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raviposting · 4 years ago

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So @singledarkshade has a Dream Movie challenge where we are given 6 actors from our favorite TV shows (or movies), a wildcard actor, and an object that should be incorporated into the plot.

I decided to make my movie blurb and character descriptions like a “case file” of suspects as my movie is about a Private Investigator team, so enjoy! :)

CASEFILE: King Investigations is the best investigative group in the country, and they are taking on so-called “unsolvable” cases, refusing new cases until they solve the one they have. One day, an envelope containing $5,000 is slid under their door alongside a note on a strip of paper. The request? To solve the murder of their recently deceased employee. The problem? Every employee of King Investigations is alive and accounted for, so they quickly get on the case - to solve why one of their own is getting murdered, and stop it before it happens.

SUSPECT: Stephanie Beatriz as Aimee Gonzalez

Role: Technology specialist

Background: Suspect was hired 5 years ago after offering up her services for a case where a woman had been missing for 43 years. She solved the case within 24 hours of joining the team as a liaison and was immediately offered a full-time position at King Investigations.

Characteristics: An expert at finding someone, if you’ve left even a trace of yourself online she will work tirelessly to find you. Suspect’s favorite color is pink and seems to have a splash of pink on her at all times, alongside any decorations she ever has laying around. The suspect is an out and proud bisexual woman. Suspect seems bright and bubbly, constantly hugging the other suspects and loudly proclaiming her love for them in public. Genuine happiness or an attempt to throw off the case from herself?

Close relationships: Adam King (best friend), Nelly Johnson (close friend)

Further suspects are listed under the cut:

SUSPECT: Tom Ellis as Adam King

Role: Founder of King Investigations

Background: Suspect founded King Investigations roughly 10 years ago, but has a PI background spanning two decades. He previously worked for Perry Co., but left under good terms to create the company with his husband, co-worker, and new employee.

Characteristics: Suspect is a blunt, to-the-point PI who excels at investigating cases, but is not so great on the whole empathy thing. He is meticulous in every detail, and unlike Suspect Gonzalez’s tech-savviness, prefers everything traditional and vintage - from his work method to his clothes to his furniture. He comes off as sarcastic and dick-ish, and he is, but he’s also fiercely loyal and firmly believes in getting justice in every case. He will not give up, no matter how little he has to go on.

Close Relationships: James King (husband), Lily Mullins (best friend), Aimee Gonzalez (best friend), Andrew Perry (mentor)

SUSPECT: Michiel Huisman as James King

Role: PI - particularly skilled in surveillance

Background: Suspect has been working at King Investigations for 10 years, and like his husband, he migrated over from Perry Co.

Characteristics: The more grounded counter to his husband, the suspect is a more quiet investigative sort, who also specializes in something that comes a bit harder to his husband - empathy. His role seems to involve trailing individuals and smoothing over any issues that arise, whether they be due to the case or Suspect Adam King’s own behavior. Further information on the suspect could not be found at this time.

Close relationships: Adam King (husband), Clancy White (confidant), Andrew Perry (close friend)

SUSPECT: Malcolm Goodwin as Clancy White

Role: “Bodyguard”, particularly skilled in combat

Background: Suspect has been working at King Investigations for the shortest amount of time (2 years). Suspect began as the King Investigation team’s chief suspect in an unsolved murder, which he was promptly cleared of when the true murderer cornered Suspects Mullins and Adam King, and White apprehended them. He was offered a job shortly after. Suspect does not have a PI license and is instead employed as a “bodyguard” for the Kings, although he freely aids in investigations behind-the-scenes.

Characteristics: Suspect is soft-spoken and quiet, but seems to attempt to match the personality and energy of whoever is speaking to him. Suspect is an aromantic man who entered into a queerplatonic relationship with suspect Nelly Johnson, and now lives with Nelly Johnson and Lily Mullins.

Close Relationships: Nelly Johnson (partner), Lily Mullins (friend), James King (best friend)

SUSPECT: Emmy Raver-Lampman as Nelly Johnson

Role: Forensic specialist

Background: Suspect is the one who originally came up with the idea of King Investigations, though she never worked at Perry Co. Suspect worked at the police department for 5 years and became frustrated with the department, and suggested to King and her now-wife (then girlfriend) Mullins that she would gladly work with them under their own company. Suspect immediately quit her department job after King Investigations was founded.

Characteristics: Suspect is sharp-witted and seems to match King’s wit. She is clearly confident and has an inquisitive mind, constantly checking and re-checking every bit of evidence that comes her way.

Close relationships: Lily Mullins (wife), Clancy White (partner), Aimee Gonzalez (friend)

SUSPECT: Isla Fischer as Lily Mullins

Role: PI at King Investigations

History: Suspect has been working at King Investigations for a decade. Much like the others, she migrated over from Perry Co. Out of the original founders, she has the least experience as an investigator, having started as an intern for only a few months before moving to King Investigations.

Characteristics: Suspect is sharp-tongued and has a good poker face. She seems to have strong combat skills and is exceptionally manipulating others into giving her information. She and her wife recently moved in with Clancy White. Suspect is seemingly always on guard, scanning for danger in even the most mundane circumstances. Suspect should be watched closely.

Close relationships: Nelly Johnson (wife), Clancy White (close friend), Adam King (best friend), Andrew Perry (mentor)

SUSPECT: Harrison Ford as Andrew Perry

Role: Former head of Perry Co.

Background: Suspect is the mentor to the Kings and Mullins, who all used to work for him before moving on to create King Investigations. Perry retired shortly before the three announced their business.

Characteristics: He acts as a father figure to these suspects King(s) and Mullins, and sees them regularly, as well as occasionally visiting the other team members. Suspect seemed reluctant to come out of retirement when the investigative team asked him to come out of retirement to help solve the case, but did so upon realizing that it was a life-or-death situation. Suspect seems reserved, but clearly cares for the founding investigators.

Close relationships: Adam King (mentee), Lily Mullins (mentee), James King (close friend)

Item - Lamp

The lamp is remarked upon by every single member of the investigative team. Clancy believes Aimee brought it in, due to her love of pink. Nelly believes Adam brought it in with his love of vintage materials, Adam believes it was Clancy due to his poor taste in decorations, etc. Each team member has an off-hand comment on how ugly the lamp looks before moving on.

BONUS: Plot summary (with some scenes written in because I couldn’t help myself)

We start off with a news-voiceover on King Investigation’s latest bust as we see the team stopping a potential murder. The reporter briefly introduces each character (as we see each doing their own thing in the case), and through the voiceover, we see the team turning in the suspect to the police, as well as discovering valuables of their client’s. She thanks them and provides them with a hefty sum of money. The reporter says the team has solved yet another seemingly unsolveable case and preventing a murder to boot, while we see the team begin to move furniture into a new building. As the voiceover speaks about their professionalism, we see Nelly and Adam arguing, and Nelly throwing out an old vase. Aimee sits on the curb, watching the group arguing and struggling to carry the furniture into the house. The voiceover begins to praise the team for their hard work and perserverance, as we see Clancy turn to Aimee and motion towards the furniture, at which point she shrugs and offers him the chips she has been eating. He accepts and sits down next to her.

The beginning half hour shows the dynamics within the team - a team that seems to bicker constantly, but are obviously very close with one another. They are at lunch with their former boss, Andrew Perry, when he asks how the move is going:

[The team is clustered around a round table outside. CLANCY is holding NELLY’s hand. LILY has a pleasant smile on her face, but she is looking beyond the group, her eyes scanning the area. ADAM has his legs stretched out, prompting an eye roll from AIMEE, and JAMES has made himself as small as possible, crossing his legs to provide AIMEE more room. ANDREW sits next to AIMEE, looking at the group with an amused smile]

ADAM: It’s splendid, really, Andrew, save for Nelly throwing out my furniture yet again -

NELLY: If you get one more ugly-ass vintage piece I am throwing it out, I swear to God.

ADAM, indignant: I - ugly? These are pieces of history.

[ADAM processes that NELLY said she would throw out his pieces]

ADAM: And excuse me? Throw out the furniture I bring into my office? Need I remind you that I am the boss?

NELLY [mocking ADAM’s indignant tone]: Need I remind you King Investigations wouldn’t even be a thing if I didn’t suggest it?

[ANDREW laughs and excuses himself to flag down a waiter and get another round of drinks for the table. As he leaves, ADAM and NELLY have a stare down while the rest of the group ignores them. AIMEE reaches over JAMES to steal a fry from ADAM’s plate, but he swats her hand away, never breaking eye contact. The music swells, until finally -]

NELLY: Fine. I won’t throw away your stupid vintage shit.

ADAM: Aha! See, this is why I am the boss, everyone.

[The group ignores him, and JAMES grabs two fries from ADAM’s plate, giving one to AIMEE]

The team gets settled in, setting up security measures, adjusting things around the office, and giving Perry a tour. We see them in a fully furnished office, pouring over what case they want to take on next. Lily pauses for a moment, thinking she’s heard something, but brushes off the feeling and continues on. The team falls silent when Clancy notices a letter that has slid under their door, alongside an envelope with $50,000 in cash with the message:

CLANCY [with a confused, questioning tone]: My deepest condolences to losing a member of your investigative team, I trust this amount will be enough for you to uncover who carried out this plot, the remainder will be delivered to you upon the completion of the case?

[AIMEE furrows her eyebrows and quickly counts up each member in the room]

AIMEE: Well unless one of us drops in the next 5 seconds, I’d say we’re all pretty alive.

CLANCY: Maybe it’s a joke?

JAMES [gesturing to the money]: It is a very expensive joke.

The team determines that the note was sent in advance because somewhere, the murderer’s plot went wrong, and so they work with two goals in mind: Figure out who is getting murdered, and why.

JAMES: First, we have to figure out who is most likely to be our victim.

[All eyes turn to ADAM, who is intently pouring over the letter. He stops when he hears the lack of silence, and glares at them]

ADAM: Oh come on now, I get the job done.

NELLY: I say this with love, but you’re an asshole, Adam. I think every case we’ve ever worked has at least one person who threatened to kill you.

LILY: And twice it was the victim we were saving.

ADAM: Well that’s just -

NELLY [muttering]: I’d kill you myself over your shitty home decor choices.

[NELLY briefly motions to the garish pink lamp in the corner, but ADAM is not paying attention, because his attention is on JAMES, who has turned to write down ADAM’s name at the top of his whiteboard, and ADAM gives a sound of protest. JAMES looks back at his husband, an apologetic look on his face.]

JAMES: Sorry, Adam. You know it’s true.

ADAM [sighs, waving his hand at the board]: Fine, put me on the board.

[JAMES writes down ADAM’s name at the top of the whiteboard, then underlines his name three times]

Throughout the movie, the team works to identify who the victim could be. Clancy and Lily tail the Kings, convinced that it is Adam or James who are the intended victims. Adam and Aimee work on the idea that it could be due to one of their past cases, and James and Nelly track down the man who sent the letter - a recent British immigrant who claims that he was told to do so and paid by an anonymous caller and that he never got the face. He admits he realized he got the date wrong - 5/6/2021 instead of 6/5/2021, and they realize it is a month before the supposed murder is supposed to take place.

Coming to a pause in their investigation, James, Lily, and Adam ask Andrew for help. He is reluctant but agrees. The group continues on, getting frustrated as they track down lead after lead without any further break. It comes to a head when:

[ADAM slams down a file in frustration, and the other members look up, frustration etched onto their faces as well.]

ADAM: There’s nothing. There probably will be nothing until the murder is supposed to happen.

[CLANCY sighs and leans his head back, wincing when he hits the pink lamp]

CLANCY: Okay, I know that you love pink, Aimee, but this is ugly even with the color scheme.

[The team has a confused look on their faces, and AIMEE and ADAM speak at the same time]

AIMEE: No, Lily brought it in - ADAM: Wait, you didn’t bring it?

LILY: Why would I bring this - CLANCY: Definitely didn’t, man.

[There is a brief pause as each team member processes, and the team speaks over one another]

JAMES: I had just assumed Clancy brought it in as well -

NELLY: Okay, I thought it was Adam. Figured he was just trying to rile me up with his weird furniture.

ADAM: I have taste, Nelly -

[LILY shushes the group]

LILY: So none of us bought this lamp in?

[The group stares at the lamp, and LILY writes on a slip of paper. The other members write as well, understanding that there may be a bug in the lamp, and Nelly grabs her materials to investigate the lamp.]

As the group continues, they find a listening device in the lamp. Aimee works to trace where it came from, but Adam stops her, and looks to Lily and James, a look of understanding passing between them, as they all recognize and used to use this type of listening device before - at Perry Co. They dig into Andrew and find out that he was not intending to retire until he found out about King Investigations - a week prior to them actually telling him of their plan, and a former colleague tells them that Perry had lamented that if Nelly hadn’t brought up the idea, this never would have happened. They determine that Nelly is his target and start their plan.

The next scene, Andrew is visiting the office to help with the case. The team confronts him, laying down the evidence:

ADAM [his eyes are teary, but his tone is angry and cold]: Rather clever of you, got the lamp in what, during the final move? And you listened to us so you’d be ahead of us every step of the way.

AIMEE: Once we figured out it was you, it was all too easy to track the phone you used to contact [letter sender].

LILY [her tone biting]: And we asked you for help. You played hesitant, but we offered you up the case on a silver platter.

JAMES: And we know exactly who you were trying to kill.

[The music swells, and ANDREW’s shoulders slump. He knows that he’s been found out. He and ADAM speak at the same time.]

ADAM: Nelly ANDREW [resigned]: Myself

[There is a pause, and then JAMES speaks, surprise clear in his voice for the first time in the movie]

JAMES: What?

From here, we have the conclusion - Andrew admits that he doesn’t hate Nelly, he respects her for understanding when a change needs to occur. He hadn’t planned on retiring until he found out he was losing his best detectives, but he didn’t want them to go onto their new job with any hesitations or regrets, so he announced his retirement earlier than planned. There was just one problem - he began missing his detectives, who he had come to view as pseudo-children.

Andrew put a plan into place - he would prove, as Aimee did all those years ago, that he could be useful to the team. He concocted a plan where he would fake his death and lead the team down different twists and turns until they found the culprit, at which point he would reveal himself to be alive. Unfortunately, his letter was delivered far too early, and Andrew had to intervene wherever he could in the investigation.

ADAM: I can’t believe this.

ANDREW: I know, I know, it was stupid, I just wanted to show you I was sharp and could still do it.

ADAM: You could have just applied, like a normal person.

ANDREW: I could have, but that wouldn’t be nearly as fun, would it?

JAMES: A murder plot is not fun, Andrew.

The team forgives Andrew, knowing that his intentions were good, but say that they need a bit of time before seeing him again, and he agrees. In the last act a few months later, they are having lunch again, sans Andrew. They return to the office. When they open the door, they see a paper, and Adam sighs before he realizes what it is. It’s a job application, filled out with a resume for an Andrew Perry attached, and he grins.

[ADAM picks up his phone and sits down, the ugly pink lamp right next to him, and the phone rings, until someone picks up.]

ADAM [smiling]: Hello there, I’m calling to follow up with your application to King Investigations. It is rather impressive, and we’d like to call you in for an interview.

[Muffled sounds of a voice coming through the phone, and ADAM grins wider]

ADAM: Wonderful, we’ll see you at 8 AM sharp tomorrow. We look forward to having you on board Mr. Perry

This was so fun to write! Thanks to @ginnxtonic for helping me choose between my two endings lol <3

#stephanie beatriz #malcolm goodwin #michiel huisman #emmy raver lampman #isla fisher #tom ellis #harrison ford #dream movie challenge #idk why the steph photo is so big rip but anyway woot woot #fun fact i completely scrapped my old idea and did this yesterday night a;sdlakjf #bc i'm nothing if not inconsistent apparently #dream movie #janie writes stuff

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greatneedtotakeanap · 4 years ago

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i binge read

the finale, episode 15 - the tower of nero

!!!SPOILER ALERT FOR THE TOWER OF NERO!!! this post under the cut will be completely riddled with spoilers, as it is a personal account of my views on the book as a whole.

it will be spoiled!!

(obviously.)

I’m almost too heartsick to write this omg. It’s been such a long, heartwarming journey, and it came to such an electrifying ending.

I’m quite proud of Apollo. I knew I was going to be, but the way he realized it, the way he realized everything... how Nero’s abuse mirrored Zeus’ and affected him just the same, how much of an asshole he’d been because of it. He made the conscious choice to change, and he decided he could love. He was capable of true love, he was capable of moving forward and being better. And he was. I was just,,, I was so proud of him. Seeing him mature was a really eye-opening experience, especially in this book, when he talked so much about the small complexities of Nero’s abuse, how every move was calculated and how it affected Meg. We’d seen wisps of discussions of abuse before, mostly in the lightning thief (smelly gabe) but we’ve never before gone into the complexities of emotional abuse. The way it was described was fantastically clear, in a way that undoubtedly painted Nero as the true villain, but also gave us the chance to see him try and convince his children that he was good. Apollo breaking down his every move was good for the audience to distinguish the meaning behind his words. Fantastically portrayed. The way it helped him realize his own abuse, too, was good.

And Meg. My sweet darling Meg. What an absolute baddie, I swear. She made the same decision - she went back to Nero to fight him, to test her own strength and power of will. Her decision to drop her rings and refuse to dual wield anymore was strange to me at the very beginning, but I understood it later. It was her refusing to use the weapons he forced her to use, to even defend herself against him. It was her turning her back on the methods he’d armed her with and deciding to take her own path. “The Beast is dead” is the rawest f-ing line in this entire novel, the Beast representing Nero’s psychological abuse. “I killed him” - she liberated herself by believing she was better. I’m so insanely proud of that girl, too. She’s come a long way as well.

Okay. After that analysis, let me just say:

THE GAYS WON.

I spent this entire book terrified that Will Solace was doomed. There was a line in the prophecy about the terrible ending of ‘Apollo’s flesh and blood’, and I figured that meant his offspring - his son, rather than his human form. I kept muttering to myself ‘Will’s gonna die Will’s gonna die and it’s gonna BREAK Nico’. I was just so worried. I didn’t think anyone, even William Andrew Solace, could survive Rick Riordan’s patented Blond Boy Curse.

But he was fine in the end! As fine as you can be. Solangelo boyfriends lived to fight another day. And their development as a couple was also quite nice. I loved their dynamic. We only saw a little of it in the hidden oracle. Though it was great there too, we were able to go more in depth and explore how they truly function. Nico’s dry sense of humor combined with his whole lord-of-the-darkness aesthetic x Will’s genuine compassion and joking nature combined with his glow-in-the-dark-ness was fantastic to see.

Speaking of Solangelo - they not only got stronger as a couple, but as individual people as well. To be completely honest, we really haven’t seen much in the way of Will Solace. He healed, he was nice, yeah, sure, but what about him? What was his personality like outside from other people? In this book we find out. He’s kind, compassionate, easily flustered, overly protective. He craves parental approval, hence him repeatedly referring to Apollo as ‘dad’ and being so watchful over him. He gets embarrassed when asked to glow on command and upset when people mistake him for a lamp. He’s impulsive and a little hypocritical - he follows his instincts (being led off into the tunnels by a random voice) but gets very worried when Nico pulls the same thing. He’s a fantastic character, and his contrasts to Nico and the rest of the ton crew were great.

Nico - he seriously was the hero of this book. Or at least the secondary hero. He saved them all so many times over - he took everyone through shadow travel away from the bulls, he met the troglodytes, saw an opportunity, prepared an offering to said troglodytes because he saw an opportunity, became an underground ambassador, later saved Apollo’s life again by turning a germanus into a skeleton. He led this quest, and you can pry that from my cold dead hands. And that one paragraph about him enduring all this shit?? MASTERFUL. He’s had such a boatload of trauma and still he stands. One of my very favorite consistent Nico traits is this: no matter where he is or what he’s doing or how he feels, he ALWAYS takes the chance to talk with those who feel alone, because he knows what it’s like to be truly fighting one’s battles alone and he’d never wish that on anyone. It’s consistent, too: him being the only one to talk to Hestia at the hearth in Camp Half Blood, him talking to and befriending Bob the Titan, him talking to the troglodytes. And I have really gotten to see his progression firsthand, sped up - I read the Titan’s Curse in my binge read series maybe two weeks ago, back when he was this hyperactive ten-year-old with a Mythomagic obsession and now he’s this prince of darkness saving people with an adorable glowstick boyfriend and man. I love this kid. If he wasn’t my favorite character in this universe, he is now.

Also, even though with this book Rick has closed the gateway to this world (sad), the end alluded to a possible journey through Tartarus again to look for what’s been calling him, but this time he’ll have Will. Rachel Dare even whispered a prophecy at the end, probably pointing to it (but we’ll never know for sure). Will and Nico through the depths of Tartarus - now that’s a series I’d want to read for sure. It’s really too bad we’ll never get to see it in canon. Sigh.

SPEAKING OF CANON.

Another way the gays have won: Piper Mclean.

She has a canon girlfriend!! We really struck gold. I figured she was aro//ace when reading the Burning Maze - her whole monologue about being forced into love - but it turns out she’s just wlw!! I love this, I love this. We seriously won with this book.

Other noteworthy thoughts I had while reading below:

- The scene with Apollo defeating Python and hanging on the edge of Chaos was great. Especially when the goddess Styx came out. I was wondering how all of his broken oaths would serve him and come back to haunt him. It was quite well portrayed. A serious rip to the Arrow of Dodona though. I always loved it,,, a lot. It made me laugh and sometimes grind my teeth in frustration, but it was always a nice presence.

- Apollo’s return to Olympus was better than anything I ever could have hoped for. I was really hoping that returning would give him a new insight, not just of being mortal, but of Zeus as well. And it did. It did! I’ve said it before but I am quite proud of him. His new perspective on the Olympians was refreshing. You can really see the change in narrative if you go back to the Hidden Oracle.

- It is always always always nice to see Sally Jackson. Woman of many talents, including novel writing, blue chocolate chip cookies, and excellent seven-layer dip. She was my favorite character at the beginning of this binge-reading frenzy (as stated in the first post). Now she is still very up there. Definitely top 5.

- Why does Estelle have Percy’s green eyes?? I thought Percy had his father’s eyes????

- Grover knew about Jason dying. If Grover was on the cross-country field trip with Percy and Annabeth, and they didn’t realize Jason was dead until they got to New Rome, then was he just sitting on Jason’s death this whole time??? Rip to Grover, he must have been seriously traumatized for THAT to have happened.

- The last two chapters were basically just Apollo making his rounds and wrapping everything up, so Percabeth isn’t just in a perpetual cross-country ride and Piper doesn’t live out her life forever in a grief-stricken taxi. I’m glad those chapters were there, though. Nice to see everybody again in their element.

Okay but you don’t understand the fear in my heart. I seriously thought Will Solace was a goner. I cried out of relief because he DIDN’T die. It just makes me love the two of them all the more.

This post has been way too long already, but I gotta add an obligatory outro - I read these books once as a little kid, and the past two weeks has been amazing getting back into them. It’s been magical and wonderful, falling in love with these characters, and I’m so sad to leave it.

#tower of nero #the tower of nero #ton spoilers #toa spoilers #tower of nero spoilers #nap binge reads #(the final episode)#wow #what a ride the past two weeks have been

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darkblueboxs · 4 years ago

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Where the Night Takes Us

Mafia & Hitman AU, Inspired by butcher!Andrew discussions on Twitter

Sequel to Blood Beneath your Fingernails (But can be read as a stand-alone)

Read here or on AO3 (Check AO3 for content warnings)

Nathaniel Wesninski – or Neil Josten, according to the forged papers Andrew procured for him - was more trouble than he was worth.

This was the mantra Andrew repeated to himself as he stalked across his study to where Neil waited for him, slouched on his couch with a false nonchalance that said, I’m sitting like this by choice, and not because I’ve lost too much blood to keep myself upright. He flinched as Andrew approached, but stilled when Andrew seized his chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning Neil’s face from side to side to inspect the damage. It was as though Andrew’s touch melted something stiff and glacial in Neil’s core, and he visibly softened, reassured by Andrew’s protective grip.

Neil showed none of the fear or anger one might expect from someone Andrew had recently pulled, unconscious, from a car full of bullets and corpses.

The kidnapping had been clumsily planned and clumsily executed; it had been child’s play to track the gleaming black Lexus as it roared north out of the city, likely headed to a convenient dumping ground in the wilderness. Wrecking such a nice car had prompted more regret from Andrew than any murder ever had.

The car was quiet in the ditch it had rolled to a stop in, although a bloody handprint glowed on the rear window. Having confirmed that Neil was alive and largely in one piece, Andrew neatly disposed of two of the three kidnappers with a knife drawn swiftly across their throats. The blood spilled hot and heavy over his fingers as he worked, but the faint twitches and jerks the assailants gave as they bled out on the leather upholstery ultimately left him unsatisfied. Andrew wasn’t used to feeling much of anything in the wake of a kill, but the adrenaline of the chase mixed with the dark fury that came from the knowledge that they had laid hands on something of his simmered uncomfortably beneath his skin like an itch in need of scratching.

Leaving the third kidnapper alive was more… challenging than Andrew had expected. The sight of blood oozing from the criss-crossing slits carved into Neil’s skin drew something primal to the surface of Andrew’s mind, something that threated to spill over him and wash away the neat suits and refined tastes and cool, calm efficiency of his methods. Andrew didn’t want the man dead; he wanted him destroyed. It was a dangerous path from which there was no return, but the strain of hauling himself back from it left his hands shaking as he carried Neil back to the Maserati. The blood would be removed from the seats easily enough, although Andrew would remember the shape and distribution of the bloodstains with pin-point precision until the day he died.

And, back in the safety of Andrew’s study, Andrew had Neil’s blood on his hands for the second time that night. He removed his hand from Neil’s chin before the congealed stains could stick them together, rubbing his forefinger and thumb together. The familiar heat of Neil’s blood seeped into his callouses as he contemplated the damage. “Care to explain why the Moriyamas are after you?”

Neil smiled. His face split itself open all over again. “I suppose they don’t like the look of me.”

“Understandable,” Andrew agreed, “But wrong. You should know better than to lie to me by now, Abram.” The sound of his given name was enough to dent Neil’s smile. It was his father’s smile, and for that reason Andrew detested above all else the heat it bit through his gut.

“How did you find me?” Neil said, as though he honestly believed Andrew would be so easily distracted. Andrew indulged only because letting Neil believe he had the upper hand occasionally was entertaining, and dissuaded him from seeking out a real victory. Andrew leaned in, knee dipping into the sofa cushions as he slipped a hand under the lapel of Neil’s jacket. Neil held his gaze as Andrew’s fingers worked their way across his chest. He could feel warmth radiating through the thin fabric of Neil’s shirt, but refused to let it distract him from his mission. He found the miniscule disk sewn into the lining of Neil’s suit jacket and yanked it free without regard for the seams and stitching he tore along the way.

He held the tracker up for Neil’s inspection. It could be mistaken for a button if one didn’t know what they were looking for. “If you were better at keeping your phone on you, this wouldn’t be necessary.”

“And here I was, thinking you bought me this suit because you wanted to treat me.” Neil crossed his legs, and barely twitched at whatever pain the movement must have caused him. “Or because you thought I’d look good in it.”

“Making you fit to be seen in public with me was a welcome side-effect.” Andrew dropped the tracker into Neil’s lap. “Keep your phone with you.”

“Why bother? The tracker has proven itself.”

“The tracker can’t text me back,” Andrew snarled. “Now, circling back to this.” He punctuated the sentence with a jab to one of the thin slits running the length of Neil’s cheekbone, “Shall I get my answers from you, or from the man chained up downstairs?”

Neil’s eyebrows twitched, as close to surprise as his face would admit. “You took one of them alive.”

“I had a feeling my other captive would be reticent with information.”

Neil snapped forwards with an agility that the night’s events should have denied him, crowding into Andrew’s space. “I’m not your captive.”

“True.” Andrew didn’t blink as Neil’s face eclipsed his field of vision. His eyes were as electric a blue as the day they met, raising the hairs on Andrew’s arms with the efficiency of a static shock. “You could walk out of those doors right now and never look back. Your father’s men would tear you to shreds, and I would be free to enjoy my whiskey in peace.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Why not? We both know you won’t.”

Neil was the first to blink. “The Moriyamas think I should have gone to them after my father’s death. Apparently, I’m quite a valuable asset.”

Andrew hummed. “Does that make me the lesser of two evils?”

Neil snorted. “You think highly of yourself. I’ve lived with evil. You go through the motions to keep up appearances, but you have no real interest in the business of evil. You don’t live the life you live because you enjoy it. You don’t enjoy anything but expensive suits and fast cars.”

Two out of three wasn’t bad, but Andrew wouldn’t admit it. Neil’s assumptions had opened a far more interesting line of enquiry. “And why do you do the things you do, Neil? You’re hardly an angel yourself.” Andrew slipped two fingers under the hem of Neil’s sleeve to check that the knives he had lent him were still securely sheathed in his armbands. His fingers flickered across warm metal and came away damp. This time, Andrew doubted that it was Neil’s blood. “You should really clean them before you put them away.”

“I was in a hurry,” Neil muttered.

“No more evading. You have hit your limit for evasiveness for tonight.” Andrew slipped a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his hands. He offered it to Neil, who scrubbed it half-heartedly across his jaw. “Do you kill because you have to? To keep up appearances? Or because, like your father before you, you enjoy watching a man bleed out on the end of your blade?”

Neil flinched. Silence hung heavy in the air as he handed Andrew his handkerchief back. Andrew rolled his eyes, held Neil’s head in place as he wiped away the streaks of dried blood Neil had missed. Neil tracked the movement of his hands as though trying to connect the careful movements to the man before him. He tilted his head to the side to grant Andrew access to the vulnerable underside of his jaw, and Andrew felt the muscles of Neil’s throat flex as he swallowed.

“I don’t know,” Neil answered quietly. “I don’t want to be like him, but I feel… I feel something of my father in me. His temper.” He swallowed again. “The henchman said that once he was finished with me, he would come back here and do worse things to you unless I stopped fighting back. I wanted to… I don’t know what I wanted to do, but I wanted to do it.” Neil’s eyes flicked to Andrew, heavy and unreadable. “I’m not losing you.”

Four simple words, but Neil didn’t know, couldn’t know, the effect they had. Andrew clenched his jaw, schooling his expression into something along the lines of his usual blankness before Neil could read too much into it. Andrew protected Neil, as was their arrangement. The last thing he needed was his fool of a runaway getting delusions of heroism.

“Would you like to find out?” Andrew’s question ploughed a furrow into Neil’s brow, so he elaborated. “Would you like to find out what you wanted to do to him?”

Neil’s eyes fixed on Andrew’s mouth as though Andrew had offered him eternal life, or perhaps eternal damnation. “Yes.”

Andrew lead and Neil followed as they made their way down to what Andrew privately called his workshop. It was a small building with insulated walls, separate from the main house, easily mistaken for a garage, and it was labelled as such on planning permission forms. Andrew didn’t often have cause to bring his work home with him, preferring to dispatch with his enemies as neatly and quickly as possible, but sometimes circumstances demanded a little more time with the kind of tools that weren’t easily transported to and from a potential crime scene. This was where Andrew brought victims in possession of information that they would not easily part with. Until today, Neil had never stepped foot within the workshop.

He was not the man Andrew had first believed him to be, that much was certain. Nor the second, third, or even forth. Looking at Neil was like staring into a maze of mirrors, impossible to discern which images were reflections and distortions and which was the real person concealed within the labyrinth. Their first meeting had been a headlong sprint into reflective glass, leaving Andrew bruised, disorientated, but itching for a fight. At first, Neil had been the suave inheritor of his father’s fortunes, a mini-butcher in the making. Then he had been the scarred victim of his father’s violent tendencies, trapped and desperate for escape. Then he had drawn his knife and pressed it to Andrew’s throat with all the ease of breathing, and the reflection shimmered and distorted itself all over again. Andrew had taken Neil on in the vain hope that he would reach the end of Neil’s maze or lose interest, yet neither event had yet occurred. No, the more Andrew learned, the more interesting Neil was, and while he remained as dangerous as the day they met, it was now for entirely different reasons.

Tonight, Andrew suspected, they would crack through another layer of glass.

He keyed his twenty-digit code into the keypad – Neil rolled his eyes – and flicked the lights on before tugging the door shut behind them, checking for the usual clunks of numerous locking mechanisms sliding back into place.

Most men in Andrew’s line of work would have guards, lackeys, minions – whatever one wanted to call them. Andrew personally found that the issue with hired muscle was simply that – it was hired. What could sway a guard to work for Andrew could just as easily sway them to work for anyone else. If Andrew was to be double-crossed, he would rather it was by his own blood, however expanded his definition of his blood might be. The workshop, despite and apart from his captive, was thus unoccupied.

The man was where Andrew had left him, which was to be expected, considering the numerous restraints holding him there. Andrew hadn’t genuinely expected him to know anything of interest, but there was a slim chance that Neil would have no earthly idea why the Moriyamas were after him, at which point a surviving kidnapper would be of help in filling in the gaps. Unluckily for the man, whose name Andrew would never learn, he had outlived his worth.

Neil showed little interest in their prisoner. He touched one of the carving knives hanging on the wall, flinching as it clanged against the neighbouring blades.

“Show me his face,” Neil said quietly. Andrew obliged, tugging the gag and blindfold down around the man’s neck in turn. He screwed up his eyes against the sudden light, sweat beading on his forehead despite the room’s chill.

“I have information,” he panted. “Valuable information.”

“Don’t care.” Andrew ran a hand across his cuffs, checking they were sturdy and untampered with. “Neil?”

“Yeah,” Neil said, and Andrew stepped back when he saw the axe swinging at his side.

As much disdain Andrew held for the others in his chosen profession, the irrefutable fact was that Andrew had a type. Neil, armed to the teeth as though he could be any more of a hazard than he already was, sharp smile and sharp weapons and sharp tongue, was Andrew’s type. Andrew wasn’t sure what he wanted Neil to do to him, and whether the axe should be involved, but he knew he wanted something.

Neil Josten was, undeniably, more trouble than he was worth.

“Hey,” Neil crouched before the captive. “Remember me?”

The man was stupid enough to nod.

“I never liked axes.” Neil tossed it from hand to hand like a running baton. “My father’s thing, really. You know, he threatened to hobble me with one of these? Nearly slit my ankles once, too. Figured I’d be less trouble if I couldn’t run.” Neil levelled the sharp end at the man’s head. “I can’t say I understood the weapon’s appeal. Blunt, imprecise, unwieldy. But that was the point, wasn’t it?”

The man’s head twitched in aborted movements, as though unable to decide whether he should be nodding his head or shaking it.

Neil pressed the edge to the same place his own face had been sliced open. A trickle of red wobbled down the man’s cheek before dripping onto his shirt. The stain blossomed on the white fabric like a miniature gunshot wound. The man quaked.

Neil abruptly raised the axe, inspected the thin sheen of red on the blade, and tossed it aside. He straightened to meet Andrew’s gaze.

“That’s what I wanted to do.”

“All out of your system?”

Neil smiled thinly. “It seems I am not my father after all.”

Andrew smoothed a thumb across the cut healing on Neil’s cheek. “I’m going to kill him, now.”

An unsteady breath shook itself from Neil’s lungs as he nodded. He had a particular way of looking at Andrew when he was working, gaze intent and pupils dilated, as though Andrew’s actions were poetry written for him alone. Andrew’s principles of detachment were never closer to shredded than when Neil looked at him like that.

Driving them home, Neil on the backseat and the kidnapper in the trunk, Andrew had played out this moment in his mind. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened to chase the endless trembling from his fingers, which twitched with impatience in aborted movements towards the knives secreted in the folds of his suit. The anticipation sliced through his veins with the efficiency of molten iron, hot and furious and growing stronger with every glance Andrew caught of Neil’s form in the rear-view mirror. He had curled in on himself in his unconscious state, hair ruffled and sticking up in every direction at once, dark eyelashes standing out against his copper skin. His features were smoothed out in sleep, his brow freed of its usual pinched worry, and were it not for the blood streaking down his cheeks Andrew would have said he looked far younger for it.

Before that night, Andrew had not believed he had a truly vengeful bone in his body. He did not cause pain for the sake of pain; he caused it as a warning, a deterrent, a statement, an affirmation of his place in the world and the consequences that would meet anyone who wished to remove him from it. Andrew had left his statement for the Moriyamas in a Lexus filled with dead men, but he wanted more. He wanted to hack and tear and slice until there was nothing left. He wanted to remove every finger that had dared touch Neil one after the other and work his way inwards until there was nothing left of the surviving kidnapper that wouldn’t fit in a matchbox.

That Neil made Andrew want to do these things – that Neil made Andrew want at all – brought with it a kind of fear that Andrew had long believed was dead and gone, buried under years of betrayal and pain and loss. Wanting was as strange an ache as he remembered it being, more so when the object and instigator of that want was standing before him, looking at him as though Andrew could hack a thousand men to pieces before his eyes without prompting so much as a flinch.

Andrew wanted the man ruined, but he wanted Neil more. He promised Neil his protection, and he could not protect Neil if he became the kind of man both of them would rather forget. The kind of man who revelled in losing control.

Andrew killed the man. He died quickly, quietly, unremarkably. It wasn’t what he deserved – it never was, with his kind – but he owed Neil that much.

After, Andrew washed the blood from his hands, stilling as Neil chased a stray fleck from his clavicle with the pad of his index finger. Neil used the point of contact to turn Andrew to face him, allowing him access to refasten the top buttons of Andrew’s shirt. In the chaos of losing Neil and finding him again, Andrew couldn’t rightly say when they had come undone. Neil’s knuckles brushed Andrew’s neck as he did so, and Andrew repressed a shiver, remembering the day Neil pressed a knife to the same spot.

“I can help clean up,” Neil murmured, casting a sideways glance to the mess behind them. Andrew rolled his eyes as he tugged Neil’s lapel back into place. It was the same suit he had been taken in, and it showed, scuffed and rumpled and sporting several loose threads and dried bloodstains. Andrew would have a new one hanging in Neil’s wardrobe before sunrise, although Neil certainly wouldn’t appreciate it.

Andrew flicked a wayward tuft of Neil’s curls from his forehead with a roll of his eyes. “Worry about cleaning yourself up. You’re a mess.”

Neil shot him a flat look, but left to do as he was told. It wasn’t long before Andrew followed him back to the main house, checking his clothes as he went for stray flecks of red, knowing he would find none. The night air was cool after the stuffy, stale workshop, which was now choked with the thick odours of cleaning chemicals. The light in Neil’s room was still on, and Andrew squinted up at the tell-tale twitch of curtains that told him his return had been awaited.

Andrew took his time, holding a cigarette between his lips until the smoke drowned out the lingering smell of disinfectant. He knew from the tingle on the back of his neck that he was still being watched, but knowing it was Neil did something warm and pleasant to Andrew’s stomach, something that nipped. Andrew was particular about the kinds of attention he did and didn’t welcome and found that Neil’s faceless vigil was one which he, in fact, did. He pursed his lips around the cigarette, rolling his shoulders as he looked back up to the house, keeping his stance loose and relaxed as though he were returning from an evening stroll instead of a crime scene.

He waited Neil out, listening to the quiet chirp and rustle of the garden around him. Finally, the orange glow from Neil’s window flicked to black, and Andrew went inside.

His post-kill routine began, as it always did, with the longest, hottest bath he could stand. He threw handfuls of bath salts and goop into the claw-footed tub without much regard for the conflicting scents. He felt little need to wash off the grime, as it were, of a murder scene, but did so as a courtesy to anyone he might encounter in the immediate future less acclimatised to the scent of dry blood. When his skin was bright pink and scrubbed soft by the salts, he hauled himself from the tub, shaking water everywhere as he slipped into a grey silk bathrobe and returned to his room.

He found Neil waiting for him on his bed. This was not part of Andrew’s routine, as much as he might have fantasised otherwise. Face freshly scrubbed and his suit jacket abandoned somewhere between then and now, Neil was halfway towards looking human again. The top three buttons of his shirt were undone, and Andrew made a conscious effort not to let his eyes catch on the exposed stretch of Neil’s collarbone. Andrew did not like people sitting on his bed, or being in his bedroom, or behaving unexpectedly. Neil was doing all three, yet somehow it didn’t bother him.

“That is expensive Japanese linen. Do not get blood on it,” Andrew said. Neil’s wounds were cleaned and sealed, but it was wise to err on the side of caution where the runaway was concerned. Andrew wouldn’t be surprised if Neil had found someone to infuriate to the point of homicide between his room and Andrew’s. He was gifted that way.

Neil picked at the sheets. “They’re not even soft.”

“Can I help you, Neil?”

“It smells like hibiscus in here. And lemon. And lavender?”

“We have talked about your evasiveness quota for the night.”

Neil sighed. “I just don’t understand why I’m here.”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “Fate, destiny, a horse, who cares?”

“I mean, why you brought me here. Why you protect me. It would have been so much easier to kill me. It’s what you do¸ and you’re good at it. What makes me special?”

“This couldn’t wait until morning?”

One of Neil’s eyebrows slid upwards. “Now you’re being evasive.”

Andrew exhaled heavily. “You said I don’t enjoy anything but expensive suits and fast cars. You were wrong.”

Neil wrinkled his nose. “Clearly, you enjoy over-perfumed baths too.”

“Concentrate, Neil.”

“It’s hard to think when you smell like you’ve just robbed a florist.” Neil was too busy complaining to notice Andrew’s approach. Andrew kneeled in front of him, hands braced in the bedding on either side. Neil blinked.

“You’re interesting,” Andrew said simply.

“Interesting? Are you serious?”

Andrew shrugged. “It’s not often that I’m…interested.”

“Interested,” Neil repeated, and suddenly his eyes grew wide. “Oh.”

Andrew snapped his fingers in front of Neil’s face to regain his attention. “Now. If you want, you can walk out that door right now and go back to whatever plans you had for your evening. Your place under my protection will be unaffected.”

Neil did not, against Andrew’s expectations, look to the door. “Or?”

“Or you stay here, and I blow you.” Andrew had never been one for flowery propositions.

“Oh,” said Neil again. His eyes flicked across Andrew as though he were the mirror-maze reflection instead of Neil, and another layer of reflective glass had just been torn down. “You like me.”

Andrew fixed Neil with the most disdainful glare he could manage.

“Is it because…” Neil gestured vaguely over himself. “Because I’m the son of the butcher?”

“No,” Andrew replied. “It’s because you’re not.”

A new kind of understanding dawned in Neil’s features. He leaned in until their faces were inches apart. Andrew could smell Neil’s crisp aftershave, not one of the expensive brands Andrew preferred but compelling all the same.

“Kiss me,” Neil whispered, and Andrew was happy to oblige. He buried his hands in the sheets either side of Neil’s legs and kissed him until his lips were numb and they were both breathless. Neil gasped, and Andrew drew back, scowling when he noticed a thin scar cutting across Neil’s upper lip had re-opened.

“I don’t need medical attention,” Andrew mocked. “I’m fine.”

“I am,” Neil insisted. His tongue darted out to lick across his upper lip, and Andrew had to tear his gaze away. “It’s a scratch. It doesn’t hurt.”

“You said that about a stab wound last month.”

“You can’t tell when I’m lying yet?” Neil asked innocently.

“Stop talking.”

“Make me.”

Andrew was careful, the coppery taste of Neil’s lips setting long-abandoned parts of his mind alight, but Neil chased Andrew’s mouth with such fervour that Andrew soon gave in to the rough slide of their lips against each other. Neil, always so careful where it really mattered, dug his hands into the sheets so hard that Andrew wondered how he hadn’t torn right through them, leaving Andrew to dictate the points of contact between them.

Andrew nudged Neil onto his back as he climbed onto the bed, pausing to check for Neil’s consent before slipping a hand under the hem of his shirt. Neil gasped into his mouth, but as Andrew’s palm dragged across his ribcage Neil tensed, a bitten-off sound jerking from his chest. It wasn’t a good kind of sound.

“Neil,” Andrew said carefully. “You said your only injuries were on your face.”

“They were. I’m fine.”

Andrew retaliated with a light press to the side of Neil’s ribcage. Neil’s breath hitched, his face twisting. “Looks like it.”

“Fine. Fine, I think I broke a rib. It’ll heal.”

“Anything else I should know about?”

“No. Yes. No.” Neil winced. “It might be two ribs.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this because…?”

“You were upset.”

Andrew narrowed his eyes. A dangerous swirl of emotions churned in his stomach. “Was I?”

“Yes,” Neil replied. He said it with such ease, like he didn’t know what his words did to Andrew, staring up at him, open and exposed and caring, and for a moment Andrew couldn’t stand it.

I hate you¸ he wanted to say, but instead, “It is not your job to protect me. It is mine to protect you. Don’t lie to me again.”

“Can’t it be both?” Neil’s eyes traced the length of Andrew’s body, fingers twitching but still fisted into the sheets. “I’m not made of glass, Andrew. I’m the son of the butcher. I know how to fight. Let me fight for you.”

Andrew bit back a curse. He cupped Neil’s cheek in his hand, thumb running across the chapped skin of his bottom lip. “One condition,” he said at last. “No more lies.”

“Done,” Neil agreed, so easily, too easily, and yet Andrew couldn’t help but believe him.

He guided Neil’s hands to his hair before kissing him again, rough and hungry, and waited until he had succeeded in pulling a desperate moan from Neil’s chest before pulling back.

“Now, we are going to the ER, and you are going to get an X-ray, and I am not going to hear a peep of complaint about it.” Andrew ducked to press a kiss to Neil’s pulse-point.

“And afterwards?”

“And afterwards,” Andrew said thoughtfully, lips moving against Neil’s skin. “I suppose we’ll see where the night takes us.”

Neil smiled. It was not his father’s smile, not anymore. Neil had claimed it as his own.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought.

#aftg #andreil #all for the game #the foxhole court #tfc #my fic #butcher!andrew #blood tw #injury tw #the family business #death tw

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project-rebirth · 4 years ago

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Terminology: Saint

Saints are powerful people on the Magic Side, who possess bodily characteristics that match those of the Son of God and allow them to draw on his power, with less than 20 of them in the world. Their existence is also called 'Child of God'.

Saint is also used as a religious title in Christianity, given to notable individuals who lived or are said to have lived in the past and accomplished miracles by the strength of their faith, making them subjects of holiness and veneration. The stories of Saints also form the basis of various forms of magic.

This post covers both Saints as in the individuals who possess bodily characteristics corresponding to the Son of God and those given the religious title.

Principles

Individuals with special bodily characteristics

The theory behind their power is based on Idol Theory, where a replica of a more powerful being or item can also gain a tiny portion of the original's strength. Humans are said to be made in the image of God, and Saints are said to be a higher replica, with skeletons and organ placement identical to the Son of God's, and thus can bring out more strength. This condition is similar to a mutation, and not something inherited from parent to child.

The special bodily characteristics that allow a Saint to draw out a portion of the Son of God's power are sometimes inaccurately referred to as Stigma (聖痕 Seikon (Sutiguma)?) (plural Stigmata), however, this technically refers to stab wounds of unknown cause appearing in the same places as the stab wounds the Son of God received on the cross - wounds which the Saints don't necessarily have. However, it is apparently possible for Saints to acquire these marks if their body is purified and synchronized further with that of the Son of God.

Traits that most Saints have include superhuman physical strength, incredible speed, capable of channeling a larger amount of mana compared to normal magicians, and superhuman senses. Examples of superhuman senses are demonstrated many times in the novels, when it was stated Kanzaki have vision of 8.0 and Acqua of the Back can hear a whisper from over 10m away. Some Saints possess blood with special healing properties.

Weaknesses

Due to their nature, Saints in general are weak to attacks that resemble how the Son of God was killed (being stabbed, a crown of Thorns, and the crucifix), though this weakness normally is inconsequential since most magicians don't have the power to exploit these weaknesses, and most saints are aware of this problem and take measure to prevent them being affected by the weakness.

The spell Saint Destroyer designed by the Amakusa Church aims to disrupt the balance of holy power and magic power inside a saint, and against a normal saint it only temporarily brings them down to levels like a normal human. In Amakusa's fight against Acqua of the Back, the Saint Destroyer made him self-destruct because he has too much power due to his role as one of the God's Right Seat as well.

It is also possible for a Saint to use up too much power, past the limits of the human body, and destroy themselves. This was demonstrated when Kanzaki Kaori fought Misha Kreutzev during the Angel Fall incident and was on the brink of over-exertion and death before Motoharu blasted the ritual location. Some Saints can also fall victim to their own power in other ways, such as meeting obstructions and failing sharp turns at supersonic speed without adequate protection. Saints generally prefer quick battles to avoid harming themselves.

Fate

There is a path which many Saints, such as Kanzaki Kaori and Brunhild Eiktobel, go down due to their nature. Being born with rare qualities, they are often on the receiving end of the darker side of human nature and this not only affects them but also the few people that have truly connected with them, who don't share these unique traits that allow them to survive most attacks against them. As a result, loved ones may be caught in a trap meant for the Saint and likely perish while they live on.

When this happens, the Saint wouldn't resign themselves to fate and give up - this feeling is strong in them because they are Saints, and thus possess characteristics similar to the Son of God, who in one story raised the dead, allowing them to use a portion of his power. Knowing this and the smiles of the people who cared about them, they would seriously think about detailed and absurd plans to miraculously save them, store up power and accurately carry them out, not giving up without trying - their actions opposing the image given by the word Saint.

In the end though, they all despair for none of these plans would work and no matter what the people whose minds and bodies were destroyed would never return to normal. In trying to bring their loved ones back, they lose sight of the simple fact that human life isn't such a simple thing. After wearing themselves down, trying everything and offering all they have, they fail, despair, then finally come to terms with the deaths of the ones they cared about.

Ranking

Saints have rankings akin to the seven Level 5s of Academy City, which is based on their level of contribution to society.

Saint as a religious title

As well as referring to individuals with bodily characteristics matching the Son of God and possessing power as a result of it, saint is also used as a religious title in Christianity, given to notable individuals for their feats of faith. The former and the later uses of 'Saint', although distinct, are not mutually exclusive, and even if the latter is not the former, they may have had their own kind of power.

The individuals who were given the title 'Saint' in this sense, are people who lived or believed to have lived in the past, who are said to have accomplished great feats, with some being considered miracles, by the strength of their faith. As a result, they have become subjects of holiness and veneration.

Similar to other titles, saints are often referred to with the title in front of their name (e.g. Saint George (聖��ョージ Sei Jōji?)), which can also written in the shortened but identically pronounced form St. (聖 Sei?) (e.g. St. George).

Some of the earliest saints include the Virgin Mary, who gave birth to the Son of God (being said to be the greatest saint for carrying out the most important task in Christianity), most of his primary disciples, the Twelve Apostles, and a number of their pupils, converts and people directly touched by their feats.

Due to the persecution of Christians in the early days of Christianity, by the Roman Empire and others, many of the early saints were also martyrs, being killed after refusing to renounce their faith. Some were crucified in a similar manner to the Son of God, though a number chose to die on a different type of cross (considering themselves unworthy of dying in the exact same way), such as St. Peter and St. Andrew, with these crosses becoming their symbols.

Although many saints originate from historical record or solely Christian tales, there are a number of saints who are actually derived from older gods and legendary figures of other religions, mythologies and cultures, which have ended up being incorporated into the supposedly monotheistic Christianity under a changed name. Additionally, there are various figures whose stories have been distorted or embellished (intentionally or unintentionally), and individuals who are completely fictional creations. There are some differences in the individuals who are accepted and considered as saints between different denominations of Christianity, as well as in processes of canonization.

Following Idol Theory, the stories and symbols of saints are used for a variety of spells and spiritual items. Some objects, held to be physical remains or personal effects of saints, are considered holy relics (遺物 Ibutsu?) and believed to hold power.

Saints are often subjects of religious artwork and sculpture, with some of them designed for magical effect. For example, St. Peter's Square has 140 saint statues overlooking the grounds which keep the plaza under strict magical security. Numerous churches and cathedrals around the world are named after or dedicated to saints.

Patron Saints

Patron saints (守護聖人 Shugo Seijin?) are saints who are said to advocate or be associated with a place, group, activity, symbol or other subject, often related to the stories of their life, feats and fate. The magical method known as Ex Voto uses patron saints as intermediates for prayer when asking the Son of God for miracles. Archangel Michael is considered as patron saint as well as an angel.

Other

Usage of term outside of Christianity

Outside of Christianity, but in part due to its influence, the term 'saint' has been used to refer to individuals considered particularly virtuous, and as a translation for similar concepts in other cultures.

Known Saints

There are known to be less than 20 Saints in the world as of the current year. These are the Saints seen or mentioned in the series thus far:

Kanzaki Kaori

William Orwell - Lost his Saint powers in World War III.

Silvia - Higher rank than Brunhild.

Brunhild Eiktobel - Lower rank than Silvia. A Saint–Valkyrie.

Number Ten Saint (第10位の聖人?) - Not much is known of them, except that he/she has been continually flying through the sky for years.

Kanzaki Kigomi (神裂キゴミ?) - Not much is known of her, except that she is the only successful example of standard saint with spiritual item assisted.

Special cases

Meigo Arisa - Due to her strange existence, she was temporarily ranked as the ninth Saint, and it is speculated by Kanzaki that she could outclass her if her powers awaken. It is likely her Saint rank is stripped after she merges back with Shutaura Sequenzia.

Pantagruel - The antagonist of the Toaru Majutsu to Kagaku no Ensemble game temporarily made himself into a Saint using his spell. He inputted Kanzaki's body parameters into his own body in order to gain the "parameters" of being a Saint. As a result, he gains the speed equal to that of a Saint like Kanzaki.

Akatsuki Miyuki - TBA

#Kinoverse Lore #Information // Magic Side

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incoherentbabblings · 5 years ago

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Take Back the Cake, Burn the Shoes, and Boil the Rice (11/11)

Within two months there have been two murders of Gotham newlyweds moments after the ceremony. The only connecting factor was both brides wore the same designer’s work. Needing to establish who exactly is behind the crimes, Bruce enlists Tim and Stephanie to have the biggest wedding Gotham high society has seen in decades, putting a target on their heads not just for the killer, but Gotham society too. It goes about as well as you’d expect. Ao3 Link Here!

In lists of depressing moments, having to dismiss a wedding reception before it had even begun was surely high-ranking in placement. As soon as the family and the Titans returned to the manor, Stephanie ran upstairs, dress in tatters, wanting nothing more to rip off the outfit and return to sweatpants and a jumper.

Kara went to follow her, but Cassandra asked her to wait.

“Let her have a minute.”

Kara did not look pleased but listened. Bart, distracted as always, said,

“She has, like, loads of scars up her back…”

Conner nudged Bart to make him shut up, and they watched as Tim, eyes wet, tugged off his jacket and tie. Alfred suggested that everyone sit in the drawing room and wait for Bruce to return home. He reassuringly rubbed Tim’s back.

“I will take care of everything wedding related now Master Tim. Don’t you and Miss Stephanie worry about anything, just each other.”

Tim smiled and everyone piled into the room. The caterers had insisted on leaving behind the food, and Alfred offered to take them to assorted shelters across the city later the next day. Soon enough everyone was sat with a plate of very nice looking nibbles, but no appetite to eat. Even Bart seemed reluctant, sensing the morose mood of the room.

The wedding cake, the lovely beautiful lemon cake – the only thing Stephanie and Tim had been pleased with – never made an appearance. It was hidden away in the kitchen, and Tim had no energy to go looking for it.

The quiet stretched on, Stephanie and Bruce not returning, until finally Tim’s temper snapped, and he carelessly threw down his plate, got up, and stormed out the room.

“Wait Tim –”

“Go home Conner!” He turned back to his friends. “This whole thing was always going to be a misery, so we were trying to spare you the idiocy of it all. You weren’t invited, and you pushed in anyway. Well you got your spectacle, alright? Go home.”

He slammed the door shut, uncaring about anyone else’s mood, and stomped upstairs.

Collapsed in a stained white heap at the end of the corridor was Stephanie, and knelt next to her, was Bruce. Returned from patrol, he had quickly changed into a simple black t-shirt and pair of trousers.

Tim’s temper faded, and he slowly approached the pair. When he reached them, he slid down the wall next to Stephanie, and was grateful when she took his hand. Her eyes were dry, but she looked exhausted and a little cheesed off. Bruce had the decency to look somewhat sorry for how the day had gone.

They sat in silence for a moment longer, when Steph took a steadying breath, and asked, “Was the point of making this such a giant mess to give us a viable reason to split as a couple? To keep us in the dark like that, so that the chaos would be more authentic?”

“It was humiliating was what it was.” Tim cut in. Bruce looked at him sharply, and Stephanie just closed her eyes, emotionally drained and uninterested in getting into an argument. Not now.

“Neither of you were hurt?” Bruce asked the pair. They shook their heads. Bruce sighed, then rocked back on his heels, resting more comfortably. “It was another one of my misguided ideas… I suppose.”

“So is that lecture we spoke of last night oncoming or…”

“No lecture. But… feel free to ask questions now.”

Tim immediately launched into an interrogation.

“Was it a crazy-ex?”

Stephanie scolded Tim with a look. Don’t downplay it, she implied.

“Not the one in prison we spoke of. This man, Anthony Saville… well. Self-taught in harming others. Can’t stand the thought of his girlfriend having outside interests and a career. The relationship had moved quickly and violently. Rebecca saw it as making a choice between her life or her job.”

“Not the lives of those poor people?”

“She was very frightened.”

“But… she helped him murder those people. There were other ways…” Stephanie nudged off her shoes, feet sore from wearing such high heels the past few days and thumped her head against the wood panelling of the corridor. “I wish she had felt she could have gotten help before this spiralled. Before she thought being with him was her only option.”

Bruce looked at Stephanie, whilst Tim shut his eyes. Not for the first time, the idea that she was just too good of a person for Gotham returned.

“Wayne Enterprises has some initiatives with shelters and resources for those men and women who need help. I can take a closer look at how they’re getting on, see what more we can do.”

“Can I help?” She asked. “When everything’s cooled down. It’s nearly summer and I won’t have much work at the library in the meantime.”

“I’ll look into it, Stephanie.”

“Thank you.”

He inspected her once more in her gown, and watched as a sudden thought came to her, and she flushed with shame. “Bruce… the veil, and the earrings…” She took off the pearls, abruptly very nervous and apologetic. Shaking, she held them out for Bruce, who carefully allowed her to drop them into his palm. “Alfred has the veil, but it’s ruined, everyone stepped on it and tore it and…”

“It’s alright.” Bruce interrupted. “It’s just a thing. Didn’t have much sentimental value. These on the other hand…” He shook his closed fist that held the pearls. “…do. And you brought them back home.”

“Now what?”

“Alfred will take care of the logistics of a cancelled wedding. The two of you just need to figure out what your relationship is to be in the aftermath of all this.” Bruce looked to Stephanie. “Did you not tell me yesterday you weren’t going to wipe your hands of the whole thing?”

Stephanie managed to smirk. “Oh sure. For better for worse.”

She gave Bruce a pointed look as Tim’s head fell to rest on her shoulder. She hoped, if nothing else, Bruce would read the unspoken message she was trying to convey. She didn’t want to take part in this ongoing conflict between Bruce or Tim, but she hoped that by now she had certified where she stood. Bruce wasn’t going to get anything from her that acted against Tim. Not anymore.

She nuzzled Tim’s head, unashamed, and Bruce stood up. He didn’t look upset, only a little amused and smug.

“That’s fine Stephanie. We can discuss more after dinner.”

“Wait.” Tim pushed. “What was the reason? For this whole…endeavour. For all the hidden facts and secrets?”

“Stephanie is many things, but she is not a particularly good liar.”

“Hey… My mom didn’t—”

“To be fair Steph,” Tim cut in, “Your mom spent most of your adolescence at work or baked. She didn’t even know you went missing that one time for like three days.”

“…Harsh.”

Bruce took control of the conversation once more, “Tell me that if you knew Rebecca was involved, either of you, that you would have been okay with her making your dress. You in particular,” Bruce nodded at Tim, “You wouldn’t have let it alone. I wanted to do it my way. I needed that damning piece of evidence for her and I needed to catch him in the act. No questions to be made of their guilt. I told you both at the start. Leave the investigation to me. And you did just that.”

Tim’s eyes widened.

“This wasn’t a goddamned test was it?” He said, tone very flat. Bruce’s next words had to be chosen carefully, or a fight would ensue.

“I knew this would be an emotionally difficult job. The rest of the family are like gossiping hens. I just wanted you two to focus on each other. It wasn’t a test, it was an opportunity.”

Slowly Stephanie heard the unspoken confession.

“One more question. If I had said no, all those weeks ago. If I refused to play this game with Tim, would you have found another way to arrest Andrews and Saville?”

“You were the only two I wanted for this mission. I just wish it had run a little bit more smoothly for you both.”

Oh. This was Bruce’s demented method of making Tim and Steph make up. Take a mission and have them play house until it became real. Stephanie laughed, incredulous. Seven dead but one happy couple, as if that were an equal trade. Bruce would offer no more information, and she could not find the willpower to argue. Bruce Wayne was using pre-existing cases to play goddamn matchmaker with. Somehow this was on a whole other level of controlling concerning the three of them, even for Bruce.

Tim scoffed, and returned to his perch on Stephanie’s shoulder. “Whatever,” He muttered. “You’re welcome, then. Again.”

Tim’s dismissal was better than his anger, and Stephanie stared across the way at a chest of drawers. She doubted there was anything in it, rich people liked to have things to fill the space, but she just wanted Bruce to leave. There was nothing to be gained from this conversation. They would forgive him for meddling, as they always did. At least it came from a genuine desire to help. It’s what she told herself repeatedly. Tim, she thought, might just be one step closer to putting his foot out the door, and she worried about those consequences more than any paper headline tomorrow. No doubt the front-page image would be her pushing Rebecca down the stairs like a demented bridezilla.

And then Bruce left, and that was that. Tim and Stephanie remained on the floor for a while longer, Tim lost in his head, Stephanie still reeling from the day’s events.

“I’m going to look through his notes.” Tim muttered. “Nothing about this makes sense.”

“That’s fine.”

“You’re not curious?”

She sighed, looking down. “Just wanna move forward.”

Her wedding band glistened in the warm light of the corridor. It was intensely sparkly, when most wedding bands she knew were solid gold, like Tim’s was, but she found herself quite liking it. With her left hand, she reached for his own, and he allowed it, as she twisted his ring around and around his finger.

“We need to really talk.” He whispered.

“Agreed.” She looked down the corridor, out the window. The rain was finally letting up. “Get changed and go for a walk?”

He hummed in agreement, helping pull her and the weighty dress to her feet.

“You really did look beautiful today, by the way.”

Stephanie blushed, then returned the compliment.

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

Face washed, braids undone and now in a high ponytail, and wearing nothing more extravagant than jeggings and a fuzzy yellow sweater, Steph had gone out onto the stone patio to wait for Tim. It was where they had kissed in the rain for their photo shoot, and soon enough Tim emerged to pull her out of that memory, wearing simple black jeans and a hoodie. Neither said anything, but they began to meander through the manor gardens. The ground was sodden, and although Tim’s sneakers were getting ruined, he didn’t mind. Steph was wearing chunky brown ankle boots that were quickly caked in mud. She had better grip than Tim though, who every now and then would slip a little, with her instinctively reaching out to grab him.

When they reached a good distance from the manor, Tim took her left hand, and they walked towards the forest trees that lined the estate.

Tim thought of her distressed face at the end of the ceremony, when the Dean confirmed they were married (at least to the Church). He tried to think through why that could have been.

“What would you have done? If it was your real wedding?” Tim asked, finally breaking the silence.

Stephanie hummed, and moved so she could wrap her arm around Tim’s own, and had a little think.

“Smaller dress for one.”

Tim chuckled, and Stephanie gripped his arm tighter. “Seriously though, I’m half of the mind that I would make my own… square neck and cap sleeves, buttoned back, all satin. No more lace and tulle and taffeta!” She giggled. Tim stopped in a clearing, but Stephanie began to waltz around, kicking up mud as she went. She was acting like a seven-year-old, listing off her ideal wedding, but Tim was quite content to listen and watch. “And my flowers… azaleas, snowdrops, lily of the valley and milkvetch… burgundy roses. No yellow funeral flowers! I mean, the lemon cake was good. I liked that idea for sure… but no sit-down meal after. Just lots of platters and cold food… And we’d get married here! At the manor, with just the family and our friends. And our first dance would be –”

Tim’s smile as she babbled dropped, and he asked, “Our? So, you’d keep the groom?”

Stephanie looked at him incredulously. She was momentarily caught out at the slip up, though after a second, she decided that there was nothing false in her statement.

“Of course, I would.” She teased, walking back over to Tim. “I told you, no-one else will do.”

“You didn’t seem happy about it at the Cathedral. I thought...”

She laughed gently. “Of course I wasn’t. If I were to marry you, I didn’t want it to be like that. I... I just felt hollow at the end. It wasn’t how I wanted it to go.”

“Well that’s great, considering we’re kinda maybe probably married now.” Sarcasm crept in his voice, and Stephanie raised an eyebrow.

“Are we? I thought you had to get the civil side signed before it’s all done and dusted.”

Tim paused, thinking it through.

“No. We’re not.” He concluded.

“Then what’s the issue?”

“You wanna deal with a thousand people asking you about legal troubles for the rest of your life? We got the licence and we had the religious ceremony but we haven’t got the certificate so… it’s a mess waiting to happen.” Tim blew his hair off his forehead. “I think, we have two options. PR wise.”

“Oh? Shoot.”

“Within the next month we go to the registrars and get the civil ceremony done super quick. Sign the form, hey presto, we’re actually married. We’ve got the licence for another six months, and we finished the religious side, for whatever that’s worth… just one signature and we’re there.”

She screwed up her lip, not convinced. “Do you actually want to be married? ‘Cause Tim… I’ve not even graduated college yet. I wanna take our time. I want us to do it our way.”

Tim thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “I guess not. And we said we’d start from scratch after this.”

“We did.”

“So, our other option is to do exactly that. Say we need a bit of time to regroup and catch our breath. I think people would understand. Especially if you’re going to all this WE stuff with me or Bruce then it shows people we’re sticking to a guns and not dumping each other at the first sign of trouble… People will be sympathetic, I think.”

“There were loads of people this morning… cheering for us… I wasn’t expecting that.”

“The world ain’t as bad as you think it is sometimes, Steph.”

“Humph. Look at you being all optimistic.”

“You’re a good influence!” He laughed.

“Am I?”

“I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it, Steph, you’re a good person.”

She shook her head. “No. Not that. I mean you.” She took his elbows. “What we talked about yesterday… your anger and Bruce and…”

Tim huffed, and looked to the side, reminding her of a guilty child.

“Tim.”

“I’m okay. I promise.”

She didn’t believe him, and silently told herself she was going to have to play the long game. He was worth it. That was of no doubt.

“Okay. So, starting from scratch… what if, hypothetically, I said I wanted to move back in with my mom next weekend?”

“Why?”

“Tim.”

She didn’t miss the flash of panic on his face. Don’t go. He wanted to beg. You said you wouldn’t leave.

“I…would be sad. But it’s your choice.”

She nodded. “Okay, well, what if I said… I wanted you to take back all the jewellery you bought me. Or give them away or throw them in the river. Even the wedding bands.”

“That’s a lot of money in the river.”

“Stop side stepping.”

He screwed up his face.

“All of them? Even the ones you haven’t seen yet?”

She flushed red and puffed out her cheeks. “How many more did you buy?”

“Just the one. I… hold on.” He tugged her over to a tree stump so she could sit. It was damp and a little uncomfortable. Tim got on one knee, and Steph started to have flashbacks to the restaurant.

“Tim…”

“No, no. Let me speak first before you freak.”

“Oh, you –”

“I’ve kept this one near me the whole time. Just as a reminder. I didn’t ever ask you to marry me at the dinner, remember? You just saw the ring and flipped.”

“To be honest, I’ve repressed the whole thing.”

“Well, I’m still not going to ask you to marry me. At least not yet.”

Stephanie finally relaxed, then leaned forward. “Then why am I sat on a tree stump in the middle of the forest with you down on your muddy knees?”

“Because this…” And he pulled out from his jean pocket a tiny velvet bag. Taking her left hand, he removed her wedding band, then flipped her hand so it was facing palm up. Shaking the little bag, another ring fell out to rest on her heart line. “Is a promise ring.”

The ring was more delicate than her engagement ring, which had at times felt more like a knuckle duster than anything else. This had a pink diamond centre, with eight pear shaped white diamonds forming petals, and smaller pink diamonds completing the gaps, forming a circle. It was set in rose gold, and she gasped a little as she inspected it.

“Had it made for you.” Tim explained. “You’ll be pleased to know this one only cost eight thousand.”

“Oh, very reasonable.” She teased, continuing to inspect it. “It’s beautiful Tim. But a promise ring? Swear I made a pretty big promise for us last night.”

“Yeah, well when I bought it, I wasn’t expecting us to…” Redder than a tomato, he looked like his fourteen-year-old self after she would tease him with a kiss. “Hmm. Let me stick to my script.”

“Oh okay.” She sat up straight, hands resting on her knees. “Prim and proper. Sorry, sir.”

“Very serious.”

“Super serious.”

Tim cleared his throat dramatically and folded her fingers over the promise ring. He wrapped her hand in both of his.

“I made up vows, you know. In my head.”

“Oh.” Every now and then the boy would remind her of how utterly head over heels he was for her, and she would grow embarrassed. He was so oddly earnest with his affections, that Stephanie, even after half a lifetime of trying to convince herself of the innate goodness of people, was still taken aback by how openly Tim loved her.

“Dick talks a lot about being people’s safety net. And you were mine. Except, I didn’t know it until you were gone. And then when we hurt each other… But now, I feel grounded again. You cut through all the nonsense and see straight into my core. And sometimes that’s frightening, how well you know what weird things go through my head. You know me better than nearly anyone. And when I look at you and see how far you’ve come… I loved that angry spite filled firecracker, but I also loved Gotham’s golden girl just the same.” He squeezed her fist, and she could feel him starting to shake. “I wanted to, when we first started this, to show you that you didn’t need to be frightened, being with me. And I know I failed at that.”

“No, Tim, it wasn’t you.”

Her soft protest was ignored and passed over, and Tim continued onwards. “I should have done more. So, I promise. I vow. I want to be your safety net as much as you’re mine. To be your sunshine, your home, the way you are to me. You said last night was your promise to me that you’re in it for the long haul. And I’m sorry I couldn’t give you something just as meaningful other than a promise ring, but it’s in the name. And it’s a reminder, not just to you, but also to me. I don’t care which finger you wear it on, I just ask that you trust me…with you. I swear I’ll take care of you and love you until you forget the concept of love being conditional, because what I feel for you… it’s constant, and unchanging. I swear on... I swear on…”

“…Not the moon.”

“No?”

She giggled and lifted her free hand to rest on his cheek. “Oh, you must know that reference, Mr Romeo. O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon. That monthly changes in her circle orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”

Tim looked a little bashful, but she quoted the line so flawlessly he felt compelled to run with it, to see how far he could take the romanticism.

“Well then… What should I swear by?”

If she kept going, if she remembered the next piece of dialogue, he would have her response to his vow. She tilted her head, eyes looking upwards, as she fought to remember the line.

“Do not swear at all. Or…” She sat back, “Oh what was it? Um…oh! If thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry, and I’ll believe thee.”

She laughed, both happy that she was able to play along and that she recalled lines from a play she had not read in years. Tim moved closer.

“Okay then. I swear, on my life, that I will love you, to have and to hold, for better for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part. And maybe even after, knowing this family’s relationship with death and the supernatural.” He licked his lips, “And I’m demanding to know if you think I’m worth the fuss.”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Course you are.” He answered easily.

“…And so are you.” And she smiled, whilst also feeling incredibly fragile. Voice very quiet, as if speaking loudly would shatter the moment, she got on the ground with him and said, “You saved me. You know that, right? When we were kids? I was so angry, and hurt, and yet being around you… I craved it. Because you were just everything I wanted to be. I could be more than what my life would have been if Spoiler never came to be. And I could be more than that pain and hurt of those first months on Gotham’s rooftops. And then you chose me over Ariana and… I hold on so tight to those memories.”

She sniffed, knowing she was being a little melodramatic, but Tim was very good at pulling it out of her. She wanted over the top and romantic. They deserved it.

“Moments like sitting with you at the park, on Wayne Tower, in that pizza place, on my sofa when you and Dana made me chicken soup when I was sick, when we went to that diner and the lady gave you a free burger ‘cause she thought you killed the guy who hurt me, sitting on your lap on your sixteenth birthday watching that terrible kung fu movie and making out with you on the roof, doing crossword puzzles with you on a stakeout, the music shop… God, the music shop… I’m sorry I let things fall apart the way they did. The best memories of my life. I ruined those moments for so long. But… I’m better now. So, we can make more memories.”

The ground was very cold, and her knees were growing numb from the damp, but she continued to gaze at Tim. There was something deeply affirming to hear that she held those memories in such high reverence as he, that she was just as protective over them.

She finished her own little speech, bashful and bright red, but still smiling. “And I’ll make a promise back. I swear that your pain will fade because I’ll make sure you won’t ever feel alone, that you won’t ever be lost because I will always be around to drag you back, kicking and screaming, and that I will always, always, love you.”

Tim grinned, and released his grip on her hand. She opened her palm, ring safely tucked away, and he picked it up. Holding it, he then asked,

“This isn’t a marriage proposal.”

“No.”

“But I am going to ask, formally, Stephanie Brown, do you want to be my…my girlfriend. Again.”

There was something very child-like in the question, like they were on the playground playing in the dollhouse. But it wasn’t a game. It wasn’t a dream. It was real, and she knew her answer before the question had been asked.

“Yes. I would like that very much.”

Tim laughed, and the wet tears finally fell down Stephanie’s cheeks. They were happy tears, so she let them be.

“What finger do you want it on?”

She held out her left hand.

“A ring like that deserves to be on my ring finger, right?”

He slid it on. This time he had ordered it a little larger, not sure if she would have opted for her middle finger instead, so it managed to get over her knuckle with significantly less effort than the wedding band. It would need tightening, just a little, but they had all the time in the world for that.

They kissed, and the morning’s car crash lifted from their shoulders. They were short, breathless kisses, innocent and punctuated by the sound of Stephanie’s giggles and Tim’s exaggerated noises as he kissed her cheeks, nose, forehead...anything he could plant his lips on. They kissed for a very long time.

“Thank you, by the way. For pulling me out the way at the Cathedral.” Tim said as they broke apart. Stephanie got to her feet, offering her hand to Tim, who gratefully took it. She linked his arm back in his, and they made their way back to the house. “Would have had a bullet in the heart, judging from the trajectory, if you hadn’t been so quick.”

“You’re welcome. You better stick by that vow Mr Drake. You’re not to leave me, even a gunshot wound can’t take you out.”

They returned to the manor only to find that, despite Tim’s angry demand, the Titans had not left, and were in fact sat on the balcony with the rest of the family. Every single one of them, even Damian, looked extremely curious.

Tim shot Steph a look, and the pair sped up, jogging back over and up the stairs. If making those vows had been frightening but cathartic, it was nothing compared to letting their family and friends know the conclusion of the entire event. Tim felt Stephanie shaking as they faced the Titans, who, more than anything, just wanted to be kept in the loop. Her shaking stilled when Conner invited them to come to San Francisco and tell the rest of the Titans in person the good news, and that they could think of it as a pseudo honeymoon. Tim couldn’t help but send Conner an eternally grateful look, to which Conner got a glint in his eyes that implied he was going to lord this moment over Tim for the rest of his life.

It seemed everyone was in agreement. It was best to let everyone hear the truth now because it was good news. It was happy news. Don’t be afraid of people’s judgement because there was nothing to feel guilty about.

Tim and Stephanie were stuck at the hip come hell or high water, and throughout the entire conversation, they never let go of the other’s hand.

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

The next few days were… interesting in its non-eventfulness. In how quickly things settled. Especially after the roller coaster of a wedding day. Alfred had seemingly ordered an issue of every newspaper in the region, plus some national ones, apparently for the sole purpose of showing Stephanie how many angles of that one shot of her throwing Rebecca down the stairs existed. Luckily, the headlines were damning the Newlywed Murderers whilst pages four and five were composed of what was probably the original intended article, filled with photos of the family and guests entering the cathedral. Stephanie hummed to herself. She’d looked really nice… ah well.

To say nothing of how good Tim had looked. Ooft. She didn’t know who had styled his hair, but they deserved a hefty payment as thanks. It certainly wasn’t Tim – no, the boy usually left it alone, which in recent years had resulted in it sticking up in clumps after he had grown it out a little. Every day he was creeping closer and closer to the mad scientist aesthetic, but Stephanie quite enjoyed it as it gave her something to hold onto when he… hmm, never mind.

The articles themselves were deliberately neutral. At least the Daily Planet and the Gotham Gazette were (not shockingly, considering their parent companies) largely sympathetic. There were still some hints that the story was a lie. As if Tim and Stephanie were honestly that selfless and willing to put themselves in harms way, could it be that they were already married? Was the entire thing a fake out?

Stephanie sighed, reading the pieces on Rebecca and, after events had passed, just feeling sorry for her more than anything, and a deep disdain for the man who had abused her past breaking point. She knew Tim was trying to pinch information off the bat computer, not believing for one moment that Bruce had told them the entire truth regarding the case. Stephanie had left him to it, not wanting to be involved in Tim’s ever mounting mistrust of Bruce. She wanted to get back on with being a student, with working her odd jobs, with Batgirl, only from now on she wouldn’t return home to her mother’s house at the end of the day. She silently resolved to alter Tim’s apartment in places, to make it homier. The first thing to be changed was the placement of the stuffed toy duck he had won for her all those weeks ago. It now lived on the sofa in the living room, a convenient cushion and squeezy stress toy when required. It no longer loomed over Tim’s bed; beady eyes filled with judgement.

Tim had kept his huffiness focused on where it belonged (Bruce) and two days later had insisted on going with Bruce to work. Bruce, who was wearing a sling and a cut lip to pretend like the car accident had genuinely happened, shook his head.

“You’re supposed to be on your honeymoon annual leave.” He had reminded Tim.

“Redundant. I wanna make a press release.”

Steph, who was in the process of stuffing her little purple car full of leftover food and cake, ready to take to the community centre, slammed the boot shut.

“Sweetie you don’t have to.”

“No. I do.” He nodded his head, looking all formal in a suit. Stephanie, on the other hand, was wearing a long-sleeved forest green dress that hung off her like a shapeless tent, but Tim thought she made it work. Tim wiggled her earrings, giant cheap gold coloured hoops, and the little beads on them jangled. “I’ll tell people ‘the truth’, for what it’s worth. Commissioner Gordon gave us a list of things I can slash can’t confirm.”

“Want me to come with?”

“Nah. You’re a private person, Steph. You don’t owe the world anything. I’ll send an in-person reminder.” A kiss on the cheek, then a nudge towards the driver’s side of the car. “Honest. I’ll take care of it. Have fun at the centre today.”

“Well, who doesn’t like cake, eh? I’ll see you tonight. Still waiting on that Chinese takeout.”

“You order when you get home, I’ll transfer you the money.”

“Okay, bye love. Text when you’re on your way back?” Tim nodded, and she sighed, getting in the car. Bruce had an odd look on his face, a pinched sort of affection at the two’s domestic banter. Before she drove away, she rolled down the car window and poked her nose out. “Good luck you two! I’ve heard the press can be a nightmare!”

“Harhar. Bye, Stephie.”

Blushing, Steph rolled the window back up, and whizzed the car around the front of the manor to get back on the road to Gotham. Tim blithely waved goodbye, and Steph made her way back into the city. She blanched and then laughed as she exited the manor grounds, thinking to herself how easily saying goodbye for the day had been. How easily they slipped into domestic stability and safety. It felt fitting. It felt right.

Soon enough, just after crossing the bridge from the mainland, her mother rang. Hitting the speaker, she answered, then tried to find a place to pull over. Her mother waited patiently until Steph ended up in a MacDonald’s parking lot.

“You okay, mom?”

“Just wanted to check in on you.”

Her mother was at work, because of course she was, but seemed to have found a spare moment to call.

“I’m heading down to Park Row –”

“To Tim’s apartment?”

“No,” She laughed awkwardly, “To the community centre. There’s a session on this morning for the elderly… thought they might want some cake and a chat.”

There was a pause as her mother thought through what Stephanie said. “You’re a good girl, you know that?”

“Mm.” She sidestepped the compliment.

“But you’re okay?”

“Yes. Promise. Hey, listen… my room…”

“Yeah?”

“If… if you want, mom, you can turn my room into an office if you like? Or make it a spare room and rent it to lodgers, get some extra cash? Or just a room for you to relax in. You can sell the furniture and –”

“Steph? It’s your room, sweetheart. It’ll be waiting for you whenever you come back, for whatever reason. Even if it’s just for the odd night here and there.”

“…Thanks, mom.”

There was another breath, then Crystal asked what was actually on her mind. “So, you’re staying? With him?”

“Yes. For real.” She heard her mother tut. “Don’t be like that.”

“Oh, I know you won’t be told. Believe me, I know.”

“I’ll still come round for Friday night board games. Honest.”

“Alright then. But bring Tim next time.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I want to keep an eye on him.”

“Mommy.”

Her protest went unheard. Stephanie had learned in recent years that her mother shared an unshakeable stubbornness, albeit much quieter than Stephanie’s.

“Have to go. Bye Steph, talk to you later.”

“Bye…”

Pursing her lips, Stephanie had an abrupt craving for a McFlurry, and crept forward to the drive thru. She needed a distraction from whatever that conversation was before she went to the centre, and sugary food seemed an appropriate method.

Tim, meanwhile, had been forced to drive Bruce to the office. Bruce had flapped his arm in the sling as an excuse.

Sat in traffic, Bruce broke the silence.

“So, next steps?”

“For…?”

“You. Stephanie. This whole endeavour.”

Tim snorted, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the wheel. “Dare I ask your opinion on the not signed off marriage?”

“It’s okay. You’re both too young anyway.”

Incredulous, but also seeing that Bruce was trying to lighten the mood, Tim laughed. Bruce smiled back in his usual tight-lipped manner. Slowly, Tim’s smile faded, and his expression grew sadder.

“You promise that you don’t have a problem with us?”

Bruce’s broad chest heaved. “I promise. And I do think you work well together. I told you that at the start. In and out of costume. Besides, she wanted me to walk her down the aisle. I want to do that for her one day. I understand if you don’t believe me… but I want you both to be happy.”

Again, Bruce was showing off how fond he had grown of Steph, and Tim relaxed. This wasn’t five years ago, they genuinely could make a fresh start. “She makes me happy.” He said, quietly.

“She’s also made you miserable.” Bruce said, playing devil’s advocate.

“… I think… I think that’s because I let her. Because I trusted her. I mean, who in your life has made you the most sad? It’s the people you love, right? Not the ones you hate.”

Bruce nodded, taking Tim’s words to heart. If he could, Tim would have tried to hug Bruce, but instead he remained strapped in the car, creeping through green red green red lights. He just wanted a fresh start with everything. It took a moment, but Bruce sensed Tim’s neediness, and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re doing fine Tim. Just… keep moving forward.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do... With her next to me.”

Bruce squeezed Tim’s shoulder tight, then the silent drive continued.

Stephanie had watched on the tiny tv at the centre, as one of the staff members came rushing in, exclaiming that Stephanie’s husband was on the television. She had sat down next to one old lady who seemed so decrepit her spine had folded permanently at ninety degrees, shaking fingers picking apart the lemon cake and icing.

“Oh, he’s a handsome guy isn’t he Steph.” The staff member teased.

“Ssht!”

Not my husband Steph wanted to argue, but she let it lie. The announcement was just Tim stood outside Wayne Tower, reiterating everything that had happened the other day. No they were not married, yes they were still together but were going to wait until things calmed down, our thanks to the Cathedral, I have made a donation even though I know it will never make up for the damage and loss, no we did not plan a wedding to catch a bad guy (don’t be ridiculous), please be nice to Stephanie she’s a private citizen, glad we could catch a murderer and bring justice, looking for ways to improve options for men and women in domestic abuse scenarios… and on and on.

Tim did very well she thought, not cracking once under the questions that came his way. People certainly tried to find holes to nit-pick in, but – as much as it sometimes disquieted Stephanie – he could be a very good liar when called upon.

The old lady she was sat with slowly clicked that the boy on the screen was someone important to Stephanie, and she tapped Stephanie’s new ring insistently.

“Seems like a good boy.”

“He is.”

And then she returned to picking up dishes, bringing them through to the kitchen. She was here to work, not to have people fawn over her. That didn’t mean she didn’t smile to herself at the well-intentioned teases people threw her way for the rest of the day.

Come the evening, when the two were reunited at the apartment, Stephanie finally got the Chinese takeaway she’d been craving. Empty cartons were streamed across the counter, and the time was ticking down before they were off for patrol. Stephanie was strewn across Tim, who was himself stretched across the sofa. He was playing with her ring, looking smug.

“Why’re you so happy?” She teased.

“No reason.” And his arm that was wrapped around her waist squeezed. Part of him was still up in cloud nine. He had Steph, on his couch, on him, snoozing the early evening away. Her hair smelled of her candy scented soaps, and it was no longer inappropriate of him to verbalise how much he liked it. It was why he couldn’t bring himself to be…too… angry at Bruce.

The ends justify the means… right?

Wait no. That’s not how it –

“You did good today.” Stephanie interrupted. “I saw on the tv. Everyone thought so.”

“Yeah?”

She nuzzled backwards, pressing firmly against his chest and neck. “I thought so too. Thank you, Tim.”

He made a noise of acknowledgement and closed his eyes. Another moment of comfortable silence passed, when a thought returned to Tim, and his eyes popped open.

“You know, I’ve been thinking…”

“Shocker.” Her tone was groggy, as if she were half asleep and he was keeping her awake.

Tim stubbornly ignored her, “…and you never mentioned the piano.”

“Oh?”

“Well, you know. It’s there. If you ever want to –”

She sat up and looked down at Tim, who was looking a little nervous. Pianos and her had a somewhat volatile history. Maybe Tim thought it was triggering. Stephanie had at first just stubbornly ignore the thing, not wanting to give Tim the satisfaction of thinking she was even tempted. Then there had been twelve hundred other things to juggle, and she simply not had the time.

“You’re about as subtle as a brick to the face sometimes you know?”

Tim looked alarmed. “Speaking from experience or…?”

“You want a little concert? I haven’t played in years mind you.”

“I want you… to do whatever you…want to do.”

She was not impressed by his attempts to downplay the request and rolled her eyes. “Come on. Sit with me. See if you recognize this one.”

The bench was just wide enough to sit the two of them at. She shuffled a little, taking off her slippers so she could get a better feel for the peddles. Clearing her throat, as if she were about to conduct an orchestra, she placed her fingers on the keys. She took in a deep breath and tossed her hair back. Tim watched the process, fascinated.

“Ready?” She asked.

Tim nodded.

Smirking, Stephanie began to play the wedding march, only for it to take three notes for Tim to recognize the song and make him instantly outraged. He yelled incoherently and slammed his fingers down on the lower end of the scale. The noise was clanging, disjointed, and hilarious. Romantic moment ruined. Stephanie began to laugh so hard her snorting came through.

“You’re a monster!” Tim cried out, half laughing himself. He slapped the casing down, miffed. Stephanie continued to cackle, hands covering her mouth as she tried to stop the undignified grunts.

“Too bad! You’re stuck with me remember?”

Tim pulled at her hands, to free the path to her mouth. He didn’t miss Steph’s squeal of delight when he kissed her, and immediately her hands were cradling his jaw, wrists still loosely held by Tim. His thumbs were pressed on her pulse point, and he felt it throb harder the longer they kissed. The childish exuberance faded, and the kiss slowed and deepened.

When they broke apart, Tim placed his lips to her left cheek. “Until death do us part.” He murmured, then he moved to her right cheek. He felt her skin grow warm, and seep into his own core.

Pale blue eyes stared into indigo, and a long moment passed in silence, the clock on the mantle providing the only noise. Some garden birds chirped outside, and the fluttering of their wings past the window made Stephanie flinch out of the silence. Caught of guard, she laughed, then moved so she could perch herself on Tim’s lap. She tried not to giggle at the slight cross-eyed look he developed as she settled down. Leaning forward, she kissed his forehead, and she felt his warm breath brush over her clavicle.

“Until death do us part.” She whispered back. “And after, if it’s allowed.”

Not for the first, and certainly not for the last time, they sat still, admiring the other. Steph, with her choppy blonde hair, button nose and chewed lips, whose ability to pull herself out of despair was unrivalled, whose compassion and fire made her a beacon to those feeling lost. Tim, with his ink black hair and eyes paler than Gotham’s cloudy skies, whose ingenuity and loyalty was only matched by his earnest idealism. Tim ran his thumb over her lips, seeing the bruise and cuts that she had left from anxiously pulling at the skin, and he had left in previous days.

No longer feeling shy, he tugged on her neck, encouraging her back to him. They kissed again, and for the moment, things were perfect.

The End.

#dc #timsteph #tim drake #stephanie brown #my fic tag #DONE!!

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msclaritea · 4 years ago

Link

Amy Coney Barrett is a Gun Rights nut and a serious danger to the public. Please read:

“Judge Amy Coney Barrett acknowledges that the decision she considers most significant in her relatively short time as a judge “sounds kind of radical”: She doesn’t believe the Constitution gives government the authority to ban all felons from owning guns.

One gun law expert calls the opinion an “audition tape” for the Supreme Court nomination she received, and Democrats plan to argue at Barrett’s confirmation hearings beginning Monday that it puts her far outside the mainstream. Even, they say, to the right of her conservative former boss, the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

“She is extreme on this issue,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “She would go much farther than her mentor Scalia did in striking down common sense measures.”

Supporters are enthusiastic about Barrett’s 37-page dissent in Kanter v. Barr, in which she argues only those shown to be dangerous may be stripped of their Second Amendment rights to guns, and that simply being convicted of a felony is not enough.

The opinion “shows that she takes the Constitution’s text and history seriously,” said Ilya Shapiro of the libertarian Cato Institute, and is committed to “holding the government’s feet to the fire” when individual rights are at stake.

The opinion — even some liberals who worry about its implications praise its craftsmanship — provides a preview of the kind of Supreme Court justice the 48-year-old former Notre Dame law professor would make.

For one, it shows a deep commitment to “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution, the method used by Justices Clarence Thomas and President Trump’s other Supreme Court choices, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, to most often reach conservative outcomes.

Certainly it indicates that, if confirmed, Barrett would likely cement a majority more open to reexamining gun control laws that states and cities say are necessary for public safety and that critics contend crimp constitutional rights. Conservative justices have been itching to take on one of the court’s most controversial topics.

And Barrett’s Kanter dissent shows boldness and a propensity for casting off established readings of the law.

She had been on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit less than a year when the case arrived before her. But she used it to sharply question federal and state laws that have been in place for decades.

She rejected the arguments of the Trump administration’s Justice Department and broke with the views of two fellow Republican-nominated judges on the appellate panel who brought a combined 72 years of experience.

Barrett looked at Scalia’s important caveat in the 2008 landmark decision establishing an individual right to gun ownership — “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill” — and saw daylight.

The court’s 5-to-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller only offered that up as part of a list of “presumptively” lawful measures, Barrett noted.

“The constitutionality of felon dispossession was not before the court in Heller, and because it explicitly deferred analysis of this issue, the scope of its assertion is unclear,” she wrote.

So she and her clerks set out to do their own analysis, she told a group of students at conservative Hillsdale College last year.

“I had to do a pretty deep dive into the history of the Second Amendment,” she said. Founding-era legislatures were concerned with keeping weapons from those considered dangerous, she concluded, but just being convicted of a certain level of crime was not enough.

“That sounds kind of radical, to say felons can have firearms,” Barrett told the students, but she said her examination found “no blanket authority just to take guns” without showing the person was dangerous.

At the same time, she said, government may take away certain civic rights, such as voting or the ability to serve on a jury, upon being convicted of a crime.

Her position on the felon dispossession issue is at odds with nearly all other federal appeals court decisions on the issue.

Barrett’s elevation to the Supreme Court would pose a “real risk that the court has a majority making decisions to overturn hugely popular laws that save lives. We have an epidemic of gun violence in this country and this kind of reasoning ignores that,” said Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, noting Barrett listed the dissent first among her 10 most significant cases in her Senate questionnaire.

But Alan Morrison, a George Washington University law professor who was among the lawyers who defended the District of Columbia’s strict handgun ban that the Supreme Court struck down in Heller, thinks Barrett may be right.

“I agree with her conclusion that if you have a Second Amendment right — and I still have my doubts about it — then surely you ought to worry about people who are going to do dangerous things with guns,” Morrison said.

The plaintiff in the case “may be a crook, but there is no evidence that he is going to be dangerous,” Morrison said.

Rickey Kanter, from Mequon, Wis., pleaded guilty in 2011 to a single count of mail fraud for selling therapeutic shoe inserts that he misrepresented as Medicare-approved through his “Dr. Comfort” business. He was sentenced to a year and one day in prison, ordered to pay $50,000 and to reimburse Medicare over $27 million in a related civil settlement.

After Kanter served his time and paid the penalties, he challenged state and federal laws that prevented him as a felon from ever owning a gun.

It was a case gun-control groups worried about. “There was a real concern in the gun safety community that challengers were identifying very sympathetic plaintiffs in an effort to chip away at the effectiveness of the felon regime,” said Washington lawyer Deepak Gupta, who filed an amicus brief in the case for the group Everytown for Gun Safety.

Felon possession bans “are at the heart of background-check systems, concealed-carry licensing schemes, and many arrests and prosecutions for firearms offenses,” the brief said. “Kanter��s arguments would fatally undermine these systems.”

Judges Joel Flaum and Kenneth Francis Ripple, nominated to the 7th Circuit by President Ronald Reagan, ruled for the government. They said the federal and Wisconsin laws banning felons were sufficiently related to the government’s goal of keeping guns out of the hands of those convicted of serious crimes.

The government had justified the restrictions with studies showing higher recidivism rates among those convicted of even nonviolent felonies, they said. Moreover, courts are not equipped to predict which nonviolent felons pose a risk and which do not, they wrote.

“The highly individualized approach Kanter proposes raises serious institutional and administrative concerns,” Flaum wrote, noting Congress told the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to abandon a program in which nonviolent felons could seek to have their gun rights restored as too time consuming and costly.

Barrett had a different take, after a six-month and exhaustive historical review. It touches on early state constitutions, founding-era documents and dictionaries and ancient law, such as the 1328 Statute of Northampton — the ancient English statute regulating the carrying of weapons.

She also quotes the colorful line from a law review written by UCLA professor Adam Winkler: “It is hard to imagine how banning Martha Stewart or Enron’s Andrew Fastow from possessing a gun furthers public safety.”

Winkler, the author of the book “Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America” and the one who compared Barrett’s dissent to an audition tape, agrees with the judge’s conclusion.

But he said it arguably envisions broader Second Amendment protections than provided by Scalia, who characterized the individual right to own a gun as belonging to “law-abiding, responsible citizens.”

Barrett’s reliance on historical precedent, Winkler said, could jeopardize modern-era policies like “red flag” laws that allow law enforcement officials to remove guns from people at risk of harming themselves or others, and bans on machine guns first passed in the 1980s.

“I don’t think Justice Barrett is going to say you have a constitutional right to machine guns, but this is the question raised by her approach,” Winkler said. “It cuts off innovative reforms and calls into question certain laws.”

Clark Neily of Cato, one of the lawyers who challenged the D.C. law in Heller, said Barrett’s detailed opinion suggests the view: “I know this is a high profile case that will get a lot of attention, and I’m going to walk you through my precise thought pattern, so you won’t have to guess why I came to this conclusion.”

Without Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Neily added, “there’s no doubt that on balance the court can be expected to be more favorable to cases presenting Second Amendment claims.” But he said he would not expect the court to move quickly.

In its last term, though, several of the court’s conservative justices expressed frustration that the court has provided no guidance on Second Amendment issues for a decade; Thomas frequently complains gun rights receive less attention from his colleagues than abortion rights.

Still, the court refused to take up nearly a dozen cases in which gun rights groups claimed restrictions violated Second Amendment rights.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is thought not to be excited about the prospect of more gun cases. He is the only conservative justice who at one point or another has not publicly disagreed with the court’s decision not to accept a gun-control case.

But Barrett could change the math, and conservatives would no longer need the chief to count to five votes.”

This woman is disgusting. Please note by the highlighted part above that she has NO problem with people losing other, more vital rights. But keeping guns from felons is No Bueno.

#Amy Coney Barrett #Wants to let all the felons have guns #Wants to prevent women from having access to abortions #Is Against Same Sex Marriage

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cle-guy · 5 years ago

Text

I am disappointed with Bernie Sanders

Which brings me to Joe Biden. I supported Biden this campaign less because his political positions align with mine; in some ways they do, but in other ways they fall short. I support Biden for two big reasons. The first is how Biden desires to govern. Biden calls for national consensus, which is important. All of our best legislative achievements (and the founding of the country itself) rests on reaching a consensus that a majority of the country backs. I support consensus, and hope we can find a way to reach it again, as we did in 2009-10. The second is because I firmly oppose political revolution as a vehicle for change. From my experience with Bernie supporters, I find them intractable and obstinate in their refusal to accept any path besides their own. The charitable reading is this is a hard negotiating position, which can be walked down. The straight reading is its a hill to die on, which will achieve little. For me our country faces numerous problems, and they require a national consensus to fix. Bernie Sanders, and his supporters, argue for specific fixes to these problems. Some of them are reasonable, but with problems. A single payer healthcare system is a reasonable system, and it has immense benefits, but it also runs into numerous problems. If your goal is universal coverage, its one method to achieve it but clearly it is also not the loan method. To many Berniecrats: single payer and universal healthcare are one and the same, and I reject the notion. If healthcare is a problem which requires attention (and it is) then we need to reach a consensus on how to fix it. Medicare for All is only one potential solution, not the only one. Other issues stand out on this as well. Climate Change being a big one, but others as well. Consensus must be reached to fix these problems, and Bernie's movement is not a movement to reach consensus: it's a movement to shut everyone else out. Joe Biden already displays his ability to build bridges by adopting proposals from his rivals. He adopted an Elizabeth Warren plan to address insurance, and a Bernie Sanders plan on education. He's shifted some positions on his healthcare platform since Bernie dropped out. Throughout his career, Biden has done the same with the Republican Party. Biden is also the candidate preferred by the most marginal Democratic members of the US House of Representatives and Senate. It is notable that the people who flipped the House support Joe Biden and his message, and not Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Doug Jones, the most vulnerable senator, also supports Biden. This is important because consensus does not just require reaching agreement with your ideological opponents, but also your peers. The ACA and Social Security Act required a massive consensus effort to get the Democratic Party on board due to differences within their own caucus. Joe Biden has the coalition building ability to reach that, Bernie Sanders has not shown this strength (which is not to say he does not have it). For me, Joe Biden is less a man I yearn for, but a politics I pray for: the country cannot survive if we continue to retreat to our factional sides and snipe at the other side. Biden promises a return to consensus building, and an opportunity to address problems which require redress. In some ways, it's a restoration of the political soul of the nation. It's a message I support, and feel the country needs now more than any time in my lifetime. No, not because he lost: the positions he chose for the 2020 cycle pushed me away emphatically. I am disappointed because Bernie did not have to choose the path he did; he chose vitriol when an embrace was available. He chose truculence when the party remained persuadable. In short: Bernie's revolution chose its path. Purity was preferable to victory, and now Bernie is not the nominee.

I am disappointed because Bernie could have reversed course. Despite what many of his supporters claim: I do not believe their movement extends far beyond their personal candidate, and I offer a clear recent case for why: Elizabeth Warren. Warren's platform was in lock step with Bernie's, she ran on Medicare for All (and even provided a clear path to achieving it, one I feel was superior to Bernie's). However, despite the fact Warren clearly fell in Bernie's camp she was consistently victimized by his camp. The cases of Bernie supporters decrying Elizabeth, calling her a snake, and rejecting here are too numerous to recount here. Which leads me to believe, even if Bernie's supporters think the revolution extends beyond Bernie: they've struggled to find other politicians they're willing to trust with it. The reality is: Bernie could have ran differently. He had four years in the Senate to convince his colleagues to back him. Four years to actually join the party he yearned to lead. He chose, instead, to fight. Jim Clyburn could have been approached, Obama could have been mollified, Chuck Schumer convinced. Bernie did none of these things. He, instead, continued the 'revolution' which he started in 2016. As a result, the Democratic Party allowed the primary to largely continue on its own.

Lets consider: there were four major elected leaders in the Democratic Party before voting started: Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House), Chuck Schumer (Senate Minority Leader), Jim Clyburn (House Majority Whip), and Dick Durbin (Senate Minority Whip). Other leaders included Tom Perez (leader of the DNC), Governors of some big US States like Andrew Cuomo (New York Governor), Gavin Newsom (California Governor), and Illinois (JB Pritzker). Major Senators (who did not run for President): Debbie Stabenow (Michigan), Mark Warner (Virginia), Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), and Chris van Hallen (Maryland). Former presidents and Vice-Presidents: Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Walter Mondale, and Barack Obama. How many of these leaders endorsed Biden before his win in South Carolina? Answer: two, Jim Clyburn and Andrew Cuomo. A majority of these leaders still have not endorsed a candidate. So, in fact, the Democratic Party largely allowed the primary to function normally. Furthermore, it is not at all clear Biden was the favored choice of the party. Many of the above endorsed other candidates; Gavin Newsome endorsed Kamala Harris, for example. Unlike 2016, many party leaders hoped Biden wouldn't run including potentially (it must be said) Barack Obama.

Obama picked Biden as his vice-president for many reasons, but one of the biggest was Biden's age. Obama wanted a veep who would not run as his political heir. Obama also discouraged Joe from running in 2016. There is also evidence Obama doubts Biden's political ability to win the primary. Obama, of course, was not alone. Biden doubters were common, and loud, in both 2018 and 2019. Entire primary campaigns were built on the idea of Biden's collapse. The fact so many senators and governors ran in spite of Biden's entrance suggests the party was not convinced Biden was the right choice.

Furthermore, unlike 2016, Biden (now the presumptive nominee) did not benefit from much money. Biden not only raised less money than Bernie Sanders, he also raised less money than other leading rivals. The 60 billionaires who donated, donated the max to his personal campaign. On Super Tuesday, Biden won in states he never campaigned and spent almost nothing in advertising. This cycle, in short, is fundamentally different than 2016 when Hillary Clinton benefited from early, and resounding, support from the entire Democratic Party, and was fueled by business interests (and grassroots support). Joe Biden defeated Bernie Sanders without the party apparatus shoving him over the line. This occurred in part (not entirely) because Sanders chose to run against the establishment, and push away his rivals. After his victory in Nevada, when Bernie was the presumptive nominee, Bernie chose to thumb his nose at the party he wanted to lead, and did nothing to persuade his rivals to back him. It is telling of Bernie that Warren, for example, chose to not endorse Bernie when she left the race, not of Warren.

To close, Bernie could have ran to unite the party. He chose not to, and that choice had consequences.

On Joe Biden

I supported Biden this campaign less because his political positions align with mine; in some ways they do, but in other ways they fall short. I support Biden for two big reasons. The first is how Biden desires to govern. Biden calls for national consensus, which is important. All of our best legislative achievements (and the founding of the country itself) rests on reaching a consensus that a majority of the country backs. I support consensus, and hope we can find a way to reach it again, as we did in 2009-10. The second is because I firmly oppose political revolution as a vehicle for change. From my experience with Bernie supporters, I find them intractable and obstinate in their refusal to accept any path besides their own. The charitable reading is this is a hard negotiating position, which can be walked down. The straight reading is its a hill to die on, which will achieve little. For me our country faces numerous problems, and they require a national consensus to fix. Bernie Sanders, and his supporters, argue for specific fixes to these problems. Some of them are reasonable, but with problems. A single payer healthcare system is a reasonable system, and it has immense benefits, but it also runs into numerous problems. If your goal is universal coverage, its one method to achieve it but clearly it is also not the loan method. To many Berniecrats: single payer and universal healthcare are one and the same, and I reject the notion. If healthcare is a problem which requires attention (and it is) then we need to reach a consensus on how to fix it. Medicare for All is only one potential solution, not the only one. Other issues stand out on this as well. Climate Change being a big one, but others as well. Consensus must be reached to fix these problems, and Bernie's movement is not a movement to reach consensus: it's a movement to shut everyone else out. Joe Biden already displays his ability to build bridges by adopting proposals from his rivals. He adopted an Elizabeth Warren plan to address insurance, and a Bernie Sanders plan on education. He's shifted some positions on his healthcare platform since Bernie dropped out. Throughout his career, Biden has done the same with the Republican Party. Biden is also the candidate preferred by the most marginal Democratic members of the US House of Representatives and Senate. It is notable that the people who flipped the House support Joe Biden and his message, and not Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Doug Jones, the most vulnerable senator, also supports Biden. This is important because consensus does not just require reaching agreement with your ideological opponents, but also your peers. The ACA and Social Security Act required a massive consensus effort to get the Democratic Party on board due to differences within their own caucus. Joe Biden has the coalition building ability to reach that, Bernie Sanders has not shown this strength (which is not to say he does not have it). For me, Joe Biden is less a man I yearn for, but a politics I pray for: the country cannot survive if we continue to retreat to our factional sides and snipe at the other side. Biden promises a return to consensus building, and an opportunity to address problems which require redress. In some ways, it's a restoration of the political soul of the nation. It's a message I support, and feel the country needs now more than any time in my lifetime.

#politics #election 2020 #bernie sanders #joe biden

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scotianostra · 5 years ago

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September 8th 1820 saw the hanging and beheading of John Baird and Andrew Hardie.

They were the casualties (along with James Wilson, who suffered the same fate on August 30) of the Radical Wars. Following the end of the long Napoleonic Wars the subsequent economic downturn brought increasing dissent, with skilled Scottish weavers at the forefront of demands for major change. In 1812 the weavers had defied the law by striking for nine weeks after employers had refused to pay a wage increase agreed upon by magistrates.

A (28 man) Committee of Organisation for Forming a Provisional Government placed placards around Glasgow on Saturday 1 April 1820 calling for a national strike the following Monday. In the weeks leading up to the call, the committee had arranged for military training for its supporters. With his military experience, John Baird, was given responsibility for the training programme. Meantime, the government pressed ahead with constructing a network of spies and agent provocateurs.

When as many as 60,000 workers took up the call for action on April 3 some then, unsuccessfully, sought to seize weapons. James Wilson of Strathaven was identified as one of the ringleaders of men who attacked the militia as they escorted prisoners to Greenock jail. After being hung, Wilson was decapitated as the authorities, terrified by revolutionary turmoil in Ireland and France, sought to reassert their control by brutal methods. En route with a small detachment of men to the Carron Company Ironworks in Falkirk to remove weapons manufactured there, Baird and Hardie were ordered to wait at Bonnymuir whilst others moved forward to grab the weapons. A detachment of Hussars and Yeomanry troopers were later ordered to attack the rebels at Bonnymuir, four of whom were wounded, whilst nineteen were captured and imprisoned in Stirling Castle.

In total 88 men were charged with treason in Scotland and at Glasgow and Stirling a special Court was established to prosecute them. Wilson was executed on 30 August and nine days later Hardie and Baird, who before they died defied the Sheriff of Stirling by refusing not to make political speeches from the gallows, suffered the same fate.

Baird said: “We cry to heaven for vengeance.” Hardie said: “Our blood is shed…..for no other sin but seeking the legitimate rights of our ill used and down trodden beloved Countrymen.” Afterwards the Sheriff warned the 2,000 crowd, “go quietly home and read your Bibles, and remember the fate of Hardie and Baird.”

In due course another 19 rebels, a number of whom had participated after being urged to do so by agent provocateurs, were transported to the penal colonies in New South Wales or Tasmania. Following a campaign in Scotland led by journalist Peter MacKenzie, they were later all granted an absolute pardon in 1835, a bit late for the three that were executed......

The pic shows a Broadside giving details of the executions, of course the inflammatory words spoken by the pair are excluded, the editors perhaps fearful of the consequences, it treads.

YESTERDAY, 8th September, 1820, the preparation for the execution of these unfortunate men having been completed the previous night, this morn- ing the scaffold appeared to the view of the inhabitants. On each side the scaf- fold was placed a coffin, at the head of which was a tub, filled with saw-dust, destined to receive the head. To the side of the tub was affixed a block.The clergymen of the town (the reverend Drs Wright and Small,) and the reverend Mr Bruce, throughout the confinement of the prisoners, were unremitting in their duties. The morning pre- vious to the execution was spent almost solely in devotion and reflections, suited to the awful situa- tion of the prisoners. About 11 o'clock a troop of the 7th Dragoon Guards arrived from Falkirk, and were assisted by the 13th Foot quartered in the Castle.At a quarter after one the procession left the Castle, and was seen to move down Broad Street, the unfortunate men in a hurdle, their backs to the horse, and the headsman with his axe sitting so as to face them. They were respect- ably dressed in black, with weepers. The procession was attended by the Sheriff-depute and his Substitute, and the Magistrates, all with their staves of office. The troops lined the streets so as to permit the whole to pass slowly and undisturbed to the spot intended for the execution. During the procession, the prisoners sung a hymn, in which they were joined by the multitude.At 20 minutes to two o'clock, the hurdle arrived at the Court-house. Hardie first descended. He was followed by Baird, then the headsman. Hardie, by mistake, was conducted into the waiting-room. He bowed twice respectfully to the gentlemen who were present. The Reverend Dr Wright accompanied Hardie. The Reverend Dr Small, and Mr Brown, were with Baird. Hardie turned round, and observing how few persons were present, said to one of the clergymen, " Is this all that is to be present." Dr Wright read the whole of the 51st psalm. He then delivered a most impressive prayer; after which, a few verses of the same psalm, from the 7th verse, were sung by the prisoners and others present, Hardie giving out two lines at a time, in a clear and distinct voice, and sung the same without any tremulency. The Reverend Dr Small then delivered a prayer, remarkable for zeal and fervour ; after which, the 103d psalm was sung, Hardie giving out two lines at a time as before.The conduct of these two men while in the Court-room was most calm and unassuming. Some refreshment being offered, Hardie took a glass of sherry, and Baird a glass of port. Hardie said something the exact import of which we could not collect. He begged the sheriff to express their gratitude to General Graham, Major Peddie, and the public authorities, for their humanity and at- tention ; he then bowed to the other persons present, and drank off the whole of the contents of the glass. Baird then addressed himself to the sheriff, and beg- ged to convey sentiments of a similàr nature. When they were pinioned Har- die mentioned to Baird to come forward to the scaffold. While in the Court- room both prisoners particularly Hardie, seemed less affected by their situation than any other person present; his hand, while he held his book, never trem- bled. On their arrival at the scaffold, there was a dead silence. After a few minutes, Baird addressed the crowd in a very loud voice. He adverted to the circumstance in which he was placed, and said he had but little to say, but that he never gave his assent to any thing inconsistent with truth and justice. He then recommended the bible, and a peaceful conduct to his hearers. Hardie then addressed the crowd. He commenced with the word " Countrymen." At some- ting which we could not completely catch, and which we must not guess at there was a huzzaing, and marks of approbation. After a few moments silence as if recollecting he had proceeded too far, and had excited feelings inconsistent with his situation, he spoke again. He adised the crowd not to think of them, but to attend to their bibles, and recommended them, in place of going to pub- lic houses, to drink to the memory of Baird and Hardie, that they would retire to their devotions. After the ropes were adjusted, a most warm and aflectionate prayer was delivered by the reverend Mr Bruce. At eleven minutes before three the necessary arrangements being made, Hardie gave the signal, when they were launched into eternity. After hanging half an hour, they were cut down, and placed upon the cof- fins, with, their necks upon a block; the headsman then came forward ; he was a little man, appar- ently about 18 years of age; he wore a black crape over his face, a hairy cap, and a black gown On his appearance there was a cry of murder. He struck the neck of Hardie thrice before it was severed ; then held it up with both hands, saying, " This is the head of a traitor." He severed the head of Baird at two blows, held it up in the same, manner, and used the same words The coffin were then removed, and the crowd peaceably dispersed.Edinburgh;?Printed for William Cameron,?PRICE ONE PENNY.

#Scotland #scottish borders #political murders #History

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rosinapowrie-blog · 6 years ago

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The Teacher Dichotomy: the problem with hero teachers.

“The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing at all, for sure” – Socrates

Learning isn't just about passing exams. Since starting a career in teaching four years ago, I have struggled to remember this myself, let alone show pupils what they could be missing out on. In response, I set up a school society mimicking TEDx Talks, giving kids the chance to listen to in interesting lecture at lunchtime with no hidden agenda: simply to try to show them that academia goes beyond mark schemes and box ticks. This was my opening address entitled 'The Teacher Dichotomy: the problem with hero teachers.'

_______________________________________________________________________In my first fortnight of teaching at a prestigious new school, once we got over that slightly awkward unsure phase of ‘nu teacher who dis,’ a student asked me where I’d been to university and what I’d studied...

‘St Andrews, in Scotland... where Prince William went’ (I added after only a minuscule pause which I have become accustomed to when speaking of the tiny town on the East Fife coast). ‘I read English Literature, but did loads of modules in Philosophy, Classics, Art History... it was good.’ ‘Wow’ the student replied, ‘that’s like really good isn’t it? You must be... like... really clever..!’ And then the student said the 10 words that have shocked me the most in my haggering career as an educator... ‘So why did you end up as a teacher then?’ Now I am not so naive as to think that this is simply one view held by one teenager in that particular moment... What this delightful girl had uttered was probably the ultimate Freudian slip of today’s youth... you lot just don’t see the value in education for its own sake... you think that school is just something you have to get through, preferably do well at, then you can start living your best life. But this must be challenged: if we know and accept that gaining knowledge is a vital crevasse to conquer whilst mountaineering the Range of Success, why do we see it merely as a means to an end? Why can we not enjoy the ride, live in the moment, and value our opportunity to learn new stuff? Why is it that, still in 2018, when teaching is known to be one of the most draining and stringently trained professions, requiring the skill and discipline of an artist, athlete and jail warden simultaneously all before 9am 5 days a week, do our very target audience view our profession as a sort of embarrassing accident that losers happen to fall into? Perhaps you are already outraged by my cynicism. I am aware I am currently preaching to the converted - you guys have chosen to spend your lunch time in this room pursuing knowledge and discussion. But I vehemently believe that this modern apathy to education is due largely to the portrayal of teachers in the media and popular culture. I don’t solely mean the ludicrous click bait that floods your newsfeeds every day (I’m thinking headlines such as ‘boy of 1 wins Nobel peace prize for finding cure to cancer despite failing all GCSEs - who needs em anyway’ or even just the multitude of distracting cat videos you’d much rather be watching), I mean those subliminal messages in books, TV and film that have been drip fed to my generation and yours in our formative years. I’m talking about The Teacher Dichotomy: heroes vs villains. By this, I mean that teachers are firmly type cast into two roles: the sickening sycophant who inspires their flock with their unconventional quirks and flagrant disregard for any sort of teaching standard... that one who really gets down to da youf’s level. Or, worse, the maniacal villain who struts around with a cape and cane doling out detentions and appearing entirely inhumane. The inability to portray teachers as warm blooded mammals with the same instincts, desires and fears as the rest of the world has not only devalued the joy of education, it actually undermines the incredible passion and hard work that goes into just the average, unmemorable bog standard Mr or Mrs Bloggs’ daily job as a teacher. On demand, could anyone name an example of just a regular teacher that a) exists in a book/film etc and b) fulfils meaningful purpose in the plot purely in his or her role as educator and not for any other reason? Three examples analysed... Firstly, our heroes: I’ll start with that that ever hilarious, ever chaotic excuse for a school teacher portrayed by loveable comedian Jack Whitehall in popular BBC3 series ‘Bad Education.’ Alfie Wickers, the History NQT at Abbey Grove School, prefers to befriend students rather than enable them responsibly to achieve their potential. His typical pedagogy includes such escapades as practical re-enactments of battles, or ‘Class Wars’, where any Ofsted inspector would literally have a fit at the flagrant violation for safeguarding an 'ealf and safety. Yet Mr Wickers is respected by Form K – they even like him and learn from him – but do we see any assessment, formative or summative? Do we see him planning or marking? Do we see him tracking progress and planning interventions? While it may be a TV show, and art does not need to imitate life, the point is that Mr Wickers is seen as a fun, likeable teacher. If he did anything that he was actually supposed to, he would be seen as boring. And what sort of message is that sending a young audience – that the people who dedicate their lives to ensuring their progress in a conventional way are not heroes. Only those who offer them fun and entertainment, and no actual learning, are.

At the other end of the positive spectrum, there are those sorts of hero teachers who move students emotionally, yet still wouldn’t actually pass an observation. The epitome is John Keating – the maverick English master portrayed by Robin Williams in the classic ‘80s film, ‘Dead Poets Society.’ Keating encourages his vulnerable student, Anderson, to come out of his shell by joining the eponymous banned extracurricular club. Here, he forges friendships with unlikely characters and experiences true life and love by looking at poetry differently and forgetting the pressures and requirements of school. Professor Keating is eventually called out for his disregard for school standards and duly sacked, leaving the boys chanting a heart-wrenching chorus of Whitman’s ‘O Captain, my Captain’ whilst standing on desks. It’s the ultimate bildungsroman: the boys have come of age, and Keating helped them get there. Yet again, his inspiring nature is not at all borne of his skill in traditional education methods, but rather the fact that he ignores them completely. Yet another example of the hero teacher, shaming regular teachers into the background of mediocrity.

And now the other end of the spectrum – the villains. Who better to analyse than Rowling’s malevolent Professor Umbridge, who swans into Hogwarts in The Order of the Phoenix with the sole aim of making monumental, ‘Ministry approved’ changes to the school curriculum and generally shaking the status quo. Fans of the series, let’s forget the reasons behind our negative view of Umbridge’s changes for now (the government’s refusal to believe that Voldemort has returned, etc) and read this simply as a teacher trying to raise standards by reviewing current practice and attempting to embed systemic change. We see this when she addresses the school for the first time: ‘some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited." This sounds rather like a forward-thinking teacher, school leader or governor wanting to make improvements, yet she is completely slated and seen as evil. For example, what are her actual crimes: conducting lesson observations of fellow staff? Holding staff accountable for their performance and the progress of pupils, and removing them from post if they are not up to scratch? Ensuring that the curriculum is standardized? Essentially, all things that normal teachers do in normal schools to meet the teachers’ standards and provide robust education systems. However, she is utterly vilified for doing so: so much so that Rowling chooses to portray her as committing the ultimate teacher-sin – failing to safeguard students and actually physically assaulting them in her detentions. This is a choice the author has made: to show traditional schooling and education standards as petty compared to the great, heroic things that the rest of the Hogwarts teachers inspire the heard with. The irony is that Umbridge is certainly the only member of staff who would even pass a PGCE, let alone be promoted to senior leadership, in real life. Yet again, we see the dichotomy in action, reinforcing that subliminal message that traditional education is nasty, negative and pointless.

The glass ceiling must be broken and education needs to be esteemed once more. The conditioning we’ve been subjected to through popular culture has not helped, but now we have been enlightened to our ignorance. The great irony is that if we enjoy the ride, stop seeing education as a means to end, but rather an end in itself, then you will get further in life if you have become a fully rounded person with a broad cultural capital. Take umbrage with Umbridge: value your current opportunities and enjoy learning your subjects even if you never need to use that information again.

#teaching #englishteaching #cultural capital #tedxtalks #heroteachers #doloresumbridge #johnkeating #deadpoetssociety #bad education #socrates #knowledge #teachingandlearning #pedagogy #academia

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tipsycad147 · 3 years ago

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Elizabeth Frauncis

lEizabeth Francis, Fraunces, Frauncis or Frances, In Scotland and England during the sixteenth century spelling was haphazard leading to many words, places and names having several variations. Modern-day texts often use an anglicised version. (c. 1529–1579) was an English woman who was tried three times for witchcraft at the Chelmsford Assizes in Essex. Declared guilty on each occasion, her first two sentences, in 1566 and 1573, were for her to be imprisoned for a year during which she was to be placed in a pillory four times. In 1579, together with three other women, she was charged with bewitchment and murder by witchcraft. She was executed by hanging, probably within days of her third trial.

Each of Elizabeth’s trials is noteworthy for different reasons. Her first was not only the first prosecution under the new Witchcraft Act 1563 – which stipulated capital punishment for those found guilty of causing death by magical means – but the accused were also immortalised in the oldest surviving chapbook on the topic of witches, “The examination and confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde“. The first pamphlet to cover witchcraft in England,[13] the chapbook was published in three parts throughout August 1566; it gives an accurate reflection of the indictments held at the Public Records Office. Following her third trial thirteen years later, at which she pleaded her innocence, Elizabeth was featured in another pamphlet, “A Detection of Damnable Driftes“.

Despite the Act mandating that a guilty verdict handed down for a second offence of witchcraft was punishable by death, at her second trial Elizabeth received the more lenient sentence of a year in gaol, owing to errors in the drafting of her indictment.

Depiction of Elizabeth Francis with her grandmother, whom she claimed taught her witchcraft Source: Witchcraft in England 1558-1618

Personal life

lEizabeth Francis, Fraunces, Frauncis or Frances, was born in about 1529. A resident of the small village of Hatfield Peverel, about five miles (8 km) north-east of Chelmsford, when Elizabeth was twelve-years-old, her grandmother, Eve, had schooled her in the skills of witchcraft. Eve also gave her a pet cat.

Possessing a poor reputation and of low character, Elizabeth’s impoverished circumstances meant she often resorted to begging or had to rely on poor relief. She had a brief sexual relationship with Andrew Byles, whom she considered to be wealthy, but he refused to marry her. Worried that she might be having his child, Elizabeth took herbal remedies that would induce an abortion if she had conceived. Shortly afterwards, the assets of Byles dwindled and he soon died.

Later, Elizabeth was married to Christopher Francis, a yeoman The couple had one child a daughter, who was born around three months after the pair were married but the baby died when about six months old. Married life was a constant round of heated arguments with her husband, who had a surly disposition.

First trial

Details of Elizabeth’s first trial, held at Chelmsford Assizes, are documented in the chapbook “The examination and confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde“. She was charged under the Witchcraft Act 1563 of bewitching a child, which mandated the death penalty for witches who killed by using magic. It also prescribed that the method of execution should be hanging instead of burning, and that for non-fatal incidents the guilty receive a sentence of incarceration for a year during which they would also spend time in the stocks; Usually they were confined in the pillory for a period of six hours, four times during the 12 month sentence however, if the lesser offence was repeated, a death penalty would be applied. The first major English trial prosecuted under the new Act, proceedings were conducted by an array of prestigious judges, setting a precedent for later trials The four presiding judges were a local dignitary Reverend Thomas Cole, (a strict Calvinist and Archdeacon of Essex from 1559[21]) and Sir John Fortesque, who at the time was keeper of the great wardrobe to Queen Elizabeth, later elevated to Chancellor of the Exchequer; on the second day, judgement was overseen by the Attorney General, Sir Gilbert Gerard together with a Justice of the Queen’s Bench, John Southcote.

Confession and verdict

Elizabeth readily confessed to a variety of wrongdoings. She explained that when she was a child her grandmother, then deceased, instructed her to renounce God and gave her a cat called Sathan. The white-spotted feline spoke to her in a strange hollow voice, promising to fulfil her needs. Normally fed bread and milk, the creature’s diet was supplemented with Elizabeth’s blood. Sathan provided her with livestock – eighteen black and white sheep – that Elizabeth kept in a field for a while, but she did not know what happened to them; the animals just eventually disappeared.

Sathan was, according to the testimony Elizabeth gave to her inquisitors, responsible for enticing Byles into the relationship with her, his loss of wealth, his death and the cat supplied the recipe of herbs needed to terminate any possible pregnancy. At her request, the creature also killed Elizabeth’s baby daughter then, by transforming itself into a toad, caused her husband to become incurably lame.

The final thing she told the justices was that she offered to give Sathan to a poor elderly neighbour, Agnes Waterhouse,– who it was later discovered was her older sister – as recompense for one of the cakes she had seen her baking. Insisting that the story she was growing tired of looking after the cat – Elizabeth had owned it for fifteen or sixteen years by then – was not true, when the sixty-four-year-old agreed to the transaction, she gave her the cat passing on the same instructions for its care as she had received from her grandmother.

Declared guilty of the original charge against her – that of bewitching John, the baby son of another resident of Hatfield Peveril, William Auger, until the child was paralysed – Elizabeth was sentenced to imprisonment for one year plus sessions in the stocks.

Second trial

In 1572, Elizabeth again came to the attention of the authorities when she was accused of using witchcraft to make a woman ill.Her victim, a miller’s wife named Mary Cocke, was severely incapacitated for ten days following the incident on 25 March and feared she was not going to survive. Elizabeth was arrested with her case scheduled to be heard at Chelmsford Assizes in August. The court was very busy during that session – several other witchcraft cases were being heard: one against a woman with four serious charges against her; The woman being prosecuted was Agnes Francis, who may have been Elizabeth’s sister-in-law; she was charged with killing two women, a man and a horse by witchcraft between October 1566 and March 1572. She was deemed guilty but was pregnant so was remanded. a married couple facing a string of bewitchment accusations John and Joan Salmon faced several charges, jointly and separately, of maiming men and killing livestock

And another adult female who allegedly induced serious illness in livestock and a woman Agnes Steadman The documentation for Elizabeth’s case was not correctly presented necessitating the indictment be rewritten. This delayed her trial until 2 March 1573

The revised paperwork was presented at court on 2 March 1573; however, a key component from the original indictment, that of it being Elizabeth’s second offence, was omitted. The legislation in the 1563 Witchcraft Act stipulated the death penalty for subsequent misdemeanours, yet despite the case being heard by one of the judges from her first trial Sitting at the bench were Justice of the Queen’s Bench, John Southcote, – who had overseen her trial in 1566 and Robert Monson her punishment was once more that she be jailed for a year with periods in the stocks. Historians differ on whether the plea was innocent or guilty: Peter Maxwell-Stuart indicates Elizabeth pleaded guilty to the charge whereas Cecil L’Estrange Ewen and Rossell Hope Robbins state she claimed innocence. The leniency of her sentence is especially noteworthy as the judges had no qualms prescribing the death penalty for three others declared guilty of witchcraft at the same time. The three incurring the death penalty were: Catherine Pullen, William and Margery Skelton. All were accused of killing a variety of people by witchcraft

Third trial

he illustration from the pamphlet “A Detection of Damnable Driftes” of the shaggy dog apparition seen by Elizabeth Source: Witchcraft in England 1558-1618

By 18 March 1574, Elizabeth had served her sentence and returned to Hatfield Peverel. Four years later, in 1578, she is documented as a spinster and, unlike in earlier records, no reference is made to a spouse or partner.[ Villagers remained convinced that any unfortunate incident or sickness could be attributed to witchcraft or magic; paupers like Elizabeth, who mainly supported themselves by begging from neighbours, instilled a sense of terror by angrily cursing or bitterly responding if their pleas for sustenance were refused.

On one such occasion during Lent in 1578, Elizabeth approached Alice Poole begging for some old yeast; when Alice refused, Elizabeth headed off to try another villager, loudly cursing against and expressing a desire for Alice to suffer. There was a loud noise followed immediately by an apparition in the form of a white shaggy dog appearing beside Elizabeth. She conversed with the creature, rewarding it with a tiny morsel of bread after it promised to cause pain to Alice’s head. Elizabeth never saw the dog again but she later discovered from another villager that Alice was suffering with severe head pains that started not long after the incident.

An accusation was made against Elizabeth on 26 June 1578 alleging she had bewitched Alice, although at that time her victim was only ill; she subsequently died from the affliction on 1 November. Elizabeth was apprehended but the first hearing of her case did not take place until the Quarter Sessions at Chelmsford on 8 January 1579 where it was endorsed to be tried at the Chelmsford Assizes on 2 April.

At the trial the presiding judges were both Justices of the Queens Bench, John Southcote and Sir Thomas Gawdy. Only one charge was made against her: she caused the death of Richard Poole’s wife, Alice, by means of witchcraft.[38] Elizabeth pleaded her innocence naming two other women from Hatfield Peverel as witches, possibly in the hope it would help her cause, but no action was taken against either of them. She was deemed guilty and the death penalty by hanging was enacted, probably within a couple of days of her sentencing. She named Elizabeth Lord, claiming she bewitched two people to death, and Mother Osborne, who she identified as a witch because she had seen witches marks on her finger and leg.

Three other women faced accusations of witchcraft in the same session; two were hanged and the third was not tried due to a technicality in the drafting of her indictment. Ellen Smith was declared guilty of bewitching a four-year-old child to death and Alice Nokes faced a similar charge; both were hanged. Margery Stanton was released Around two weeks after the trial, on 15 April, another pamphlet was produced, “A Detection of Damnable Driftes“, detailing the the cases of the four women with Elizabeth as the principle character.

Modern interpretations

Writing in the early part of the twentieth-century, Wallace Notestein, an American scholar of British literature and historian, suggests elements of the first trial in 1566 are more likely to appeal to specialists in psychology rather than historians.[22] He further argues that there is the possibility Elizabeth had associations with powerful figures in the area or that she was afforded leniency for initiating the case against her neighbour. The prosecutors may also have discounted much of her confession as it could not be verified by other witnesses

Academic Peter Maxwell-Stuart speculates the lesser punishment may have been applied as the jury did not grasp the inference concerning her familiar, Sathan, made to demonstrating actions forbidden by the Witchcraft Act, that of summoning spirits. Another American historian, Jeffrey Burton Russell, feels the first trial typified many of the witchcraft proceedings in England: “the absurdity of the charges, the emphasis upon the familiar, … …” Scholar and specialist in early modern English witchcraft, James Sharpe likens Elizabeth’s familiar with that of the Devil reported twenty-five years later in the North Berwick case of Agnes Sampson; both offered the women paltry increases in wealth and the tales have roots in folklore but also reflect material provided by interrogators.

Writing from the perspective of a radical feminist, British historian Marianne Hester considers that the wording “waste his goodes”, included as Elizabeth’s words in the pamphlet about her first trial, should be interpreted as causing her lover to become impotent. As the two pamphlets concentrate principally on Elizabeth, despite being almost thirteen years apart and the work of different printers, both may stem from the same source.

Bibliography

Ewen, Cecil L’Estrange.

Witchcraft and Demonism

. Reprint of 1933 edition, Kessinger, 2003.Ewen, C. L’Estrange.

Witch Hunting and Witch Trials: The Indictments for Witchcraft from the Records of 1373 Assizes Held for the Home Court 1559-1736 AD

. Routledge, 2011.Gibson, Marion.

Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing

. Routledge, 2000.Gibson, Marion.

Reading Witchcraft. Stories of Early English Witches

. Routledge, 2005.Gibson, Marion. “Essex Witches (Act. 1566–1589).”

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

, vol. 1, Oxford University Press, 2004, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70257.Hester, Marianne.

Lewd Women and Wicked Witches: A Study of the Dynamics of Male Domination

. Routledge, 1992.Hume, Lynne, and Nevill Drury.

The Varieties of Magical Experience: Indigenous, Medieval, and Modern Magic

. Praeger, 2013.Kors, Alan Charles, and Edward Peters.

Witchcraft in Europe, 400–1700: A Documentary History

. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.Maxwell-Stuart, Peter.

The British Witch

. Amberley Publishing Limited, 2014.Normand, Lawrence, and Gareth Roberts.

Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI’s Demonology and the North Berwick Witches

. University of Exeter Press, 2000.Notestein, Wallace.

A History of Witchcraft In England from 1558 to 1718

. American Historical Association 1911 (reissued 1965) New York Russell & Russell, 1911.Pavlac, Brian Alexander.

Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials

. Greenwood Press, 2009.Robbins, Rossell Hope.

The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology

. Girard et Stewart, 2015.Rosen, Barbara.

Witchcraft in England, 1558-1618

. University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.Rosenthal, Laura J. “The Whore’s Estate: Sally Salisbury, Prostitution, and Property in Eighteenth-Century London.”

Women, Property and the Letters of the Law in Early Modern England

, edited by Margaret W. Ferguson et al., University of Toronto Press, 2004.Russell, Jeffrey Burton, and Brooks Alexander.

A History of Witchcraft, Sorcerers, Heretics & Pagans

. 2nd ed., Thames & Hudson, 2007.Sharpe, James. “Witch-Hunting and Witch Historiography: Some Anglo-Scottish Comparisons.”

The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context

, Manchester University Press, 2002, pp. 182–197.The College of Wooster. “English Historical Library of Wallace Notestein.”

Wooster

https://www.wooster.edu/academics/libraries/collections/collections/notestein/english/

. Accessed 30 Sept. 2019.University of York.

James Sharpe

https://www.york.ac.uk/history/staff/emeritus-honorary/sharpe/

. Accessed 5 Oct. 2019.Woolley, Penny. “Reviewed Work: Lewd Women and Wicked Witches.”

Sociology

, vol. 27, no. 3, Aug. 1993, pp. 558–60,

www.jstor.org/stable/42855256

https://engole.info/elizabeth-francis-witch/#f+22276+1+h

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years ago

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Stop Blaming Tuskegee, Critics Say. It’s Not an ‘Excuse’ for Current Medical Racism.

For months, journalists, politicians and health officials — including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Dr. Anthony Fauci — have invoked the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study to explain why Black Americans are more hesitant than white Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine.

This story is from a partnership that includes NPR, KQED and KHN. It can be republished for free.

“It’s ‘Oh, Tuskegee, Tuskegee, Tuskegee,’ and it’s mentioned every single time,” said Karen Lincoln, a professor of social work at the University of Southern California and founder of Advocates for African American Elders. “We make these assumptions that it’s Tuskegee. We don’t ask people.”

When she asks Black seniors in Los Angeles about the vaccine, Tuskegee rarely comes up. People in the community talk about contemporary racism and barriers to health care, she said, while it seems to be mainly academics and officials who are preoccupied with the history of Tuskegee.

“It’s a scapegoat,” Lincoln said. “It’s an excuse. If you continue to use it as a way of explaining why many African Americans are hesitant, it almost absolves you of having to learn more, do more, involve other people — admit that racism is actually a thing today.”

It’s the health inequities of today that Maxine Toler, 72, hears about when she asks her friends and neighbors in Los Angeles what they think about the vaccine. As president of her city’s senior advocacy council and her neighborhood block club, Toler said she and most of the other Black seniors she talks with want the vaccine but are having trouble getting it. And that alone sows mistrust, she said.

Toler said the Black people she knows who don’t want the vaccine have very modern reasons for not wanting it. They talk about religious beliefs, safety concerns or a distrust of former U.S. President Donald Trump and his contentious relationship with science. Only a handful mention Tuskegee, she said, and when they do, they’re fuzzy on the details of what happened during the 40-year study.

“If you ask them ‘What was it about?’ and ‘Why do you feel like it would impact your receiving the vaccine?’ they can’t even tell you,” she said.

Toler knows the details, but she said that history is a distraction from today’s effort to get people vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“It’s almost the opposite of Tuskegee,” she said. “Because they were being denied treatment. And this is like, we’re pushing people forward: Go and get this vaccine. We want everybody to be protected from covid.”

Questioning the Modern Uses of the Tuskegee Legacy

The “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” was a government-sponsored, taxpayer-funded study that began in 1932. Some people believe that researchers injected the men with syphilis, but that’s not true. Rather, the scientists recruited 399 Black men from Alabama who already had the disease.

Researchers told the men they had come to Tuskegee to cure “bad blood,” but never told them they had syphilis. And, the government doctors never intended to cure the men. Even when an effective treatment for syphilis — penicillin — became widely available in the 1940s, the researchers withheld it from the infected men and continued the study for decades, determined to track the disease to its endpoint: autopsy.

By the time the study was exposed and shut down in 1972, 128 of the men involved had died from syphilis or related complications, and 40 of their wives and 19 children had become infected.

Given this horrific history, many scientists assumed Black people would want nothing to do with the medical establishment again, particularly clinical research. Over the next three decades, various books, articles and films repeated this assumption until it became gospel.

“That was a false assumption,” said Dr. Rueben Warren, director of the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care at Tuskegee University in Alabama, and former associate director of minority health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1988 to 1997.

A few researchers began to question this assumption at a 1994 bioethics conference, where almost all the speakers seemed to accept it as a given. The doubters asked, what kind of scientific evidence is there to support the notion that Black people would refuse to participate in research because of Tuskegee?

When those researchers did a comprehensive search of the existing literature, they found nothing.

“It was apparently a ‘fact’ known more in the gut than in the head,” wrote lead doubter Dr. Ralph Katz, an epidemiologist at the New York University College of Dentistry.

So Katz formed a research team to look for this evidence. They completed a series of studies over the next 14 years, focused mainly on surveying thousands of people across seven cities, from Baltimore to San Antonio to Tuskegee.

The conclusions were definitive: While Black people were twice as “wary” of participating in research, compared with white people, they were equally willing to participate when asked. And there was no association between knowledge of Tuskegee and willingness to participate.

“The hesitancy is there, but the refusal is not. And that’s an important difference,” said Warren, who later joined Katz in editing a book about the research. “Hesitant, yes. But not refusal.”

Tuskegee was not the deal breaker everyone thought it was.

These results did not go over well within academic and government research circles, Warren said, as they “indicted and contradicted” the common belief that low minority enrollment in research was the result of Tuskegee.

“That was the excuse that they used,” Warren said. “If I don’t want to go to the extra energy, resources to include the population, I can simply say they were not interested. They refused.”

If you say Tuskegee, then you don’t have to acknowledge things like pharmacy deserts, things like poverty and unemployment,

Karen Lincoln

Now researchers had to confront the shortcomings of their own recruitment methods. Many of them never invited Black people to participate in their studies in the first place. When they did, they often did not try very hard. For example, two studies of cardiovascular disease offered enrollment to more than 2,000 white people, compared with no more than 30 people from minority groups.

“We have a tendency to use Tuskegee as a scapegoat, for us, as researchers, not doing what we need to do to ensure that people are well educated about the benefits of participating in a clinical trial,” said B. Lee Green, vice president of diversity at Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida, who worked on the early research debunking the assumptions about Tuskegee’s legacy.

“There may be individuals in the community who absolutely remember Tuskegee, and we should not discount that,” he said. But hesitancy “is more related to individuals’ lived experiences, what people live each and every day.”

‘It’s What Happened to Me Yesterday’

Some of the same presumptions that were made about clinical research are resurfacing today around the coronavirus vaccine. A lot of hesitancy is being confused for refusal, Warren said. And so many of the entrenched structural barriers that limit access to the vaccine in Black communities are not sufficiently addressed.

Tuskegee is once again being used as a scapegoat, said Lincoln, the USC sociologist.

“If you say ‘Tuskegee,’ then you don’t have to acknowledge things like pharmacy deserts, things like poverty and unemployment,” she said. “You can just say, ‘That happened then … and there’s nothing we can do about it.'”

She said the contemporary failures of the health care system are more pressing and causing more mistrust than the events of the past.

“It’s what happened to me yesterday,” she said. “Not what happened in the ’50s or ’60s, when Tuskegee was actually active.”

The seniors she works with complain to her all the time about doctors dismissing their concerns or talking down to them, and nurses answering the hospital call buttons for their white roommates more often than for them.

As a prime example of the unequal treatment Black people receive, they point to the recent Facebook Live video of Dr. Susan Moore. When Moore, a geriatrician and family medicine physician from Indiana, got covid-19, she filmed herself from her hospital bed, an oxygen tube in her nose. She told the camera that she had to beg her physician to continue her course of remdesivir, the drug that speeds recovery from the disease.

“He said, ‘Ah, you don’t need it. You’re not even short of breath.’ I said ‘Yes, I am,'” Moore said into the camera. “I put forward and I maintain, if I was white, I wouldn’t have to go through that.”

Moore died two weeks later.

“She knew what kind of treatment she should be getting and she wasn’t getting it,” said Toler of L.A., contrasting Moore’s treatment with the care Trump received.

“We saw it up close and personal with the president, that he got the best of everything. They cured him in a couple of days, and our people are dying like flies.”

Toler and her neighbors said that the same inequity is playing out with the vaccine. Three months into the vaccine rollout, Black people made up about 3% of Californians who had received the vaccination, even though they account for 6.2% of the state’s covid deaths.

The first mass-vaccination sites set up in the Los Angeles area — at Dodger Stadium and at Disneyland — are difficult to get to from Black neighborhoods without a car. And you practically needed a computer science degree to get an early dose, as snagging an online appointment required navigating a confusing interface or constantly refreshing the portal.

White, affluent people have been snatching up appointments, even at clinics intended for hard-hit Black and Latino communities, while people of color have had trouble getting through.

It’s stories like these, of unequal treatment and barriers to care, that stoke mistrust, Lincoln said. “And the word travels fast when people have negative experiences. They share it.”

To address this mistrust will require a paradigm shift, said Warren of Tuskegee University. If you want Black people to trust doctors and trust the vaccine, don’t blame them for their distrust, he said. The obligation is on health institutions to first show they are trustworthy: to listen, take responsibility, show accountability and stop making excuses. That, he added, means providing information about the vaccine without being paternalistic and making the vaccine easy to access in Black communities.

“Prove yourself trustworthy and trust will follow,” he said.

This story is from a partnership that includes NPR, KQED and KHN.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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Evaluation: Trump's been enjoying the pardon lengthy sport his total presidency “Why would I take it off the desk?” Trump had stated on the peak of investigators’ stress for witnesses within the Russia investigation, Mueller famous in his closing report. The particular counsel regarded intently at whether or not Trump was obstructing justice by dangling pardons for his former advisers Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn — then all targets of the investigation. However these kinds of hints-in-progress would not come to fruition till Trump’s closing weeks as President, lengthy after Mueller’s work ended and the advisers sided with loyalism to Trump over the FBI and different investigators’ issues of election safety. The pardons additionally assist Trump make his case that the Mueller investigation ought to be discredited — even when its intensive findings about Russian interference, the Trump marketing campaign’s receptiveness to it and Trump’s makes an attempt to derail Mueller have held up beneath scrutiny. “Mr. Manafort has endured years of unfair therapy and is among the most distinguished victims of what has been revealed to be maybe the best witch hunt in American historical past,” the White Home wrote on Wednesday in its clemency announcement for a person who hid hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from the US authorities and as an alternative spent the cash on ostrich and python pelt outerwear and karaoke methods. And for Stone, who appeared to relish the limelight of his trial and booked an interview on Fox Information Wednesday evening, “Pardoning him will assist to proper the injustices he confronted by the hands of the Mueller investigation.” Virtually two years in the past, when Mueller’s investigation had ended, the particular counsel’s workplace was tripped up in its closing report from saying clearly the implications of what Trump had completed — partly due to Justice Division coverage that the President could not be indicted but in addition due to the timing of politics and an lack of ability to learn Trump’s thoughts. But Mueller documented extensively how a lot Trump had made identified to advisers to not flip on him or on the marketing campaign. Trump’s private counsel John Dowd had handed a message to Manafort and his deputy and co-defendant Rick Gates, for example, that they need to “sit tight” and could be “taken care of” when Mueller’s staff pushed for plea offers and cooperation, as conservatives gathered a authorized protection fund so the 2 may refuse and go to trial, in keeping with the Mueller report and witness interview memos obtained by CNN and Buzzfeed. Gates flipped first, and Manafort later, after he was convicted by a jury on a number of monetary fraud prices associated to his years of profitable political consulting in Ukraine. Manafort agreed to cooperate with Mueller, solely to then misinform the grand jury and investigators, nonetheless blocking them from attending to the underside of his ties to Russia in 2016. He served nearly two years in jail earlier than being launched to residence confinement due to the coronavirus. Gates acquired commendations from a federal decide and prosecutors for telling the reality about his crimes and Manafort’s and the marketing campaign’s actions. He has not acquired a pardon. Trump’s tweets and public statements about this a part of the Mueller probe had been a few of his most specific: at a rally, cheering a decide who questioned Mueller’s intentions; writing on Twitter “very unfair!” and “I really feel very badly” for his charged associates. “He refused to ‘break’—make up tales to be able to get a ‘deal.’ Such respect for a courageous man,” Trump tweeted following Manafort’s conviction at trial, earlier than the previous marketing campaign supervisor signed a plea deal in a associated case, admitting all his monetary and lobbying crimes. Trump that week was reeling from the announcement that one other former adviser, Michael Cohen, had grow to be a federal cooperator and implicated the President in a marketing campaign finance scheme. Cohen additionally has not acquired a pardon. In the course of the Mueller investigation, the President was additionally applauding Stone publicly for having the “guts” to not cooperate. Stone by no means did, and Mueller may by no means nail down what Trump and Stone talked about throughout the marketing campaign, or if Stone was profitable in his makes an attempt to weaponize leaks of Democratic emails for Trump. One other personal lawyer for Trump, Rudy Giuliani, stated throughout the Mueller probe that Trump would nonetheless have the pardon energy after Mueller ended his work. Trump may use it, Giuliani stated, if the President believed his convicted advisers had been handled unfairly. But pardons weren’t ripe then, in the midst of the presidency. It could have been a political third rail. Manafort’s crimes had been sweeping, banking and tax swindles partly outdoors of politics and largely predating his work for Trump. Even a Trump supporter on his jury had voted to convict him. Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham two years in the past known as a pardon for Manafort a “catastrophe for the President.” And Stone’s crimes, additionally confirmed to a jury past an inexpensive doubt, had first affected a Republican-held Home of Representatives in 2017. “In our establishments of self-governance, courts of legislation or committee hearings, the place individuals beneath oath must testify, fact nonetheless issues,” Michael Marando, then a prosecutor in Trump’s personal Justice Division, argued at Stone’s trial for his conviction. Trump’s preliminary grant to commute Stone’s sentence this summer time was critiqued even by the usually reticent Mueller, a longtime Republican bureaucrat. “Russian efforts to intervene in our political system, and the important query of whether or not these efforts concerned the Trump marketing campaign, required investigation … When a topic lies to investigators, it strikes on the core of the federal government’s efforts to search out the reality and maintain wrongdoers accountable,” the previous particular counsel wrote in a Washington Submit op-ed following Stone’s commutation. “Stone was prosecuted and convicted as a result of he dedicated federal crimes. He stays a convicted felon, and rightly so.” Following the announcement of Manafort and Stone pardons Wednesday, the response has been considerably extra muted to date. One Republican senator, Ben Sasse, has spoken up, calling it “rotten to the core” in an announcement. Andrew Weissmann, the chief prosecutor over Manafort’s case, wrote in a tweet Wednesday evening, “The pardons from this President are what you’d anticipate to get should you gave the pardon energy to a mob boss.” He additionally inspired prosecutors to subpoena Manafort and Stone as witnesses for grand jury testimony about Trump. Aaron Zelinsky, a pacesetter on the trial staff for Stone who turned a congressional whistleblower alleging improper political interference within the case by Justice Division leaders who needed to appease Trump, declined to remark by his lawyer. Mueller and his representatives did not reply to a request for remark. It is doable Trump’s pardon may nonetheless be investigated, particularly if investigators have purpose to imagine bribes had been provided or accepted. One pardon-bribery case is thought to have been explored in regards to the Trump period by prosecutors, although no prices have resulted, no pardon was given, and court docket information describing investigators’ steps did not implicate Trump or his shut advisers. Even when Trump’s pardons this week accomplished an try at obstruction by the President, any doable penalties could grow to be overdue with the tip of the presidency. Justice Division management has already declined to prosecute the President for obstruction, and the Democratic-held Home primarily placed on ice Mueller-related impeachment proceedings in 2019. Plus, reviving these pursuits would elevate thorny authorized questions on government energy. In the long run, particularly if it is the final main assertion on the topic, Trump’s pardon lengthy sport and embrace of his bully pulpit labored. Stone, Manafort, Flynn and others by no means totally divulged to the FBI or to the Mueller investigation their full information of the marketing campaign’s willingness to just accept Russian interference within the 2016 election or about different contacts with Russia. They’re nonetheless railing in regards to the Deep State of the US authorities, whereas the presidential administration has repeatedly regarded previous causes to be involved about election interference, particularly from Russia. It was “espresso boy” Papadopoulos whose lawyer made the clearest argument in actual time about what Trump was doing, evident even within the first days of his presidency. “On January twentieth, the President of the USA, the commander in chief, he informed the world that this was faux information and a witch hunt. Seven days later [Papadopoulos]’s introduced in for the interview. The President of the USA hindered this investigation greater than George Papadopoulos ever may,” protection lawyer Thomas Breen stated at Papadopoulos’ sentencing listening to in September 2018. “My level is that this,” Papadopoulos’ lawyer continued, “The man he labored for, who he needed to see President of the USA, is telling everyone that the investigation these fellas talked to him about is faux. And that is the mindset moving into there” when Papadopoulos lied to the FBI. This week, following his pardon, Papadopoulos thanked Trump for his clemency, and repeated his perception there was a “Russia hoax.” Supply hyperlink #Analysis #entire #Game #Long #pardon #Playing #Politics #Presidency #Trump'sbeenplayingthepardonlonggamehisentirepresidency-CNNPolitics #Trumps

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dailynewswebsite · 4 years ago

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20/20 vision needed in 2020: How this U.S. election compares to other tumultuous votes

This mix of Sept. 29, 2020, file pictures present President Donald Trump, left, and former Vice President Joe Biden throughout the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio. (AP Picture/Patrick Semansky)

Sharp-eyed 20/20 imaginative and prescient has been onerous to take care of within the maelstrom of 2020, with each day fears and passions usually clouding evaluation.

Right here’s one useful instrument on one high-profile occasion: Because the American presidential marketing campaign concludes, a measure of depth and context will be utilized to the chaos by evaluating the Donald Trump-Joe Biden battle to tumultuous U.S. elections of the previous.

People have been whiplashed by crises in 2020. The COVID-19 cyclone alone has been traumatic: There have been properly over 200,000 deaths (and counting), staggering financial injury, together with layoffs and enterprise failures, and psychological well being challenges (for instance, a report variety of lethal opioid overdoses), to call only a handful of the pandemic-fuelled tribulations.

Add in compounding stresses like flareups in racial tensions and concrete protests towards systemic racism. Wrap every thing up in an election yr that by no means promised calm waters because of Trump’s voracious urge for food for provocation on immigration, taxes, well being care and a number of different points.

The hypnotic grasp of the each day information cycle has been additional intensified by the president’s behaviour since his constructive COVID-19 prognosis. The coronavirus has invaded the White Home and its occupants have had no qualms about sharing it.

Given Trump’s simultaneous refusal to pledge he’ll settle for the outcomes of the election, it’s tempting to see a Recreation of Thrones-like state of affairs unfolding. For these accustomed to the tv model of the George R.R. Martin saga, the Sept. 26 Rose Backyard celebration of Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Courtroom nomination grew to become one thing of a Purple Marriage ceremony second when a horde of contributors have been felled, no less than quickly, by COVID-19.

Quick ahead to a Nov. three Battle of Winterfell, with the president, his “stand by” Proud Boys, and constant Republican “white walkers” gearing up for fight.

People have been right here earlier than

And but for all the present chaos, the USA has skilled moments like this earlier than — and an consciousness of this historical past might assist put 2020 into perspective.

The 1824 election is an early instance of problematic volatility in American political historical past. There have been 4 main candidates, all self-identified as members of a crumbling Democratic-Republican Social gathering. One nominee was disabled by a stroke, however remained within the race — and the election was thrown into the Home of Representatives when no candidate obtained a majority within the Electoral School.

Issues then went from dangerous to worse. Andrew Jackson, main strongly within the well-liked vote, was denied victory when Henry Clay (who had positioned fourth within the well-liked vote) threw his help to John Quincy Adams. Jackson supporters noticed a “corrupt discount” as Adams then named “Judas” Clay as his secretary of state.

The 1824 election showdown between Andrew Jackson (left) and John Quincy Adams (proper) was notoriously nasty and chaotic. (Inventive Commons)

Vitriolic campaigning by no means let up on the highway to the 1828 election. Jackson was castigated as a drunk adulterer married to a bigamist; Adams was denounced as an effete “academician” carrying silk underwear. Adams’ spouse was additionally accused of being born out of wedlock.

1860’s election spurred a conflict

Adams’ presidency was usually hamstrung by 1824’s fallout. In 1860, the U.S. election had exponentially extra disastrous outcomes. Unhealthy went not simply to worse, however to hell.

The presidential contest was troubled sufficient: 4 main candidates (once more) as a disbanded Democratic conference in Charleston, S.C., gave approach to an imploding second attempt in Baltimore.

Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans gained the 1860 election, ensuing within the Civil Warfare. (Library of Congress)

Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans gained, however the U.S. Civil Warfare was the consequence as southern states moved to secede. The devastation of the four-year battle was unparalleled in American expertise — and stays so. “Immense the butcher’s invoice has been,” wrote younger Lieut. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., his ideas echoed by many others because the demise toll climbed to 750,000.

Lincoln’s election, in fact, was not the foundation reason behind the Civil Warfare — although he was denounced as “that damned long-armed ape” in some quarters. The 1860 vote, quite the opposite, offers an instance of the way in which a troubled election, then and now, generally is a symptom of deeper volatility; on this case, an emblem of the profound tensions emanating from points like slavery and sectional struggles over authorities insurance policies for financial improvement.

1968: Richard Nixon re-emerges

So does the election of 1968 — one other occasion that unfolded as volcanic tremors shook American society. Protests spurred by the Vietnam Warfare drove Lyndon Johnson into retirement; there have been riots in additional than 100 cities amid the civil rights motion; the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. stoked outrage, grief and nervousness.

On the Democratic conference in Chicago, violent road clashes shocked tv viewers. A “police riot” was broadly condemned, with Mayor Richard Daley’s Windy Metropolis strong-arm method contrasting half-absurdly, half-horrifyingly with nominee Hubert Humphrey’s name for a “politics of pleasure.”

A take a look at the police violence towards anti-war protesters on the Democratic conference in 1968, courtesy of Democracy Now.

Richard Nixon and the Republicans cast a successful marketing campaign technique that paired “legislation and order” (the very phrases again in play in 2020) with a “secret plan” to finish the Vietnam ordeal.

That was accompanied by a “southern technique” designed to carry white voters into the GOP (an method that is still a celebration mainstay).

On this Aug. 9, 1974, photograph, President Richard Nixon waves goodbye from the steps of his helicopter exterior the White Home, after he gave a farewell handle to members of the White Home employees after asserting his resignation. (AP Picture/Chick Harrity)

There have been different risky elections: 1800, 1912, 1952, 2000 and 2016, for instance. Their disruptive tensions have taken their toll. Tooth-and-nail presidential battles have generally been adopted by horrible penalties — together with the horrors of the Civil Warfare (and Iraq) and the resistance to social and financial reforms that often tarnished the nation’s post-Despair and post-Nice Society historical past.

The heavy weight of the previous

Of equal significance, particularly because the challenges of 2020 are contemplated, is the sheer burdensome weight of the previous. Weaknesses in political processes are as outdated because the U.S. Structure itself (together with the periodic failure of “checks and balances” or the monkey wrenches lurking within the Electoral School).

The racism that poisoned the ambiance in 1860 has remained tragically potent ever since — simply because it was earlier than the Civil Warfare, in fact. It’s unimaginable to pinpoint the origins of different inequities nonetheless plaguing American society, straining the protection and limiting the alternatives of girls, folks of color, the poor, LGBTQ+ residents and the disabled.

Barack Obama takes the oath of workplace at his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009. (Grasp Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo, U.S. Air Power/Flickr)

Regardless of the woeful permutations of 2020 up to now, this troubled election is once more serving as a symptom and an emblem of a troubled society. Barack Obama was elected in 2008 on a wave of “hope and alter,” and but amid the tumult 2020, that optimism appears a distant reminiscence. No matter this yr’s fast outcomes, historical past suggests something however a fast decision to deeply rooted issues.

Ronald W. Pruessen doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their educational appointment.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/20-20-vision-needed-in-2020-how-this-u-s-election-compares-to-other-tumultuous-votes/ via https://growthnews.in

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