I have studied till N2 level but have no experience and must start freelancing to get experience so I need to figure out how to translate on my own. I can only use free translation software but I am not sure about it's reliability. I have seen questionable translations when it's for Japanese to English. Do think you can give any suggestions or anything that might be helpful?

Hi! I did put in a little time searching for the kind of tools you might have had in mind.

It seems that there are many that function in the exact same way but have different interfaces. Here are two of them. Many others can be found by searching "日本語文章校正ツール" or similar keywords. https://dw230.jp/kousei/

https://so-zou.jp/web-app/text/proofreading/

While they can point out some things to look out for, from the testing I did with them, they overlooked some pretty obvious errors, while also catching some things that I couldn't figure out why it thought it was wrong/sounded bad, or how to fix it.

There was one more I found that I didn't try, because it involves downloading software. This page explains the software, and another page on the site offers the download. The webpage is sponsored by a university, so I think it's safe to assume its trustworthy, but it might be a hassle and I can't say for sure if it works.

https://www.pawel.jp/outline_of_tools/tomarigi/

--------------------

That said, it's most common for translators to work from one language INTO their native language. While interpreters often have to go both directions (J <--> E), translators typically work either (J -> E) [English native speakers] OR (E -> J) [Japanese native speakers]. If you grew up bilingual, maybe you can translate both ways. But if English is your native language and you learned Japanese as a second language (which is true of my situation), it's pretty much not going to be worth bothering to do E->J translation, unless there are extenuating circumstances. The reasons for this are 1) You can't be sure that the translation you produce reads smoothly or is error-free 2) While you might think, but yes, if I do a really thorough check and compare it against native Japanese examples, I can be pretty darn sure it's perfect, the amount of time it takes you to do that is not going to be cost-effective. Like anything else, people purchasing translation as a service usually want the end result to be done well, in a timely manner, and as cheaply as possible, so it doesn't make sense to hire you for E -> J when they could hire a native Japanese speaking translator, or send their work to an agency to find that translator for them.

If you ARE translating into Japanese and are not a native speaker of Japanese, it is a good idea to have a fellow translator who has the opposite native language you do (in this case Japanese & English), and ask them to check it over for you (which, considering that's part of their job, you'd probably pay a small fee for). They could do the same to have you proofread their translations into English. Some translators consult friends/spouses, etc., but I think this can get old for them sometimes, so it's advisable not to rely on them for your job. You mentioned not having any native speakers to ask right now, but this is still an idea you can file away for in the future when you meet more people and get to know other translators.

In short, if you're aiming to become a translator working with Japanese but are not a native Japanese speaker, don't worry about translating into Japanese. Just focus on translating from Japanese into your native language.

--------------------

Translation software: let me make a distinction here between "machine translation" and "CAT [computer aided translation] tools".

Machine translation is Google Translate, DeepL, anything like that. There are times when they work well, but particularly with a language like Japanese that likes to imply a lot of information instead of stating it directly (such as who is doing the action described in the sentence), they're pretty much always going to miss something. In any situation that someone is looking to pay a translator to do work, it's because they already know machine translation won't cut it. One thing that's becoming more common is MTPE (machine translation post editing), where a translator "fixes" what's wrong with a machine translation (or more often than not, just re-translates it from scratch because what the machine came up with is mostly useless).

CAT tools, on the other hand, are widely used by translators. Paid CAT tools such as Trados, MemoQ, Memsource, etc. can be very expensive, and are often provided by a translation agency to their translators. (Also, most of them require a PC operating system.) There's more I could say, but since I haven't been in any situations that require them, I don't have any personal experience. I do have experience using OmegaT (free, works on Mac) and Felix (free, I use it on Windows). They both take a little tinkering to figure out how to use effectively, but basically what they do is, once you've translated a segment of text, they store the original segment and the translated segment, and for each new segment you go to translate, the CAT tool compares it to segments that you've previously translated to see if you can re-use any of what you came up with before. They can also have a built-in dictionary function, but that's basically just having your typical web-based dictionary but more automatically and in a more convenient location.

--------------------

For going into freelancing, I have a few recommendations.

Apart from CAT tools, some resources that I refer to frequently are http://nihongo.monash.edu/cgi-bin/wwwjdic?9T (basically looks up all the words in a sentence at once), http://thejadednetwork.com/sfx/ (if you're doing anything with sound effects, like manga), https://tsukubawebcorpus.jp//search/ (this is a corpus, I have another post on how to use it -here-, it's probably going to be your best bet when it comes to checking grammar), https://books.google.com/ngrams (for when it comes to figuring out what turns of phrase are commonly used in English), and https://yomikatawa.com/ (for figuring out the readings of names in Japanese, though there are other sites that work similarly).

When it comes to practicing, contests are a good place to start. The two I know of now are run by JAT in October (https://jat.org/events/contests) and JLPP deadline of 7/31 (and they're long, so it's probably too late for this year unless you're free between now and then: https://www.jlpp.go.jp/en/competition6/competition6en.html ) You can also practicing doing translations for fun. Any kind of media you enjoy (manga, video games, variety shows, newspaper articles) is a good target for doing a practice translation. Just be wary that it's not a good idea to post your translation in a public location on the internet, because it could be infringing copyright/licensing agreements, etc. Finally, there are websites like Gengo, Conyac, Fiverr and others where you can do gig translation work. They can be useful for practice, but also have the pitfall of paying, like, 5% of the rate you should be getting. This is an ongoing debate because on one hand, you can get practice while still getting a little money for it, but on the other hand, if customers can get people to do that work for 5% of a livable wage, that makes it harder for aspiring and working translators to find enough work that pays well enough to support themselves doing only translation for a living. Entertainment (primarily manga) scanlation groups also a significant enough force to merit a mention here- many aspiring entertainment translators find themselves a part of such a group. Practice is practice and developing your skills is important, but they also have many many of the same problems associated with them as I mentioned above, namely infringing on copyright and contributing to the inability of anyone to turn entertainment translation into a livable full-time job.

Another recommendation I have is to join some J/E translation-focused groups. This page lists a number of them: https://shinpaideshou.com/translation/ I can personally vouch for JAT as I am a member and I got my current job by being part of their directory. They run an online training program (eJuku) once a year around April, and applications only stay open for a few days, so if you're interested make sure you keep your eye out. Another one not listed on that page is https://swet.jp/ which is not entirely about translation, but it is heavily related and they host some good events. Twitter is also a very good place to be if you're getting into J/E translation. I prefer to keep my tumblr and twitter separate but if you DM me, I can give you my handle so you can see who I follow and who among that seems worth following to you.

--------------------

In closing, I see you say "I have studied till N2 level but have no experience and must start freelancing to get experience so I need to figure out how to translate on my own." I'd say, give yourself some time. Even at N1 there's still going to be a lot you don't understand (or at least there was for me, that's why I started this langblr). I'm sure there are differences in our situations, but it was about five years ago for me that I started diving into translation- I think I was between N2 and N1 then. I've done a lot of translating and gotten a lot of experience since then, but I also have and am experiencing a lot of burnout. (In fact, I'm procrastinating right now by answering this....) Many translators have a job and translate on the side, and it's also common to gain experience with a company or agency before diving into supporting yourself on freelance work. I'd encourage you to take a breath, get experience when and where you can, and remember that if you keep at it long enough, you're sure to get there- just don't wear yourself out or worry to death in the meantime!

OH and definitely keep track of what projects you do, how long they are, and how long it takes you to do them! Knowing your speed is important when it comes to setting your working rates. I am always doubting these, and they differ from person to person, but my current estimates are that I can do 600 moji (Japanese characters) per hour, ~10 min. of audio per hour, and I try to aim for $45~$60 per hour. Generally the lowest acceptable standard rates are $0.05-$0.06 per moji and ~$5 per page of manga. You'll definitely get requests lower than that, so remember your sanity and don't be afraid to say no, there are plenty of opportunities out there!

[bangtangalicious]

cancelled (2) | myg, jjk

summary: you cheated on your boyfriend, one of the most sought after boys on campus, with the nerd from the back of the lecture hall. now a video has leaked across and everyone is turning against you for hurting such a perfect s/o.

pairing: yoongi x reader ft jungkook

wordcount: 3.7k

genre: smut, yandere!yoongi and nerd!jungkook exyandere!jungkook

established-relationship!au college!au cheating!au

warnings: reader discretion is advised. penetrative sex, unprotected sex, really steamy sex, ring tease (is that a thing), yoongi is a master with his tongue but we knew this, manipulative behavior, yandere behavior, controlling, dirty talk, guilting, mentions of past dubcon activity, illicit filming, mentions of mental illnesses, gaslighting, toxic behavior. this is pretty dark so dont read if it bothers you

twoshot: part 1 | part 2 | masterlist

There are some scents we find comforting. Not necessarily because of the nature of the scent itself, but because of a memory associated with it. For you this scent was Yoongi’s burnt pancakes. They were not good, he knew that and so did you. But your heart would almost burst with joy at the gesture, and you could never quite deny him when he would ask to make you breakfast. The way his kitten like eyes would be full of excitement, eager to please you.

In this case, the scent made you feel guilt. A common theme over the past few days after the entire school had access to a livestream of you cheating on the most loveable, pure and kind guy on campus.

But he was not mad.

Something stirred in you. You wished he was angry, wished that you two would fight it out. At least that would result in a resolve of some sort. You were now simply immersed in a stale mate. Not forgiven, but not accused. Not innocent but not guilty.

You had blocked Jungkook right away, not even entertaining how he would be handling the situation. You had bigger problems.

And those problems manifested into your sweet boyfriend making you pancakes.

“Here you go baby” He handed you a plate. Not an ounce of negativity was seen in his eyes. You felt like you were going insane.

Your phone beeped, another notification. You were not even shocked to see it was just another random person yelling at you for what you had done’ You’d seen it all— death threats, people telling you you were the scum of the earth. Internet hate knew no boundaries. You had lost all your friends. Even your family caught news and did not want to speak with you at the moment. All you had was Yoongi.

“Listen y/n” Yoongi kelt down in front of your seat, placing his hands on your knees affectionately. “I know things are hard right now. If you want, you and I can leave this place. We can leave and go somewhere else where people won’t know about all this.”

Tears escaped the edges of your eyes, “We can’t just leave…No one will hire me, a background check will show up with PornHub on the first search result. I’m ruined.”

“I’ll get the video taken down y/n. Clearly that guy did not have your consent to post it.”

“That isn’t the point” You screamed, grasping his hands firmly as you sobbed, “Everyone knows it happened. They know I was unfaithful. To you. The love of my life. Literally the most perfect angel of a human ever. I’m so horrible I don’t even know why I did it I just…”

Yoongi kissed the tops of your hands. “I know…he manipulated you didn’t he? Guys are the worst. He made you think you wanted it.”

For some reason you were not that mad at Jungkook. Maybe it was because you were too occupied with your own guilt. You did not feel like he coerced you, but telling Yoongi that wouldn’t have really mattered.

“Come on baby. Let’s move somewhere. And let’s get married. I’ll be able to give you what you need. You’ve been such a good girl for holding out so long. We can start over, together, away from all this. There’s nothing else here for us”

The idea was tempting, but your heart clenched thinking you would never see this beautiful campus again. Your friends, your classmates, none of them.

Yoongi reached into his pocket and brought out a small velvet pounch. In it was a dainty little diamond ring, the studs circling in a simple and elegant design. He held the ring to you and you simply gaped at him.

“Baby…You know I love you. I know you love me. So you messed up, who doesn’t? You’re human, and I denied you of what you needed and I am sorry for that. Marry me y/n. Marry me and leave this place with me. Let’s go where no one can ever find us, and be together forever”

You were too young for this. Sure, being in a long-term relationship might not have the same freedoms as being single, but being married was a whole other level of commitment. You knew it would come eventually, but it was still so sudden. But how could you say no? What right did you have to deny the kindness and love of this man after what you did to him? You couldn’t be an even bigger bitch and end your relationship after this could you? It would look so bad. People would think you dumped him because he didn’t want to have sex, which would make you look like a slut and then…

Your mind was dizzy. Yoongi simply chuckled, beginning to kiss the tops of your knees. Inching slowly in the direction of your thighs.

Once his lips were close enough to the hems of your pajama shorts that you were sensitive, you let out a surprised yelp. Yoongi grinned, face still pressed in the inside of your thigh, ring in hand. He wiggled his tongue in a way to push past the cloth, looking up at you briefly with a twinkle in his eye before his hot tongue barely traced your heat.

“Y…yoongi” Your heart rate picked up as Yoongi bit the crotch of your shorts and began to drag it down. It was an erotic sight, and you couldn’t help but feel shivers as you anticipated his next move. Then he did something shocking. He took the diamond ring and placed it flat against your exposed clit, his finger in the circle holding it against you. The cold metal felt amazing. He slowly dragged the ring along your folds, watching as you twitched. He lined the ring up with your entrance and next thing you know he shoved his finger through the ring and into you. You cursed loudly.

“Just say yes. Say you’ll marry me and I’ll give you everything you need baby girl”

He twisted the ring harshly against you causing you to squirm. “F…fuck yes. I’ll marry you. I love you. I love you” You were chanting like it was your mantra. Yoongi grinned and slid this ring onto your finger. He stared momentarily at your hand before returning his gaze to you and capturing your lips in a deep kiss. He kissed you with a hunger you had never quite felt from him before.

“I love you y/n. Now it’s just you and me.” He whispered as he trailed kisses down to your collar, using his skilled tongue and teeth to wiggle off each button, his hands planted on your thighs. He disrobed you, sliding your body to the edge of the chair in order to give him access. You let your legs spread wide. You almost couldn’t believe what was happening.

You had dreamt of this moment for so long. The day you would finally be able to have your boyfriend’s cock buried deep in you. The day where you could curse out his name in pleasure and love him right like he deserved.

Yoongi got up to take off his own clothes. You had never seen him fully naked before, just his chest. You always had an inkling he was big, after feeling him get hard after steamy make-out sessions. Him then politely stepping away to calm down, then cuddling with you affectionately.

His cock popped out, already hard and eager. You couldn’t help but lick your lips at the sight. Yoongi shook his head to try to get his hair out of his eyes, and an evil smirked played his lips. He stroked his cock harshly while looking at you.

“Look at you” He sneered, “My little slut, so eager for me. You needed cock so bad you’d just go anywhere for it isn’t that right hm?” You shook your head.

“Yoongi…I’m yours…I just want you” You tried to spread your legs even wider, the chair beneath you pressing into your back uncomfortably.

Yoongi walked up close so that he was standing inches away from where your legs were splayed out for him. “Show me how sorry you are you whore” He spat. You whimpered, his words hitting too close to home. You blinked back tears as he slowly lowered himself onto you, the rails of the chair almost cutting into your skin, making you wince in pain.

“Yoongi…let’s go to the bed…” You suggested weakly as his kisses found your breasts and he nipped away at you. He shook his head, allowing his face to pummel in the suffocation of your tits.

“Do you deserve the bed?”

“No but…” You looked away, “It’s our first time”

Yoongi paused, his head still rested against the valley of your chest. He got up suddenly and gripped your hips, picking you up off the chair into his arms. Your naked legs wrapped around him, and your wet core could feel his toned stomach. You couldn’t help but grind at the friction. Yoongi kissed you again, gentler now, his lips swallowing you in so that you could feel every ounce of his pure love. He carried you to the bed and slowly released you onto you back.

He stroked himself a few more times before lining himself up with your entrance. You were soaking at this point, your pussy drooling for cock.

“I love you” He said, not looking at you so much as the desperate clenches of your pussy onto nothing.

“I love you too babe” Now he looked at you. A dark gaze had overtaken him. The love in his eyes was absolutely gone, and there seemed to me a strange aura of anger.

“You’re mine y/n. Once this cock goes in, it’s the only cock you’re ever going to get.”

“I know baby”

“I’m going to fuck you. All the time. You and me, just you and me. You’re all mine. All mine to play with”He started to rub his cock in circles against you, “My little girl, sweet little whore all for me to fuck whenever I want to.” He entered you in one thrust, causing you to yelp as the push of the girth against your walls was too sudden for you to adjust.

“Gonna fuck you up so good” He exhaled, funding into you mercileslly, “My wife, my beautiful fucking wife. My little cocksleeve, baby girl ohhhh” You squirmed in frustration as Yoongi came inside you, his hot seed reaching the depths of you and filling you to the brim. “Shit. You felt so good baby, I’m sorry”

You shook your head. You were more than pleased with the experience. “It’s okay baby.”

“I’ll make it up to you” He pulled out and rolled you into his embrace, nuzzling his face into your chest. “I’ll make you cum so many times baby, we have forever to do it. You’re all mine now”

“Yes baby, all yours”

-

Jungkook bit his nails nervously. He had called up an old hacker friend to help him get into Yoongi’s computer. Something was off. Jungkook would know. Cameras? It had to be Yoongi. It made too much sense, but the question was why. Why would he want the whole school to see someone else fucking his girlfriend?

“Jungkook” His friend, Seokjin, was typing away frantically into a large computer, “Bro this is fucking insane”

“What?” Jungkook rolled his seat up to get a better look at the screen. They now had accessed Yoongi’s servers, and there was all the incoming footage from various cameras all around campus. Under each panel was a small description: Y/n’s biology class, Y/n’s favorite bathroom, etc.

“This guy keeps fucking tabs on his bitch yo. I thought you said they’d been together for a while”

“They have…” Jungkook peered at the footage. “Somehow I don’t think she knows he watches her like this”

“No shit” Seokjin made wild eyes at Jungkook sarcastically and smacked him. Jungkook rolled his eyes.

“I have to tell her. Something is fucked here”

“Look, I don’t know these people, but I have heard about guys sort of isolating their girls so that they become really, like, dependent or something. So that they can take them away and do whatever they want. Pretty fucked.”

Jungkook considered his friends words. “You might be onto something…He could be guilting her into staying with him…” Like an epiphany, the pieces fell together, “Marriage. He’s gonna make her marry him.”

“That’s fucked.”

“Dude shut-up,” Jungkook snapped, his protective instinct now in overdrive. “Give me your keys, I need to tell her. I have to go save her”

“Why?” Seokjin chuckled, “It’s really none of your business. You barely know her too, you guys are nothing but classmates” Jungkook’s heart dropped at the statement.

He shouldn’t care right? He was better now. Was interfering in her life just him becoming obsessive again? Was he reading too much into it?

“Fuck. You’re right. I’m insane” He exhaled, “My first instinct was to hack into her boyfriend’s computer uh, I clearly need to calm down” Seokjin hummed in agreement as he continued to click around on Yoongi’s server.

There were a few moments of silence before something inside Jungkook just ticked. She wasn’t safe. He could just tell. She needed him. He had to find her. “No…no, dude. If there is even a slight chance that she’s in danger I can’t…I can’t let that happen” Seokjin shrugged and tossed him his keys. Jungkook let the key ring twirl on his finger as he quickly dashed out of his apartment.

Yoongi and you had been at it for hours, not being able to get enough of each other’s bodies. You were xausted, laying on the couch butt naked, straddling Yoongi and hugging him tightly. Your skin was sweaty, and so was his. You guys were sticking to one another like glue. The smell of sex was evident throughout the room. You probably would have fallen asleep like that if it weren’t for the sudden phrasing on your door.

“Y/n! Y/n are you in there! It’s Jungkook, please it’s important!” He screamed urgently. Your eyes widened and you looked at Yoongi who simply had a silly grin on his face. He released his hold on you, allowing you to get up

“Um…give me second” You called back, running to your room to find some clothes. Yoongi got dressed as well.

You opened the door and Jungkook popped inside the moment he could fit through the crack.

“I…I need to show you something” Jungkook glanced at Yoongi who was simply grinning with an interested expression. “In my apartment…please…look I know you don’t want to be seen with me, but I promise you I did not film us. I didn’t even want” Yoongi glared at him and he shut his mouth, “Look please, please Y/n you have to believe me. Come over and I’ll show you”

He was gripped your forearms tightly and you wiggled away. “Um…I’m definitely not going to go to your apartment Jungkook” You scoffed, “Just say what you have to say right here”

Jungkook gulped, and Yoongi licked his lips, extremely amused and anticipating the events that were going to follow.

“Can we talk in private?” Jungkook looked deep into your eyes, searching for any small ounce of trust you might have left in him, and ultimately coming up dry.

“No. Just say what you have to say” You said, crossing your arms.

Yoongi paced over to where Y/n was standing and placed a hand on your hip from behind. Jungkook glared at him and he glared right back.

“It was you” Jungkook said dryly, a serious expression causing him to clench his jaw, “You’re a fucking psycho”

Yoongi tilted his head to the side, “Excuse me?”

“You filmed us. She didn’t tell you to pay me to fuck her did she? Hm? No. You, you paid me to fuck her and you filmed it, you live streamed it so that the whole world could see. All so that she wouldn’t have anywhere to turn but to you. You’re a manipulative bastard and a predator and Y/n” Jungkook met your outraged eyes, “You are not safe with this guy. I have proof”

“What the fuck are you saying? Are you high?” You slapped him harshly.

There was a moment of silence as Jungkook touched the side of his face that you hit, looking back up at you bitterly. “I know it sounds crazy. But he literally has cameras following you around everywhere. He watches your every move. He’s sick. Go to his computer and check if you don’t believe me”

“Actually it’s funny you should say that” Yoongi piped in, a charming expression still on display, “The other day I found something really interesting about you Jungkook” He quickly went and grabbed his laptop, opening it up to show them the screen. “You’re calling me a psyco, but you really just want Y/n all to yourself don’t you. You’re the one who’s a creep. I mean,” He scoffed, “I can’t believe you filmed this” He pressed play.

The blood drained from Jungkook’s face. It was a video of you and him. All those years ago. Fucking senselessly, two horny teenagers, all over your house.

Your mouth hung open in shock. You blinked, looking from the screen to Jungkook to try to convince yourself what you were seeing was real.

“You…when did this happen…is that me?” You stuttered, the scenes unfolding in the video overwhelming you. It was definitely your house, and he was definitely moaning your name.

“Y/n…No, I…” Jungkook was at a loss for words. He glared at Yoongi, who was smirking still.

Jungkook grabbed your hair and shoved you up against the window, your chest pressing into the glass. Anyone walking past would be able to see your naked body on display. He let his nose trace from your ear to the back of your neck, inhaling your sweet aroma. You whined his name, trembling as his grip tightened and he pulled your hair back.

“You know how many times I’ve wanted to do this? Hm? You know how bad I’ve wanted to just bend you over and fuck you right when I see you? Years. I’ve wanted this for years. Such a sweet…sweet girl. I knew you’d taste so sweet” He thrusted into you and you moaned his name in pleasure. “Just like that my sweet baby, mmm. Scream for me. Tell me how much you love it” He turned you around and picked up through legs, stopping briefly to remove his glasses.

“Wait…” You panted, your breasts heaving with your deep expirations. “Keep them on”

Jungkook smirked.

“Why?”

“I…I like them…I like you…”

You dropped the the floor in shock. You couldn’t remember any of this, but you did remember feeling some type of way about Jungkook’s glasses. You didn’t even want to know what happened. You needed him to leave. You just wanted Yoongi. Yoongi was simple, kind, and loved you. Jungkook was only making life more and more complicated.

“Get out” You growled at him.

“Y/n…please I know how this looks but you have to believe me”

“He’s clearly obsessed with you. Went to your highschool, followed you to college and didn’t even tell you. He’s probably been stalking you this whole time” Yoongi muttered, clicking his tongue in pity, “Poor guy probably has something wired wrong in his head. I hope you get the help you need Jungkook, really. But I think you better go if Y/n doesn’t want you here” Yoongi politely put his hand on Jungkook’s back to lead him out.

“Y/n! He’s crazy. Yoongi is crazy. He paid me to have sex with you I…” Jungkook held up his wrist, “He gave me this watch! Half a million dollars to do it. See?” You looked to see he was in fact telling the truth, Yoongi’s pricey watch was on his wrist. Yoongi turned to you and gave you a concerned look.

“Oh gosh. I’ve been looking for this, I though I lost it somewhere.” He said innocently, sliding the watch off of Jungkook’s wrist. “Did you steal this Jungkook? Look, my buddy knows a really good therapist, I’ll email you his contact information, please do get some help okay”

“No…” Jungkook struggled violently against Yoongi who was calmly trying to push him out the door, “Y/n…please believe me…I…I don’t even like you okay. I don’t!”

You scoffed, hands open aimlessly as you sat on the floor, still dazed. The tape of you and Jungkook still playing.

Finally Yoongi managed to drag Jungkook out. He was gone for a bit, but you didn’t notice because you were lost in pure shock, trying to desperately search your memory for answers.

When Yoongi came back, he was wearing a pair of glasses. “Hi baby. Are you feeling any better? Poor thing” He knelt down by your side.

“Are those Jungkooks?” You asked. Yoongi nodded, taking the frames off into his hands.

“Yeah. I figured if you like them I may as well take them”

“He just gave you his glasses?”

Yoongi paused.

“I just…took them” Right after he beat in his skull with a baseball bat in the alley behind your apartment.

[xiu21chen99]

hxh headcanon/imagine.

again... still about hisoillu but about their engagement instead of illu's influenced fashion choice.

also this is more of... idk it gave reason why they chose to marry instead of uh other ways i guess??

i've seen so many fanarts where illu would break the news to the zoldycks or how killu would react to having hisoka as his brother in law- like srsly it's meme worthy at this point- and lotsa ones that showed how hisoka proposed as a joke or smtg but... I've been overthinking abt it these past few days sO i present to you how i think "the big question aka the proposal" happened... (manga spoilers??)

it's after hisoka resurrected himself obviously, and def after he killed kortopi and shalnark (so he knew there was gonna be empty slots in the spiders' lineup)

i imagine illu went back to the zoldyck estate after the whole fiasco and only heard of hisoka's "death" from rumors while he was on a mission

and then when he was idk maybe contemplating on whether or not he should visit the body(?) to pay respects or something, he gets a text message from the devil himself

their text went like this probably:

hisoka: hey~ where are you right now?♠️ (and no u can't tell me hisoka doesn't text w card suits u just can't-)

illumi: who are you and how did you get the phone you are currently using?

hisoka: ooh~ illu~ i feel betrayed, did you delete my number?♣️

illumi: hisoka is dead

hisoka: *image attached*

illumi: oh

illumi: hello hisoka, how are you still alive?

hisoka: you sound disappointed~♦️

illumi: i kind of am...

hisoka: rude, just tell me where you are♥️

...and that's how they met up?? ngl i think illu has a know-it-all syndrome where he just has to,,, k n o w everything

he's curious so he agrees to the meetup ofc

he's also surprised when he sees hisoka is in good shape when they meet (idk at a bar in an unknown city?)

they drink whiskey on the rocks because... you know...

hisoka explains how he survived and his next plan of action (which is terminate the spiders)

illumi makes a mental note of nen after death bc he's heard and seen it all before but... not to this extent,

this is gonna be,,, bland but i think this is the logic behind why hisoka chose to get married/engaged instead of just paying up front (reference to the ten dons' commission to get chrollo killed and chrollo's commission to get the ten dons killed)--

anyways here's how their conversation goes:

i: "why did you want to talk in person?"

h: "oh y'know, for old times sake."

i: "...right"

hisoka laughs, "okay so maybe i want to ask you for a favor..?"

confused, illumi asks, "why could you not have just texted if you wanted me to kill someone for you?"

h: "no, no- wait, actually, you're not too far off."

i: ~mOrE cOnfUsiOn~ "huh?"

h: "how do contracts for assassination work in your... family business?"

i: "half the promised pay before, the remaining half afterwards. should the target be eliminated by a third party, the assigned zoldyck still gets the pay and should the employer die, then the contract is terminated and the zoldyck will report back immediately."

h: "and has anyone made a contract to have themselves terminated?"

i: "i beg your pardon?"

h: "what complications will arise should your employer's target be... themselves?"

i: "i believe... i have never encountered such circumstance before. the people who hire us are those who have enough money and resource to have their enemies killed quickly. no one's tried to test the zoldyck assassination prowess."

h: "so... how will that work?"

i: "are you implying this is the reason why you have contacted me today?"

h: "yes~ ♥️" (how he said a heart emoji out loud is up to you, reader)

i: "it will be a pointless paradox. logically, the zoldyck will only get the employment bill. and i, myself, do not find pleasure in going for the kill like you lest i get my reward, so you will not get a contract out of me, hisoka."

h: "is there no leeway?"

i: "a zoldyck stands up to their word. so no."

h: "even for a friend?~ ♦️"

i: "we are not friends, hisoka-"

hisoka raises his glass of whiskey along with his eyebrow.

i: "oh..."

h: "didn't you tell dear killua that a zoldyck didn't need friends?"

i: "you... are an associate, someone reliable in the killing world. it's different."

h: "hypocrite"

i: "i ask you for favors and you make me return them. it is not like we spend our time together leisurely like killu with that island boy..."

hisoka clinks their matching glasses of whiskey even though his is already empty, a shit-eating grin on his lips.

i: "you suggested we meet here."

h: "this isn't the first time we went out to drink, right illu?"

i: "regardless!! i will not kill you just for half the money. i do not like wasting efforts on fruitless missions."

h: "as i said, is there no exception, to make sure you get my money if you were to succeed in killing me?"

i: "are you doubting my skill, hisoka?"

h: "that's not the point right now~ ♠️"

i: "wait, why do you want me to get all of your money?"

h: "haven't we just gotten over this subject? because you're my friend, of course."

i: "i... we are not friends, hisoka."

hisoka claps, "that's it! illumi!! ♣️"

i: "eh?"

h: "marry me! that way in our prenup I'll make sure you get all of my money, and even without a prenup you'll still get it since you'll be my only relative! that solves it!"

i: "hisoka, are you sure death did not took a toll on your brain? you did say you used Bungee Gum only on your heart and lungs..."

h: "i'm being serious, illumi!! and doesn't this solve your earlier conflict? we don't have to be friends, we'll be husbands!"

i: "do not use that tactic with me, you manipulative bastard. stop joking."

h: "this is purely beneficial for you, honestly i don't get why you just won't accept it."

i: "then humor me this first, why now?"

h: "dear illu, i've been to literal hell and back. i think it's time to leave my mark in case i fail to escape death again."

i: "was it that bad?"

h: "you'll love it there, illu~ ♥️"

h: "on a more serious note, though, i do plan to marry you. out of everyone i've encountered, you're the most eligible candidate. you're powerful, fully capable and extremely pretty to boot! you're the ideal husband!"

(blushing obviously, illumi downs the remaining whiskey in his glass) i: "death has changed you, hisoka."

h: "so?"

i: "fine."

h: "excellent!"

and in one fell swoop, illumi has a pin against the curve of hisoka's jugular, wrist held tightly by hisoka- a card matching against his own neck.

"not yet, dear husband." hisoka whispered into his ear, "we have to manage the papers first. and i've a request before you do."

they let each other go at the same time, not even breathing an unnecessary breath in the other's personal space (well, they're nearly pressed thigh to thigh anyways, what's the point of personal space anymore-)

"a condition rather than a request, really."

"what?" hisoka orders them refills, and downs his when it arrives.

"join the ryodan first."

glass already pressed on thin lips, illumi's confused hum resonates softly into the concave utensil. "why?"

"so things can get more interesting. i assume you know of the dark continent expedition that's soon to take place?"

"father has advised i take part on it, since kalluto told me the ryodan plans to rob some cliches who'll join the expedition- to look after him. you want me to join them?"

"yes, and i plan to board as well, don't fret."

illumi's eyes turn to slits, "how should i know you would be there? i can't take your word when you might just disappear when we've all boarded."

hisoka grins, wide then wider, "you should know by now illu, i plan to avenge my wounded pride. that damned chrollo didn't even fight me properly."

tilting his head, illumi stared at the man beside him, "is that not contradictory? i thought you did not mind your opponent using whatever means necessary to win?"

"magicians use tricks and misdirection to awe the audience," hisoka says almost thoughtlessly, "chrollo's a narcissistic hypnotist who used the audience as a damned shield because he knew he couldn't handle me face-to-face."

he groans, tinged in regret. "i shouldn't have picked heaven's arena, if i'd chosen a more discreet location then maybe the damage won't be this bad."

"damage?" illumi rests his chin on his palm, facing his husband.

hisoka swipes a hand over his face, and the glamour comes off. the picture he sent illumi now present in front of him. he was missing a nose, his left hand didn't have any finger left and dried blood chipped on his white skin. "oh."

with another swipe, everything's made correct again. hisoka was grinning again. he downs the remaining alcohol and leaves jenny bills under the emptied glass.

"come, lovely husband. we're to elope and legalize our union!"

illumi follows suit after downing his own glass, "i think there might be another loop hole, if you were to join the family. zoldycks do not kill family."

"so if i were to wed you, here and now, you'd think me more of a family than alluka?"

"alluka is not family."

"are those your words, illumi? or silva's?"

"i..."

"wow, you're really just as fucked up as i am."

"where do you plan to take me? i've just said i cannot kill family."

hisoka chuckles, "then you're the one to take my name, of course."

"preposterous!"

"who the hell still uses that word?"

"i am and will always be a zoldyck-"

"exactly. it's just legal papers, if you kill me then you'll just be a widow and even get your name back! see how everything'll work out in the end?"

"hisoka-"

"are you doubting your skill of assassination, my dearest husband?"

"... i better get the most expensive ring in this damned city."

"that's the spirit! now let's go get married!"

"wait, hisoka. what is your last name?"

later that night, when they leave a chapel, something gold glimmers on hisoka's bungee gum/texture surprise ring finger. a matching one around illumi's finger.

unlike hisoka, though, illumi had an extra red glimmer right under that gold, in the dead center of a silver band of intricately designed pattern. hisoka had foregone the traditional diamond in favor of a 16 carat ruby engagement ring, such a curious choice but illumi accepted it all the same...

(much later on, hisoka took both rings as collateral and reminded illumi that he would get them back even if he died bc it was in their damn prenup- and bc it was technically bought under illumis name and that's how hisoka assured illu that he'd be on that black whale,,, bc he had the rings and planned to give them back to him there)

"I thought a red gemstone was better suited for the rather bloody and murderous ending that our relationship will inevitably come to, wouldn't you agree?"

-Hisoka Morow whenever someone mentions his preference of proposal ring...

"I disagree with most of his ideals, our relationship has always had a fragile foundation, and I knew from the start that we'd eventually end up killing each other."

-Illumi Morow, nee Zoldyck when asked about his thoughts on his husband...

[concussed-to-pieces]

Stay Safe Part Nine: Swan Song

Fandom: The Mandalorian [Star Wars]

Pairing: Eventual Mandalorian [Din Djarin]/Reader

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Heh. Enjoy!

Tag List: @wrestlingfae @huliabitch @toxiicpop @renegademustelid @helplessly-nonstop @culturalrebel @sinnamon-bunn @hoodedbirdie @literal-fand0m-trash @thyestean-feast @fioccodineveautunnale @kateb013 @hxldmxdxwn @lizajane3 @thewaythisis @nellyneko @oh-no-who-am-i @crownofmanga @talesfromtheguild @robbinholland @kylolover96 @lukesrighthand @lackofhonor @lightan117 @misssilencewritewell

Part One: Should Have Known Better

Part Two: Tranquil Turmoil

Part Three: Vibroblade Mettle

Part Four: Reaching Out

Part Five: Dark Past

Part Six: Go Alone

Part Seven: Like A Ghost

Part Eight: Savior At High Noon

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains character death and depictions of vomit/bile. Stay safe!]

While the Armorer spoke quietly with the Mandalorian at length and continued to smelt the reclaimed armor down, you remained out in the hallway with the IG unit to scan for threats. You couldn't bring yourself to go into the forge and just sit quietly like Karga and Cara, your whole body still buzzing with the vestiges of the huge rush of adrenaline you had received earlier. 

The robot's many sets of eyes swiveled back and forth, silently observing the tunnel in front of you. It also seemed to take note of your fidgeting. "Never fear. I am programmed to protect." The droid assured you. 

"As comforting as that is…" you grimaced, obsessively checking your blaster over yet again. "I'd feel much better if we didn't have to fight. Or if we had decent cover. I never know what will explode." An explosion echoed faintly down the tunnel as if in response to your words and you went rigid. You gripped the blaster even tighter, feeling the stock dig into your palm.

"I would advise not shooting at the inanimate objects to avoid possible damage."

"Wonderful." You muttered, a reluctant grin making its way onto your face. "This is why I prefer my knife."

"If you would like to attempt such an inadvisable tactic, I am unable to stop you." The droid commented. 

"No, no no. I promise I won't be that dumb." Your laugh was too high, choking off in your throat when you caught sight of several headlamps down the tunnel.

"Engaging the enemy." IG-11 announced, the spindly ex-bounty hunter droid striding forward into the spillway with purpose.

"IG, wait!" You protested. "How am I supposed to-"

"Do not worry about hitting me. Aim for them." The robot interrupted you calmly.

"Aim for them, no shit!" 

You knelt beside one of the many, possibly-explosive crates, tucking the stock of your rifle up against your shoulder. You then used the flat surface to steady the gun as best as you could, gritting your teeth probably a bit too hard. 

IG-11 was a force to be reckoned with. The droid barely even needed you, only once caught off-guard by one of the eight troopers that bore down on it like an unstoppable (but ultimately doomed) wave. 

One well-placed shot from you blew that particular stormtrooper's elbow out, making him scream in agony. You froze at the sound, your body stiffening before you could fight it off. How many men had you killed today? You had pushed it down, shoved the thought away, but-

IG-11 spiraled and struck with terrifying accuracy, it's blaster searing a hole in the side of the last trooper's helmet. "You have been protected." The droid droned quietly. It went on to ask, "Were you harmed?"

"No, n-no, I'm...I'm fine." You breathed. "Sorry, I get all…" 

"You did well. It is advisable to use cover at any and all opportunities." IG-11 mused sagely. 

"No kidding."

A nerve-wracking five minutes later the Mandalorian finally walked back out of the forge area, Dune and Karga close behind. "We push forward." The armored man said, answering your unspoken question. "We'll hit the river, and it'll take us to the flats. All we can do now is hope that the Imps won't head us off." 

Karga passed a large, square object off to IG-11 while the Mandalorian spoke. The boosters on the bottom of it seemed to indicate that it was a portable jet pack of some kind. You also saw a shiny new addition to the Mandalorian's pauldron.

"What's…?" You trailed off, gesturing at the insignia that had been welded seamlessly to his armor. It looked like a stylized mudhorn, which, when you thought about it, suited him immensely.

"My signet. I...I'm considered a clan now." The Mandalorian hesitated, his hand finding the child's in their little bundle of robes. "I have a Foundling in my care." His voice was warm, an almost incredulous wonder shining through his words. "She used...she used some of your beskar to make it. The ingot that I took from you, I-I asked her to use it," he continued, rubbing the back of his neck. "I hope that's--i-is that alright? I'll compen-"

"It's definitely alright." You interrupted him, nodding rapidly and certain that you were smiling like an idiot. "Don't even worry about that. Obviously, you guys can put it to better use than I ever could."

"Thank you." The Mandalorian said sincerely.

Greef suddenly looked incredibly uncomfortable. "How did you get ahold of that ingot of beskar, anyhow?" He asked narrowly.

"I was paid with it when I got hired to clean his ship." You explained. "But I guess the person that hired me was actually only interested in having me jimmy the boarding ramp open for them, because as soon as I got it open I was clocked with the ingot. They ended up leaving it with me, though. Maybe they didn't know what it was worth?"

The Mandalorian turned towards Karga and you could feel him glaring, while Greef simply hummed and looked anywhere but the glowering man. "Karga, did you-?"

"Whatever it is, the answer is no! But I can't take responsibility for the actions of every hunter under me." The older man protested, waving his hands. "You know the rules, Mando, no questions asked."

"You were the only other person who got paid in beskar, Karga." The Mandalorian growled. "If I find out that it was one of-"

"We don't have time for you guys to have a beskar-based pissing match." Dune interjected, "we have to keep moving, or we're Imp chow. Squash your shit now or deal with it later."

"I apologize for anything my associates may have done to you that, er, caused you inadvertent discomfort." Karga addressed you hurriedly.

"Uh, I...forgive...you?" You replied, more than a little confused. 

"There, you see Mando? No issues here!" The Guild leader said brightly. The Mandalorian shook his head, growling something under his breath and then stalking off in the opposite direction.

...

The rickety old lava skiff, while originally half-welded to the dock, didn't stay stuck too long in the wake of Cara's heavy blaster fire. Karga quickly grabbed the side of the craft, steadying it before it could drift away from the dock.

"Watch your feet, it's molten lava." IG-11 warned. When you turned to give the robot an incredulous look, you saw the Mandalorian and Cara doing exactly the same thing. Your deadpan stare cracked a little and you were caught off-guard by a giggling fit, clumsily stumbling over the lip of the boat as the armored man followed after you.

"Fucking droids." The Mandalorian groaned while shaking his head, though he sounded less irritated and more amused.

The droid that normally piloted the skiff appeared to be out of commission, but it was no matter. Even though the lava moved slowly, it moved enough to carry the boat along with it.

The child was still limp in Cara's arms, the former dropship trooper absently rocking them back and forth. Weariness dragged at you as well, grey static slowly encroaching upon the corners of your eyes, but you did your best to push it away for the time being. You weren't sure how much longer you could get away with that, though. Stars, once this was over you would sleep for a thousand years.

A sudden crackling noise behind you made everybody whirl, respective blasters and knives brandished. But it was just the ferry droid, emerging from the ashen lava that had entombed it. It held a punting pole in its hands and began to beep, sounding almost inquisitive.

The Mandalorian finally muttered, "I don't suppose anybody here speaks droid," his tone one of long suffering.

IG-11 helpfully supplied, "I believe he is asking where we would like to go." 

"Downriver. To the lava flat." Karga ordered. The droid gave a chirp of confirmation and jabbed its pole into the lava, propelling the boat onwards at a much less leisurely pace.

The Mandalorian sat down heavily beside you after a moment, his helmet in his hands. "I can't believe you came back." He mumbled. "I didn't think...I figured you wouldn't. Thought I did a pretty good job at ruining everything."

"I can't believe I did either, honestly." You answered him, wincing when you realized how bad that sounded. "Wait, no, I uh...I just mean I didn't really know what was going on. I followed the noise and found IG-11."

"So, nothing new." The Mandalorian replied, his voice wry. Then, he murmured, "my little mudhorn."

You shot him a confused glance from beneath your lashes, but for all you could tell he was staring at the floor of the boat. Your eyes shifted to the silvery signet on his pauldron, taking in the vicious contours of the mudhorn's silhouette. I'm considered a clan now. 

"What will you do after we take care of this?" Your words were audacious in their optimism and you knew it. He knew it too, if his snort was anything to go by, but he humored you.

"I have to find the kid's people. I can't train him, he's...well, he's not really the Mando type. But he's a Foundling in my care, so I'm to act as his father until I can either return him to his people or...or until he comes of age." The Mandalorian heaved a sigh. "And seeing as he's fifty now, I don't think him coming of age is something that'll happen in my lifetime." His hand sought yours out on the bench seat after a moment. "If you...I mean, I know that...uh, the kid likes you. So if you wanted, I'd...I'd consider…" He trailed off, squeezing your wrist gently.

You opened your mouth to stammer something and then Greef inadvertently cut you off with an excited, "That's it! We're free!" The older man pointed ahead, indicating the daylight coming into view in the distance. You couldn't blame him for being relieved, really. This underground canal was stifling.

But the Mandalorian was already shaking his head, fingers tapping at the button pad on his gauntlet. "No. No, we're not." He said bitterly, getting to his feet. "Stormtroopers. They're flanking the mouth of the tunnel. It looks like an entire platoon." Your heart sank at his words. "They must know we're coming."

His shoulders slumped. You could feel the exhaustion radiating off of him. He had almost died, only for this to happen?

Cara, meanwhile, leaped into action. "Stop the boat." She demanded of the ferry droid, which just continued to chirp merrily to itself. "Hey, droid, I said stop the boat!" She barked, storming towards the robot. "Hey, I'm talking to you!" 

The droid carried on punting the boat forward and Cara grimaced, jamming her blaster into the vacant space between the droid's dome and body. One quick trigger pull sent the droid's head flying off with a loud crack!, the dome hitting the lava and immediately beginning to melt. The child started awake at the noise, tiny fists waving wildly in the air.

The boat continued to roll downstream, slowly but surely carried by the flow's current. "We're still moving." Greef pointed out, his tone laden with dread.

Dune swore under her breath, turning to face the rest of the group. "Looks like we fight."

The Mandalorian scoffed, "There are too many." His hand absently tapped the side of his helmet and you read his fingers: enemy ahead, five, five, five, so at least fifteen.

At least. Your heart threatened to pound out of your chest. It had been one thing when you were running along pell-mell with no actual thought put into your actions, but now-

"Well then what do you suggest, because I can't surrender." Cara snapped, cringing when the kid started to whimper.

IG-11 suddenly spoke up. "They will not be satisfied with anything less than the child. This is unacceptable." It rose to its full height, proclaiming, "I will eliminate the enemy, and you will escape."

"You don't have that kind of firepower, pal." The Mandalorian retorted. "You wouldn't even get to daylight."

The droid leveled him with a stare. "That is not my objective."

"We're getting close." Dune hauled you to your feet. "Saddle up." You obliged wordlessly, waiting until she turned away before you allowed yourself to grimace in pain. Maker, your side hurt.

"I still have the security protocols from my manufacturer." The IG said calmly as you and Cara maneuvered around it and the Mandalorian to prepare what limited defenses you could muster. "If my designs are compromised, I must self-destruct."

"What're you talking about?" The Mandalorian growled impatiently. 

"I'm not permitted to be captured. I must be destroyed."

"Are we gonna' keep talking or are we gonna' get out of here?" Greef enquired, waving a hand at the molten riverbank.

"I can no longer carry this for you." The droid murmured, pressing the jet pack into the Mandalorian's unwilling grasp. "Nor can I watch over the child."

"Wait." The armor-wearing man sounded like he was having trouble breathing. "You can't self-destruct. Your base command is to watch the child." Was he...was he arguing with the droid? "That supersedes your manufacturer's protocol, right?" He reasoned desperately, his head tilted up to look at the spindly droid. When the robot didn't answer immediately, he pressed, "Right?"

"This is correct." IG-11 allowed.

He was arguing. With a droid. Stars, you saw something new every day. "Good. Now grab a blaster and help us shoot our way out." The Mandalorian ordered curtly, turning to check over his own weaponry. 

"Victory through combat is impossible. We will be captured. The child will be lost." You watched the armored man's shoulders slump even lower beneath his pauldrons and cape, like an immense weight was pressing down on him. "Sadly, there is no scenario where the child is saved in which I survive." The droid carried on relentlessly. You abruptly understood what it was saying, and despite your best efforts you felt tears sting your eyes. First Kuiil, now this?

"Listen, you're not going anywhere." The Mandalorian said sharply. "We need you. Let's just come up with a-"

"Please tell me the child will be safe in your care." The IG unit requested. "If you do so, I can default to my secondary command."

"But…" the beskar-wearing man's voice faded to a hoarse whisper, "you'll be destroyed."

"And you will live, and I will have served my purpose."

"No, we need you."

"There is nothing to be sad about. I have never been alive." The droid said pragmatically.

"I'm not sad." The armored man denied gruffly. He was lying and everyone knew it. You could hear the tremor in his words.

"Yes you are. I'm a nurse droid. I've analyzed your voice." IG-11 reached out those metal fingers, gently running them over the baby's ear. Then, without further ado, the droid hoisted a leg over the side of the boat.

"IG-!" Karga began to protest, watching the droid sink into the lava. Flames licked upwards from the ex-bounty hunter's knee gaskets, but it doggedly headed for the light at the end of the tunnel. 

The Mandalorian stood still as a statue, just letting the droid go. You ended up burying your face in your hands, unwilling and mentally unable to observe what would happen. 

The ringing impact of beskar suddenly broke the silence and the Mandalorian began to sing, his words wrapped in a deep, mournful tone that sounded like it came from the center of his being. "Motir ca'tra nau tracinya," His voice faltered. "Gra'tua cuun hett su dralshy'a! Cuun hett su!" 

The droid's self-destructive explosion rocked the tunnel and you heard the Mandalorian's breath hitch, the noise sharp and pained even through the modulator. 

He then inhaled deeply, the words reverberating off the sides of the tunnel when he roared, "Cuun hett su!" and slammed his gauntlet against his breastplate once more.

The skiff slowly slipped through the archway and out into the smokey sunlight. Fifteen broken stormtroopers littered the black ground around the mouth of the canal, none left alive in the wake of IG-11's sacrifice. You scrubbed at your face in irritation, choking back your tears. There will be time later, you promised yourself, time for Kuiil and the IG. Time to mourn them properly. You weren't permitted such time now and you knew it. People needed you, they needed--

Without warning, that ship you had seen earlier buzzed by overhead, its powerful laser cannons sending chunks of half-coagulated lava flying into the air on either side of the canal. 

"Moff Gideon!" Dune shouted, the Bren blaster whirring to life. The TIE fighter's engines screamed and whined, the craft circling back around. A line of ground to the left of the skiff exploded, green lasers punching through the cooled lava. 

"He missed!" Greef sounded absolutely thrilled.

"He won't next time." The Mandalorian replied grimly, loading a fresh canister into his heavy blaster.

"Hey, let's get the baby to do the magic hand thing!" Karga suggested, wiggling his fingers at the child. "C'mon baby, do the magic hand thing." The child stared up at him, waving their hand uncertainly. Greef sighed, "I'm out of ideas."

"I'm not." The Mandalorian snapped. He reached for the jet pack and you tugged his cape out of the way so he could attach it to his backplate. He pressed his forehead against your own briefly before he tapped at his gauntlet keypad, igniting the boosters for the pack.

"Here he comes!" Cara yelled, bracing herself back against one of the seats while her blaster roared away. Whoever Gideon was, he appeared to be coming straight for the boat. The fighter wasn't slowing one iota. 

Right as you saw the TIE fighter's cannons begin to light up in preparation to fire, the Mandalorian punched the controls on his jet pack. The armored man hurtled into the sky, easily clearing the TIE fighter and then shooting his grappling line at the back of the ship. 

Gideon took off with him in tow and Karga laughed incredulously, "you've got to be kidding me! That was your plan? Mando, you're a maniac!" He then grabbed onto the cooled lava wall that rose on the right side of the boat, fumbling his way up onto the relatively-sturdy riverbank with a muffled grunt of exertion. "Alright trooper, you're next." The older man said, extending a hand to help haul Cara out of the boat.

She too managed to get to solid ground, and she carefully sat the bundled child down for a moment before turning back to you. Cara held out her hand and Greef held out his. "C'mon rookie, get up here." She said with a tired grin. "We need good seats to watch your Mandalorian work his magic, right?" 

Your laugh caught in your throat, almost a sob, and you reached to clasp their hands. But then your breathing abruptly hitched as, in reply to the first tugs of the two individuals above you, the wound on your side made itself felt with a vengeance. You panted, half-blinded by the sudden pain and knowing that you had gone full dead-weight.

"Use your legs rookie, c'mon!" Cara complained, planting herself and slapping her other hand closed around your upper arm to help her leverage. You gritted your teeth and forced your body to cooperate in a last ditch effort to get you up onto the river banking. Despite that, you were still all but dragged the rest of the way, Dune and Karga barely managing to muscle you to safety. "Look at him go!" Cara exclaimed, gesturing wildly at the sky.

As you tipped your head back to watch the TIE fighter skitter and weave through the air, the ground suddenly felt like it was tilting under your feet. Your ears started to ring and your knees trembled unsteadily, threatening to give out beneath you any second now while the static at the edges of your vision that you had been keeping at bay crept steadily in from the sides. 

You clumsily took hold of Karga's shoulder, the older man giving you a confused look. "I...I don't feel so good." You stammered.

Cara turned to you, her mouth moving and her expression changing to one of concern, but you couldn't hear her at all over the ringing in your ears.

She grabbed your cloak, yanking it up off your body as you sagged against Greef. "Sorry," you breathed, knowing that she must have spotted the blaster wound on your side. Your own voice sounded so loud to you. Your bloodied fingers found her gorget, floundering desperately for a handhold. "Take care...of the k-kid-" you whispered, all of your adrenaline finally spent. 

You had been running on fumes for the last few minutes. You weren't sure how much blood you had lost, all you knew is that you had been bleeding since getting clipped on the battlefield. It hadn't hurt when you were moving or distracted, the urgency of your situation enabling you to draw on your body's ability to push through the predicament. But now, it seemed that your luck had run out.

Your eyes felt too heavy. You needed sleep. How long had it been since you rested? You deserved a rest. A rest sounded phenomenal.

"...shot, give--osi'kyr, let me see them!" That was the Mandalorian. He sounded terrified. You couldn't remember ever hearing his voice crack like that. What was wrong? When had he landed again? What happened to Gideon?

"S'wrong?" You slurred. You appeared to be laying down. Possibly. Up and down were a little confused at the moment. 

"Focus on me, please, you have to stay awake-" He sounded so sad.

"Going into shock--must have been when-" Cara's voice was faint and wavering, as if she was underwater. 

"Sweetheart, cyar'ika, please, please--" His helmet pressed to your forehead and you heard his breath rattle. No, that couldn't be right, the bacta spray should have fixed that. Was it your breathing that sounded that bad?

You dimly felt dried blood flaking off of your hands as you moved your fingers. "Want to sleep. S'dark." You mumbled.

"Don't you dare!" His modulated voice cut through the gray haze rudely, too loud and bright. "You're not going to sleep!"

"F-five minutes." You bargained, grimacing when his helmet banged into your forehead.

"You stay awake, you hear me?! I'm not letting you do this! Not after everything we've been through!"

"Never even...got to…" Your head felt as if it was stuffed with clouds, words trickling out of your brain and vanishing like water in the sand. "'Pologize…" He had your hand in his own now, leather rubbing feverishly over your knuckles. "Got so mad…"

"You're not the one who needed to apologize, dammit. I...I shouldn't have tried to leave you behind." His voice broke. "I-I'm so sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, I-" Blood was roaring in your ears, drowning out anything else the armored man might be saying. Your fingers were going numb. Flickers of conversation reached you, battling against the roar.

"-them still, Karga, he's got to close this, stop the bleeding--"

"-idea, but make sure it holds until we get back to town--"

"I love you, I'm so sorry, this will hurt--" 

Pain stabbed through your body, startling a ragged exhale out of you. Something was burning. It smelled disgusting and you retched without meaning to, bile foaming at your lips. You wondered absently if that was the smell he had been talking about when he had been poisoned, death-rot...

Metal was pressing against your forehead and a blinding heat seared at the wound on your side, the two sensations warring for your attention. Vomit surged up your throat, making you gag again.

This is it, you realized vaguely. This is how I die. Huh. The notion was not nearly as repulsive as you had expected. Dying sounded halfway appealing. You could rest then. 

"Stay awake, please stay awake-"

"M' here. M'wake." You assured whoever it was, your hand weakly patting at theirs. "So tired...can I sleep soon? Pl-ease?"

"Not now, not now, you h-have to stay awake." His voice was trembling. "The kid needs you, dammit."

"Need you to--to take the kid and run." You urged, confidently stating, "I'll hol' 'em off so y' can escape. They're comin' in warm an' I'm comin' in cold." You struggled to grab your blaster, but your arms refused to cooperate. "Did y' turn up the gravity? Can't...can't move…hurts..." The tears wouldn't stop rolling down your cheeks in a torrent. You weren't even sure why you were crying.

"Stay awake. Just like on Sorgan. All I need is a f-few more minutes, okay? Remember?" Your body tilted crazily, someone's arms fumbling beneath your shoulders and knees to hoist you off the ground.

"Mm, I can do that. Do whatever y' want." You mumbled. The darkness closed in around you, a sweltering maw that slowly drew you deeper and deeper into its grasp. "It's...it's so dark. M' scared." You admitted, your numbed fingers petting the hand that rested on your arm.

"I'm right here with you." He assured. "I'm not going anywhere. Sing that song, please? The one you sing to the kid. The...the lullaby."

Your brow furrowed with effort and you opened your mouth, your voice faint and pitchy in the blackness. "Stars fading, but I linger on...dear...still craving…" 

The words wouldn't stick. Your brain was drawing a blank. Why couldn't you remember the words?

You fell asleep.

...

You dreamed of wind whipping your face, steam that hissed and boiled on the lava flats, droplets trickling down from underneath a proud helmet to gather at the edge of his chin and drip onto your tunic.

You dreamed of drowning, thick liquid sliding over your head, enveloping you in its fetid grasp before your consciousness faded back out. 

You dreamed of a mudhorn in beskar, the shimmering silver-clad beast guiding you through the black.

Eventually you spiraled downwards into a deeper sleep, and finally you dreamed of nothing at all.

Interlude

[yobaba30]

Stolen from Twitter

I owe my Trump-supporting friends an apology.  I’ve been critical of the Trump presidency these last four years, and am still exhausted from the experience. But to be fair, President Trump wasn’t that bad, other than when he incited an insurrection against the government, mismanaged a pandemic that killed nearly half a million Americans, separated children from their families, lost those children in the bureaucracy, tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church, tried to block all Muslims from entering the country, got impeached, got impeached again, had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history, pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden, fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia, bragged about firing the FBI director on TV, took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community, diverted military funding to build his wall, caused the longest government shutdown in US history, called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,” lied nearly 30,000 times, banned transgender people from serving in the military, ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions, vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers, refused to release his tax returns, increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion, had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history, called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers, coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist, refused to concede the 2020 election, hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House, walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl, called neo-Nazis “very fine people,” suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID, abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey, pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans, incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic, withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords, withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal, withdrew withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances, insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter, pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op, failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies, called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries, called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation,” claimed that he single handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere, forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe, suggested the US should buy Greenland, colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges, repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people,” claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases, violated the emoluments clause, thought that Nambia was a country, told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public, called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution, nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet, nominated a corrupt head the EPA, nominated a corrupt head of HHS, nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department, nominated a corrupt head of the USDA, praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies, refused to allow the presidential transition to begin, insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death, spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president, falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote, called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser,” falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote, called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser,” falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year, considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions, mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID, locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones, used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus,” hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser, pardoned several of his shady associates, gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories, got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!), had a Secretary of State who called him a moron, forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history, botched the COVID vaccine rollout, tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him, charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties, constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate, claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear, called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas,” used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise, opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling, got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers, claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US, ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings, blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining, redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle, got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters,” threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution, botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them, pressured the governor and secretary of state of Part 2 cont… Georgia to “find” him votes, thought that the Virgin islands had a President, drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane, allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing, rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos, pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID, rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers held blatant campaign rallies at the White House, tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man, refused to attend his successors’ inauguration, nominated the worst Education Secretary in history threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted, attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t), allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues, struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble, called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ,” threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders, went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic, claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,” seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution, demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director, praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles, completely gutted the Voice of America, placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service, claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower, suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country, suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public, overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported, reduced the number of refugees the US accepts, insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames, gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address, named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties, eliminated the White House office of pandemic respon used soldiers as campaign props, fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him, demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade, hired a shit ton of white nationalists, politicized the civil service, did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked US falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts, claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won, insulted reporters of color, insulted women reporters, insulted women reporters of color, suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs, attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him, summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election, spent countless hours every day watching Fox News, refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas, hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer, tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him, acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney, attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault, held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present, didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media, stopped holding press briefings for months at a time, “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power, led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform, claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers, tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course, suggested that the government nuke hurricanes, suggested that wind turbines cause cancer, said that he had a special aptitude for science, fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure, blurted out classified information to Russian officials, tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida, fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban, hired Stephen Miller, openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them, interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel, abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war, tried to get Russia back into the G7, held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden, seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive, lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated, falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t, shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies, still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan, still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure,” forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID, told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” fucked up the Census, withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act, Part 3 continues… seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win, constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump, claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened, said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake, claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him, claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President, created a commission to whitewash American history, retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain, claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there, hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims, had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others, bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties, apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House, stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians, falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police, said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about, tried to rescind protection from DREAMers, gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic, tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax, said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states, deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented, claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln, touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all, retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile, forced through security clearances for his family, suggested that police officers should rough up suspects, suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs, tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender, suggested the US not accept COVID patients from  a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher, nominated a climate change sceptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy, retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event, hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags, accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address, claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia, mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, obsessed over low-flow toilets, ordered the rerelease of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release, called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek), hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech, took advice from the MyPillow guy, claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists, said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition, never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign, falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent, announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest, insulted the leader of Canada, insulted the leader of France, insulted the leader of Britain, insulted the leader of Germany, insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!), falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues, blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually, continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders, said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked, left a NATO summit early in a huff, stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of 5 knows not to do that, called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary, refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise, and a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember at the moment. But other than that. . . Please share. This is how history books will read, because these are PROVABLE FACTS! Truth

[pulpwriterx]

A SHEEP AS BLACK AS MIDNIGHT IN SPACE

It is a dark time for the Galaxy. General Enric Pryde and Supreme Leader Snoke have unleashed a reign of terror, dealing the New Republic a terrible blow with the Hosnian Cataclysm. But all is not lost. General Organa has discovered a New Hope from the desert of Jakku, who will become the Last Jedi. After Rey, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Poe Dameron and Finn, the former FN2187 undertook a daring raid that led to the destruction of Starkiller Base, Rey has gone to Ahch-To, to study under the reclusive Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. And he will tell her a secret. There is another.

I: THERE IS ANOTHER.

Luke Skywalker sighed, heavily.

“Master Luke, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“I destroyed my own family, Rey. And the Galaxy is paying the price. Did you ever wonder why Han and Leia don’t live together? Why I’m in exile, here? There is another. Or at least, there was. My nephew. My paduan. The best and worst student at the Jedi Temple. Ben Solo.”

“Ben Solo! Didn’t he die at the Jedi Temple?”

“In a way, he did. He doesn’t use that name, anymore.”

“Then he’s alive? Do you know what happened to him?”

“A great many things. First? There were his mother's expectations. She had his whole life planned out. His Royal Highness, Prince Benjamin Skywalker Organa-Solo. He was going to be the perfect Jedi, the perfect young leader, the perfect fair-haired son of the New Republic. He wasn’t supposed to be a giant behemoth of a man, who was too much like his father and his grandfather to fit in any mold. Han and I pretty much figured that Big Ben was going his own way by the time he was six. His hair was down to his waist, and he’d scream and break the scissors with the Force if you came near him to cut his hair. He wouldn’t wear clothes. Just a pair of underwear, if you took him out. He wanted to be a Wookiee. He wouldn’t speak Basic. Just Shriiyywook. We worked it out. But Ben never really changed.”

Luke sighed.

“As he grew to manhood, I started seeing my nephew as a monster. His obsession with his own duality, and that of his grandfather. His heretical leanings toward the Grey Path. And his vows? Forget vows. Not my nephew, the king of taboo. Jedi are supposed to take vows of chastity, and honesty. To have control over their emotions. Ben sold cigarillos, wine, and rubbers from his father’s smuggling operation out of my father’s TIE Fighter, his personal vehicle. He lost his virginity when he was 14 to his best friend, Talia who was 13. As usual? Han was the best worst father, ever. He took her to get an implant, and kept Ben supplied with rubbers. Which he needed, because any of my female students who were curious about their resident Rebel Angel? Let’s just say, Ben never failed to satisfy their curiosity. He didn’t listen to me when I tried to stop him. He really thought he meant something to these girls. After all, they meant something to him. It took Talia telling him she was going to rent him by the hour out of her Wookiee foster father’s garage in Mos Eisley, because he laid more pipe to more satisfied customers than any spaceport gigolo. I mean, how do you teach a six and a half foot tall Force of nature who has been using the Force since he was a toddler in a crib to open the cupboard and get the cookies?”

“He likes cookies?”

“Ben? He eats like a Wookiee. Literally. Chewie taught him to cook.”

“But he likes cookies?”

“Eats them by the box."

Master Luke laughed.

“Now I see that all of it was so very minor. I used to get so angry with him about the TIE Fighter, and the smuggling, and Talia, and the other girls. He didn’t trust me to tell me how the Dark Side, how Snoke was stalking him. It had been a terrible day, for Ben. I disciplined his little group of girls, and all four of them blamed everything on him. Not Talia, though. She spoke up for Ben. But the other three girls? They didn’t take his side. They gave him up. He sat in his hut and cried, all day. He really cared. He did. The poor kid cried himself to sleep. I went to check on him, that night and I felt the Dark Side all around him. While he was sleeping. I thought he had given himself over to it. I attacked. I almost cut off his head, but Ben defended himself. He blocked my lightsaber with his and punched me in the face as hard as he could. If I wasn’t a Jedi Master who can anticipate my opponent's movements. It would have broken my neck. But he didn't mean to kill me. Ben was just scared. As it was, I was unconscious until the morning. By then? It was all over."

Rey couldn’t believe the enormity of the act that he had just admitted to.

Trying to murder his own paduan, his own nephew!

“What happened to your nephew after he brought the building down on you? Did he join the Dark Side.”

“No. He packed up his gear and walked ten miles to the spaceport, and made it there by morning. He left Yavin 4 on a Mandalorian freighter with a business associate of his father’s, Din Saxon, under an assumed name that he had identity papers for. Now he’s partners with Rotta the Hutt, Jabba’s son, Din Saxon, the Mandalorian, and Han Solo. They revived the old Galactic Black Market, and now there’s a war on, not only are they making a fortune? They’re the only game in town for a lot of little things that people find it hard to live without. They do sell arms and coaxium to both sides, but they only sell the low-grade junk to the First Order and at three times the price they sell to the Resistance. I hear that Ben’s doing well. He hasn’t realized his ambition to meet the girl the Force has bound him to, but he still has his friend, Talia. I trained her as a Jedi Healer, and she's since gone to the Republic Medical School. She's Ben's personal doctor. As reckless as he is? He needs to travel with a farkling doctor. Pardon my language. The point is, my nephew renounced the Jedi and the Sith, the Dark and the Light, that day. He wants no part of it. He follows the Grey Path. As it was laid out by Master Qui-Gon Jinn. He also wants no part of this war. His name is Ben Solo, but the name he does business under, the name you’ll have heard of is his alias. Kylo Skywalker. The Arkanian.”

“Ben Solo is Kylo Skywalker, the Arkanian?”

“Yes. And he and Han are looking to add a good scavenger to their operation, because Kylo just bought the salvage rights to the site of the Battle of Yavin-4. And he’s the new owner of the ruins of the Second Death Star. You were the best scavenger at Niima Outpost. I’m sure you're the woman for the job.”

***

Kylo Skywalker was truly a man larger than life.

He wore a black oilskin duster, caped and hooded, festooned with grommets, pockets, and epaulets over a black pair of pilot’s coveralls, tucked into tall black jackboots.

He also wore a huge pair of brown leather and Beskar chrome goggles, with shatterproof mirrored lenses.

And he was the tallest, burliest man that Rey had ever seen.

He sat down across from her at the table she had picked out at the Niima Cantina.

The man had a quiet air of undeniable menace about him.

It put Rey on edge.

“You should try to hide that you have that much strength in the Force. The Sith are real, and the First Order take who they want.”

“Not if I work for you, Jedi Temple dropout, right?"

“I picked a good time to leave. I hear you're the best scavenger at Niima Outpost.”

“I am. Can you take those goggles off? I feel like I’m talking to a man with no eyes.”

He lowered his hood, and took off the goggles.

Time stopped.

And it wasn’t just because Kylo Skywalker the man had grown up to be a black swan with dark, saturnine good looks out of the ugly duckling of a boy that Master Luke had described to her.

It was because Rey was fairly sure it was him.

The man with whom she had shared a bond in the Force, for as long as she could remember.

She never knew his face, or his name, but now that she saw him, she somehow recognized him.

“It’s OK. I feel it, too. The Force brings people together for all kinds of reasons. Look at it this way? Now you’re sure to get the job. You’re hired, Rey…”

Rey shrugged.

“Just Rey. My parents left me when I was a little girl. I never got a last name. I don’t have identity papers, either.”

“That’s OK. I can get you some, if you need them.”

The doors opened.

Rey was excited to see Han and Chewie, again.

Kylo laughed.

He had a beautiful smile.

“My father. And my godfather. But you knew that, because my Uncle sent you here to recruit me. But I get the feeling you might decide to stick with me and the Old Man, instead. Keep that quiet, though.”

Han and Chewbacca sat down.

“She really is a scavenger. A friend of Poe’s. He got her into this mess. I got her out of it. So, you hired her, right, junior?”

“I hired her.”

“How you been, princess? You don’t look so good.” Han asked.

“You can tell us. I used to be you, after all. The Galaxy’s only hope.” Kylo joked.

“It was awful, mostly. Really awful. Master Luke was nothing like I thought he would be. Sometimes, he was very kind. But sad. As if he forgot that he was supposed to be terrible. But some of the things he taught me just confused me. Or scared me. I’m afraid of myself, now. What I might do.” Rey admitted.

“Forget it. Forget everything he taught you. It’s meaningless. The Force has no Dark Side, and no light. That dualistic nerfshit thinking? People made that up. As an excuse to control each other. And make war. You shouldn’t be afraid of what you’ll do, like it’s not up to you. You make your own destiny, Rey. Look at me. I made mine. I’m no Jedi. And I’m no Sith. There is another way. The Grey Path. I can teach it to you, if you want. Think it over. But as for all that poison Uncle Luke poured into your ears? Look what it did to him. Forget it.” Kylo advised her.

“Sounds like Luke is in bad shape, junior.” Han mentioned.

Casually.

“When Rey reports back to him? We’ll send him some supplies.” Kylo said.

“Rey, do you really want to be a Jedi?” Han asked her.

Nobody had asked her that, yet.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, try working with us for awhile. If you don’t want to go back? I won’t send you. I learned my lesson on that. With junior, here. Even after that Snoke bastard burned the Temple, Luke tried to get me to send my kid back to him, one more time. I said no. Since then, I get to visit my wife, but we don’t live together. And the kid and her aren’t on good terms. But Ben’s alive, and doing good, and the Sith and the First Order didn’t get him. It’s worth it. Don’t go back if you don’t want to. Let ‘em have their farkling war, without you. Fuck ‘m.” Han told her.

Kylo raised his pitcher.

“Dark side? Light side? Fuck it. My side.” He said.

He motioned to the Rodian barman.

“Rey works for me and Solo, now. If there’s trouble with her? You’ve got trouble with all of us.”

“I never had trouble with Rey. You made a good choice, Rey. These guys are the real deal. Order what you want, kiddo. The Arkanian has deep pockets. The deepest in the Galaxy.”

Rey was very hungry.

She ordered a lot of food, and a cheap half bottle of red wine.

“Don’t bring her the cheap stuff.” Kylo told the Rodian.

“Why are you so rich, Kylo?” Rey asked.

“He gets dressed up like another Darth Vader. Red lightsaber and all. And we raid First Order ships with full cargo holds. Or Crimson Dawn freighters. Sometimes First Order warehouses and depots. All he has to do is show up and…say it, Vader junior. Say your thing.” Han suggested.

“I am Kylo Skywalker, Lord Vader. All of this belongs to me. Surrender to me all that I ask for. Or you will die. Quickly! I find your lack of haste disturbing.”

Rey shivered.

But, much to her shame, not entirely in fear.

“That’s why I call him junior. Because I ain’t calling him Kylo. I didn’t name him Kylo. You should see these assholes give up. They usually just kneel and grovel. Sometimes, we have to get tough? But most of the time? It’s all money, it’s all for the taking, and it’s all ours.” Han explained.

“I also liberate Stormtroopers. Snoke takes them from their families, when they are children. And he brainwashed, humiliates, tortures, and enslaves them. The First Order takes their faces and their names, and makes them kill. For Snoke. It’s what he did to me. It’s what he meant for me. I didn’t deserve to live that way. No one does.” Kylo added.

“What happens to them?”

“If they have a home to go to? I help them return to it. Or find a job. Some of them work for me. They are my people, I am their Chieftain. No one else cares about them. Not my mother. Not the Resistance. Not the New Republic. I care.” Kylo told her.

Rey nodded.

The idea that Darth Vader’s grandson, the Galaxy’s only Grey Jedi Master, a ruthless pirate with unlimited money, was the self-styled Arkanian-style Clan Chieftain of a small army of loyalists with military training was a little unsettling.

And that’s why the General wants him. She wants not just her son, but his people, and the influence he has over not just them, but potentially the First Order.

When Rey thought that, Kylo turned to her.

“The Old Man and I are dangerous, ruthless men. But compared to my mother? We’re baby Ewoks.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Han agreed.

And just like that, Rey was working for the Outer Rim Cartel.

Her food and wine showed up.

“So, junior, I talked to the guy? The guy about identity papers for Rey. You object to her being a Solo?”

Kylo smiled at Rey in a way that let her know she wasn’t the only one thinking what she was thinking.

“As long as she isn’t supposed to be my sister? It’s fine by me.” Kylo replied.

"Nah. It says I'm her legal guardian until she's 21. So, that way, nobody can steal you, from me, Rey. I also put you down as Junior's common law wife. Then, after you're 21? Nobody can steal you from him. Considering the way you two keep looking at each other? I figure you don't mind."

"So, this is my wedding night?" Kylo asked

"Watch it, kid. They're just papers. It's not like I bought her from Unkar Plutt and I'm giving her to you."

"Yes, Kylo. This is our wedding night." Rey told him.

Chewbacca made a comment.

"It was not fast, Chewie. Rey is her. The girl of Ben's dreams. It's the Thunderbolt. Didn't you know, when you first met Mala, that she was the one for you?"

Chewie said something about how he wasn't talking about that kind of knowing.

"Yeah, well, it's none of our business. They're probably just kidding around. Come on, old pal. Let's not be the extra dicks at the wedding."

Han got up.

Chewie said something, sternly, to Ben that Rey didn't understand, and Ben replied earnestly.

Rey decided she was going to have to learn better Shriyyywook.

After Han and Chewie left, Ben opened the bottle of wine.

"Since we've suddenly found ourselves married? I should make you some kind of vow. Think about the loneliness you felt on this desert, Rey. The longing for someone, something to come for you. Think about it, and let it go. Because you'll never be that alone, again." He told her.

"You have nothing to worry about, Ben. You're every bit as strong as Darth Vader. And just as much a man as Han Solo. You may think you're the ugly duckling. But you've transformed into a beautiful black swan. What happens, now?"

"We'll eat our dinner, and drink this bottle of vintage Corellian red. And then? We'll start doing whatever the fuck we want. And we'll keep doing whatever the fuck we want, until death comes for us. And the son of a bitch is going to have to sneak up on me."

Kylo poured two glasses of wine.

Rey began to think this might really be where she was meant to be, after all.

Happy fanfiction day!

[inmyownlittlecorner5]

Moonlight Chapter Eight: Dinner at Eight

A fanfic Novel by la-topolina

Rated for Mature Audiences

Warnings: Language, Violence, Sexual Content

Chapter 8/26

Moonlight Masterpost+

<< Chapter Seven+

Chapter Nine+ >>

-----------------------

I'll be late. -M

Severus crushed the note in his hand and glared at his breakfast. It was Friday morning and he didn't care to admit to himself how much he'd been anticipating that night. He also didn't care to admit to himself that he was worried over the reason that Miranda would be late. The idiot woman seemed hell-bent on getting herself killed or at least maimed on a regular basis and he would much rather that she were in one piece.

“Hem, hem, bad news?” Professor Umbridge twittered next to him, trying to read over his shoulder.

He turned his glare on Umbridge until she cleared her throat and returned to her own breakfast. Then he angrily tore open his second letter and saw Lucius Malfoy’s haughty script,

Severus,

Join us for dinner at Malfoy Manor tonight. Eight o'clock. Bring the usual.

-Lucius

Severus crumpled this note as well. Who knew how long he would have to stay at Malfoy Manor. He was in an evil mood for the rest of the day and took it out on all of his students, who were sent away with enough extra homework to keep them indoors all weekend.

His mood had not improved by the time he reached Malfoy Manor that evening. The house elf lead him into the sumptuous drawing room, but he did not spare a glance for its vaulted ceilings or prized artwork. Vincent Crabbe and Walden Macnair were already present, nursing drinks and exchanging rude stories. Lucius poured some firewhiskey into a crystal tumbler and handed it to Severus.

"Apologies for the short notice, Severus," Lucius drawled.

"I am always ready to be of service," Severus shrugged, his face a mask of boredom. He knew Lucius didn't care a bit about causing inconvenience to anyone but himself.

"We wanted your particular talents tonight.”

Severus raised an eyebrow in question and waited.

"We're having a little tart over for dinner. She's been given a task that will benefit the Dark Lord and she’s not being entirely compliant. We’re going to encourage her to return to business.”

"Over dinner? Why the pageantry?" Severus inquired dryly. He was beginning to worry that he knew exactly who this little tart was.

“It is not quite time for the Dark Lord to return publicly. This woman is a foreigner with some connections and would be missed if she simply disappeared.”

Severus eyed Vincent and Walden. "I don't see why you require my presence then. Surely those two are capable of frightening a single woman," Severus remarked.

"Afraid to get your hands dirty, Snape?" Walden growled.

Lucius held up a hand to stop the usual bickering. "I want you to slip her some veritaserum after dinner. We want to know who she is working for, particularly if that person may be Dumbledore.”

“I think I would know if Dumbledore had begun hiring foreigners,” Severus said.

Lucius smiled patronizingly. “I wouldn’t assume that Dumbledore tells you everything. The old man didn’t live to his age by telling his secrets to everyone, even if you have hoodwinked him into thinking that you are his man.”

Severus shrugged and sounded bored, "As you like. Does this woman have a name?”

“Miss Miranda Rose,” announced the house elf, leading the owner of the name into the room.

Severus groaned inwardly. Why did this woman have such a stupid occupation? What was wrong with her father that he let her work for him? If it were his daughter, he would spank her for her impertinence. Hell, he felt like spanking Miranda. He would not be able to protect her if Lucius and the others decided to torture her. He would probably have to participate to maintain his cover. He tried to tell himself that it would serve her right for her reckless behavior, but an icy fear was sitting just beneath the surface of his anger.

If she was at all nervous being left in a room alone with four larger men, she did not show it. She wore an easy smile and a stunning mermaid gown of lapis lazuli blue. Her silver hair was swept up in several braids, pinned in a complicated pattern to the back of her head. Sapphire earrings dangled from her ears and she carried a silver handbag, slung over her pretty wrist.

"So glad you could join us," Lucius said, bending over her hand and eyeing her appreciatively.

“I was delighted to receive the invitation, Mr. Malfoy,” she said, receiving his attentions gracefully.

He turned, still holding her hand, to introduce her to the rest of the company. "My associates. This is Mr. Vincent Crabbe.”

Vincent lumbered over to Miranda and took his turn bending over her hand clumsily. “Miss Rose,” he said, gruffly.

“So nice to meet you, Mr. Crabbe,” she replied, smiling warmly at him.

“And this is Mr. Walden Macnair,” Lucius continued.

Walden took the liberty of actually kissing Miranda’s hand, rather than bending over it properly. “Miss Rose,” he leered.

“Mr. Macnair, good to meet you,” she answered with another warm smile.

“And this is Professor Severus Snape,” Lucius finished.

Severus took Miranda’s hand and bent over it courteously, his face still a mask of polite boredom.

She smiled brightly and said, "Professor Snape and I have already had the pleasure.”

"Really?" Lucius eyed Severus shrewdly. Severus kept his face still, and wished that he could strangle Miranda. So much for keeping things quiet. What on earth was she going to say next?

"Yes, he was so good as to put me back together after the werewolf incident. If you recall, it happened in Cokeworth," Miranda explained smoothly.

“How fortunate,” Lucius commented, still eyeing Severus, who still said nothing. Perhaps Miranda would keep the rest of their association to herself.

“It was indeed. You have a lovely home Mr. Malfoy,” Miranda said warmly, as at ease as she would be if she were in the house of an old friend.

“Thank you. My wife supervises the decorating.”

“You are a lucky man.”

Lucius offered Miranda his arm and led her into dinner. She openly admired the arched ceilings, imposing columns, and glittering chandeliers of the dining room. The usually massive table had been shortened to accommodate a more intimate group and provide a better view of Miranda to the other diners. Lucius seated her at the foot of the table, with Walden on her right and Severus on her left and took the head of the table for himself. Vincent was between Lucius and Severus, and they made a bit of an awkward party.

Although Lucius’s intention had obviously been to isolate and frighten the woman, he did not seem to notice that it was failing spectacularly. Miranda positively scintillated at dinner, radiating charm and wit. Lucius, Vincent, and Walden were almost tripping over each other for her smiles. Severus maintained his expression of polite boredom during dinner, but he had to admit it was amusing to watch Miranda work.

“An executioner, Mr. Macnair? How daring!” she was saying, her eyes wide. “What sort of weapon do you use?”

Walden preened like a peacock and answered, “The Ministry’s tried to get me to upgrade to the new Sharp-Strike Broadsword, but I can’t give up my old Miserecordiæ Battle Axe. It’s been in the family for generations and it’s like an old friend.”

“My! You must look magnificent when you’re called to duty. How do you stand it?”

“Nerves of steel, my dear, nerves of steel.”

Vincent snorted at this and Miranda turned her smile on him. “And you, Mr. Crabbe, what do you do?”

“Do, Miss Rose?” Vincent asked. He was a stupid man, and always spoke very slowly.

“I mean, I can see that you must be a pure-blood and a nobleman, so I’m sure you spend most of your time managing your estate, but what do you do for fun?” Miranda prompted.

“Well,” Vincent was mesmerized by Miranda’s smile. “I don’t get the chance very often, but Occamy fighting can’t be beat.”

“No! Isn’t that illegal? How clever you must be to elude the authorities. And such a dangerous sport! Aren’t they known for mauling their captors?”

“Yes!” Never in his life had anyone referred to Vincent Crabbe as clever, and the already large man puffed up even more. “It’s ripping good fun though.”

“I’d love to see such a thing.” Miranda’s eyes were glittering at Vincent. “I hope an opportunity will arise while I’m in England.”

It was Lucius’s turn to scoff and Miranda turned her attention to him. “Of course, you must indulge in only the best entertainments, Mr. Malfoy,” Miranda said admiringly. “I have never seen such a fine estate as Malfoy Manor. I don’t think such things exist in America.” She lowered her eyes demurely and added, “I must admit that I was simply dying to see such a place, but I never dreamed that I would have the chance.”

Lucius gave her a patronizing smile and said, “I’m delighted to be of service.”

About this time, Severus felt Miranda’s stocking-clad foot begin to travel up the inseam of his left leg. It took all of his powers of concentration not to drop his fork.

“If I may be so bold, Mr. Malfoy, it’s so impressive to watch you advise Minister Fudge during our meetings. He must rely on you quite a bit,” Miranda observed.

“He does indeed,” Lucius confirmed arrogantly.

“And you’ve been so kind to me. I know that it’s quite exceptional for someone of my birth and connections to enjoy the notice of someone like you.” Her voice was almost a purr and when she raised her eyes to Lucius, they were smoldering.

Lucius smiled at her invitingly and drawled, “Exceptions are made for exceptional women.”

Miranda lowered her lashes again. “It’s a shame that your wife wasn’t able to join us.”

“I’m afraid she’s traveling at the moment,” Lucius said quietly.

“And your son is at school?” Miranda murmured. She was still running her foot up and down Severus’s leg and he had begun mentally reciting the one thousand magical herbs and fungi in both English and Latin to maintain his control. Merlin, this woman was reckless. And intoxicating.

“He is,” Lucius replied, completely unaware of what was going on at the other end of the table.

“You must be lonely in this big place all by yourself.” Miranda’s voice was husky and pitched just above a whisper.

“I find ways to pass the time, Miss Rose.”

“I’m sure you do.” Miranda turned her glittering eyes on Severus and asked, “Do you teach Mr. Malfoy’s son at Hogwarts, Professor?”

“Yes,” Severus answered. His voice was harsher than he meant it to be, and he finally batted her foot away with his knee. If he was going to be expected to talk, he did not want to deal with quite that much distraction, enjoyable as it was. She took the hint and kept her foot to herself. “Draco is one of the few students who shows any promise,” Severus added, his voice much steadier.

“I must say, I am glad I never had a teacher like you at Ilvermorny. I’m sure I would have been in detention constantly.” She turned her gaze back to Lucius and said conspiratorially, “I’m afraid Professor Snape thinks that I am a perfect barbarian.”

Tired of being left out of the conversation, Walden put in, “Snape’s not the best judge when it comes to women.”

Miranda rewarded Walden with a smile and continued steering the conversation for the rest of dinner. Severus was glad that the attention turned away from him and his mind wandered to how he hoped the evening would end, presuming Miranda was not murdered before he could get her back to his rooms at Hogwarts.

After dinner, they adjourned to the library. Vincent loitered in front of the door and Walden by the large bay window. Miranda still seemed completely unconcerned and allowed Lucius to seat her in a large arm chair in front of the fire. Severus’s fear that the evening would spiral out of control returned. He pushed down the fear and covered it with anger that Miranda had put herself in this situation in the first place.

"Severus, be so good as to fetch us all a drink," Lucius ordered lazily.

Severus complied, hesitating briefly before adding the veritaserum to Miranda’s glass. If truth were to be told, he rather wanted to know her secrets as much as Lucius did. If she was who she said she was, she would probably escape mostly in one piece. If she wasn’t, it was probably best to find out now before his involvement with her went on any longer.

"Do you mind if I smoke, Mr. Malfoy?" Miranda asked.

Not at all Miss Rose," Lucius replied.

She pulled a cigarette out of her sphinx covered case and Lucius lit it with a snap of his fingers. She took a long drag and crossed her legs, exposing most of one through a slit in her gown. The temperature in the room appeared to rise a few degrees and Severus presented her with her drink. She took it and Lucius proposed a toast.

"To Miss Rose," he offered, eyes glittering.

The men all drank, but Miranda simply smoked for a few moments, twirling her glass in her fingers, a little smile playing on her lips. Finally she looked sideways at Lucius and purred, "Now Mr. Malfoy, do you really expect me to drink this?"

Lucius stiffened. "I beg your pardon?”

She gave a throaty laugh. "Here I am, alone in a locked room with four former Death Eaters--alleged, of course. The Potions Master of Hogwarts just handed me a drink. Why on God's green earth would I be fool enough to drink it?"

Lucius’s tone was icy and smooth, "If you know who we are, you know it’s in your best interest to do as you're told."

She uncrossed her legs and rose from her chair like a dancer. She slinked to the table and set her drink down, then crossed to Lucius and blew a line of smoke in his face.

"Why don't you just ask me what you want to know, Mr. Malfoy?” she challenged.

"How would I know you were telling the truth when you answered?" he demanded, his anger rising.

"Let's play a little game," she circled him and then crossed to Severus and circled him as well. Severus glared at her, but said nothing. He felt that the situation was completely out of his control and he did not like the feeling.

"We're going to pretend that we're all adults and that you have hired me to do a job,” Miranda went on. “We're going to assume that I really don't give a shit about whatever your European Wizengamot is up to. Besides,” she circled back and leaned against the chair, grinning at Lucius, "I'm immune to veritaserum."

Vincent and Walden stepped forward menacingly, but Lucius shook his head.

"Or, if you'd rather do it the hard way, that's an option too," Miranda went on smoothly. "I promise not to be too rough on you.”

Lucius let out a short bark of laughter. "You are a madwoman!" he exclaimed.

"That's what Professor Snape said after the werewolf incident," she replied. "Look, Mr. Malfoy, I know you think I'm dragging my feet on the Black case but with all due respect, I work best when left to my own devices. You've called me to the Ministry for a meeting twice a week since you hired me, excepting the two weeks I was laid up at Professor Snape's house." She advanced on Malfoy again as she went on, "Every time I get some momentum going, I have to drop what I'm doing and listen to you and Fudge patronize me and now you are threatening me with a pack of thugs who obviously don't have a pair of brain cells between them to rub together. Excepting you of course, Professor Snape." She threw Severus a grin which he returned with a glare. "I simply cannot work under these conditions!" she finished dramatically.

Lucius laughed again and asked, "My dear Miss Rose, are all Americans as insane as you are?”

"Probably," she answered, smiling. "Look, I will update you via mirror once a week and I will meet with you in person once a month, like I do with all my clients. If you have a problem, you can use the mirror to contact me, or you can contact my father, I talk to him every day." She finished her cigarette and made the butt disappear into thin air. Then she ran a long finger from the bridge of Lucius’s nose down to the middle of his chest. "Now, do you think that will hold you, or do we need to get ugly?”

Lucius took her hand and kissed it hotly. "Very well Miss Rose, we will try it your way.”

"Just what every woman wants to hear," she purred. "Now, if there is nothing else, I'd like to say good night to you gentlemen. Severus and I were supposed to be fucking at least an hour ago and I'm a perfect bitch when I'm horny.”

Lucius laughed harder at that than anything else she'd said all evening. Severus continued to glare at her as though he were as likely to kill her as do anything else to her. Lucius kissed Miranda's cheek, slapped Severus on the back, and ushered both of them out of the Manor.

"To Hogwarts?" asked Miranda when they were outside.

"Indeed," Severus growled and they disappeared.

Severus made a grab at Miranda's arm when they reappeared outside the wards at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but she eluded him and started striding purposefully and fearlessly towards the entrance to the dungeons. She kept well ahead of him and he followed her, becoming angrier by the second. What did she think she was doing? Didn't she realize how much danger she had been in? She might think that her status as an American protected her, but Severus strongly doubted this. Were all Americans as insufferably arrogant as this one?

"Lily," Miranda murmured as the reached the entrance. She had her wand ready and unlocked his door when they reached it as well, and disappeared into his sitting room. he slowed his pace, like a cat stalking its prey. He entered his rooms and closed the door behind them extremely slowly, then turned, intending to give Miranda a thorough tongue lashing.

Before he could begin, she was in his arms, kissing his cheek and laughing merrily. "You see, I told you I've dealt with men like Malfoy before."

"You are fortunate that you aren't dead," he snapped. Honestly, underneath his anger, he felt rather relieved and a bit impressed that she’d managed to talk herself out of that situation, but he didn’t want her to know that. The last thing he wanted to do was encourage her foolish behavior. Who knew when her luck would run out?

She rolled her eyes at him, "Don't be silly. Malfoy’s a bully. When I didn't cower or cry, he didn't know what to do with me. The rest was easy.”

"I seem to recall that we agreed to keep our involvement quiet."

She sighed. “That is true and I am sorry. I was a bit surprised when I saw you in the drawing room tonight, and I had to improvise.”

“And what would you have done if I hadn't been there?" he demanded. "They could have done anything to you.”

“I would have done basically the same thing I did with you there,” she shrugged. “It would have taken longer and been much more tiresome, though. I would have been stalled in the library after dinner while Malfoy, Crabbe, and Macnair all competed to get me into bed. I’d have had to jolly them along until they were too drunk to see straight, and you would have been in a perfectly awful mood by the time I was able to get here. Not that you’re in a very good mood right now.”

"You are seriously underestimating these men!"

She laughed again. "They aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. Some wizards have realized that magic is the great equalizer, and that a witch can be as dangerous as a warlock. Malfoy didn’t even take my wand away when I entered his house. Men like that so easily manipulated by beauty and a little flirting. Now, if you had planned the evening, then I might have been worried. You are obviously the most dangerous one of the lot.”

"You won't get anywhere by flattering me.”

She finally pushed away from him, "Relax, Severus! I think you're just angry that I didn't need to you come to my rescue. I can take care of myself!”

"I seriously doubt that."

He glared at her silently as she threw herself into his armchair and kicked off her shoes.

“How long have you known I was a Death Eater?" he finally asked quietly.

She shrugged. "I know a lot about you. You're linked to Malfoy, so I've been investigating you as well. Professor Severus Snape, born January 9th, 1960 in Cokeworth, England. Son of Tobais Snape, an alcoholic laborer and Eileen Snape, née Prince, a witch, Hogwarts, class of 1950. You were usually found in the company of one Lily Evans as a child who, interestingly, became the mother of one Harry Potter, the so-called ‘Boy Who Lived.’ You attended Hogwarts 1971 to 1979 and particularly distinguished yourself in Potions and Defense agains the Dark Arts. You became a Death Eater, I assume shortly after graduation. You became Potions Master at Hogwarts in 1981 at the tender age of twenty-one. You received a pardon the end of the First Wizarding War and continued in your position at Hogwarts. Although you apparently keep in touch with your old friends.” She gave him a tired smile and added, “Shall I go on? I was hoping to be off the clock by now.”

His face had become a cold mask while she went through her recitation. When she finished, he slowly drew his wand and crossed the room to her. He placed the tip of it on her lovely throat and drawled, ”Doesn't it concern you in the least that you are alone with me?”

She held his gaze, looking amused by his show of aggression. "You've had plenty of opportunities to kill me so far. If you haven't done it yet, why would you do it tonight?”

Her boldness only fed Severus’s anger. He wanted to scare her. He wanted her to take seriously the danger she was courting. "Are you so sure I haven't been planning to do just that?”

She ran a graceful foot slowly up his inseam again. "Now, darling, if you wanted to kill me, you'd have done it the minute we walked in the door. I am very confident in my ability to judge character. You are an efficient killer. You don't make things complicated, you just do what needs to be done." She reached her hands up to his throat and began undoing the buttons of his dress robes.

"You are the most insufferable woman I have ever met," he growled, trying not to let show how much she was affecting him.

"I get that all the time.” She laughed, dark and throaty. "But can you honestly tell me that you didn't love my performance? Can you honestly say that you weren't absolutely wild to have me?”

His wand drifted away from her neck. His anger at her and lust for her had been at war all evening, and lust was finally getting the upper hand. “Stop fishing for compliments, you little minx,” he murmured.

"Do you know what I like best about these high collars that you wear?" she asked.

"Hmmm?" He didn't trust his voice.

"That they'll hide whatever marks I make under them," she purred, and bit him.

He groaned and swept her off the chair, into his bedroom, slamming the door with his foot as he went.

------------------------------

End Note:

N.B. According to Pottermore.com, Occamys are plumed, two-legged winged creatures with serpentine bodies. I imagine this is the cock-fighting of the wizarding world.

----------------------------------

Moonlight Masterpost+

<< Chapter Seven+

Chapter Nine+ >>

[relationshipcrimes]

The other day I was on an interview committee to find a new associate director for graduate students career advising at the university I'm currently at. Talking to this guy, he's talking the language of capital--if you want to get a job in this economy, you have to prove to the institution that you're applying to that you can create value and revenue for them. You have to prove that you can generate and create something for them that they want. This is the sort of language that's frequent among career counselors, whose job it is to make sure that people get jobs--especially students, who sometimes suffer when making the jump between their degree and the workforce. Like most career counselors, he focuses only on the very next job you’re looking at, only one move ahead and no further.

The committee is larger than is maybe necessary. It includes everyone in the Career Center who’ll be directly working with him, but also every dean on the planet earth, plus every director and associate director, plus department heads who honestly will never speak to this person again. I’m a single graduate student with two other grad students who have a very minor say in hiring the person who’ll be advising us on how to get a job when we graduate.

I’m the only Masters student in a group of PhD students: I’m getting a Masters in Education, while the other is getting a PhD in Theatre (the poor thing), and the other is getting a PhD in biomechanical engineering with a focus on robotics, because she’s apparently a fucking genius on top of being built like a brick shithouse and sincerely wonderfully nice about everything. This poor white man applying for this job, trying to make friends with us graduate students, makes the mistake of asking me about my career.

I was a classroom teacher for a while, I tell him. I taught in the classroom all through undergrad in a “student resource center,” which was a literal basement jailhouse where they put all the mentally ill kids who they didn’t want to educate anymore so they could wait for these students to fail out of public schooling and no longer have to spend tax dollars on their education, then shuffle these mentally ill and usually traumatized/abused children of color into prisons, where their black and brown bodies in jailhouses will instead generate prison tax dollars. Then I graduated and was a classroom teacher at a ritzy middle school teaching English, Social Studies, and Math. Now I’m trying to make the jump to being an office worker in higher education.

He launches into a “get rich quick” spiel about how to hunt for a job: convince everyone that you have the skill sets and competencies to be able to do the job that you want to do in higher education. Extol your abilities to talk to children. Talk about the individual skills that you have to complete papers on time, meeting quick deadlines, perform under high pressure situations. (“Perform” being not inaccurate, in the sense that I sure did manage to function as a classroom teacher, provided I was able to relentlessly indulge every eating disorder behavior on earth all simultaneously. It was a very long year, as a classroom teacher.)

I’m like, okay. That’s fine. I know that.  (I work in the Career Center. The Career Center is all about helping college students sell their own resume. I might just be an administrative assistant/secretary in that office right now, but I fucking know how to whore yourself out to an employer. I know how to talk Corporation.)

Theatre Grad Student asks me why I’m making the switch. I say that I want to make a bigger impact on students. Well, what’s your measure of “bigger impact?” she asks. If you’re in the classroom, then you’ll have a profound effect on the individual student, won’t you? I tell her: I know that. The relationships that I had with individual students were some of the most meaningful experiences I ever had in my life. The ghosts of those students still show up in my writing to this day. But here I am, just as a secretary, and I’m having a far wider effect on students that I ever did just in terms of breadth; I decline unpaid internships all day long, promote better opportunities, forward students to resources, answer their questions—I get a say on policies that affect the university as a whole, like declining U.S. Borders and Custom Control and ICE internships. As a classroom teacher, I just lived with the policies that other people made about me. As a secretary in a higher education office, I’ve got a small seat at the table.

But it’s bizarre, I tell her. I spend all day long making minor decisions that will affect hundreds of students, and I do it all from a computer screen. I never see a real face. I never see the whites of my student’s eyes when I tell him, I’m sorry that you live in a school where your value as a human being depends on how well you can comprehend To Kill A Mockingbird. I know you did your best. Your work was C work at best, and I’m going to give you a B+, because if I don’t, you won’t go to a decent high school after eighth grade, and your future will be ruined instantaneously because you have dyslexia and some administrator in a corner office threw To Kill A Mockingbird into your curriculum.

So why the switch? She asks. (Grad career counselor candidate is still there, listening to all this.)

Because school is hell, I tell her. School, as an institution, is a made-up society that values human worth by their grades, by their ability to jump through a completely arbitrary set of rules, your ability to meet the parameters and qualifications that someone else decided for you. And we put everyone through this hell-sink. (At this point I’m physically shaking.) Every day, school inflicts untold levels of psychological, spiritual, and even physical damage upon the people who go through it. School isn’t just toxic, but an active system of abuse against every student who walks through it, and must be changed, and I will not die until I see it disfigured to the point of unrecognizability, until its corpse gives way to some place where human beings can live without being culled and pruned into unrecognizable shapes to meet the demands of curriculum requirements.

Theatre Grad Student nods. Bioengineering Grad Student nods.

It’s bad business policy when schools don’t deliver what they promise, says the counselor candidate.

 *

 This morning I don’t do anything. I wake up at eight on a Saturday and just laid there. I use Todoist, so I have a to do list that autogenerates itself every day: Here’s exactly the separate steps that you need to do in order to stay on track and hit all your project deadlines and all your project goals. Today, the things I have to do are: Read 25 pages of a book about admissions policies, Duolingo (50 XP, 25XP of Korean and 25XP of French), pay off your credit card, pick up half and half from the corner store, watch one (1) TED talk, clear your AO3 inbox, answer fanmail on tumblr (I’ve been putting this one off for three weeks), reorganize your ePub library, record one (1) journal entry, reach inbox zero, write five-hundred words of Stag Legs, read what Aryashi wrote for Stag Legs yesterday, write 500 words of original novel.

I go for a run instead. The gym is closed. I get sunburnt. Then I listen to one song on repeat for four hours. I’m still dehydrated because of the ongoing fight against the eating disorder got me hard last night. I have no idea if I’m tired because of too little sleep, too much sleep, not enough calories, too many calories, too little caffeine this morning, caffeine overdose from drinking six cups every weekday and adrenaline burnout. Maybe I’m just not motivated. I lack a thing that I sometimes call “conviction.” Tumblr self-help says that I should be more sympathetic to my situation, but if I were just motivated, wouldn’t I pick myself up again and keep going? I’ve done it before.

This to-do list seems pretty pointless. It’s a collection of several larger projects that’s been distilled down into doable bite-sized tasks that I can do in a single day, larger goals like “Learn about the education industry,” “Become fluent in Korean,” “Finish Stag Legs according to the decided deadlines,” “Publish a novel,” so on and so forth. Some of these tasks are just sundry things to make sure that finances don’t implode—there isn’t a goal involved, so it’s just general life maintenance.

The to do list is a fractured mess, really. There’s no really good narrative there. Bouncing in between each of those little menial tasks, there’s no sense of accomplishment, no sense that you’ve done anything that means anything.

 *

 I was a pretty stereotypical eating disorder patient. High achieving. Played a sport. White-passing, even if I’m half Korean. I was never the lead player on the team, mostly because I was too weak—that honor went to the girl who was recruited alongside me for the same class year. But I was a pretty damn close second. Sports season rolled around, you didn’t think about anything else: your life was golf. You lived and breathed it. You thought about it all day long. You ghosted through classes and enjoyed homework and classes as a minor distraction from your real purpose on this earth, which was to go to the golf course and get the ball as close to the hole as you could. They used to say, a good round of golf is a thing you play. Nobody has a “good round of golf.” A good round of golf isn’t “a round of golf”; it’s seventy-two excellent shots in a row. So what you should do is hit every shot, individually, by itself, as best as you can, being nowhere but right where you are, over the ball, with one club in your hand, without a single thought about the shot you just made or the shot you’ll make next, looking at the distance between you and the hole, thinking about what you can do right then and there to get a little closer to the hole. Coaches have a hundred and one tips on how to play a better round of golf, but the truth is that none of them really help if you don’t have your eyes on the goal, which is to hit the best possible shot you can in that moment. The same thing goes for eating disorders. There’s a hundred and one different tips for how to starve better, but none of them really matter if you don’t have your eyes on the goal: to be as hungry as you can possibly stand in that single moment. The instant you start thinking about anything else—things like “eat well, not less!” or “focus on vegetables and leafy greens!” or “hit the nine o clock position on your backswing”—everything goes to hell. No road plan, tip or trick, no special technique can possibly replace a single-minded, headlong sprint straight towards your goal. The point of you isn’t to make a good golf swing, or have nice clubs, or even make friends with your teammates. The point of you is to get the ball in the hole. The point of you is to shrink. Even the most well-meaning of swing-fixes or advice from your coach is just a distraction.

When you’re hungry, you can hear it. You always know exactly which direction to go. Following those guiding lights, you’re never, ever lost. You always know exactly who you are and what you’re about. The golf coach told me that I couldn’t play on the team if I didn’t recover. Three months later, I quit the team. I did everything the therapist asked—ate the right foods, ate enough, talked to a nutritionist, did the weigh-ins, quit the calorie counting. A collection of disparate, fracture to-dos, incomprehensible to a whole narrative, that I did because someone else told me to.

 *

 People ask me in the Career Center all the time: what kind of work do you want to do? What’s your skill set? Do you want a people-facing role? How do you want to live your daily life? Do you want a nine-to-five, or more freedom to set your own hours? What are you interested in? What’s your curiosity? They tell me: don’t be afraid to switch careers, to move in and out of roles, to rely on your resume and live like a homeless person with no real function in society, no real trade to speak of.

What’s the point of these questions? What do I care about these nitty-gritties? Are you intentionally shoving weeds at me to get lost in? Are you trying to ensure that I can’t see the forest for the trees? I won’t get up in the morning for a nice office space with a couch and free coffee. I won’t get up in the morning for a nice writing studio where I can feel free to indulge my bad habit of writing thousands of words into a word document.

“Why don’t you become a professional writer?” some people tell me—like “a writer” is a thing you can be, or even a thing that you do, when instead writing is just the unfortunate task of making something that should exist actually start existing. You think I put words on the page for fun? Writing is the singularly most unpleasant experience I know of. I put words on the page because they’ve got to be said. I do work because it’s got to be done. I’m getting a degree in Education not because I’m interested in it; I’m getting a degree in Education because I need to know everything that I can about education in order to fix it. It’s not about what you’re doing or how you’re doing it, it’s about the why.

“Build your resume,” I tell students all the time, as if a resume is a real thing. It’s a sales pitch more lies than truth loosely based in the real work you did. It’s never the resume that matters. It’s never the reputation or the awards. It’s about the work, the thing that drives you, the thing you couldn’t stop doing if your life depended on it. Your resume is not a real thing. You are a human being who will wither and die if you do anything else than what you love. Can you tell me one or two sentences about the help you’re requesting from this career counselor? I ask when booking appointments. Can you tell me in one or two sentences what you’re about as a human being? Can you explain yourself to yourself? Do you have something that drives you, a thing that calls you that only you can hear? When you don’t know what to do next, do know which direction you’re heading, and never feel lost? In one or two sentences, what do you stand for?

Well, what kind of job are you looking for? career counselors ask. Office space? People facing? What kind of benefits? Physically demanding or mentally-oriented? What sort of work motivates you to get up in the morning?

Where’s the job that will let me raze the university to the ground? When will I have the power to stop playing by someone else’s rules and remake the rules altogether? If in twenty years time and I’m the director of some university office with the power to fix the university but I’ve spent so long stringing one day after another that I no longer remember what I’m working in that office for, what will be the point? I didn’t ask for a job. I asked for a cause. If I don’t know why I get up in the morning, I won’t.

 *

 This post is 2.8k words long and I still have to do my to-do list. Having a goal is one thing; but you’ve got to break it down into a series of tasks that you feel that you can accomplish. Journey of a thousand steps and all that. It’s not about the journey, it’s about the steps, one after another, until you’ve got a thousand in a row. It turns out that the individual steps are more important than the overall whole, in the end. There’s a lot of benefit in putting your head down, closing your eyes, and focusing on only the immediate. Like they say, if you write only five hundred words every day, you’ll have 182,500 words after a year—enough to fill three books, at least. You’ve got to focus on what’s directly in front of you, distilling every far-off goal in the future into what you’re doing right now, right this second.

How awful.

[most-ardently-yours]

Pride and Prejudice Inc.

A modern Pride and Prejudice retelling set at a college campus. 

Characters:

Mrs. Bennet: An academic honors advisor for business students who used to work in the industry. She loves her job and her students. Among her mentees are sisters Jane and Elizabeth Bennet. With no children of her own, Mrs. Bennet sees the students she advises as her own children.

Mr. Bennet: Mrs. Bennet’s husband who works at the university as a professor. Unlike his wife, Mr. Bennet does not care very deeply for his students and would rather spend his days writing his newest book. He has several connections from his past working in corporate positions, but rarely extends his contacts’ information to his students. 

Chapter 1

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single job recruiter in possession of a large opportunity, must be in want of a qualified and creative individual.

However little known the feelings or views of such woman may be on her first entering a college campus, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding academics, that the opportunity is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their students.

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his wife to him one day, “have you heard that one of the most promising companies in America will build a new branch in Mason this semester?”

Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. He opened his book and began reading.

“But it will,” returned she; “for Dr. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.” 

Mr. Bennet, still reading, made no answer.

“Do you not want to know what company is coming here?” cried his wife impatiently. 

“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.” 

This was invitation enough. 

“Why, my dear, you must know, Dr. Long says that the location is taken by a reputable company of large fortune from the north of Columbus; that he came down on Monday in a Lexus to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Morris Real-estate immediately; that he is to take possession before the first day of autumn, and some of the company’s associates are to be in the facility by the end of next week.” 

“What is the company’s name?” 

“Bingley Enterprises.” 

“Are they looking for new employees?” 

“Oh! Yes, my dear, to be sure! A new company that took the market by storm; doubling in size in just a year. What a fine thing for our students!”  

“How so? How can it affect them?” 

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” replied his wife, “how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of them hiring one of them.” 

“Is that their design in coming here?” 

“Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that a recruiter may come by and be impressed by them, and therefore you, must visit him as soon as he comes.” 

“I see no occasion for that. You and your mentees may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as charming as any of them, Bingley Enterprises’ recruiter may like you the best of the group.” 

“My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of success, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman quits her corporate job to become an advisor, she ought to give up thinking of her own advancement.” 

“In such cases, a woman has not often much advancement to think of.”

“But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Bingley Enterprise’s recruiter when he comes into the university.” 

“It is more than I engage for, I assure you.” 

“But consider your students. Only think what an opportunity it would be for one of them. Professor William and Dr. Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they visit no newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for the team to meet him before the fair if you do not.” 

“You are overthinking this, surely. I dare say the recruiter will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his hiring whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for Ms. Lizzy.” 

“I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so creative as Jane, nor half so personable as the rest of her peers. But you are always giving her the preference.” 

“They are frankly all quite ordinary,” replied he; “they are all good students and heavily involved like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of a passion than her peers.” 

“Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own students in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves.” 

“You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these last twenty years at least.” 

“Ah, you do not know what I suffer.” 

“But I hope you will get over it and live to see many reputable companies come to recruit here over the years.” 

“It will be no use to us, if twenty such companies should come, since you will not visit them.” 

“Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will network with them all.” 

Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humor, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was an advisor of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her students careers; its solace was research and news.

[primary-colour-hair]

Can you really be too Over-Qualified?

The word over-qualified is defined by Wikipedia as “Overqualification is the state of being skilled or educated beyond what is necessary for a job. This could be a problem for professionals applying for a job where they significantly exceed the job requirements because potential employers may feel they are using the position as a stepping stone.”

I have had this word used in association with my CV/Resume & experience more times in the past year than I could have ever thought possible and it has now become somewhat of a bone of contention to me. How can i be deemed to have too much knowledge, skill or experience in my field? When did I go from being experienced to too experienced with an abundance of seemingly excess qualifications? When did continuous professional development become an albatross?

Qualifications = Learning, Experience = Growth, Prospects = Challenge

I personally read it as being too old, possibly commanding a higher than average salary or working with people of a lesser knowledge & capability calibre, in truth, it can mean anything and can be applied equally to a 20 year old as a 50 year old depending upon the context it is used in.

I have 30+ years experience in the hairdressing industry and have continuously grown my job role & experience by working in multiple countries and different aspects of the industry: for this I am being punished and told I have “too much experience” how is that even possible? 

I am a qualified hairdresser, a certified Master Colourist, a qualified Assessor, an experienced Educator, a licensed Director and an Award-Winning Academy & School Director. I have excellent references, a strong work ethic, professional attitude, I am reliable, always on time and have had less than 2 sick days in 10 years. In my eyes, these are the aspects to focus on and are my selling points. My CV reflects commitment to my previous employers showing longevity to each position and by listing them as references shows a continuing good relationship. If they would hire me again why will no one else?

The concept of overqualification is often a euphemism used by employers when they do not want to share their real reason for not hiring an applicant. The term “overqualified” can be used in place of “too old,” “too young,” “don’t like the look of” or simply “ just not for us.” It can also mask legitimate concerns by an employer, such as the uncertainty of an applicant’s ability to do the job, or concerns that they may only want the job for a temporary basis while they seek another more desirable position. Being overqualified also often means that a person was asking for a higher salary than was within the current range available.

There is a positive aspect for employers where they are hiring a candidate who can meet & exceed the job specifications and bring added value to the role. Total Jobs provides advice for prospective employees as to the best way to explain your intentions in your cover letter to put it out there from the start.

US News provides insight into what employers are really thinking to help candidates understand what worries managers about overqualified candidates. Truth is there is no way a candidate can know what the employer is actually looking for and should not downplay any aspects of their experience to appear more suitable. The employer could be looking to fill a specific gap in the team, a specific type person based on the current team/manager or just be looking to see who is out there for future reference should their team need expanding or filling.

Forbes advises candidates to dig deeper into the business side of the company and look for problems facing the company and how they can resolve them by using their vast experience or by temporarily joining the company as a consultant to problem solve a specific task as an “in”

There is no one-size fits all for job seeking and there could be many reasons why a seemingly overqualified candied actively seeks out newer roles: relocation, redundancy, cut-backs, lack of job fulfilment, wanting less responsibility, looking for work/life balance, option for personal growth, meeting previous personal goal or simply a change of scene. All are legitimate reasons and a candidate does not have any legal obligation to explain their reasons for applying for a seemingly “lesser” job, their active application and continued interest in the position should be enough.

Having been on both sides of the fence I can relate to both the employee position and the employer point of view so will be more aware for future reference.

Having grown and hired a team involving multiple different positions I have learned to spot warning signs for someone who is desperate for any job and not necessarily “this” job such as asking about sick pay, holiday pay & company benefits too early in the conversation and not asking enough about growth potential, job fulfilment & career prospects.

In a nutshell, a potential employee can say they are looking for a long term commitment job with prospects and then quit after one week or the employer could hire candidate after candidate at the lower end of the scale with minimum retention and not see the value in a more mature employee as every scenario is different.

If a potential employer does not see the value in considering an “overqualified” candidate then they are not the company for you as it shows lack of vision and being very set in their ways or very mechanical and not open to growth or new ideas.

Being turned down for a position for being overly qualified says more about the company than the candidate. Sometimes it simply means a manager may be threatened by a potential employee who may know as much as or indeed more than them or may feel a knowledgeable candidate will expose weaknesses in their methods by bringing new experiences to the table.

Do not downplay any individual qualifications or experience as you must never sell yourself short and always focus on personal growth to meet current career goals. Focus on strengths that “you” can bring to the business and personal characteristics such as longevity, reliability or business connections. Some will see a candidate as over qualified, some as not experienced enough in their sector so while you cannot control what others see you can control what you put out about yourself and how you present yourself on paper, on line and in person.

There is no guarantee any job is the perfect job or any candidate is the perfect candidate all we can do is continue building our reputation and work ethic daily, the best job is the one you have right now!

[throughtheglassdarkly]

Missing Pieces, part 8

Welcome back. When last you were here, Bella went all murder-hobo and I drew some dicks. Onward.

So once we determined that Bella wasn’t going to immediately collapse into a lifeless puddle of goo, we decided to leave a note for the spymaster of the Knights of the Widow’s Walk. It took me a minute to come up with the right wording, but I eventually settled on this:

“Dear Sir and/or Madam Spymaster:

We have located the loyalist, who is a former associate of Buck’s, and have determined she is working with several Fetches and a pair of non-Court affiliated changelings. One of the Fetches is dead and the other is in our possession. Please advise as to how you wish to proceed.

Love and kisses,

Derek, pledged courtier of the Autumn Court”

With that taken care of, we all went our separate ways, leaving Day’s Fetch in his care. The next couple of days were quiet. A little too quiet. I realized after about three days that we hadn’t heard anything from Bella and she wasn’t answering any texts or calls. Pam, Yova, and I decided to go pay her a visit (Day was having a little too much fun tormenting his Fetch). I made tres leches cake and Pam worked up a world-class guilt trip.

Before we sought Bella out, Yova suggested that we Facebook stalk the Fetch as much as possible to get an idea of what we might be dealing with in the fallout. The Fetch seemed to keep most of the personal stuff on its Facebook on friend lock, but did have some public things, like its work with the university. We couldn’t help noticing that in some of the photos it was with a very tall, handsome dude with short dark hair. The comments all identified him as “Carlos <3 <3 <3”. We could see there were a couple of worried comments on the Fetch’s page in the last couple of days, but since most of the page was private, we couldn’t see anything more than that.

So the three of us traipsed over to Bella’s apartment. Nobody answered and there wasn’t the sound of anyone inside. The next logical step was her workplace, a magic shop that also sold tons of incense and crystals and new age crap for all your Wicca needs. When we got into the place, I was bracing for a huge waft of patchouli, but thankfully the dominant smell was cinnamon, due to the giant stack of cinnamon brooms near the entry. The Professor Trelawney clone who owned the place greeted us and asked how she could help us. When we told her that we were some friends of Bella’s and hadn’t been able to get a hold of her, she told us that Bella had asked for some time off. “And I was very worried about her, something about her aura seemed much darker than usual,” she said. Yova discreetly indicated that there’d been a death in the family and Professor Fauxlawney nodded sagely. She gave us a healing crystal and asked us to bring it to Bella. She was also pretty obviously anxious for us to buy something. Pam and Yova picked out some incense. And I wasn’t going to buy anything. I really wasn’t.

She had geodes. They were so shiny.

Now, lest you think that Bella was in some absolutely horrendous danger, I’ll cut that off at the pass. She was perfectly fine. Physically. Physically, she was perfectly fine. She was staying in a Spring Court safe house alongside Duke Lamington, the Chatelaine who was Mistress Lilly’s second in command. And as it turns out, Bella had not had a good couple of days. She was on autopilot more than anything and wasn’t processing things anywhere nearly as quickly as she could have been. She didn’t remember how she got from one place to another and was having really unpleasant memories of Arcadia, like Amberleigh’s coldness and Lamashtu screaming in her face.

Fortunately, Duke Lamington is a very decent dude and he was giving her some space and letting her try to work through it himself. He did check in on her and on the morning we went looking for her, Bella said that he sat down and told her that he hadn’t experienced it himself, but that he’d heard how jarring and unpleasant confronting a Fetch is. “And I can’t help but notice you’re missing a bit of the exuberance which caught our Court’s attention in the first place,” he told her. He asked if she wanted him to call us, but she wasn’t really in the mood.

Knowing a losing battle when he saw one, Sir Duke asked her what she would like to do and if she would like to go out and have some fun. “Yeah, but I don’t want to do what you do for fun. I don’t wanna go to The Container Store or Bed, Bath and Beyond,” Bella snarked. “There is nothing wrong with Bed, Bath and Beyond except their exorbitant prices,” Duke Lamington said. Despite her being horribly insulting, he told her that he’d arrange for her to have some fun that evening.

Bella told me later that she’d been curious about what Duke Lamington did in the Spring Court and asked him if he could show her what he usually did. He seemed surprised, but went off to get his computer. When he brought it back, he had each and every Excel spreadsheet open. “People want to think the Spring Court is all frivolities and careless pastimes, but there is effort that goes into organizing and maintaining this Court and that falls to me,” he said. Bella was goggle-eyed at how many details he had organized and just started scrolling through the spreadsheets. He told her that they were in the process of planning the Spring Fling, the Court’s inaugural party. “If you want to throw a truly good party you one, spare no expense, and two, arrange everything months in advance so you can book the best venue and hire the best band and arrange for the best caterer and make sure everything goes according to plan.”

While Bella was looking over every single micromanagey detail that he had written down, he told her that he had the numbers portion done, but that they hadn’t yet considered a color scheme and asked if she had any considerations about colors or décor. Apparently last year was a hibiscus theme, which he thought was a little corny but Mistress Lilly insisted on. The year prior was ivy and white lilies (there are a lot of floral themes, apparently). The year that made him shudder in recollection was 1997: the year they did the surfer theme. When she heard that, Bella asked him how old he was and how long he’d been back. He didn’t answer her directly, but told her that wasn’t long after he made it back and that it was one of the things that made him realize how badly the Spring Court needed someone to help organize their ideas. Bella suggested a few ideas for the Spring Fling, like coral and cream fiesta and pink and green flamingos. Duke Lamington nixed the flamingos but agreed to run pink and green by Mistress Lilly. They spent the rest of the afternoon planning the party and hanging out, which Bella said was a nice contrast to her feeling like she was going to die.

Now at this point, Pam, Yova, and I had absolutely no idea any of this was going on. We were walking and talking, trying to go over Bella’s shopping habits as we made our way back to my apartment building. I was still carrying the cake or else I would have been staring at my geode the entire time. So shiny. I asked if we should try the Hot Topics in the area and Yova told me that apparently that wasn’t exactly Bella’s goth aesthetic. Pam was ready to put out an APB at this point.

Our convo got cut short when we got back to my and Yova’s apartment building. Buck was waiting outside at the bus stop, clearly looking for us. We approached and he waved awkwardly. He told us that someone had gone to pick up Day’s Fetch and that he was here for business. “So you got our note,” Yova said. “Oh, yeah. This guy,” he pointed at me, “he’s fucking good.” If it had come from anybody else on the planet, I might have taken the compliment. But being the petty bastard I am, I decided to just give him the cold stare. Yova invited Buck up to her place after I made it clear that he was not getting anywhere near my place without taking off his shoes. “No, no, Derek, your apartment’s been defiled enough in recent memory. But you are taking off your shoes,” she told Buck.

They made their way up right to Yova’s apartment and I stopped off at my place to drop the cake off in the fridge and pick up Paisley. I was not going to be without my attack gecko.

When I got up there, Buck clasped his hands behind his back and said, “So, business. Right. So, awkward, I know. I hear that Aurora is involved,” he said. We nodded. He took in a deep breath and said, “So what you gotta understand is what we were up to was survival. But the thing is if she’s thinking she can wriggle her way back into the good graces of whatever patron she’s found herself now, that’ll mitigate any of the damage done by our fuckup with you guys.” “So losing us did a blow to her reputation?” Yova asked. “Oh, yeah. She was working directly under Scáthach. You don’t piss off a Lady like that,” he said.

Pam delicately asked him, “You know that Scáthach isn’t any more, right?” His eyes got to be the size of Kennedy half-dollars and he said, “What? You’re fucking with me.” We told him the brief details about how she’d lost her title and her keep and her spear. He looked stunned for a few minutes before he got out, “Holy shit. Holy actual shit. Then… it means one of two things. Either clean slate or we got the problem of being attached to a fuck-up. And she’s gotta work three times as hard to pick herself up.”

He told us that he’d brought us a list of her previous places in the Hedge where she’d go when she needed to recuperate. We thought at first it was the Knights wanting us to do their work for them, but he told us he wasn’t there for the Knights, he was trying to give us some information to help us. “I don’t know what you guys got in mind as far as payback you want to do, but she’s obviously got your Fetches under her thumb, or at least two of them.” “She called them her babies,” Yova said. “Yeah, she… she does that,” he said, sounding a little creeped out. He told us he didn’t know if she made our Fetches herself, but if she didn’t, she got somebody to provide her with excellent quality building blocks.

Before he left, Yova asked Buck how he felt about Aurora. He said he missed the old life he had, but he wasn’t sure if he missed her or the illusion of power being a loyalist brought. “Don’t get me wrong, our lives sucked, but we weren’t you guys and that does something to you when you kind of hate the position you’re in,” he said. We asked if he wanted to help capture Aurora or seek some revenge. He said he didn’t want any part of it and wanted to put that behind him. He tossed a notepad to Pam and made his way to the door. As he walked out, I tossed over my shoulder, “Don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.”

Pam looked in the notebook and saw a hefty list of locations in the Hedge and the mortal world with sporadically active trods we could use to get to and from those places. Yova asked what our thoughts were and I said that we obviously weren’t at full strength now, but that we needed to strike before she was able to recover too much. We agreed that we needed to let Day get his Fetch claimed and then grab him and in the meantime figure out just what the hell was going on with Bella.

Thankfully, during her time when she was considering joining the Spring Court, Yova got Duke Lamington’s phone number and she gave him a ring. He was polite as always and asked her how he could help. She told him that we didn’t know where Bella had gone and hoped he would have some idea, which is when we learned that she was safe and in the Spring Court’s care, though he did admit she wasn’t doing terribly well. Yova asked him if he could pass on the message to her that things were happening that had to do with the night Bella killed her Fetch. He agreed and put her on hold so he could ask Bella what she wanted to do. When he got back on, he said that Bella was being very vague and not paying a huge amount of attention.

Duke Lamington told Yova that he and Bella were going to go out that evening and Yova proposed he give her the location of where they were going so we could bump into them and see how Bella was. He agreed, then asked her if he could get her advice on where to take Bella. “This is a sort of lifestyle that I have absolutely no familiarity with. There was a 90s night at the local beer hall, would that be appropriate?” he asked.

When he asked this, Yova pulled the phone away from her ear and looked about as pained as I’ve ever seen her. She very quietly said, “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” I sat next to her with Paisley so she could cope.

Yova turned back to the phone and, with a look of abject agony on her face, asked, “What sort of thing did Bella ask for, specifically?” “Loud music and flashing lights, I did confirm the flashing lights,” Duke Lamington told her. Yova proposed that she act as the outsource for this and quickly called one of her Juilliard contacts, asking where the best place in Albany was for a rave. She managed to get the address of a rave that was held in an empty store area of one of the malls in town and passed that on to the Duke. He ran it by Bella and she said, “I can’t even see you at a rave. But yeah! Let’s do it!”

While all this was going on, I still had Paisley in my lap. I looked down to her and asked, “So, girl, you up for a rave?” She looked up at me with a quirked head. “Rave, uh. Loud music, flashing lights, lots of drugs?” I asked. She considered for a second and then, if I’ve ever seen a gecko shrug, that was it. She stayed home.

The next few hours we spent raiding Yova’s closet to try and get outfits for a rave. And yeah, yeah, I know what you’re going to say. I have club wear, I don’t have rave wear. I did not get the gay dancing gene. Bella also took Duke Lamington out for appropriate rave attire. He got a snazzy neon bow tie and suspenders. Yova also called Marigold and asked her if she wanted to meet us there. She jumped at it.

Bella and the Duke were the first ones to get to the rave, not long after it opened. He mostly was there to chaperone Bella, though he did do a little dancing to humor her. We got there about twenty minutes later and thankfully managed to spot the Duke quickly enough, with that neon blue bow tie. Bella actually seemed like she was doing much better; she was going through her usual Bellaisms. We made our way over and she waved at us, looking happy. “I didn’t know you guys were going to be here!” she said. Pam and Duke Lamington shared a look – we’d all heard him telling Bella that we were going to be coming along.

While Pam and I tried to figure out what was going on, Yova got a text that Marigold was there and Yova sent her a picture of what she was wearing. She made her way over to the bar, where Marigold was sitting, dressed in her normal Wednesday Addams getup and nursing a hot pink drink, looking delighted. Yova greeted her (with a nice kiss on the cheek – yes, I was watching) and told her she looked happy. “Oh, I am! This is fascinating!” Marigold told her, going on about all the social dynamics. Yova was looking positively charmed and warned her about taking anything from anyone who offered it. “I’m not that naïve,” Marigold scoffed, pulling out her bag. “Look, see, I have a whistle, and a can of mace, and this straw is supposed to change colors if you put it in a drink that has date rape drugs in it.” Bless that child.

Yova brought Marigold back over to where we were on the dance floor and we all greeted her. Pam told her how nice she looked and some of us proceeded to dance awkwardly (Duke Lamington doing the two-step, Pam doing a shimmy, Marigold swaying in place, me doing the cabbage patch) and others less awkwardly (Yova dancing around Marigold, Bella just having a good time).

But then. As we were dancing, both Yova and I spotted a couple of young women pushing their way through the crowd toward us, looking surprised and emotional. We pointed them out to the others and Bella quickly recognized them as old friends of hers. She turned, completely freaked out, and started making her way in the other direction. Yova, thankfully, reacted quickly. By picking me up and throwing me like a goddamn discus at them. They were pissed as hell at me and it stopped them from moving forward, but didn’t stop them from spotting Bella and they darted off through the crowd after her. Yova swooped in, picked me up, and started acting like a running back. I looked up at her and managed to get out, “When we get out of here… I’m gonna kick your fuckin’ ass.”

Yova managed to stop one of the girls by running into her, but the other caught up with Bella and asked her what was going on and why she was acting the way she was. “And what is up with this look?” she asked. Bella tried to affect a Spanish accent, making like it was a case of mistaken identity. Around this time, the rest of us managed to catch up. “What is going on, is this cold feet or something?” Between Bella’s denials and Yova’s insistence that the girl was mistaken about who Bella was, she finally left, but was clearly unhappy about it.

We made our way outside the mall and Duke Lamington gently told Bella that she was going to have to deal with what happened with her Fetch. I realized that this was probably the time to let Bella know what she might be dealing with and I pulled the ring out of my pocket and handed it over to her. “What’s this?” she asked. “I found that in the pile of rags that was your Fetch the other night,” I said. She didn’t seem to be putting it together, but Yova reminded her that the girl mentioned getting a case of cold feet. Bella looked at the ring a minute longer, then put it in her pocket and stormed off, saying, “Not my problem!”

Duke Lamington told us that it wasn’t exactly the Spring Court’s place to deal with this, but he wished us luck. “I’ll go check on the little miss and make sure she gets home all right, whether it’s to her own place or our locale,” he said. He promised to let us know where Bella ended up. She ended up asking to go back to her own place and Duke Lamington escorted her there. She told me that when he dropped her off, he told her it was a pleasure hanging out with her and that it wasn’t often members of the Court sought him out. All together now: awwww.

That left me, Pam, Marigold, and Yova hanging outside the mall. Yova apologized to Marigold about the night ending prematurely. “Oh, no, it was fascinating!” she chirped again. She did stare through her glasses after the girl who was traipsing off and, getting a bit more serious, told us that we should be careful about the police in case she talked to them about what was going on with Bella. “I think we might have a bit of help with keeping that at bay, with Officer Break. Did she ever end up contacting you?” Yova asked. Marigold’s shoulders slumped a bit and she said, “Yes… yes, she did. And I was just about to call her back, but then Miss Stella dumped a pile of research projects on my desk.” “She’s good at that,” I said. “Yes, she is. You know, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t sleep,” Marigold said.

We ended up piling into Yova’s crappy pickup and dropped Marigold off at her apartment first. It wasn’t the best part of town, but her building looked nice. Yova then dropped Pam off and drove me back to our building. She parked the car, looked over at me and made a peace offering. “I’ve got a bottle of vodka and mixers upstairs.” “Deal.”

Now, that might have been the end of it. Except that when Pam got home, she could feel the aftereffects of Glamour. It wasn’t hostile or wrong, but she definitely could feel something. As she looked around her apartment, she saw a long, thin thorn pinning a parchment envelope to the wall. Mentally noting that she was going to have to spackle that later, she pulled out the thorn and opened the envelope, breaking a messy wax seal. Inside was a small note that read: “HEY KIDS, WE’RE BUSTIN OUT. -C P.S. TELL THE OLD MAN I’M GONNA PUNCH HIM.”

By this point, Yova and I were upstairs in her place. I was starting to put together some Moscow mules and she was trying to change out of her thigh highs. Pam called me and I picked up, saying, “Fallen Angels Abortion Clinic, you knock ‘em up, we knock ‘em down, we have a special on twins today, how may I direct your call?” Pam took a second to respond, then said, “I’m sorry, I think I have the wrong number,” and hung up. I cackled for a few seconds, then called her back.

“Oh, Derek. I think that somebody has your number,” she told me. “No, no, that was me,” I said. “He’s a shit on the phone!” Yova called from her closet. “So, what’s up?” I asked. “Well, I just got a note from Cassi. It said they’re breaking out,” she said. I felt my feathers spring up into full alert and I snapped my fingers to try and get Yova’s attention. “What? What is it?” she asked, leaning out of her closet dangerously. “THEY’RE BREAKING OUT!” I yelled. “OH SHI –” she yelled, losing her balance completely.

“Oh, that sounded painful,” Pam said. “Yeah, it was like watching a sequoia go down,” I said. “Uh, we’re going to – Yova, how long is it going to take you to change?” I asked. “Five minutes!” she said, contorting herself to try to get those damn thigh highs off. “Right. Um, we’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said. “I’m just going to change into something that’s not – this.” “I don’t know, Derek, I think Adrian would find that very fetching,” Yova said from the floor, pointing to my mesh shirt. “Shut up, Yova!” I yelled, darting for the door.

And so that brings our current story to a close. When next you come back, I’ll tell you all about the next fine kettle of fish we managed to get ourselves into. Until then, may your friends never use you as ballast for their Olympic tryouts.

[futelco]

2018 Operator Log Excerpts

Seven operators logged over 83 calls in 2018, and as usual, they ranged from boring to exciting and amusing to annoying. Here is a sample of logged calls, with some sensitive and many less interesting examples removed.

2018-01-08 15:36

Caller wanted to make a call. I told them to hang up and dial 1.

2018-01-22 9:41

Caller asked for the number of a specific Social Service attorney, which I provided.

2018-01-25 12:22

Caller asked to make a call, I told them to hang up and dial 1.

2018-02-23 9:25

"I want to call, um, my father's house." "Do you know the number?" "Yes, it's ......." "OK, hang up, dial 1, and call it."

2018-03-04 17:09

Caller refused to speak, pressed various buttons. I heard some voice mail recordings. Then I thought caller hung up, but no. I mentioned that they could make a call by hanging up and dialing 1. The line went dead.

2018-03-07 17:09

Caller identified themselves as an operator with a voicemail password but no account number, seeking a way to retrieve the associated account number. We decided that the unknown account should be abandoned. Caller was frustrated at the speed with which Futel computers read the password and account number. The call turned away from telephony and towards our complex relationship with permanence.

2018-03-08 16:30

Caller wanted to know "the meaning" of the Futel phone, and of the Fred Flintstones couch (sic) and loudspeaker next to it. I was able to describe the phone & summarize some Futel services. Deeper meaning was elusive. I encouraged caller to explore the menu system & call back with easier questions. Caller was very grateful, said Futel made caller's day.

2018-03-11 17:06

Caller had many questions re: this phone & Futel in general: who runs it, who am I, who are the other operators, are any of them women, how long has this phone been here, et cetera. I directed caller to the website & shared what trivia I knew. Caller lives nearby, expressed interest both in hosting a phone and in becoming a Futel operator. Caller is very happy to discover Futel. We agreed it is a lovely day today.

2018-03-13 15:44

I answered & heard only touch tones. At first I thought caller did not hear me. But I eventually realized caller answered each of my spoken questions with about as much touch tone pressing as I had used speech, and then waited for me to speak again. I got the impression caller did not actually need assistance. I encouraged them to call back when they did.

2018-03-13 21:35

Caller told me that they finally found the phone and asked for a suggestion on what to try. I told them to call Sissyphus Gardens.

2018-03-14 00:38

Caller asked for the time. Upon receiving the time and date, caller thanked Futel for our service.

2018-03-26 16:20

Caller (a young person who gave the name of Taylor) wanted to know my name, what kind of phone this was, why it was there. Taylor thought phone was "cool", but described the main menu voice as "creepy". I encouraged Taylor to play around with the menu system, but I refused to give my name. Perhaps that was also creepy, but overall I felt we established a rapport and parted on good terms.

2018-04-06 17:18

Caller asked if I remembered Taylor. When I said no, caller said, “ok. bye.” and hung up.

2018-04-07 13:56

Caller said they wanted to make a call but decided to call the operator instead. We talked about Futel in general and she asked me how one would be "hired" by futel. I informed them that we do not hire people but we would love volunteers. Sent them to futel.net for more info.

2018-04-18 20:22

Caller asked for advice. Advised caller to stay the course, keep chin up, exercise and eat vegetables.

2018-04-21 12:55

Caller said they "wanted to know what all these messages were about". I asked what messages they were referring to, they said nevermind and hung up.

2018-05-08 20:44

Caller said hello, then I heard industrial music and maybe birds chirping? No response when I asked if they needed an operator, so I listened until they hung up.

2018-05-23 09:05

Caller needed the phone number for People Ready in Hillsboro. Googled it.

2018-05-31 20:39

Caller wanted the phone number of an individual, which I told them I was unable to look up. Well what can you look up? Well what do you want to find? Caller was able to provide a type of business and an incorrect prefix of the number, allowing me to find the correct number in a popular search engine.

2018-05-31 20:50

Caller was looking for an individual. Searching turned up a web page. I gave them the phone number listed on that page.

2018-05-31 21:20

Provided the number for Multnomah County Pretrial Services.

2018-05-31 21:25

Searched for a phone number for an individual.

2018-06-01 7:59

Caller wanted the number for Multnomah County pretrial supervision, but decided that I was taking to long to find it and hung up.

2018-06-01 15:39

Caller needed number for DHS, wanted to be transferred. Informed them that it was not possible for me to transfer them and gave them the number. They called back 1 minute later asking for it again because they forgot it.

2018-06-05 09:55

Caller wanted to place a collect call. I informed them that all calls to the US and Canada are free. Caller was thankful and hung up to make a call.

2018-06-06 18:42

Caller wanted to know if Futel was an “art project or a non-profit or what?” I told the caller that we are a non-profit that does telecom services and operates free telephones and puts art on them. The caller told me that they knew we had a website, and that they would look at it.

2018-06-09 10:54

Caller requested the local number for Ride to Care. Was able to provide that number.

2018-06-09 14:19

Caller requested the local number for Tango Personals.

2018-06-11 23:03

Caller requested the time. It was 11:03pm PST.

2018-06-18 18:28

A child's voice very quietly in the background: "Did it go off?" Then Ipanema.

2018-06-18 18:28

A young caller asked an inappropriate question in a very bad attempt at a prank call. I informed the caller that Futel should only be used for good-natured pranks and hung up.

2018-06-18 18:34

A child asked "Is this Pizza Hut?" I said yes and demanded a CC number, address and Social Security number. They hung up.

2018-06-18 18:38

Same kid, different story. This time it was "I have projectile diarrhea. Can you help with that?". No.

2018-06-20 22:17

Caller told me they had been using the phone for a while and asked if I wanted to talk to their friend. I declined. Caller asked who they should call, I told them to call their mother.

2018-06-25 20:42

Heard keypad buttons being pushed, then a child said hello and hung up when I responded.

2018-07-15 12:45

Caller wanted the number for Rodeo Chat.

2018-07-17 16:54

Caller wanted the incoming number to use for voicemail. Caller also asked what the other menu options did, I told them to try them out.

2018-07-18 7:42

Two individual's passed the phone between them and each asked what Futel was, provided a short explanation

2018-08-06 13:30

Caller asked to be connected to Sissyphus Gardens, I told them to use the directory.

2018-08-06 13:40

Caller asked for the number of the phone, I supplied it. Caller said they had a question about setting up voicemail, said something unintelligible, and hung up.

2018-08-08 13:20

Caller wanted me to know they take limos, not cabs. They called back and requested some new releases from Hershey candies. I couldn't understand the requests.

2018-08-08 13:40

Caller rambled semi-intelligibly about an air force base and sexual predators, asked if I was still there, and talked some more. They ended with some kind of question, I replied I wanted to do what I could, they thanked me and hung up.

2018-08-09 13:20

Caller was confused as to why they got me and not Pizza Hut. Caller hung up.

2018-08-17 19:05

Caller asked for the number of an airline, but hung up before I could provide it. I called back, told caller they had hung up on me, heard their response, and hung up.

2018-08-21 13:52

Caller was having trouble dialing 211. I gave caller the full number for Oregon 211, 866-698-6155. Caller thanked me and hung up to dial.

2018-08-24 18:45

Caller told me they were glad that the phone was working.

2018-08-28 7:20

Caller wanted phone number for PeopleReady on Kelly avenue. Provided it.

2018-08-28 21:15

After I introduced myself as an operator several times, caller asked me what town I was operating in. I replied that it was not relevant and hung up.

2018-08-29 4:37

Caller wanted the number for a hospital business center, which I provided.

2018-08-30 11:24

Caller asked for an alternate 211 number, claiming that the menu option and dialing 211 from the dialtone didn't work. I gave them 866-698-6155.

2018-09-01 13:51

Caller asked for the nearest other Futel phone, I directed them to Taylor St.

2018-09-01 20:38

Caller asked for the location of the Ainsworth phone.

2018-09-05 8:43

"They say the cat's abandoned, is this the [mumble] hotline?"

2018-09-05 15:23

Caller asked if I could look up a number, I said I could try. After some negotiation they said they wanted an insulation business in Washington. I replied that I could search for that on the web. Caller was incredulous that I didn't have a listing, and asked me what happened to the yellow pages. I replied that I did not know. After a long and boring conversation about the regional nature of Futel, caller thanked me for my time and hung up.

2018-09-08 13:20

Caller asked if this was Burger King, no the Coca-Cola company, and hung up when I replied that this was the Futel operator.

2018-09-12 14:40

Caller asked for the number of the Department of Human Services food stamp office.

2018-10-08 11:17

Caller asked for the number of a refillable credit card used for benefits, which I supplied.

2018-10-08 17:06

Caller asked for the number of a bakery in Manzanita, which I supplied.

2018-10-09 18:36

Caller asked how to place a call, I instructed them.

2018-10-11 14:35

Child was playing with the phone.

2018-10-13 18:01

Caller sought the number for Wilsonville Womens’ Prison. I provided the number.

2018-10-15 15:00

Caller said they "wanted to make a prank call". I acknowledged. Caller said a weak joke, I made a snarky reply and hung up.

2018-11-01 11:04

Caller was seeking the Portland district attorney’s office. I provided the number.

2018-11-01 11:30 Mathew

Caller who had previously called seeking the district attorney’s office was now seeking a personal injury lawyer in a Portland suburb, but unsure of the spelling of their name. With search engine assistance I was able to identify the lawyer’s name and number.

2018-11-01 11:51

Caller wanted to thank Futel for our service, and had successfully reached their lawyer.

2018-11-01 16:16

Caller asked for the number to Ride to Care. I supplied it and informed them that it was also in the directory.

2018-11-18 11:54

Caller informed me that the Ypsi phone was fixed and had a new handset.

2018-11-22 20:00

"I was wondering what this line was for." "You called the operator, do you need an operator?" "It depends on what this is for." "If you think of a reason, call back, maybe an operator can help you."

2018-11-26 18:10

Callers had questions about what Futel was about and why. I explained aspects of Futel’s ambitions for telephonic domination to several parties including impressionable youth.

2018-11-29 10:09

Caller talked about the Israeli army and hung up mid-sentence.

2018-12-03 09:39

Caller wanted to know who I was, I told them I was the operator. They didn't believe me at first. They said they were having all kinds of problems with the phone, were trying to dial an 800 number. I told them hang up & dial 1 for outside line, etc.

2018-12-12 12:05

Caller complained that their cellphone has been bolted to the ground.

2018-12-12 20:00

Caller asked for a residential number, which I was unable to provide.

2018-12-13 17:02

Caller asked for the number for Washington County Probation and Parole, which I provided.

2018-12-23 09:29

Caller was seeking a nearby microwave to re-heat lunch. I informed caller that as a Portland resident I didn’t have access to that information. Caller was understanding and wished me a merry Christmas.

2018-12-23 11:41

Caller asked how to call Lance. I told them to hang up, enter 3 for the directory, and listen for his listing. Caller thanked me and hung up, after which I remembered that his listing was now "the Druid of Sissyphus Gardens".

2018-12-30 13:56

After I introduced myself, the caller said, "Hello, operator, my name is Chase, and I'm looking to speak with... you!" I waited for them to continue fulfilling their desire, but they hung up after 30 seconds. I called back, but the line was busy.

[ayearofpike]

Falling

Tom Doherty Associates, 2007 402 pages, 24 chapters ISBN 978-0-7653-5644-4 LOC: PS3566.I486 F35 2007 OCLC: 73502344 Released March 6, 2007 (per B&N)

Matt Connor has been wronged by the girl he loves. Kelly Fienman has been wronged by the suspect she’s stalking. They’re both out for vengeance, but while Matt is upfront and honest about the stunt he plans to pull, he isn’t really honest with himself about what he actually wants to get — and for her part, Kelly pretends that her need for justice is both moral and absent. When their paths inevitably cross, they’re left with several huge questions: what is right? what is good? do these things intersect? is it OK if they don’t?

(Thanksgiving and a child’s birthday were NOT conducive to A Year of Pike, gang. Let’s see if I can pick it back up here in December.)

I remembered being really happy with this book the first time I read it. Like, OK, Pike is taking it easy on the kidlit, having maybe resigned himself to the understanding that his style no longer fits with popular expectations. Plus, this came probably three years after I’d read a recent predecessor, and a solid five years after I’d BOUGHT one  — I got Alosha and The Shaktra out of the library, never read The Yanti until just now, and then I saw Falling at a bookstore sometime in 2008. I read it and I loved it: so unexpected, such power, what a shift in tone and characters, what a strong and solid cliffhanger ending — literally! Surely there exists some kind of excited blog record of me finding this, so long after I’d decided Pike wasn’t for me anymore. After spending entirely too long trawling the depths of my LiveJournal, though, I can’t find one.

And the reread? Eh. As it turned out, I didn’t actually remember very much about this book. Parts of it want to be The Silence of the Lambs (and Pike even nods to that) but it doesn’t have the same power. The rest? So much speculation and estimation left up to the reader to really understand this closed-book antagonist, who is actually quite selfish but we don’t get her perspective. She doesn’t even monologue when she has our hero at literally the end of his rope. And the powerful scene at the end? More like a trickle to a halt, made even weaker by the unnecessary intercutting to the other character’s perspective as she oversees the end of her antagonist’s life. We’ll get there. I don’t know. Maybe I was so excited to get this, and to have a book where a baby’s life and future hangs in the balance right around the same time I was raising my own baby as a new at-home parent, that I overlooked another one of Pike’s letdown endings.

I forgot to talk in the last post about the ISBN shifting to 13 digits. This started in 2007: all new books would have a code that better matched up with international book listing codes. These last two have had both an ISBN-10 and an ISBN-13, I assume because he had both of them slated prior to the change, but I’ve decided to just list the newer code for simplicity’s sake. You can do more research if you feel like it, or even convert back and forth between ISBN-10 and 13. It doesn’t really affect my blog, but it’s a change and I wanted to mention it.

So Falling. It actually could have been a pretty straightforward story, with much of the bulk of the book spent exploring the mental attitudes involved in what it takes to go beyond the law, commit some kind of horrific deed that most people couldn’t imagine. The real problem with this story is that it tries to cram too much into it, and the one crime is so vile and base that it renders our antihero’s misdeed into almost seeming unimportant. But it’s not — Matt’s actions are horrible and indefensible, especially as we don’t actually get his villain’s perspective, no matter what someone else did that was totally gross. (I am so a parent: “I don’t care what Tommy did, you are not to act that way.”)

What the hell does Matt actually do? This is where Falling is good: it keeps us in suspense for the first good quarter of the book as we try to understand his plan and how it’s going to adversely affect the girl. Because of course his object of vengeance is a girl — the one who just dumped him, actually. She didn’t “just dump him,” though; she strung him along as “the only one” while she was still in contact with her rich “ex,” who she is now married to and has an unborn child with, a child that could only have been conceived while Matt was still seeing her. And it’s not his, it can’t be his, because she never let him stick it in. So Matt is going to fake his own death by crashing a personal aircraft in the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, he will parachute to a waiting boat, anchored in a shallower area, and assume a new identity until he can carry out the second part of his plan: kidnap the baby, months later, after everyone has forgotten his involvement with the woman.

Kelly is one of the FBI agents assigned to the kidnapping case. She’s actually just back on the job after a tragic and devastating incident with a previous suspect that has taken out a good chunk of her GI system. And this is where Falling has problems: this second story, totally unrelated to and unnecessary for understanding Matt’s motivations, is clung to and pushed on us constantly through the whole book, even as it threatens to be a more engaging tale of horrific glee. Like, I get why Pike didn’t just write this one (out of concerns of being accused of ripping off Thomas Harris) but this is really TWO suspense stories, and he hasn’t properly fleshed out the tale of Kelly and the Sex Murderin’ English Teacher.

Because that’s what’s happened: three-four months before the kidnapping, she gets pulled into an investigation on a dude who has made videos of himself having extremely consensual sex with rich women, tying them to the beds, confronting them about their obvious infidelity to their rich husbands, and then killing them by pouring corrosive acid on (and then INTO) their chests. She has a Ph.D in mythology and literature, which they need because the dude is throwin’ out all sorts of esoteric references and they think that knowing them will help them track him down. Of course, Kelly has gone into FBI work because she wants to be a hero, and so she breaks like EVERY protocol in investigating the trail of these obscure Asian myths back to either Ohio State or Ohio University, depending on which page you look at. (Does Pike know there’s a difference?) All the evidence points to a doctoral student, but it’s been manipulated that way by his faculty advisor, who is doing the sex murders because he caught his wife cheating with the dude. And now he’s going to kill Kelly the same way, only he hasn’t counted on her being a totally buff FBI agent who actually MOVES THE ENTIRE BED SHE’S TIED TO and makes the acid splash on the ropes, which she can now break to get at her gun and cap the fucker in the back of the neck. Of course, the acid has also splashed on her stomach and eaten into her organs, hence the GI problems. And also her husband is pissed that she went to such crazy lengths and endangered herself, to the point where if she goes back to the FBI he’s not willing to hang around and watch her kill herself. So he moves out and takes their young daughter with him.

I KNOW. This is a WAY more fuckin’ interesting story than oh, boo hoo, she was stringing me along so I’m gonna kidnap her baby. It’s too bad that he drags this shit out and doesn’t give it more consideration. But as with so much literature, we gotta accept the tragic male antihero versus the strong female agent who is still trying to figure out the boundaries of her moral code.

Yeah, there’s still more story. Matt hires a nanny under the table to help take care of the baby, and she thinks they look alike. You hear this all the time as a parent, even if your kid looks NOTHING like you — but Matt’s curious, so he does a mail-away DNA test and it comes back unquestionably that he’s actually the father. So now he knows he can’t just bail on the kid like he was planning, but he needs money to raise him. So he sets up an intricate ransom for his ex and her husband, who has money (of course he has money; why do you think she married him?). Matt makes the dude put $3 million in cash and jewels into a bag, then chase all over metro LA until he finally ends up taking a boat out to Catalina Island. But halfway there, he instructs the husband to load the dough into a weighted box and throw it overboard. Because of course Matt is a scuba diver — this is a Pike book, after all. He retrieves the money and then uses a personal propeller to zip off underwater. And the FBI, which was so prepared for an island drop or a boat handoff, is caught with their pants all the way down.

Of course Kelly is furious, but also curious. She remembers seeing a picture of Matt in the woman’s desk, and asks about the circumstances of his death. It seems that the day Matt’s plane crashed, he had been on Catalina — finishing up his scuba certification. So now Kelly has connected the dots, in a way only a Pike heroine can, but she can’t imagine where to find the dude. But she knows someone who can: a certain Sex Murderin’ English Teacher, who is still alive but paralyzed from the neck down, who knows better than anyone Kelly knows how a twisted male mind works. He grasps the intricacies of the situation immediately and advises Kelly to follow the woman, because there’s no way she’s unaware.

Kelly doesn’t believe it, but sure enough the chick leads her directly to Matt and the baby, set up in a fancy apartment not even that far from the rich husband’s house. It seems that Matt felt like he had all the leverage he needed to get the girl back, now that he had the baby and some money. But it’s not enough — she knows that the dude isn’t ever going to let her just go, and that the only way to be totally free to be back with Matt is if they kill her husband. So Matt, against his better judgment, starts coming up with a plan to murder a dude: drive his boat to Catalina, get him super drunk, and then push him overboard on the way back. The girl, weirdly, insists that Matt has to be on board and actually do the pushing. Which makes Kelly, listening in on her bugs planted in the apartment, start to think that maybe she’s the actual monster, even though Matt has faked his own death and then kidnapped her son. So she affects her own secret identity and moves into the complex to get closer to the situation but also to try to keep Matt from doing something he’ll regret.

Matt actually has no intention of killing the husband. His plan was pretty much always to tag along on the boat and then get the girl to fake her OWN death, and then they can be free and alone and untraceable. But but but, the girl objects, if she is dead and not the husband, then she won’t be heir to all his money! But Matt flatly refuses to push the dude. So she goes ahead and does it. Unlucky for her, they’re being tailed by — who else? — Kelly the Hero, who now has enough circumstantial evidence to arrest the woman for murder. Her father-in-law bails her out of jail, raising more weird questions, and then she manages to convince Matt to help her jump bail and escape with all her worldly possessions. They make it to Utah the first night, but the ten minutes Matt runs out to buy diapers and formula is long enough for a dude to bust in and tie his girl to the bed and be looming over her with a beaker full of acid when he gets back.

Holy shit, right? By now Matt knows who Kelly is and has gotten her backstory, and he knows that she’s willing to let him slide on the whole kidnap kerfuffle, so he calls her with this weird coincidence. But there’s no way it could be SMET, who is totally paralyzed! But Kelly now fears for HIS ex-wife’s life, and flies back to Ohio to do another check on this whole twisted clan. The best thing she can think of is to do a home stakeout with the lady and her new man, the grad student she was cheating with. Only — uh-oh — turns out the dude is in cahoots with SMET the whole time! His whole life, in fact: Cheatin’ Grad Student is SMET’s little brother! Their mother was also a cheater, and died of complications from their dad pushing her down the stairs after he found out. But wait! It seems that SMET actually did the killing, replacing her cardiac epinephrine shot with vinegar, so when she seized in her hospital bed it was the attempt to save her that killed her. Please note: SMET did this as a motherfucking TEN YEAR OLD. From there, he realized the thrill of destroying loose women and employed his little brother in helping to deface and dispose of the bodies.

So it only follows that he’d employ the dude to lure his wife, and was devastated when she bit, and that has turned into more killin’. In fact, it was CGS who was in Utah the night before, on his brother’s orders, ready to take down another terrible, cheating, murdering, bail-jumping lady. But this kid is even more debased than his brother, and is just going to rape and dismember Kelly while his new bae is knocked out from drugs in her dinner. Luckily she has her own syringe of cardiac vinegar, uncovered in her prior search of the dad’s house, and she manages to stab it into CGS’s heart just in the nick of time.

What’s up with Matt and the On-the-Lam Family? No big, they’re just doing some leisurely rock climbing now that they’re free from dead rich husbands or acid murderers. This, it turns out, is Matt’s one final big test to his girl’s fidelity — and she fails big time, cutting his rope and leaving him stranded on the edge of a cliff while he’s rappelling. But Matt’s been here before, because he’s an experienced and expert rock climber (because what the FUCK ELSE can this asshole be good at), and he manages to free-climb up the side of the cliff and catch his girl as she’s packing up the car. So now it’s her turn to be stuck on a cliff ledge, until he can get to a pay phone and call the cops on her for jumping bail. And we’re all like, good god, dude, it took you fuckin’ well long enough.

Of course we can’t just be done, right? Kelly has a sex murderin’ English teacher to revenge. She makes it look like a suicide, unscrewing part of his wheelchair and scraping his wrist veins against it so he bleeds out. But before he goes, he wants to talk to Matt, because they’re not so different, and he’d like to congratulate a fellow charismatic criminal for getting away with his misdeeds. And then he dies, and Kelly swears off FBI work so that maybe she can go back to her family and actually appreciate it and be appreciated by them.

Um ... what? But yeah, that’s the end of Falling. Either one of these stories would have been better served by itself, unless he could have given us Kelly’s necessary backstory in the beginning rather than trying to make everything happen at the same time. It comes across as excessive and unnecessary, and makes the ending fall flat. And when you have a blah ending, it doesn’t matter how vibrant the characters have been, or how real and horrific their struggles, or how much you sympathized with them throughout the narrative. All you remember is the “um ... what?”