#though the women in workshops book that i read a while ago was talking about europe in general

[oodlenoodleroodle]

Another manly king-queen of interest and inspiration could be Queen Christina of Sweden (bonus points for queer readings: she very much wanted to be a man, had possibly romantic connections with both men and women, and abhorred sex), which also provides interesting insights into the way religion complicated the lives of medieval people.

Another thing about women and craftspeople specifically. The burghers/bourgeoise was centered in towns, where they had their businesses and guilds and political organisation. And for a large majority of the trades the master's wife and daughters as well as sons helped at the workshop, especially if there was small and fiddly things to do like with goldsmithing/silversmithing, or if it was something like weavers who would have as many looms as they could fit and needed people to work the looms. Women in the family were labour – and really important and valuable labour in guilds that had rules against how many apprentices and journeymen the master could have, because wife and daughters didn't count in that number.

And usually a widow of a master inherited the right to keep the business running at least for a time (year and a day after her husband's death was a common one, but some were allowed to continue indefinitely) and a handy way to keep the workshop in the family was to marry a journeyman who aspired to be a master craftsman himself. Like, the guild was much more likely to grant a journeyman marrying a master's widow the right to continue the workshop than to give a random journeyman the right to start a new workshop from scratch. So for example my town in south of Finland has a long line of master pewterers who all always married the previous master's widow, and then married a new woman when the first one died.

all RIGHT:

Why You’re Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I’ll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren’t allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like “yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!” and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of “medieval history”. This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king’s daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien’s Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she’s being told not to fight, she stresses her class: “I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman”. She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been “born to command & govern the world”. Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women’s highest calling as marriage & children - the “angel in the house” ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have “the heart & stomach of a king” & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth’s time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager’s article “Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat” on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn’t the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself “not like other girls” you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women’s issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I’ve ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can’t wait to share it with you all!

[art-of-manliness]

Odds & Ends: April 28, 2023

David Whyte on finding your element. One of the insights I got from preparing for my interview with the poet David Whyte comes back to me regularly. He talks about how one of our symbols of beauty — the swan — is actually awkward when he walks; it is only when he enters a body of water that he glides with grace. The solution to your life feeling out of joint, Whyte observes, is not trying to work harder or be more productive, but moving toward the elemental waters where you belong. This excerpt from Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea, where he explains the idea further, is really worth a read. ENVY: A Theory of Social Behavior by Helmut Schoeck.  Envy is an emotion that everyone experiences, but no one likes to talk about; people would rather admit to almost any other vice. Sociologist and anthropologist Helmut Schoeck explores the psychology, sociology, and philosophy of envy in this 1969 book. He argues that envy is usually destructive but in some cases can be constructive. His most interesting insight is that, paradoxically, as things become more equal in a group, envy actually increases due to the narcissism of minor differences. De Tocqueville made a similar argument in Democracy in America. Envy is full of intellectual grit, and I’m still chewing on it despite reading it years ago.  UREVO 2 in 1 Under Desk Treadmill.  If you’re looking for a treadmill desk, but don’t have the budget or the room to get a full-size apparatus, check out the UREVO 2 in 1 Under Desk Treadmill. It’s compact, moveable, and you can even run on it (up to 7.6 mph), though we exclusively use it to walk while we work. We’ve got one under our standing desk and have really enjoyed it. Kate uses it when she’s editing the podcast; I use it when I’m answering emails and doing admin work. Great way to get your steps in and build that sleep pressure! “How Men Make Friends: Hammering Pieces of Wood Together, Plus Power Tools.” We’ve had a few podcast guests mention the “men’s shed” movement out of Australia. Basically, someone opens up a workshop where men can come and build stuff. One of the side effects is that men make friends, or at least socialize a bit. This WSJ article highlights the movement in the United States. From the article: “All share the motto ‘Shoulder to Shoulder,’ the premise being that men bond while working side by side, as opposed to women, who form friendships ‘Face to Face,’ by talking to each other.”  Quote of the Week It is foolish to try to live on past experience. It is very dangerous, if not a fatal habit, to judge ourselves to be safe because of something that we felt or did twenty years ago. —Charles H. Spurgeon The post Odds & Ends: April 28, 2023 appeared first on The Art of Manliness. http://dlvr.it/SnDVpt

[daidreamn]

tf2 hcs :)

this was mostly self indulgent

-dadspy/spy/scout

Spy teaches Scout all sorts of shit. Mostly French, knife tricks, and how to change his voice. Scout’s pretty good at the voice trick, but his accent gets in the way a lot.

Scout stumbles his words a lot. His brain is just going too fast. Spy actually refrains from teasing him about this because he’s really self-conscious about it.

Scout fucking sucks at fighting Spies. Spy teaches him how to swing so the enemy Spy can’t deflect it with his knife, where to look if a Spy cloaks, and how to read a Spy’s behavior. Spy’s really hesitant about this since he doesn’t like people understanding him on that level. After Spy’s teachings, Scout kind of handles his bat like a rapier if he’s fighting Spies. 

Scout got his trypanophobia from Spy. Medic’s tendencies don’t help.

-helmet party 👉👈/soldier/engie

they,.y,..., they likee to bonk their headsssdtogether..,.,.,,,,

SOLDIER 👏 HAS 👏 AUTISIM 👏  ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY. HELMET OVER HIS EYES? LIGHT SENSITIVITY. WHACKING HIS HEAD WITH A SHOVEL? STIMMING. HE LIKES BOOTS BECAUSE THEY MAKE THE THUMP THUMP. BOOTS GO THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP

Soldier likes Engie’s Gunslinger a lot. SO MUCH FUCKING SENSORY INPUT. go click and is smooth and hHhOLDD HANDSS,,..,

Soldier likes to hang out in Engie’s work space because there’s so much auditory input!! Engie gives him some random tool for him to toy with while he works!!

Engie has emotional attachment to his buildings. Especially the sentries. There’s a mini sentry in his workshop with a little pink bow. Her name is Betsy and if you fuck with her you’re as good as dead. 

Betsy and Soldier’s raccoons are tight. Betsy has a ‘puzzle mode’ that Engie programmed to make the raccoons smarter. Each time they solve a puzzle some food is dispensed. 

The raccoons like to hide in Soldier’s many hats. His hats smell like raccoons and it makes him so happy.

-pyro aka the baby

NONBINARY I C O N.

They are Engie and Soldier’s child. There is nothing you can do about it.

All the other mercs love them. Especially Medic, Engie and Soldier, and Spy. Spy understands their secretive nature and kind of relates.

Pyro’s room is by far the most heated. It also has a total of six sprinklers inside in case they're feeling fire-y. It also has lots of orange and red lights. Pyro likes their room a lot.

Heavy is used to Pyro’s behavior and plays along. They have tea parties every Saturday with Pyro’s stuffed animals, a beanie baby horse, a stuffed unicorn, a little cardinal, and a hamster, who Heavy has lovingly named ‘small horse’, ‘big horse’, ‘bird’ and ‘rodent’, all addressed to as ‘Мистер _____’.

Pyro’s favorite bugs are moths!!!! Butterflies too, but he sees moths more often.

-medic

Really bad short-term memory but scary good long-term memory. Will look for something while it’s in his other hand but can perfectly replicate the signature of someone who sold him exotic animal organs 8 years ago. 

Building off of that, he can forge the signatures of 27 different people, 26 of which are black market sellers, drug dealers, or wanted criminals. The 27th is his father.

He never had a medical license. It was forged. 100%.

Bad at self-care. Thank god for Heavy and Pyro bringing him snacks and coffee.

Finds Pyrovision fascinating. Often puts on the goggles if he’s stressed. A simple pair of Pyrovision goggles can do wonders for a sleep-deprived and homicidal German doctor.

He likes baboons. Especially for, but not only because of, their organs. He just thinks they’re neat. And by ‘thinks they’re neat’, I mean ‘has a worrying amount of trivia on baboons that he excitedly infodumps on whoever he’s operating on at the time, forcing them to listen and nod along, because this man is holding their intestines and, if given the chance, would gleefully sell them on the black market’.

-miss pauling

She’s some flavor of gay and you know it. We all know it. She doesn’t get any chances to date because of her work, though.

She has a little stuffed lizard named Mortimer that keeps her company. She’s had it ever since she was a child.

Was in the Girl Scouts. The knot skills come in handy.

The Administrator is her aunt. Her parents died and The Administrator took her under her wing. The Administrator taught her everything she knows-- decades of information on how to dispose of bodies, sweettalk the authorities, use money to fix your problems, snap necks, sever vital arteries, et cetera.

Despite her small figure, she’s fucking ripped.

Phones up different mercs for advice. Spy, Medic, and Engineer are on speed dial. She often calls Engineer when she’s driving or doing something so she has someone to talk to. 

-misc

The Administrator is asexual. I mean, purple, grey and black? She’s 3/4ths there in her color scheme alone.

Teufort was made entirely by the original RED and BLU mercs and built to be a playground for all of the classes. The building of Teufort was the first time both teams banded together to do something. The Administrator thinks back on it fondly.

Soldier’s raccoons can unload and reload a standard pistol in exchange for dog treats and it’s fucking terrifying.

-bonus! innovator (@scrapnick‘s OC)

Mixes words up sometimes. Has said “Fuck the shut up” or some variation multiple times before.

THERE ARE SO MANY FUCKING POST-IT NOTES AND NAPKINS WITH LITTLE DOODLES OR IDEAS ON THEM. She hoards them. Engineer is concerned. (Engie and Spy team up to get her one of those card binders with the clear flaps because Spy’s tired of finding post-it notes fucking everywhere)

Gives off a very specific energy, similar to that of that one post of the picture of the book that’s like “’women shouldn’t swear’ ‘get fucked’ he blinks in surprise”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: 14 Mar 2020 (Free audio of Masque of the Red Death and When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, Ada Palmer on censorship, Women of Imagineering, Glitch unionizes, Tachyon/EFF Humble Bundle, Canada Reads postponed, data-caps and liquid bans paused, Star Wars firepits)

Today's links

Masque of the Red Death: Macmillan Audio gave me permission to share the audiobook of my end-of-the-world novella.

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth: A new podcast audiobook of my 2005 end-of-the-world story.

Ada Palmer on historical and modern censorship: Part of EFF's Speaking Freely project.

Glitch workers unionize: First-ever tech union formed without management opposition.

Women of Imagineering: A 384-page illustrated chronicle of the role women play in Disney theme-park design.

Tachyon celebrates 30 years of sff publishing with a Humble Bundle: DRM-free and benefits EFF.

Honest Government Ads, Covid-19 edition: Political satire is really hard, but The Juice makes it look easy.

TSA lifts liquid bans, telcos lift data caps: Almost as though there was no reason for them in the first place.

CBC postpones Canada Reads debates: But you can read a ton of the nominated books online for free.

Star Wars firepits: 750lbs of flaming backyard steel.

This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Masque of the Red Death (permalink)

Edgar Allan Poe wrote "The Masque of the Red Death" in 1842. It's about a plutocrat who throws a masked ball in his walled abbey during a plague with the intention of cheating death.

https://www.poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death

My novella "The Masque of the Red Death" is a tribute to Poe; it's from my book Radicalized. It's the story of a plute who brings his pals to his luxury bunker during civlizational collapse in the expectation of emerging once others have rebuilt.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250242334

Naturally, they assume that when they do emerge, once their social inferiors have rebooted civilization, that their incredible finance-brains, their assault rifles, and their USBs full of BtC will allow them to command a harem and live a perpetual Frazetta-painting future.

And naturally – to anyone who's read Poe – it doesn't work out for them. They discover that humanity has a shared microbial destiny and that you can't shoot germs. That every catastrophe must be answered with solidarity, not selfishness, if it is to be survived.

Like my story When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, the Masque of the Red Death has been on a lot of people's minds lately, especially since this Guardian story of plutes fleeing to their luxury bunkers was published. Hundreds of you have sent me this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/disease-dodging-worried-wealthy-jet-off-to-disaster-bunkers

I got the message. Yesterday, I asked my agent to see if Macmillan Audio would let me publish the audiobook of my Masque of the Red Death for free. They said yes, and asked me to remind you that the audiobook of Radicalized (which includes Masque) is available for your delectation.

I hope you'll check out the whole book. Radicalized was named one of the @WSJ's best books of 2019, and it's a finalist for Canada Reads, the national book prize. It's currently on every Canadian national bestseller list.

There's one hitch, though: Audible won't sell it to you. They don't sell ANY of my work, because I don't allow DRM on it, because I believe that you should not have to lock my audiobooks to Amazon's platform in order to enjoy them.

Instead, you can buy the audio from sellers like libro.fm, Downpour.com, and Google Play. Or you can get it direct from me. No DRM, no license agreement. Just "you bought it, you own it."

https://craphound.com/shop/

And here's the free Macmillan Audio edition of Masque of the Red Death, read with spine-chilling menace by the incredible Stefan Rudnicki, with a special intro from me, freshly mastered by John Taylor Williams. I hope it gives you some comfort.

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/the-masque-of-the-red-death/

(Here's the direct MP3, too)

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332_-_The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death.mp3

Ada Palmer on historical and modern censorship (permalink)

My EFF colleague Jillian C York's latest project is Speaking Freely, a series of interviews with people about free expression and the internet, including what Neil Gaiman memorably called "icky speech."

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html

The latest interview subject is the incomparable Ada Palmer: historian, sf writer, musician, and co-host of last year's U Chicago seminar series on "systems of information control during information revolutions," which I co-taught with her. Ada's interview synthesizes her historian's distance from the subject ("yes, this is my subject, and these people are terrible, and it's kind of fun in that way") with her perspective as a writer and advocate for free speech.

"One of the victims of censorship is the future capacity to tell histories of the period when censorship happened….. It renders that historical record unreliable… makes it easier for people to make claims you can't refute using historical sources… It's similar to how we see people invalidating things now—like 'that climate study wasn't really valid because it got funding from a leftist political group"—they're invalidating the material by claiming that there has to be insincerity its development.

"Pretty much every censoring operation post-printing press recognizes that it isn't possible to track down and destroy every copy of a thing…An Inquisition book burning was the ceremonial burning of one copy. The Inquisition kept examples of all of the books they banned."

Fascinating perspecting on whether nongovernmental action can really be called "censorship."

"The Inquisition wasn't the state – it was a private org like to Doctors Without Borders or Unicef, run by private orgs like the Dominicans and it often competed with the state." As she points out, everything the Inquisition did would be fine alongside the First Amendment, because it was entirely private action.

Next, Palmer talks about market concentration and how it abets this kind of private censorship. This is something I've written a lot about, see for example:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

"If you have a plural set of voices, then you're always going to have some spaces where things can be said, just like you have a plurality of printers printing books, and some will only print orthodox things and some will only print radical ones."

And while the internet could afford many venues for speech, in practice a concentrated internet makes is plausible to accomplish the censor's never-realized dream: "You can make a program that can hunt down every instance of a particular phrase and erase it."

Tiny architectural choices make big differences here ("Architecture is politics" -Mitch Kapor). Amazon can update your Kindle books without your permission, Kobo can't. Amazon could delete every instance of a book on Kindles, but Kobo would need cooperation from its customers.

Palmer is just the latest subject of Jillian's series. You can read many other amazing interviews here:

https://www.eff.org/speaking-freely

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (permalink)

Over the past two weeks, hundreds of people have written to me to draw comparisons between the pandemic emergency and my 2005 story "When Sysamins Ruled the Earth" – an apocalyptic tale of network administrators who survive a civilizational collapse.

https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-Overclocked-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.html

I started writing this story in the teacher's quarters at the Clarion Workshop, which was then hosted at MSU. It was July 6, 2005. I know the date because the next day was 7/7, when bombs went off across London, blowing up the tube train my wife normally rode to work. The attacks also took out the bus I normally rode to my office. My wife was late to work because I was in Michigan, so she slept in. It probably saved her life. I couldn't work on this story for a long time after.

Eventually, I finished it and sold it to Eric Flint for Baen's Universe magazine. It's been widely reprinted and adapted, including as a comic:

https://archive.org/details/CoryDoctorowsFuturisticTalesOfTheHereAndNow/mode/2up

I read this for my podcast 15 years ago, too, but the quality is terrible. The more I thought about it, the more I thought I should do a new reading. So I did, and John Taylor Williams mastered it overnight and now it's live.

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/when-sysadmins-ruled-the-earth-2/

There's a soliloquy in this where the protagonist reads a part of John Perry Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace. Rather than read it myself for the podcast, I ganked some of Barlow's own 2015 reading, which is fucking magnificent.

https://vimeo.com/111576518

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. I've spent a lot of imaginary time inhabiting various apocalypses, driven (I think) by my grandmother's horrific stories of being inducted into the civil defense corps during the Siege of Leningrad, which began when she was 12.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. I've spent a lot of imaginary time inhabiting various apocalypses, driven (I think) by my grandmother's horrific stories of being inducted into the civil defense corps during the Siege of Leningrad, which began when she was 12.

You can subscribe to the podcast here:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

And here's the MP3, which is hosted by the @internetarchive (they'll host your stuff for free, too!).

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_331/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_331_-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.mp3

Glitch workers unionize (permalink)

The staff of Glitch have formed a union. It seems to be the first-ever white-collar tech-workers' union to have formed without any objections from management (bravo, Anil Dash!).

https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/tech-workers-app-developer-glitch-vote-form-union-and-join-cwa-organizing-initiative

The workers organized under the Communications Workers of America, which has been organizing tech shops through their Campaign to Organize Digital Employees.

https://www.code-cwa.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIovDRsc-S6AIVCuDICh0rFQCMEAAYASAAEgJb1PD_BwE

"We appreciate that unlike so many employers, the Glitch management team decided to respect the rights of its workforce to choose union representation without fear or coercion."

Women of Imagineering (permalink)

Next October, Disney will publish "Women of Imagineering: 12 Careers, 12 Theme Parks, Countless Stories," a 384-page history of a dozen pioneering woman Imagineers.

https://thedisneyblog.com/2020/03/13/new-book-highlights-stories-from-the-women-of-walt-disney-imagineering/

Featured are Elisabete Erlandson, Julie Svendsen, Maggie Elliott, Peggy Fariss, Paula Dinkel, Karen Connolly Armitage, Katie Olson, Becky Bishop, Tori Atencio, Lynne Macer Rhodes, Kathy Rogers, and Pam Rank.

When I worked at Imagineering, the smartest, most talented, most impressive staff I knew were women (like Sara Thacher!). It's amazing to see the women of the organization get some long-overdue recognition.

Tachyon celebrates 30 years of sff publishing with a Humble Bundle (permalink)

For 30 years, @TachyonPub has been publishing outstanding science fiction, including a wide range of stuff that's too weird or marginal for the Big 5 publishers, like collections of essays and collections.

https://tachyonpublications.com/

Now, they've teamed up with Humble Bundle to celebrate their 30th with a huge pay-what-you-like bundle that benefits EFF. There are so many great books in this bundle!

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/celebrating-25-years-scifi-fantasy-from-tachyon-books

Like Bruce Sterling's Pirate Utopia, Eileen Gunn's Stable Strategies, and books by Michael Moorcock, Thomas Disch, Jo Walton, Jane Yolen, Nick Mamatas, Kameron Hurley, Lauren Beukes, Lavie Tidhar and so many more!

I curated the very first Humble Ebook Bundle and I've followed all the ones since. This one is fucking amazeballs. Run, don't walk.

Honest Government Ads, Covid-19 edition (permalink)

Good political satire is hard, but @thejuicemedia's "Honest Government Ads" are consistently brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKRw8GAAtm27q4R3Q0kst_g

The latest is, of course, Covi9-19 themed. It is funny, trenchant, and puts the blame exactly where it belongs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hks6Nq7g6P4

If you like it, you can support their Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/TheJuiceMedia

TSA lifts liquid bans, telcos lift data caps (permalink)

Your ISP is likely to lift its data-caps in the next day or two. @ATT and @comcast already did.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74qzb/atandt-suspends-broadband-usage-caps-during-coronavirus-crisis

And TSA has decided that 12 ounces of any liquid labelled "hand sanitizer" is safe for aviation, irrespective of what's in the bottle.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/13/21179120/tsa-hand-sanitizer-liquid-size-airport-screening-coronavirus-covid-19

What do these two facts have in common? Obviously, it's that the official narrative for things that impose enormous financial costs on Americans, and dramatically lower their quality of lives, were based on lies. These lies have been obvious from the start. The liquid ban, for example, is based on a plot that never worked (making binary explosives in airport bathroom sinks from liquids) and seems unlikely to ever have worked, according to organic chemists.

Keeping your "piranha bath" near 0' C for a protracted period in the bathroom toilet is some varsity-level terrorism, and the penalty for failure is that you maim or blind yourself with acid spatter.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/on_the_implausi.html

And even if you stipulate that the risk is real, it's been obvious for 14 years that multiple 3oz bottles of Bad Liquid could be recombined beyond the checkpoint to do whatever it is liquids do at 3.0001oz.The liquid ban isn't just an inconvenience. It's not even just a burden on travelers who've collectively spent billions to re-purchase drinks and toiletries. It's a huge health burden to people with disabilities who rely on constant access to liquids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m12mLXgO1A

And as we knew all along, the liquid ban was a nonsense, an authoritarian response to a cack-handed, improbable terror plot. It embodies the "security syllogism":

Something must be done. There, I've done something.

Think of all those checkpoints where all confiscated liquids were dumped into a giant barrel and mingled together: if liquids posed an existential threat to planes, they'd dispose of them like they were C4, not filtered water. No one believed in the liquid threat, ever. TSA can relax the restrictions and allow 12oz of anything labeled as hand-san through the checkpoints. There was no reason to confiscate liquids in the first place. But don't expect them to admit this. The implicit message of the change is "Pandemics make liquids safe."

Now onto data-caps. Like the liquid ban, data-caps have imposed a tremendous cost on Americans. In addition to the hundreds of millions in monopoly rents extracted from the nation by telcos through overage charges, these caps also shut many out of the digital world. They represent a regressive tax on information, one that falls worst upon the most underserved in the nation: people in poor and rural places, for whom online access is a gateway to civic and political life, family connection, employment and education.

We were told that we had to tolerate these caps because of the "tragedy of the commons," a fraudulent idea from economics that says that shared resources are destroyed through selfish overuse, based on no data or evidence.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/first-as-tragedy-then-as-fascism-amend

(By contrast, actual commons are a super-efficient way of managing resources)

https://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmons

Telcos insisted that if they didn't throttle and gouge us, their networks would become unusable – but really, what they meant is that if they didn't throttle and gouge us, the windfall to their shareholders would decline.

What's more likely: that pandemics make network management tools so efficient that data-caps become obsolete, or that they were a shuck and a ripoff from day one, enabled by a hyper-concentrated industry of monopolists with cozy relationships with corrupt regulators?

So yeah, maybe this is the moment that kills Security Theater and data-caps.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-could-force-isps-to-abandon-data-caps-forever/

(Image: Rhys Gibson)

CBC postpones Canada Reads debates (permalink)

The folks at the @CBC have postponed next week's televised Canada Reads debates, so we're going to have to wait a while to find out who wins the national book prize.

https://www.cbc.ca/books/canada-reads-2020-postponed-1.5497678

Obviously, this is a bummer, though equally obviously, it's a relatively small consequence of this ghastly circumstance.

And on the bright side, the CBC have just released a ton of excerpts from the nominees:

https://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/read-excerpts-from-the-canada-reads-2020-books-1.5496637

If you're looking for some Canada Reads lit for this moment, my novella "Masque of the Red Death" appears in my collection Radicalized, one of the finalists. I put up the story as a free podast last night (thanks to Macmillan Audio for permission).

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/the-masque-of-the-red-death/

Star Wars firepits (permalink)

West Coast Firepits went viral when they produced a Death Star firepit, though of course, I lusted after their Tiki Firepit.

https://www.westcoastfirepits.com/shop/tiki-firepit-69825

But now they're really leaning into the Star Wars themed pits, with an Interceptor pit ($2500):

https://www.westcoastfirepits.com/shop/interceptor

Or, if you prefer a post-apocalyptic version, there's a Crashed Interceptor pit, also $2500.

https://www.westcoastfirepits.com/shop/crashed-interceptor

If those prices seem high, consider that they're hand-made onshore, and contain 750lbs of 1/4" and 1/8" steel.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago How DRM will harm the developing world https://web.archive.org/web/20050317005030/https://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/itu_drm.php

#5yrsago Anti-vaxxer ordered to pay EUR100K to winner of "measles aren't real" bet https://calvinayre.com/2015/03/13/business/biologist-ordered-to-pay-e100k-after-losing-wager-that-a-virus-causes-measles/

#1yrago A massive victory for fair use in the longrunning Dr Seuss vs Star Trek parody lawsuit https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190313/09554041791/big-fair-use-win-mashups-places-youll-boldly-go-deemed-to-be-fair-use.shtml

#1yrago A detailed analysis of American ER bills reveals rampant, impossible-to-avoid price-gouging https://www.vox.com/health-care/2018/12/18/18134825/emergency-room-bills-health-care-costs-america

#1yrago Ketamine works great for depression and other conditions, and costs $10/dose; the new FDA-approved "ketamine" performs badly in trials and costs a fortune https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/11/ketamine-now-by-prescription/

#1yrago Facebook and Big Tech are monopsonies, even when they're not monopolies https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-not-monopoly-but-should-broken-up/

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: EFF Deeplinks (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/), Waxy (https://waxy.org/), Slashdot https://slashdot.org).

Currently writing: I've just finished rewrites on a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I've also just completed "Baby Twitter," a piece of design fiction also set in The Lost Cause's prehistory, for a British think-tank. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel next.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/when-sysadmins-ruled-the-earth-2/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One:  The Dark Curse

Chapter 75:  The Curse of Love

The medallion was lighter than he thought it would be. Whenever he'd seen it in pictures, thick gold attached to a simple chain, he'd always assumed it would be heavy. Considering what it did, what it summoned, it should have been heavy. The fact that it was so light in his hand seemed too ironic to fathom.

The only alternative he could come up with was that it was a fake, but he could feel that it wasn't. The symbol on the front of it, the very one that could all too easily be burned into its victim's flesh, was identical to the one he'd read about in books. Besides, the magic he felt rolling off of it couldn't lie. This was exactly what he'd been looking for. It was quite possibly the most dangerous thing in his workshop at the moment…besides himself, of course.

As he set it in the box that he had for it he cast his gaze quickly up to Jefferson on the other side of the table.

"You didn't touch it," he presumed.

"Never with my bare skin," he answered as he watched him put it away. "I've been working with you long enough that when you say not to do something, I trust it."

"Excellent. And it was right where you thought it would be?"

"Not exactly," he sighed, taking a seat on one of his stools and removing his hat. "It had been moved. It was still in London just…"

"Just?" he pressed as Jefferson raised his hand to rub the back of his neck as if he was tired. His associate was aging it seemed, growing tired, settling down. He'd married a few years ago and though he still thought it an awful binding kind of deal, he could see in some ways how she'd helped him to find some stability. No longer was he the boy with a smart mouth that once flit about from place to place. He was so stable now sometimes it hurt to watch him.

"It wasn't in the museum, it was in a mansion, guarded by a woman…who could control her guard dogs with her breath."

The ability to control animals by breathing on them…in a realm that wasn't supposed to know about magic.

"That's interesting," he muttered, turning away to safely secure the box.

"Yeah, that realm has magic, I mean…obviously it has magic! I can get there! But I've never met someone before who was aware of it and could use it. Not that it caused a problem, I've dealt with worse than guard dogs and halitosis before, it just caught me unaware. Suppose I should have figured. The woman calls herself Cruella DeVil."

"Interesting choice of names," he nodded as he pulled out a satchel already filled with gold coins and magically added seven more to it before offering it to Jefferson.

"For your troubles…"

"Thanks," he muttered, taking it and storing it in his pocket. He was halfway back to his spinning wheel when he realized that though he was paid, he wasn't moving. Five years ago, that wouldn't have been an odd thing for Jefferson to stay around and bother him, these days, however, he never seemed to be able to get out and back to his wife fast enough. The days of Jefferson making himself comfortable in his castle were finally over. The castle was quiet these days. Sometimes too quiet. But he'd never admit that out loud.

"Shouldn't you be heading home to your wife?" he questioned as he took his seat at the wheel.

"Yeah, I want to talk to you first."

"Well, I hope it's to ask for more work because if you're searching for marital advice, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong Dark One."

"No, I wouldn't bother with that," he chuckled. "And actually it's sort of the opposite. I've…we-Pricilla and I-we've decided to retire."

The room was so quiet for a heartbeat it felt as though the air had been suddenly sucked out of the windows. He felt numb and unsure about the words he'd just heard. He didn't believe it. Certainly he'd heard wrong…

He turned back to Jefferson. "Retire?"

"Oh! It's what this other realm I've been to calls it when you stop doing the work you've been doing."

So, he had heard correctly. He just still couldn't believe it. The very idea went against everything he'd ever believed Jefferson to be! But Jefferson and Pricilla together…they'd made this decision? To put so much magical talent aside?! And for what? A job at a tannery? Wood carving? Hat making?

"Yes, it's what we call it when we decide to close our eyes each night and surrender logical thought and reason to illogical and emotional dreams!"

Jefferson shrugged. "That too."

This was…an odd reaction he was having. He didn't care about Jefferson. Not at all, they were business partners, they had been since he'd met him and employed him! The boy had been nothing but a bother all this time, constantly running his mouth, disappearing and reappearing at will, making himself at home when he wasn't welcome! He shouldn't care about news like this. And he couldn't figure out why he felt like his heart was in a vise at the news.

"So, you're 'retiring'," he muttered, turning his back on him and beginning to turn the wheel. His fingers felt cold. He didn't like it.

"To be with Priscilla, yes," he confirmed. To be with Priscilla…he'd had concerns when he had first met the girl and began to see her regularly. He'd tried to warn him when they started sleeping together and again when he announced they were going to marry about the dangers of women and what they could do to men. He'd pictured a lot of outcomes for Jefferson when that girl came into the picture. This was never one of them.

"Why so shocked, old friend?!" Jefferson asked. "I figured you of all people would have seen this coming."

And yet he hadn't.

"We're not friends," he responded quietly.

"What do you call what we've been doing all these years?"

"It's a business arrangement," he insisted. "Nothing more."

"You seem awfully depressed for a simple business arrangement."

"Well, it's been a very profitable arrangement," he shot back quickly. That must have been it. That was why he was feeling what he was feeling. When he looked back on all the things Jefferson had done for him, all the things that he'd retrieved over the years, the way he'd reached into places that were unreachable to get valuable items and information…losing that was going to be a significant loss. Thank goodness he'd had the foresight to be sure the old boy owed him favors. Yes, that was right. Jefferson owed him! They had more than one outstanding deal for a favor. Perhaps this wasn't the last he'd see of him! Suddenly he was feeling better already.

"I didn't expect this reaction from you," Jefferson muttered across the room. "I thought you'd be happy for me?"

He snorted as he rose from his wheel to make himself busy with the vials of potion lying around. "Happy? Happy you are throwing your life away? For a girl? Well, now you don't know me at all!"

"Not just any girl, for her!" he insisted, rising to his feet and standing on the other side of the table. "We're in love, try to understand that."

"Love," he growled. "You lack the decades, the centuries of 'love' I've seen. Love is a plague, a curse."

"A curse?" Jefferson chuckled. "You really believe that?"

"And more. Love is a powerful curse, indeed. I've seen love turn the smart into stupid. It's turned the noblest of men into cowards, the richest into paupers, the strongest into weaklings, the adventurous into the ordinary, and now I've seen it turn the wise into a fool."

"I didn't know you considered me wise," he answered in his joking tone. He only looked up at him from under his eyelashes, unsmiling. There was nothing funny about this situation.

"Well, haven't you been listening…not anymore! Not so long as you pursue this girl."

"My wife?"

"Whatever," he shrugged, turning back to fiddle with the vials of liquid before him, even if there was no point to it. Funny how any other time he could think of half a million things he had to do and yet in this moment he couldn't come up with a single thing.

"It's not only that," Jefferson added with a sudden tone to his voice he'd never heard him use before. Nervousness. He was nervous! Jefferson hadn't even been nervous the first time they'd met, and everyone was nervous when they first met him. What was going on? He hated being the last to know. "We got married, and now it's more than just her and even us! Pricilla she's…we're…"

His stomach flipped over as he looked back up and recognized the look in his eyes and combined with his stuttering and nerves, the gaze cast to the ground and hands shoved into pockets…

"Pregnant," he finished for him.

Jefferson sighed, picked his head up, and nodded as a twinge of a smile flicked over his face. "I'm going to be a father." Suddenly he was distant, farther away than perhaps he'd ever been while standing in the same room, nervous and hopeful, and terribly scared. Yes, parenthood could do that to a person. Not that Jefferson was aware he knew that. Not that he needed to know now…

"Congratulations," he muttered before picking up a few of his vials and moving to return them to the cabinet just because he could.

"Well, that was believable…" Jefferson added. "Look, this isn't something I planned on. Priscilla is like me. I never expected to find anyone like me let alone someone like her. I'm not thrilled to be hanging up the hat, but she's right. We need to be careful and be here, not just for each other, but for our son now as well."

"They say a fool is made every day…"

"What?!"

He bit his tongue.

He didn't care. Jefferson's decision didn't bother him one bit. Their association over the years had been profitable, that was all. If he wanted to trade in such a great gift as magic for his family instead of risking all as he had years ago, that was his choice, and it didn't bother him one bit.

The only bit that did bother him, or rather the Seer, was an incorrect assumption he'd made.

"Daughter," he stated, turning back to him. "It'll be a girl, not a boy…congratulations."

He said the words, even managed to put a bit of feeling into them when he saw Jefferson's face light up, there might have even been a tear in his eye. But he didn't stop to watch his expression, just went back to his wheel, his ever faithful, always present companion, and began to spin again. Jefferson could show himself out.

"Listen…I'm gonna go, but…I cleaned my grandfather's cabin out, finally! There were a few of his knick knacks for getting place to place that he left behind. Pricilla doesn't want them in the house with a baby, so…for you! You can owe me a favor for them. I put instructions and notes on each one telling you where it takes you and how to work it, so you can look over them later."

And he would look at them…later. Though his fingers itched to get up and see what wonderful delights had just come into his possession, he wouldn't, not while Jefferson was still here.

"I'll send you word when the baby is born. If you need me, you'll know where to find me…"

His words were pushy and expectant. He was waiting for him to respond to say good-bye, anything! But he couldn't bring himself to. He just pushed on the wheel and twirled his wrist changing ordinary wool into ordinary thread. He let his mind calm and go blank, he let his emotions slip away and pictured Bae in his mind once more until Jefferson gave up, and finally left.

Love. It was hard for him to believe that two people could ever want to be truly together for an eternity. He'd seen couples out and about, watched the women hang on the men and the men dote upon the women with sloppy seasick smiles. He'd been one of those stupid wretches once. From where he stood now, there was nothing less appealing than love. And the rich who spent after day in bed engaging in dalliances as their servants did their work for them as if there was nothing better to do than raise the heart rate and exchange bodily fluids…it was ridiculous. A dreadful waste of time that he'd never expected Jefferson, in all his youthful energy, to fall prey to. Perhaps that was the reason he almost enjoyed helping Regina so much, always pushing her toward her goal. She didn't seem to understand love either. It wasn't a surprise, not since it was denied to her for so long by the woman who had denied him the same joy Jefferson now knew.

[themaevethcometh]

stopped clocks

It takes approximately four days for him to say something, but it’s obvious things are wrong long before that.

Archaetrix can't seem to get over Romanza. Josiah doesn't know if she ever will.

Written for writer's month day 9: time travel

For the past few summers, I have been fortunate enough to see the summer show at Circus Juventas, the largest youth circus in North America. This fic is based on their 2018 show STEAM, a weird mix of HG Wells and Jules Verne and time travel and other steampunk/science fiction ideas. If you want to watch a 7 minute highlight video that probably won't tell you anything you need to know about the plot but shows some really cool circus tricks, you can do so here.

Read on AO3

It takes approximately four days for him to say something, but it’s obvious things are wrong long before that.  Archaetrix is always the first person to suggest that it’s time to move on, but the thought hasn’t even seemed to cross her mind.  They’ve been camped out in a hotel for nearly two weeks, and Arronax and his crew have left.  Josiah isn’t used to feeling bored--in fact, he hasn’t since falling in with Archaetrix and Hermoine, but that’s exactly what’s happening now.

It’s not just boredom that pushes Josiah to action, though.  He’s worried.  Everything about Archaetrix’s behavior has been out of character since that day.  They all saw things that they’ll never forget: Da Vinci’s workshop, alien invaders, wind up girls coming to life, creatures not quite human in the future.  It’s understandable that it might take some time to process and adjust to that.  He knows that they probably won’t be accepting any more invitations to Verne’s mansion anytime soon, and the few days after the event were spent in a daze, constantly trying to reassure himself that everything had actually happened.

“Of course it did,” Arronax said when Josiah questioned him.  “I have a time travel extension on my blimp to prove it.  I have money I won from Phineas and managed to save the world by beating an alien in her challenge.  You’re not losing your memory, are you?” he joked.  “One too many blows to your thick skull, perhaps?”

That’s all that it took for Josiah to get over it, and by the time Arronax took his crew to other skies, he had adjusted and was ready for their own adventure.

When Arronax offered a lift anywhere on their route, Archaetrix refused, which meant that Hermoine refused.  Josiah thought perhaps their plans involved a different direction, but so far the plans seem to consist of staying closed off and not talking to anyone.

Archaetrix might not be the most talkative person in the world, but she has worse wanderlust than any of them.  To see her closing herself off and spending days in the hotel room is disconcerting.

Josiah knocks on the door once to no answer.  He knocks again, then lets himself in to the women’s hotel room.  Perhaps anyone who saw would consider it improper, but there are very few boundaries when you’ve travelled on adventures together.  A wood door is hardly one of them.

Hermoine looks up from the map that she’s studying and brightens.  Archaetrix’s eyes are glued to the book in her hand.  She doesn’t so much as twitch.

“Josiah,” Hermoine says.  “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“It’s time for dinner,” he says.  “I was wondering if you two were hungry.”

Hermoine checks the clock on the desk, then tilts back the curtains to chance a look at the sunset.

“I didn’t realize it had gotten this late.  Archaetrix, are you coming?”

The other woman doesn’t respond, and a frown creases Hermoine’s forehead.

“Archaetrix, did you hear me?  You need to eat.”

Josiah flicks on the electric lamp on the bedside table, and that is finally enough for Archaetrix to blink and look up.  She hums when she sees Josiah, the sound a clear question.

“It’s dinner time.  Are you coming with?” he asks.

“I have too much work to do,” she scoffs, turning back to the book.

“What kind of work?  Planning for our next adventure?” he asks, harsher than he intends.  Archaetrix hears the edge in his voice and snaps her attention to him, whip fast.  For the first time in a while, Josiah is reminded of a time when she wouldn’t have allowed him to fling her over his shoulder and carry her away.  He misses when he didn’t feel like he had to.

“My work is none of your business,” she snaps.

“You’re not going to find him this way,” he says.  “He’s not here in your history books.  He’s not in this hotel room.  It’s no use scouring things that have already been written when our closest connection to time travel flew away a week ago.  You don’t even know if he can be found again!”

“He can!” she says, furious.  “I already found him twice.  I can do it again.”

“You didn’t find him at all!  We stumbled across him in Italy, and we were running from whatever creatures those were in the future, not looking for your lost love that you met once!”

“Josiah,” Hermoine begs, and it’s that rather than Archaetrix’s glare that makes him back down slightly.

Hermoine doesn’t beg.  None of them do, really.  When Hermoine wants something, she asks incessantly, and she might plead a bit, but she never sounds broken while doing so.  Seeing her looking so small makes him pause.

“I would very much like to go to dinner now,” she finally says after a long pause.  “Will you accompany me? Please?”

The please is out of character, too.  While Hermoine is generally the most likely to remember manners out of the trio, she wouldn’t ask him like this unless she’s very upset.

He nods.  Hermoine stands.

“I’ll bring you back something,” she says to Archaetrix.  The other woman nods, then returns to her book.  Josiah leaves the room before he can lose his temper again.

“Thank you,” Hermoine says quietly as she closes the door behind her.  Josiah pulls her into a hug and holds her until he can feel her relax.  Hermoine has always played mediator between the two strongest personalities on the team, and she's consistently the one trying to bring up the mood when it's low.  Their fights have been draining her since they started, and he just hadn't realized this until now.

"I'm sorry," he says, letting her go.  She steps back and nods, not meeting his eyes, then begins down the hallway.  He follows in silence until they leave the hotel.

"I know that you hate when we fight, but you understand that this is an issue, correct?  She's chasing after a fantasy.  It can't be healthy."

"Josiah, you don't have a romantic bone in your body," Hermoine sighs.  "But this has gone too far.  I just don't know what to do for her.  I've never seen her like this before, and she seems determined to find Romanza or wither away looking."

"Do you think he's out there, looking for her too?" he asks.  Hermoine doesn't say anything for a long time.  Soon enough, they're outside a cafe that they've frequented before.  Josiah orders and pays for all three of them in a small apology for his earlier outburst.

"I don't know," Hermoine says finally.  "I don't understand how we could have found him twice in the same day, in two wildly different time periods, yet he hasn't come for her in the two weeks we've been back in our own time."

"Do you think he loves her?  Do you think he's capable of that?"

Hermoine considers her thoughts again before answering.

"I didn't speak with him enough to be able to say.  He was reaching for her when we left, just as she was..."  Josiah nods.  "Do you think there's something keeping him from reaching out to her now?"

"I don't know," he says.  "We were the ones to find him both times.  Perhaps he expects her to find him again."

"But we don't have any time travel technology, and we've found no clues in this time period as to where he could be."

"Perhaps we should have taken Arronax up on his offer for a ride.”

"You just miss him and the trouble you two always get into," Hermoine says, giving him a wry look that's more familiar than any of her expressions have been tonight.  "Perhaps Mechanica is still at Verne's mansion.  We could ask her for technological help, or to use her time machine."

"Do you really want to go back there?" Hermoine wrinkles her nose.  "I didn't think so.  There could still be aliens or hybrid animal creatures or mad scientists or whatever new monstrosity he's invited to stay."

"I don't know what else to do," she says.

"I don't, either."

It's dark by the time they return to the hotel, the lamps on the street creating a faint glow with long shadows.  Hermoine can defend herself and has proven this time and again, but Josiah has to resist the urge to pull her closer anyway.  When they reach the girls' room, she stops and faces him.

"We'll find a way to fix this.  I'll start by getting her out of that room tomorrow.  If we get desperate enough, I can bring her to Mechanica or Verne."

"We'll all go.  If we have to time travel again, we'll all go then, too."

Hermoine nods.

"We're a trio, Hermoine.  As much as Archaetrix may be frustrating me now, I'm not leaving you two."

Hermoine nods again, and that seems to put her more at ease.  Josiah pulls her into another quick hug, and when he releases her she almost has one of her signature smiles on.

"Goodnight, Josiah," she says.

"Goodnight," he bids.  She slips inside, and Josiah returns to his own room.  That night, his dreams are filled with aliens and the future and an answer just out of reach.  He wakes in a cold sweat and wishes they all never lived a moment out of time.

[grootpoepjeplasjehoofd]

"People raised as communists can’t be racists"                  

Tamar Peleg-Sryck, 91, human-rights lawyer                  

When she was 60, an age when regular people start to shift into lower gear ahead of retirement, Tamar Peleg-Sryck, a graduate of night-school studies in law, left the teaching profession and started to clerk in the law firm of Avigdor Feldman, where she could focus on human rights. A tireless lawyer, she has helped thousands of Palestinian detainees, many of them children, who have been maltreated by the occupation authorities. She retired five years ago, after intensive work in both dusty military courts and the High Court of Justice.            

Born in Poland, Pekeg-Sryck survived the Holocaust thanks to the Tehran Children rescue operation, which brought some 1,000 Jewish children to Iran in 1943, and from there on to Palestine. “I am a survivor thanks to the Soviet Union,” she says. “We were sent to Kazakhstan in 1940 and remained alive by a miracle.” Catching herself talking about miracles, she stops to correct herself: “Not by a miracle – with difficulty.”                    

Perhaps because of her life experience she also has something to say about the comparison that’s sometimes drawn between Stalin and Hitler: “People like to say that they were the same thing. But Hitler fulfilled his principles in his deeds, whereas Stalin betrayed part of his principles in some of his deeds.”                  

Peleg-Sryck, today a Tel Aviv resident, was born in 1926, less than a decade after the October Revolution. Like everyone who was interviewed for this article, she terms herself a communist, even if she doesn’t belong to Israel’s Communist Party (she left in 1965, when the party split in two, and she didn’t join either branch).                  

I asked her what it means to be a communist in 2017. “With the world turning bad, the choice of communism appears increasingly correct. Morally speaking, the basic principles of communism have proved themselves. For example, equality between all peoples, equal rights for every person, and the principle of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according his needs.’                  

“It’s not just economic equality. Each person should be allowed to be whatever he wants. What’s not allowed is discrimination, meaning to be a racist. I recently read Yuri Slezkine’s book ‘The Jewish Century.’ He offers marvelous data about the Jews in the communist revolution. It was actually a Jewish revolution; the percentage of Jews involved was astronomical.”                  

Peleg-Sryck finds a link between her life’s project to defend the human rights of the Palestinians, and the communist approach: “It was the embodiment of my communist principles. In the civil-rights movement, there is the left and there is something close to the right, even though people don’t like to hear that. For example, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel didn’t recognize until recently that there are also economic rights or workers’ rights. Nor do they take into consideration possible victims of freedom of expression. ACRI supported the march of the Kahanist right in Umm al-Fahm. I had a problem with that, but I wasn’t able to persuade them. The feeling in some human-rights organizations is that Jews are worth more. And a person who was raised in communism can’t be a racist.”                  

Do you see any prospect that the world will soon move toward communism?       

“I’ve despaired of that. At the moment, there may be no prospect, but there is a need.”    

"The Israeli left exploits Arab workers"                  

Albert “the Bulgarian” Salomon, 83, upholsterer                  

For many years, the upholstery shop owned by Albert “the Bulgarian” in central Tel Aviv served as a center for street dwellers, artists and people who wanted to talk in the morning and listen to him play the accordion. When he retired five years ago, he abandoned his kingdom (“That was a mistake”). While looking for people to interview, I remembered Albert because of the pictures that decorated his workshop – one of Karl Marx next to one of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Finding him was easy, thanks to a Facebook page created for him by his grandchildren.  

“Communism is Torah,” he explains to me. “It’s like the Bible. A person who’s read the Bible in a yeshiva might stop being religious, but deep within he doesn’t forget the heder. And he’ll want Kaddish said for him after he dies. It’s the same for a communist. The most beautiful period of my childhood, between 1944 and 1948, was when I was in the Young Communists in Bulgaria. They taught me the meaning of love of humanity, helping others and peace. When I came to Israel, I tried to become part of the Communist Youth Alliance, which was based in Jaffa and was full of Bulgarians.”                  

Salomon left the party and its youth movement at the beginning of the 1950s, though he remained a communist. The Korean War, which erupted in 1950, was a turning point in the history of young, socialist Israel. David Ben-Gurion chose to side with the United States and even plotted to send soldiers to fight in the war. A demonstration against that war on Allenby Street in Tel Aviv was met by police brutality.                   

“We marched with posters,” Albert recalls, “and we were beaten by mounted policemen. That broke me, and I left the movement. But the ideology remained. I am a communist idealist, not a functionary.”                  

Did you vote for the local communist parties?                  

“No, but in my heart I always felt like a communist. I have tattoos with communist symbols – Lenin and Che Guevara. I was a dreamy youth and I dreamed about them all the time. But I don’t like the left.”                  

A communist who doesn’t like the left?                  

“The left in Israel is hypocritical – a left that uses Arab workers and exploits them. The wealthy in Israel are in the left, you know. I am first of all an Israeli, then a communist. There’s no better place than Israel. [Max] Nordau said that every ideal that’s fulfilled ceases to be an ideal, and that’s true of communism, too. I prefer communism as an ideal. I believe that the sheen of capitalism will be revealed to be false and that the sparks of communism will flare up again. As Lenin said, the east will rise on our street. People will understand the reality. In Bulgaria, 30 years after perestroika, people miss communism. There was no luxury then, it’s true, but there was tranquility.”  

"We preserved the principle of Jewish-Arab partnership"                  

Tamar Gozansky, 77, politician                  

When one talks about communism in Israel, it’s hard not to think of Tamar Gozansky, one of the most activist MKs in the country’s history. Long before social justice became fashionable, Gozansky sponsored social-justice legislation that also benefited many who didn’t vote for her party (Hadash).                  

She joined the Young Communists at the age of 14. For 17 years she edited the movement’s mouthpiece Zo Haderekh (This Is the Way). She retired from the party’s central committee five years ago, in order to pave the way for a younger leadership. Gozansky, who always placed action and ideas before politicians themselves, didn’t want her photo taken. As a result, we asked another interviewee, the artist Zoya Cherkassky, to paint her picture.                  

What does it mean to be a communist in 2017?                  

“Being a communist has nothing to do with a particular year. Communism is a worldview, an aspiration to make society more just, to remove wars from the agenda. To see every person as a whole world. To see human needs as no less important than the needs of society as a whole.”                  

Communist parties or people who espouse ideas close to communism are achieving leadership or near-leadership positions, such as the Syriza party in Greece or Jeremy Corbyn in Britain. But Hadash [one of the four component parties of the Joint List] continues to hover around four Knesset seats.                  

“The Communist Party established Hadash as a Jewish-Arab movement under very specific conditions, in 1977, on the eve of Likud’s ascent to power, when the Labor Party basically collapsed. From our point of view as communists, the decisive thing is not the size of the party but the degree to which we can build cooperative ventures. We will not succeed in fomenting deep political changes on our own. The precondition for a leftward turn is not the size of the party. First of all, the path has to be correct, that’s the decisive element. Do you know how many people told me, ‘We have no problem voting for you, but stop working with the Arabs’?”                  

That’s what prevented the party from growing?                  

“From the establishment of the Palestine Communist Party in 1919 to this day, we have worked under tough conditions. There were always the urgent political issues, the struggle against nationalism and coping with anti-communist persecution. The achievement is that in these complex circumstances we succeeded in preserving a Jewish-Arab partnership. When I look back, the history of the Communist Party in the Land of Israel is a source of pride.”

"Communism and feminism go well together"                  

Fathia Sageer, 62, teacher                  

The communist consciousness of Fathia Sageer, a retired teacher from the Galilee city of Shfaram and head of the Arab-Jewish, feminist Democratic Women’s Movement, dates back to when she was 19. “When I completed high school, I looked for a place to continue my studies and for funding. I got hooked on meetings of the veteran communists. I loved to hear them talk about the rights of the Palestinian people and the struggle for peace. Communism is hard to achieve in Israel’s political situation, but I try to apply its principles in my day-to-day life and to transmit them to the group of women who work with me and in my children’s education.”                  

Sageer grew up under the impact of her parents having left their native village of al-Damun, northeast of Haifa, in 1948. “My parents were moved to Tamra, three kilometers away. My father’s dream was to return home, to return to his land, but he died at the age of 44. After his death I was left with the dreams. I found what I needed in the Communist Party in Tamra and in the May Day demonstrations. Communism and feminism go well together. Communist theory doesn’t discriminate between women and men. I was in Moscow two years ago, and women were [still] crying because the communist regime had been destroyed. In the new regime, the main losers are women, children and old people who lost their rights.”                  

Looking back, how do you view the great crimes of communism?                  

“There were mistakes along the way, but also achievements. If only we could achieve a situation in which the wealth would be divided among the people, and there would not be only a small layer of very rich and all the others very poor.”                  

If Hadash in its various forms used to be the central party among the Arabs in Israel, today’s young people appear to prefer a different alternative.                  

“The Islamic stream caught those who lost hope. Many view religion as a place to escape to. When they can’t find answers to questions of poverty, they find religion to be a place in which they feel safe. I’m pleased to be on the side of communism and not in other places – of capitalism or fundamentalism.”

"Swinish capitalism has taken over the world"                  

Faten Ghattas, 57, a director of the Israel Cancer Association                  

Faten Ghattas, from the Galilee village of Rameh, was a philosophy student in Bulgaria from 1985 to 1990, in the waning period of the communist regime there. As a Marxist-oriented philosopher, he found few job offers in his field back in Israel, and switched to management. He is currently the director of activity of the Israel Cancer Association among the country’s Arab population.                  

“The capitalist model is fragile, it’s obvious that it can’t go on like this. Despite the false illusion of freedom and democracy, there is regression in every sphere in the West. We see democracy as it is in the United States, for example. Communism brought results even for those didn’t really believe in communism. Thanks to the revolution, the social-democratic model was created in northern Europe, as a counterweight to communism. Many people were happy at the fall of the Soviet Union, but afterward swinish capitalism took control of the whole world.”                  

Maybe it would be better to give up on social democracy and not try to achieve communism, which led also to such tragic results?                  

“It’s not that there is one formula. There are clearly a number of approaches, and it’s also clear that the road is long.”                  

What was it like living under a communist regime?                  

“It was very interesting, but there were many paradoxes. People lived excellently in Bulgaria under communism but dreamed of capitalism, on the assumption that it would produce a better life. From my visits in recent years, it looks as though they have only regressed in terms of the living standard.”                  

Can you give examples of mistakes made by communism?                  

“People should have been given more freedom, allowed to move toward a freer economy. Lenin himself, a few years after the revolution, decided to change direction and grant the farmers more freedom, and that was a greater change than he’d thought originally. The reality should have been grasped more quickly, and more flexibility allowed. Communism erred in not understanding that people need to live better now, and not in another hundred years. I also saw the transition from communism. People celebrated Christianity. It shouldn’t be a big deal to go to church; communism should have allowed them to do that.”  

"Communism isn’t just Stalin"                  

Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi, 40, artist                  

Zoya Cherkassky is a prominent artist, a member of the New Barbizon group of local female artists who were born in the Soviet Union. She herself was born in Kiev and immigrated to Israel at the age of 15. In contrast to many other immigrants from the former USSR who have a conniption fit when they see a red flag, Cherkassy, who now lives in Ramat Gan, considers herself a communist.                  

“In my childhood I really believed in communism,” she says. “Communism has become a term of ridicule and has lost its honor. When I arrived in Israel I was totally anti-communist – communism looked like the worst thing going. Many people from the Soviet Union who came to Israel felt that they had entered the Free World. But as in the [former] communist bloc, in Israel, too, young people who were born in the Soviet Union feel very disappointed in capitalism. They came to understand that it is not a liberal paradise with equal rights and equal opportunities. Our parents’ generation is under the illusion that they didn’t succeed because of personal failure, but the young generation sees the failings of the capitalist system, despite the anti-communist propaganda.”                  

Wasn’t the communist system also a failure – the millions killed by Stalin?

“There has never been a true communist state: namely, a society in which there is no money. It wasn’t fully realized, and it failed. Along with terrible things, there were truly good things. I do not admire Stalin. Communism isn’t just Stalin.”                  

What do you parents think about your love affair with communism?                  

“My father is an old Stalinist and is pleased with my views. My mother doesn’t care.”                  

A year ago, Cherkassy took part in a conference of Soviet artists in Prague. Communist-era art exercises a considerable influence on her work, she relates. “At the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse, we thought that Soviet art was shit, Soviet garbage, but many groups are now referencing the Soviet period in their painting. There are materials that you can work with and continue to develop. That art has been unjustly neglected.”                  

"The October Revolution was a great achievement for humanity"                 

Basil Hala’ila, 22, sociology student                  

Basil Hala’ila, who grew up in the Upper Galilee town of Majdal al-Krum, is about to complete a degree in sociology and political science at the University of Haifa. “As Marx said, philosophers want to interpret the world, and as a communist I aspire to change the world,” says Hala’ila, who has led campaigns to improve the conditions of the maintenance staff at the university.                  

What is your model for communism? The Soviet Union? Cuba?                  

“The October Revolution led by Lenin was a great achievement for humanity in terms of establishing a meta-national state and equality for the proletariat. But after Lenin’s death, Stalin took power and the project went awry. The internal suppression he introduced is contrary to the communist idea. Cuba was an interesting experiment. It put an end to the rule of the corrupt tyrant Batista. Despite the blockade and the sanctions on the part of the United States, they have one of the best health systems in the world, and free education. With all the positive aspects of life in Sweden and Norway, those countries live by the rules of the free market. Naturally, in a choice between a capitalist Israel or a welfare state, I would prefer a welfare state, but I aspire to more.”                  

Hala’ila’s father was head of Communist Youth in Majdal al-Krum in the 1970s. Of his childhood, the student relates now, “I was born into a leftist atmosphere. I absorbed a socialist atmosphere at home. But for quite a long period I was apolitical. I didn’t care much.” He became class-conscious at the age of 17, when he read “The Communist Manifesto.”                  

When you talk to your peers about class consciousness, they probably say that you’re badgering them with Marx.                  

“The existing social situation also affects apolitical young people. Issues such as rent, living standards and family relations preoccupy them. I am not speaking at a boring philosophical level. Marx’s ideas can be conveyed to everyone in the world. Communism is also expressed in my day-to-day behavior. In the aspiration to be a caring person who helps others. I will not place myself in the position of being an exploiter.”                  

How is that reflected in practice?                  

“I’m currently looking for employment, and it was suggested that I send my curriculum vitae to one of the financial firms that sell dreams and steal money. I declined to go there.”     

"The 2011 protest movement made me aware of social issues"

Keshet Zamir, 18, waitress

Keshet Zamir, from Haifa, does volunteer work in the Socialist Struggle, a small left-wing movement. Her primary activity is in gender issues. Firebrand speeches she delivered in local SlutWalk events are available on YouTube. Her first activity after joining the movement, when she was 15, was organizing a protest against schools that didn’t allow girls to wear skimpy attire. “That wasn’t a protest against the teachers, but against a system that tells girls to be ashamed of their body and blames the victim. Like, if you wear skimpy clothes don’t be surprised if you’re harassed. In the case of boys, it’s not an issue. We wanted to advance sex and gender education for children of all ages.”

How did you come to join the Socialist Struggle movement? 

“My mother is a member, too. And the protest movement of 2011 made me aware of social issues. I went with my parents to demonstrations. We think about university at an early age and understand what it means economically. What it means to find housing when the jobs that are available pay only minimum wage. The capitalist system has failed completely. So long as the system wants only to increase profits and no one thinks about pausing to shift to green energy, it’s not clear how humanity will survive. It’s hard to be a young person growing up in Israel, with rounds of war every two-three years. An alternative has to be found.”

Didn’t the word “communism” scare your friends in high school?

“No. It only challenged them. Communism also had amazing achievements. Russia was the first country to give an equal wage and equal work, and day-care centers, in order to liberate women from housework. Communism wasn’t only Stalinism and a dictatorial system that oppressed people.”

What are your plans for the future?

“I want to study classical singing at a music academy. Beyond that, my life choice is socialism. That will always be central in my life.”

[gaycrouton]

Memorable

Words of Love 13/27 [ Mulder and Scully have to attend a dreaded team building workshop, but it ends up being better than either could have ever hoped.]

Lol, okay this is the second time this has accidentally happened, but this is similar concept-wise to the one shot I just posted, but different.

Memorable: (adjective) worth remembering or easily remembered, especially because of being special or unusual.

For  years, they had evaded it. Scully would suddenly get ‘sick’, Mulder would find a case, they would take an unexpected detour, whatever the excuse may have been at the time; but now, after six years, they had to attend the mandatory, partner ‘team building’ seminar.

They had been called into Skinner’s office last week and were told that there was no escaping it. Skinner sat across from them, separated by the mahogany table Scully had spend years looking at while being reamed out, and he was poorly hiding his amusement.

“I don’t know how you both managed to put this off for the entire duration of your partnership. Do I need to remind you what the word mandatory means?” He asked, years of commitment lessening the harshness of his voice.

As per usual, Mulder had to chime in, “Well, sir, we thought that since we have the highest solve rate at the bureau, may I remind you our focus is in unsolvable crimes, that we may serve as a perfect example that not doing the seminar is more effective.”

“Oh, and all this time I had no idea your intentions were so altruistic,” Skinner teased. He took a long glance at Mulder and Scully’s pleasing expressions before rubbing a head over his head, “Look, if you guys can just attend the first day, just one full day, I can call you back on a case and you can get back to work. I’ll make sure to mark it in the file that you attended, and then maybe you can start a new streak.”

“Thank you so much, sir. We truly appreciate this. I’ll make sure that we’re on time and participatory,” Scully beamed gratefully, sending a pointed glance at Mulder while saying the last words.

As he let out a soft chuckle, Skinner muttered, “That’s what I’m counting on.” Before leaving, Skinner requested they kept this arrangement between the three of them and they readily agreed, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Aside from fleeting smirks, they didn’t communicate until they were in the privacy of their office. Closing the door behind them, Mulder teased, “He only did that because he likes you, you know that right?”

If Scully had a dollar for every time Mulder had joked about that throughout the years, she would never have to work another day in her life. Letting out an amused, exasperated sigh, she reminded him, “Mulder, for the hundredth time, you are delusional. Skinner just appreciates that I can get you to behave.”

She looked up to see him regarding her with a thoughtful expression. He had been doing that more lately, or maybe, she had just started noticing it more. Times when she checked to see why he hadn’t responded to a question, when she caught his reflection in the mirror, when she opened her eyes on an airplane after a nap; for the split second, before he had a chance to turn away, she caught him looking at her with a look of absolute adoration. The word felt heavy in her mind, but it was the only one she felt accurately described the way his eyes were swimming with emotions unsaid. What surprised her most was that it didn’t make her feel uncomfortable, in fact, she cherished the moments she got to see the man behind the jokes and levity.

“Earth to Scully?” She jumped at the hand waving in front of her face and felt herself blush in embarrassment at having him catch her in such a personal moment. Ironically what she had just been reflecting on doing to him.

“I’m sorry, what?” She tried to sound collected.

“I asked where this shindig is taking place this year,” he smirked. He always enjoyed seeing her get flustered, hence all the constant innuendos and invading of personal space. After having to, embarrassingly, call Skinner to get the vital information they had completely forgotten, they finished up the day’s work and agreed to meet at the D.C. lecture hall tomorrow.

In usual Scully-fashion, she was there far too early. It didn’t start until 9am, and she had arrived forty-five minutes early. She had decided to read a book she had brought with her to kill time in the empty lecture hall until a guy from the Violent Crimes Unit, whose name she still couldn’t remember even though he had just said it, decided to talk her ear off. She had been sitting and listening to his tawdry attempts at flirtation for a solid half hour, the other half of his partnership glaring at them from a few rows up.

“So, Dana, enough about me. What’s a beautiful woman like you doing in the FBI basement?” He asked this while making a move to rest his arm on the back of her chair.

Glancing back at his arm with undisguised contempt, she moved up in her chair to avoid any touching. “Working,” she answered curtly. He wasn’t the first man at the FBI to think that dissing ‘Spooky Mulder’ would somehow win her over. As if her assignment was so draining and ridiculous, that the first chance at ‘normalcy’ would have her swooning. It pissed her off.

“But, I mean, come on. You can’t tell me that dealing with him isn’t emotionally draining.”Scully wouldn’t necessarily call herself possessive, protective was probably a better word, but while she had tolerated comments like these six years ago, she had no sympathy for them now.

“Mulder has taught me things throughout the years that you will never begin to understand. And, ‘dealing with him’, as you so rudely put it, has never been a fraction as emotionally draining as this conversation.” Subtlety had never been her strong suit.

Apparently common sense had never been his. He leaned further into his chair, uncomfortably invading her personal space, and leaned his face close to hers. Not lowering his voice, he leered, “Well if you want to come with me after this, I can teach you a few things too.”

She turned to glare at him and saw he was doing a lecherous sweep of her body, when he looked back to her face she saw him lick his lips. She was temporarily stunned at the versatility of man; yesterday Mulder was starting at her like she was Aphrodite incarnated, and less than twenty four hours later, this man was looking at her like a piece of meat. Before she could open her mouth to tell him to go fuck himself, Mulder’s unexpected, terse voice broke the tension, “That’s funny, last I checked Scully was my partner, not yours. Also, as far as I was aware, she’s more than capable of sitting in a chair without your assistance.” Though his words were joking, his tone held nothing but contempt, punctuating his sentence by swatting the man’s hand off the back of her chair.

Scully would never admit to this for as long as she lived, but every time Mulder defended her honor, for lack of a better term, it absolutely thrilled her. Mulder was a sweet guy, she had seen him protect countless other women when he saw men getting too pushy, but in those circumstances he seemed just aggravated with the offender. On the occasions when she was the one being made uncomfortable, he would get irate.

The VCU guy looked more offended at the fact he was being forced to leave than Mulder’s threatening tone. “Well hey there Spooky. Dana and I were just bonding since you left her all alone.” He said her name like a taunt, dangling the fabricated familiarity he felt they shared in front of Mulder.

“Oh, bonding, is that what they call it now? Last time I checked it was known as harassment,” Mulder taunted, earning an amused chuckle from Scully.

Before the man had a chance to respond, his partner had come over in a flurry and dragged him away, muttering that ‘he always pulled these stunts’. Mulder sat in the newly emptied chair and gave Scully an empathetic grin. “Sorry about that.”

She felt her brows furrow, “You have nothing to be sorry about. He just couldn’t take a hint. I’m glad you came.”

He gave her a half smile in response. “I actually got here a few minutes ago. I’m sorry that you get teased about your association to me. I appreciate what you said, when you were defending me.” He wasn’t looking at her, the telltale sign of his self conscious nature peaking through.

She laid a hand on top of his fidgeting ones to get his attention. “Mulder, it doesn’t bother me, and I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean.” He smiled one of his rare, shy smiles, but as soon as he opened his mouth, the overly eager seminar leader had started.

The bubbly woman announced that, before the day’s lectures began, she was going to pass around a questionnaire for all the partners to interview each other with. “They key is H.O.N.E.S.T.Y. it may be embarrassing, it may open you both up to conversations you haven’t had, but the whole point is to learn new things about one another.” The seminar had only started five minutes ago and Mulder and Scully were already making jokes in their seats at the far back of the lecture hall.

The room had already filled with chatter by the time they got their forms. They rearranged their chairs so that they were knee to knee and looking at each other. Amused grins spreading across their faces. Mulder spoke up first. “So we just read the questions and we both respond to it?”

“Yep,” she answered, eager to see how ridiculous this was going to be. Looking down at her form, she was actually eager to hear what Mulder’s answer would be. “Question one, What was your first impression of your partner.”

He raised an eyebrow, “I have to go first?” Prompted by her head nod he mused over the question for a moment. “First impression upon first introductions or first initial impression?”

Scully was a bit thrown and her curiosity was heightened even more. “Both.”

He pondered a moment more before answering. “Well, when I first heard you were assigned to the X-Files, I did some thorough research on you. I thought your background was impressive, to make an understatement. I was enamored with the fact you became a medical doctor before joining the FBI,” he paused to grin, “And your thesis was honestly a really interesting and fascinating read.”

His blunt honesty was taking her by surprise, she would have assumed that he would have played this off as a joke, like he usually did. Then it dawned on her; he was answering honestly because he wanted her to do the same when it was her turn. He wanted to hear her true feelings towards him, and it warmed her heart.

“When you first came into the office, I was honest, I just presumed you were there to spy on me. I wanted to put you off a bit because I didn’t want to like you just to be disappointed when you left. Don’t pout at me,” he started chuckling at her. She didn’t realize she was doing it, but what he said made her feel a little sad at the realization that probably had happened to him before, that she was actually pouting. “Anyhow, I appreciated your dedication to finding the truth, and that was my first impression. Your turn.”

She didn’t need to take anytime to think, the first time they met was extremely memorable to her, she could recall it in vivid detail. “Well, I had known you by reputation, and, as you already know, I was sent down there to debunk you. However, I also did my research on you and was impressed with what I found. Your credentials are extraordinary.” She paused when she was him repress a smile. Taking a deep breath, she decided to be completely and utterly honest. “When I first met you, I thought you were really cute.”

She grinned in satisfaction when she saw his eyes widen in shock. “W-what?”

“I remember coming home from our first case and I told my friends and my mother how cute I thought you were. I also mentioned that I thought you were a bit arrogant, well-intended, but arrogant. I presume that’s why my mom teases us as much as she does, every time she sees you, she probably just remembers my initial comment.” She felt herself blushing, but it was well worth it to see the same happening to Mulder.

She heard him mumble something and she had to ask him to speak up. “I said, I thought you were hot. I didn’t tell anyone and I didn’t want to come across as demeaning, but, yeah. That was also a heavy component of my first impression.”

She returned his shy smile before quickly scanning the partners around them, making sure no one was eavesdropping. Satisfied that all the other partners were engrossed in their own, probably less exposing, answers, she cleared her throat and moved on. “Question two, name three odd things you have observed about your partner in your time together.”

Without skipping a beat, Mulder answered. “One; I could tell when you started trusting me because you would fall asleep on me anytime an opportunity presented itself, car, plane, whatever. Which I honestly found very intimate, you entrusting me to watch over you. Two; family is very important to you. Three; you have a serious talent for running in dangerous footwear.” His last ‘observation’ made her laugh in amusement. When she was done he leaned back cockily in his chair and motioned for her to take the floor.

She paused a moment before answering. “One; when you care about someone you dedicate yourself wholly to them,” she left her answer to be ambiguous. At face value, it could be assumed she was just referring to Samantha, but from the sly smile on his face she knew he understood she was also referring to herself. “Two; you have an oral fixation. Three; you’ve turned throwing pencils into an art form.” She isn’t sure if he even heard the third remark because as soon as number two left her mouth he was sitting up in his chair ready to question her.

“Oral fixation?”

“Oh come on, Mulder. The sunflower seeds, the nail biting, the pencil chewing. You love having something in your mouth to play with.” Before the words even left her mouth her cheeks were set on fire. Not even looking at him, but feeling his delighted stare, she moved onto the next question. “Question three, what is one thing you want your partner to know.”

She looked up to meet his face and saw all amusement had been eclipsed with an expression of intent focus and severity. “I want my partner to know that I trust her implicitly and that she should never question that.”

Scully felt her eyebrow cock, slightly taken aback by his answer. She met his tone, “Mulder, I already know that, I promise. Have I made you doubt that?”

He immediately shook his head to qualm her worry, “No-no, I just sometimes think back to that one case, ya know, the one where the TV made you paranoid and succumb to your greatest fear. Yours was that I betrayed you. I just want to reiterate that that will never be something you’ll have to worry about.”

She felt her chest tighten at his declaration. For the past year, they had become fluent in the art of saying ‘I love you’ in disguise. It was something they danced around, but they were both painfully aware of, but were too nervous to say out in the open. He actually said the words once, but she had been to scared the drugs were talking instead of him, that she dismissed him. She didn’t have the courage yet, but she could keep dancing.

“Do you remember the case a few months ago when you were on that boat and we found you out at sea?” Taken by surprise at the abrupt topic shift, he just nodded in affirmation.

“If there is one thing I want my partner to know, it would be that after we found you, remember when you were in the hospital bed?” Another nod. “Remember what you said to me?” An embarrassed nod. “I want my partner to know that the sentiment is reciprocated.”

Usually when someone describes absolute elation, they describe a kid on Christmas morning. That kid had nothing on the smile Mulder was giving her right now. She had never quite seen a man with such a light in his eyes, he was smiling so hard, she was afraid his face would crack. He made a guttural sigh that was somewhere between a laugh and a sound of relief.

He must have seen on her face that it took a lot of courage to be so blunt, he teased her a little to add some levity. Always so thoughtful. “And you decide to finally tell me during an office-mandated, team building seminar?”

“In my defense, you told me in a dimly-lit hospital room under the influence of heavy narcotics,” she teased back.

He opened his mouth to reply, but the chipper seminar leader decided to resume her lecture, yet again at an inconvenient time. They swiveled their chairs back and pretended to pay attention to what the woman was saying. In reality, they just took turns glancing at one another, drunk off of the new found revelation. A few times their eyes met and they couldn’t keep the smiles from leeching onto their faces. Scully felt elated in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Mulder loves her.

[manifestoonmoralmanlove]

Gormless Ch. 4 - Dab on them Pineapples

A well-meaning friend gave me a book series that is hilariously bad. The first book was Souless and my riffs were entitled brainless. This second book is entitled Changless and these riff are then gormless.

I mean to say I have entitled them gormless! Not that my riffs are dumb, and the effort I spend on them stupid since I’m the only one who enjoys them. HAHA!

The story is SUPPOSED TO be about how a badass lady wearing a rad-looking carriage dress hits baddies with her umbrella and bangs her hot werewolf husband.  In reality it’s mostly poor attempts at being witty, flirty, and superior.

For the last book check out the brainless tag.

If you want the TL;DR version but want to read these new riffs anyway?

This story is set in supernatural Victorian steampunk England.  Alexia is our NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS protag.  She is a soulless, which means she’s able to negate the abilities of vampires and werewolves by touching them. She’s recently married a big oaf, named Lord Connel Maccon.  He’s the manchild in charge of the supernatural police with a zillion dollars and he’s totes super hot too ok.  Their relationship is mostly arguments about how Maccon can’t tell her fucking anything.  Alexia has also recently become head of ~Soulless affairs~ in Queen Victoria’s government.  She has a dumb friend named Ivy, a gay vampire friend named Akeldama, a family who’s evil because they do the same shit as her but while being blonde, and most importantly Alexia is better than everyone cause…cause.

Last time on Gormless:

There’s some mysterious force that’s turning the Vampires and werewolves into humans. Alexia is in charge of figuring out that deal, and she is doing a bad job at it.  Her husband is in charge of the Supernatrual Police (BUR) so he’s going to Scotland about it.

There’s a dude named Channing who wants to punch and have sex with Alexia, and Ivy is getting married to some rich slub, even though she’s in wub with Maccon’s servant Tunstell.

Alexia’s hubby told her to go to a hat store for mysterious plot reasons, she brings her dopey friend Ivy.  The hat store is run by a hot lesbian and as they’re chatting BOOM an explosion! GOLLY WHAT’S NEXT!?

Chapter 4 - Dab on them Pineapples

This chapter starts off totally under described.  Basically the explosion shook the hats on their nice dangling hooks, and turned out the lights.  They don’t even describe it as unbalancing Alexia.  So the whole next bit makes so little sense.  She first reacts by feeling around for Ivy.  She finds Ivy has fainted…cause okay? Ivy is whispering about Tunstell though so she’s like, “YEAH MY FRIEND UNCONCIOUS ON THE FLOOR AFTER AN EXPLOSION IS FINE! BYE LOSER!”

She immediately starts scurrying around for that secret passage she thought she saw earlier. Finds it, goes in, and down an elevator. I just…I was so flummoxed that this was her first response?  All it would take for this to make more sense is to write, “It sounded as if the explosion happened below them, and Alexia would bet you 100 pounds that this secret passage would lead her straight to it. And what if someone was hurt down there?”

It seemed so bizarre for her to go, “EXPLOSION? I’M GOING TO MAKE A BEELINE FOR THE SECRET PASSAGE! MY FRIEND OUT COLD? WHATEVER!”

When she gets down there she finds a messy workshop, where a small explosion clearly took place.  She finds LeFoux yelling at a child and there’s a ghost lady just chilling there.  The gist of the conversation is that the child threw a rag soaked in ETHER into a huge furnace which caused the explosion.  The boy is just like, “lol it went bang.”  And Alexia thinks that’s hilarious and reintroduces herself. LeFoux has to remark that WOW ISN’T LADY MACCON SMART FOR FINDING OUT THE SECRET PASSAGEWAY? GOSH I KNOW I CONFIRMED IT TO HER MINUTES AGO! BUT SHE’S SO SMART!  The ghost is LeFoux’s aunt Beatrice, and the boy is introduced as LeFoux’s son Quesnel even though the two do not look related.

I also find it odd that LeFoux, the owner of this establishment, with a shop full of customers, just slips into the passage and doesn’t give a token, “DO NOT PANIC CUSTOMERS I’M GOING TO FIGURE OUT THE ISSUE, PLEASE STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”

Alexia praises the child for the explosion.  I can’t help but feel a bit exasperated by the book’s tone for this.  This child could have not only killed himself on a flight of fancy but perhaps a block worth of buildings full of humans in a crowded city, and the story treats it like he stole a pudding out of the fridge he wasn’t supposed to have.  But I mean, my job is to worry for the well-being of children and I have a habit of overthinking this shit so take that paragraph with as much or as little care as you see fit.

LeFoux punishes Quesnel and tells her aunt to take him away so she can have sexual tension with Alexia.  Alexia, you do not deserve the sexual attention of anybody except your dipshit husband. Leave the MacDougalls and LeFouxs for the more-deserving slutty, bisexual hate-readers okay.

Faps you realize you will never be able to have sex with a fictional character right?

Faps why would you want to bang a fictional character in a story you don’t even like?

I HAVE TO FIND SOMETHING TO ENJOY HERE OKAY!?

During some mild flirtation where Alexia first realizes women are hot, LeFoux explains that Maccon commissioned a gift that is ready for her.

It’s a huge ugly umbrella that takes a page to describe just its physical appearance, which was hard to follow.  My favorite detail is,

“The handle looked like something that might top an ancient Egyptian column, carved with lotus flowers---or a very enthusiastic pineapple.”

I don’t know what the fuck that’s supposed to mean but with that line I have decided that the handle of her umbrella looks like this:

(Picture of a pineapple dabbing, while wearing bright red shoes.)

And you cannot convince me otherwise.

We spend a few more pages explaining what her James Bond styled umbrella can do. Which includes:

Shoots poison darts.

Can switch between a silver and wooden tip depending on if you’re stabbing vampires or werewolves.

Can emit a magnetic field which can disrupt steam engines temporarily.

Can spray different kinds of toxic mists which can kill humans, and severely injure werewolves and vampires.  

Okay sure, she gets a proper weapon with a lot of weird uses. Sure good!

So now it’s time for me to complain about some writing choices!

Much to my annoyance, every time LeFoux smiles at all (which is a fucking lot) instead of using multiple verbs and descriptors such as, “She smiles, grins, smirks, beams, looks amused/smug/delighted/etc.” She says LeFoux ~dimples~ 100% of the time. And I’m like nobody verbs dimples that way you fucking weirdo who writes like they’re 12.

There’s also this really clumsy pointless exchange where it’s revealed that LeFoux has made special equipment for Prof. Lyall, and she remarks that he’s a curious man. Alexia says he’s not a man at all (cause he’s a werewolf) and LeFoux remarks, “I, too, am not a man. I simply enjoy dressing like one.”

….This is like super clumsy and not how humans talk at all. And there’s no reason why you need to bring that up AGAIN at all? We can tell she enjoys masculine dress because…she’s described as dressing masculine. Like….why? 

Like I know this isn’t meant to be a complex novel, but like I feel condescended to how often unimportant shit needs to be brought up again and again. UGH!

So they head back upstairs, Tunstell shows up so he and Ivy can stare longingly at each other, and OH YEAH tell Alexia Lyall wants to speak with her.

You gotta do more for me to ship Tunstell/Ivy then like show them cozy with one another and shouting in my ear about how they pine for one another.  Like maybe some dialog besides, “How are you?” “Oh I’m fine”?

So Alexia goes to see Lyall. She struts in swinging her new umbrella like HEY! HEY! ASK ABOUT MY NEW TOY!  Lyall does not.  Lyall has his issues don’t get me wrong.  But I find it so refreshing that he refuses to feed Maccon and Alexia’s shitty little egos.

Lyall says the humanization phenomenon has been ~spotted~ again and it’s moving toward Scotland, a bit ahead of Maccon, who is also heading that way.  Maccon doesn’t know he’ll be meeting the mysterious soul-sucking power soon, which could be a problem since he’s only useful in the sense that he has powers.

Alexia takes note of this, and decides she wants to have Lord Akeldama and LeFoux meet cause that would be cool I guess.  That’s where we leave off.  I’m not sure if the two are going to get along immediately upon meeting or hate each other’s guts. I hope they hate the other’s guts cause I think that would be more entertaining.

Say something nice Faps:

These chapters don’t always end and start on similar notes. So it doesn’t feel repetitive.

Lyall, while not totally free from this writing’s bullshit, helps ground this material by being a voice of sanity. A lot of authors can get caught up in HOW FUCKING COOL THEIR PERFECT FUN CHARACTERS ARE and it’s just kinda refreshing that this author has enough self-awareness to realize how exhausting and irritating their antics/personalities can sometimes be. Or in the very least enough awareness of writing to know when to slow it done and take a breather.

 LeFoux is hot.

Since I have identified her new murder parasol as having a dabbing pineapple handle, all mentions of it conjure hilarious mental images for me.  She was described as cradling it like a baby, and swinging it wildly in order for it to fail to catch Lyall’s attention.

 I also kinda like how despite getting a badass weapon crafted for her, it’s hideous.  Like perhaps it’s for the humor sake, but I appreciate we’re not just going to steamroll how cool and great Alexia is. Even though she got this super rad weapon with all these functions without having to earn it. The item does have the downside of being tacky and heavy. You know?

[popculturespiritwow]

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #23: PROFILES IN PLUMAGE

LIFE AFTER MOMMY

While Issue 23 is in a sense a prelude to the arc proper, magazine-style profiles of our Pantheon post-Blood Blister-Ananke-Pop!, one of the great elements of the issue is how it lays out the new status quo within interviews that are the fruit entirely of online role play between Kieron and the interviewers. In other words, the interviewers didn’t have a sense of the story goals, they were just approaching their subjects the way they would in real life, and it was up to Kieron to improvise in a couple key notes – Baal as now Responsible Father Figure/Super Hero who is Going to Stop the Great Darkness and Wear Suits**; Laura as Maybe Actually the Destroyer After All Tho; Morrigan receding into the Undeworld with Baphomet; Ammy’s continued insistence that everything is going to turn out super great for everybody; Woden making a machine to “mimic” people’s powers (see: things that will also work out super great for everybody); oh, and everybody’s still going to die, tick tock. 

It’s all a pretty big gamble and it works really really well.

**Just realizing, the guy who makes it his mission in Imperial Phase to protect Minerva is simultaneously quietly killing children. Wow I don’t know how to feel about any of that.

TOMATO, TOMATO

What is this thing we’re reading, issue #23? Is it a comic book recreating itself for an issue as a magazine in order to do something fun and different and also expand the whole “gods viewed as celebrities” concept, show us how the Pantheon are viewed by the wider world?

Certainly that’s how it presents itself. And I dare you to find an issue of another book that does that as well, from layout to shot selection to the kinds of narratives it weaves. And other than the Chris Eliopolis-style three panel strip that ends the issue, and maybe Jamie’s four panels depicting Ananke’s death, there’s not a lot about what goes on within the issue that seems to resemble the storytelling methods of a comic.

But its cover is 100% comic book. We’re given an issue number, the title of the comic, the creative team, the production company. The page dimension are also those of every other issue of the series. And the cover design, Baal against the white background, as though having escaped the comic book frame which now hangs over his shoulder, is the design for the Imperial Phase run of issues.

The back cover fronts (backs?) the magazine vibe, replacing the series’ normal quote from within the book with an advertisement for a Persephone-branded phone. (I have to believe in a world where the ring tone is “Persephone is in Hell.”)  But even there, if you want to be picky, you’ve got the bar code and comic book rating in the bottom right. 

So it’s a comic book, right, doing celebrity rag really well and why am I wasting your time debating about this. But then there’s this... even if it’s not in a way like pretty much any comic book the art of the issue does generate story, in the way that magazines of its variety do, costume plus setting plus pose revealing character and plotline.

And not only that but the fullness of the story being told in each article and the issue as a whole is a result precisely as a result of the interactions between art and text. Indeed, the very choice of photos first to take and then to use emerges out of both the text of the story and the pre-interview idea for the story that the writer or editor brought. 

Clearly issue 23 is the band we love at the top of their game innovating even further and making us think that much more. But maybe it’s also a way of highlighting not that a comic can be a magazine, but that in the way they deliver story, magazines are actually a kind of comic books themselves.

WHO TO GET TO WRITE YOUR PROFILE IF YOU’RE NOT A TOOL

Kevin Wada’s art is just fantastic, both spot on for the kind of magazine the issue is trying to present and also with just the perfect shot selection for the characters.

That two page spread of Baal or the crazy shot of Woden. Wow.

But for me the gold of the issue is the fresh insights the article authors bring to the characters.

“It’s why fans love her,” Leigh Alexander writes of the Morrigan. “She creates spaces where it all feels inevitable, and therefore okay. Or definitely, assuredly not okay, so you can stop pretending, You can stop struggling. Or you can only struggle. Either way it’s a relief.” The blessing of the Morrigan, yes it’s a nightmare, you’re right, and with that truth, an easing of the pain. (I love all the articles, but Alexander’s is particularly wonderful. The feeling she has for the Morrigan gives the piece such pathos.)

Or here’s Dorian Lynskey, writing about Baal. “This, then, is Baal’s spin for the day: there will be a plan. We mortals might not know what it is, it may not even be decided yet, but there will be one. DO I believe it? I’m not sure. But I believe that Baal believes it. After so much blood and chaos, he needs to believe it.”

(Did Lynskey have any idea of the secrets Baal was hiding? I don’t think so. And yet knowing what we know not, could his piece be any more dead on?)

In her profile of Woden, author Laurie Penny says “He takes women and turns them into videogame cheesecake. He takes women and turns them into something less than human, something comprehensible and controllable, with clear win conditions.”

She also kids that his workshop is like the Batcave, and follows with another incredibly prescient remark: “’Where’s Alfred? Or...no, hang on. You’re Alfred.”   

Mary HK Choi’s insistence on often calling Lucifer by her birth name, which at first works as a refusal to take the claims of godhood as anything more than as millennial celebrity publicity stunt; but then becomes part of insisting on Luci’s innocence and vulnerability: “Lucifer if perfect right now – vibrant and happy. And while there is a humane aspect to  the fatalistic branding, the finite relevance that is the reality of the celebrity industrial complex in the age of social media, it’s still super sad.

“When she’s skipping to the mall, shudder at how her parents (unrepentant Beatles fans) conceived her on the night of a Blur gig...she is very much a kid. A kid swaggering to impress you and thousands of people for whom everything is performance.”

(Also, we get that great quote from Kieron, “Being the devil is knowing you’re lost.” Rather than Purveyor of Lies, Lucifer once again as the one who understands the lie within it all.)

Lastly, here’s Ezekiel Kweku, after hearing Ammy explain away Ananke’s death: “She looks preternaturally serene, godlike once more. For some reason, this makes me even sadder.”

(“She doesn’t want you to see in her a deconstructed divinity, she wants to appear as whole and uncomplicated as an undivided beam of light,” is so perfect as sentences go I would be filled with a jealous rage if I could stop enjoying it.)

NO BUT SURE ANOTHER WOODY ALLEN MOVIE IS FINE THO

I do this newsletter on pop culture and spirituality called Pop Culture Spirit Wow. (Join us and we can rule the galaxy forever.) And the week  Avengers: Infinity War came out I did a whole thing on the history of the Avengers, including some of their most iconic storylines.

And in doing research, I stumbled upon this post from former Avengers writer Jim Shooter, who insists that Hank Pym “was not a wife-beater”. The famous moment where Pym hits Janet van Dyne, he said was actually the mistake of the artist. “In that story (issue 213, I think),” Shooter writes, “there is a scene in which Hank is supposed to have accidentally struck Jan while throwing his hands up in despair and frustration—making a sort of ‘get away from me’ gesture while not looking at her.  Bob Hall, who had been taught by John Buscema to always go for the most extreme action, turned that into a right cross!” And it was too late to fix it, so they had to go with it. 

Years later, Bob Hall responded, saying Shooter “had never said he didn’t like the slap panel”, but that he could believe he’d made a mistake, because he was young and didn’t know what he was doing.

But I don’t know, this is a pretty different from an “accidental slap”:

Also, what precipitates this terrible moment is Pym on trial for having seemingly shot a woman in the back (turns out she was a robot) and feeling a lot of pressure. The issue features Tigra worrying about Jan and wondering why she stays with him. “Don’t you see you’re worth ten of him?” she asks.

And after his “accidental slap” he flips out in court, ultimately sending in a robot to save him.

So I don’t know, actually an accidental slap feels a lot less likely than what was drawn. (Actually it feels exactly like what someone who just hit a woman says to try and get away with it.)

Once it “happened”, Shooter and Marvel were “stuck” with it (#TheRealVictims), and Shooter had to rethink where he was headed with the characters. Jan files for divorce next issue, in fact.

If you look at the history of comics, you won’t find many moments like this, at least not at the Big Two. Men do not hit women.

Unless they have powers, that is. Then it’s kind of all fair, or at least occasionally permissible. And it never comes up in later conversation. It’s just the way things are. She was super strong, she hit me first, of course it’s okay. 

In both the Morrigan and Baal pieces the characters talk about Baal having hit her. That attack happened twelve issues ago (when you include the 1831 special), and it’s still considered a significant ongoing story point for both characters.

Once again, WicDiv making us consider things that the world kind of ignores. (Or even enjoys.)

DENIAL, THE NEW FRAGRANCE

The very last beat of this issue, the wacky cartoon, is maybe the hardest hitting punch of all.

They’ve been through all this craziness, they’ve found out they were being manipulated all this time, and they just straight murdered someone. So what do they do now?

What else? They party.

It’s like the Danger Laura Wilson warning of the first two arcs, but now applied to the whole group, and just as firmly ignored. The only one who really seems to understand at all it is Luci, and she’s dead, er, a living head stuck in a cave we won’t know about for another year of issues.

[xuxii-sushii]

unfaithful (m.)

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader.

Genre: ANGST!, smut, drama.

Plot: The moment when you realize that everything that was ❛ oh so perfect ❜ in your mind was nothing but fabricated with lies and betrayal. You fell for Jungkook. And it hit you hard; you got played.

A/N- yoooo I didn’t proof read lol sorryyy

Cristina, your best friend, was screaming from the other side of your phone call, “Y/N, are you trying to piss me off or what? I can’t believe you right now. Fuck where is it-” “What are you on about? It’s right there!” “Where?! You- this- when- if-” “The line is cutting Cris I can’t understand you”, you say in response to the jumble of words, “Cris? Hello? Hel-” The call ended. Probably bad connection. It was after 8 at night in one of the most extravagant places you have ever seen, New York City. The infamous lanes lit up with street lights and cars driving back and forth with occasional shop banners and signs. You were walking through a full crowd to the 10th Avenue. To see him. To see Jungkook.

You met him 2 months ago in San Francisco during your part time job in the state library. Your first impression of him was very vague. You didn’t catch much about him after your first conversation, which should’ve been a red flag for you. However, he started coming in daily which led to you actually waiting for him to have a nice chat. He seemed like a nice guy. Sweet, good choice of books, handsome, and polite. Which of course, made you wonder what was actually wrong with him. No one could be this perfect. After a week of chatting for hours in the library, you did find out some flaws which weren’t really flaws but hey, you were desperate. 

He was very stubborn. Whenever you guys had an argument over a character or a plot of any story, he would refuse to accept your explanation as he’d already made up his mind. On a very slow Tuesday, he came in earlier than he usually did. You were stacking up the new books that arrived the same morning.

It was a pleasant day for you. New books, clear weather, good hair day, what more could you possibly want? You were swaying around in the empty and narrow passage between the tall shelves to the upbeat music playing through your earphones. You felt a pair of hands on your waist from the back that made you jolt in surprise.

“Jesus fuc-”, you turn around to find an amused Jungkook who found your reflex action really entertaining. 

You remove your earphones to hear a slight chuckle from his mouth, “Did you have to do that?!” 

“You were basically asking for it. You looked way too content for the last five minutes. I had to scare you.” 

“You’ve been here for five minutes? Ah, talk about stalking skills, I didn’t even see you”, you say in an attempt of mocking Jungkook to which he replied with a scoff.

 “Why are you so happy today?”, he gasped comically, “Did that guy finally returned his book set today?” 

You laughed, “I wish! I don’t think he’s coming back. Looks like I’m gonna have to call the FBI now.” 

“I doubt they’ll be able to catch the man. He’s very cunning.” 

“Hm”, you nodded in agreement with your hand rubbing your chin, “He sure is. The only person who can save us is..” 

“AQUALAD!”, you both exclaim in unison at the same time which made you burst out in laughter. 

“He is really lame though”, Jungkook said between his perfect chuckles. You laugh in agreement while picking up the books placed on the trolley that were to be stacked in the middle shelf. 

“Y/N, I was thinking.. we’ve never seen each other out of this library.” 

“That’s true. Wow, never thought of it.” 

“How about we change that?” 

“Jungkook, are you asking me out?” You turn around to look at him. He stood still at your bluntness. 

 “Jungkook are you blushing?”, you excitedly blurt out as there were very rare chances in which you could tease him.

He quickly contained himself and put on a tough act, “Oh shut up, I d-” 

You started poking him playfully with both your index fingers, “Kook has a crush on me! You have a crush on me~” 

He tries to hide his smile by looking everywhere except at you, “Okay stop it now, we get it”, he was trying really hard to dodge your attacks but wasn’t entirely successful. 

 “I’m loving this”, you say with a huge grin still poking him. He suddenly grabs both your wrists and finally looks at you. 

“Stop teasing me”, he speaks in a low voice which should not have affected you the way it did. He looked way too hot in this moment; stern gaze, firm grip on your hands, his magnificent features. It was hard not to lose yourself in him. The tension was not subtle at all as both you were staring at each other freezed in your positions. You had two options; either stop teasing him, or tease him further to see what he does next. Of course you chose the latter. 

 “What if I don’t?”, you shoot back. You were really stunned how bothered you were because of such little contact. Your breathing was getting heavier by the second. He loosened his grip on your wrists. His hands slowly travelled to your cheek. 

He cupped your face softly, “I was trying to go easy on you but you leave me no choice.” The next thing you know were your lips against his. His hand was now on the back of your neck while the other one was wrapped halfway on your waist. You kissed him back with passion trying to not come off as desperate but it was too late for that. You didn’t care. You wanted him. Right here. Right now. And by his actions you could tell he wanted the same. He pushed you back against the wall which made you gasp. Your hands were tangled in his soft brown hair as you both pressed your bodies against each other to get some relief. His hand was now very near to your core which was making you whimper shamelessly. It was kind of embarrassing how quick you reacted to his touch and actions. He made you weak, and he was well aware of it. 

 “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time”, he said looking into your eyes as you both tried to breathe after the never ending kiss. He held the end of your skirt and looked at you for permission. You gave him a slight nod and he lifted it up leaving your thighs completely exposed. His hands slowly crawled up to your core while he resumed kissing you hungrily. You were unable to control your moans as he unexpectedly slid a finger inside you. He chuckled at your response and continued with torturous movements in and out of you. He was painfully slow which made you whine loudly. 

 “Jungkook”, your voice almost cracked, “please-” 

He had his face buried in your neck while he marked it with his teeth. “Please what, Y/N?” He said inside the crook of your neck between soft kisses. 

“Faster”, you whined. 

 “Not in the mood for teasing anymore, are we?”, you felt him smirk against your skin when he suddenly slid another finger inside you. He caught up a pace as he was ruthlessly pumping in and out of you. A loud moan escaped your lips which was a sign you were close but Jungkook pulled out his fingers making you whine at the loss of contact. 

He kissed you again sloppily, “I really want to fuck you but I don’t have a condom”, he said against your lips. 

“I do”, you replied almost instantly. He followed you to restrooms and went in the women’s section without checking if it was empty. 

 “Jungkook what if someone’s in th-” 

“Look”, he gestured to empty restroom, “no one.” He took the condom from you and tore it open after locking the door. Thank god you had one in your bag. He sat you on the counter without leaving your lips and unbuckled his pants. He slid on the condom while you were just looking at him in awe. He positioned himself in between your legs and slowly entered you. You inhaled sharply at the way he completely filled you. “Fuck!” he groaned against your neck. He quickly increased his pace after you were completely adjusted to his length. He was thrusting in and out of you with great intensity was making you moan non-stop as you threw your head back. “Shit”, he exhaled in a hoarse voice as he got faster with his movements. You were trying to hold back the lewd sounds and Jungkook figured it out when he saw you biting your lip. 

He kissed you hard, “Let me hear you baby.” 

You let go completely after hearing those words. He was hitting the right spot continuously which was driving you insane. His praises as he kept up with his merciless thrusts were doing a great job getting you to the edge. “You look so fucking gorgeous right now”, he groaned with his hands gripping your waist firmly.

 “I’m cl- fuck!” Before you could finish your sentence you came undone as you reached your high. Jungkook came right after you as he got sloppier with his thrusts. You were completely lost in the feeling and were unable to contain yourself. After riding out your highs, he pulled out of you and threw the condom away. You were trying to catch your breath as you were leaning against the mirror on the wall still seated on the counter. You stood up and fixed your skirt while Jungkook pulled his pants back up. 

 “We should do this again”, he smirked while looking at you. 

“Preferably somewhere else”, you said while looking around the restroom. 

 “I don’t mind”, Jungkook said after kissing you again.

You blushed at the memory of both of you having sex for the first time. You did it again a few times, each time better than the last, which was almost impossible. He was the best guy you’ve ever dated. He even brought food every time he came over your place. Your chemistry and compatibility was absolutely maddening. You both fit together so well. And the way he repeatedly admitted the fact he felt really lucky to meet you at the library made your cheeks flush every time. 

The nights you spent together; cuddled up on the couch in blankets, made your heart so happy almost like it could burst any moment. You fell for him. Every time you caught him looking at you or doing the tiniest gestures, you fell for him even more. You finally decided to tell him tonight, on his Birthday.

He came to San Francisco for a workshop he had to attend on behalf of his school where he met you. He came back to NYC after the workshop ended but you both promised to fly back and forth to keep seeing each other. He had lived in NYC for the last 8 years. And now, you were in NYC, on the first day of September, to confess your feelings to him. 

He mentioned he’d be celebrating with his friends at their regular club where they hung out. You didn’t want to ask him the name of the place as you were completely set on the idea of surprising him. You scrolled through his instagram to find number of different posts at the same club, Marquee. You hoped to god you were going to the right place or else you’d have to call him and explain why would you suddenly drop by from San Francisco to NY without any heads up like a creep. 

 According to Google maps you were really near to your destination when you started to hear faint music coming from a distance. As you got closer the music was blasting out of the club lit with dark purple lights at its entrance. 

You went inside to find a lively crowd on the dance floor moving to the beats of some pop song you haven’t heard. The club was way bigger than you had anticipated. 

After a few minutes of walking through the crowd trying to find Jungkook, you decided to get a drink as you were tired from all the walking you did. You sat on one of the stools in front of the bar. 

A handsome man with the name tag ‘Chanyeol’ approached you from behind the bar. 

“Hey there, can I get this pretty girl a drink?”, he smiled at you. 

You nodded sweetly.

“What would you like?”

“Um, hit me with one of your best cocktails. Although not too strong, can’t get drunk tonight.” 

“Gotcha!”, he left to get you a drink. Your eyes wandered among the people dancing, drinking, basically having fun trying to find the reason you came here. Trying to find Jungkook. Chanyeol came back with a bluish drink having a name you didn’t care about in a long martini glass. 

You were about to take it when he suddenly screamed. 

“No, wait!” You were startled by him. What did he do to the drink? He took out a mini umbrella from somewhere under the bar counter and placed it in the glass. 

“There.” You laughed at his unpredictable actions and then thanked him for the drink. The drink was fizzy but tasted like something you would drink on a beach. 

You were sipping on your drink while faced towards the crowd when you spotted Jungkook at a booth where loads of people were surrounding him. You finally sighed in relief that you came to the right place. You tried to finish your drink quickly before walking up to him when suddenly, your heart dropped. Your throat went dry at the sight in front of you. 

 Jungkook, who got up from the side booth to hug a girl. And then kiss her. 

What?

You couldn’t comprehend the view in front of you. What was happening? Jungkook with another girl? But he said you were the best person in his life after looking at you like you meant the world to him. And now he was looking at her like that. 

 “Wow”, you mumble to yourself. You felt numb all over your body. Face heating up and eyes getting teary; you were getting a gist of what was happening. 

 “You know Yeri?”, you heard someone say. You turned around to find Chanyeol puzzled at your reaction to a happy couple kissing on the guy’s birthday. Seems so normal. You couldn’t bring yourself to say something in response to him. Nothing. You couldn’t. 

He glanced over the couple, “I think they’ve been together for a year now”, he smiled like it was his own accomplishment. 

“Oh”, you said to Chanyeol but your eyes never left the happy couple who were now on the dance floor along with their friends, 

“I don’t know the girl; I know the guy.” Correction, you thought you knew him.  

“Jungkook? Yeah great guy.” Really great, you scoffed in your mind. 

 Why did he do this to you? What did you ever do to deserve this kind of betrayal? A year, Chanyeol said. You slept with a guy who had been in a relationship for a fucking year. You FELL for that fucking guy. 

 How dumb, naive, and stupid can someone possibly be to fall for a twat like him? 

Your heart was beating way too fast. Your palms were starting to sweat while you had a bit trouble breathing. 

Calm down, you said to yourself. 

“Chanyeol, hit me with the strongest vodka you have.” 

“I thought you weren’t getting drunk tonight?” 

“I changed my mind.” 

“That’s fine. What was your name again?” 

“Y/N.” 

“Y/N, coming right up!” 

He was on the dance floor dancing with the girl he’d been with for a year. If he was so happy with her, why did he go out of his way to be with you? What kind of a sick man does that? What kind of a stupid person falls for that man? 

You definitely needed to calm down. 

“Here!” Chanyeol placed 3 shots of clear vodka in front of you on a shining black tray. You downed the first shot in one go. You inhaled sharply before taking the second, and then the third. That wasn’t enough to get you drunk because you had good capacity but it was enough to calm your nerves for the time being. You were still wide awake, completely conscious, not even a bit intoxicated. 

You could still feel the knife that went through your heart. You could still see the world fade away when you focused on Jungkook. With that girl. You were completely taken aback. You just got your heart broken; shattered into a million pieces. As you saw both of them swing around along the retro beat of the DJ’s song, your heart broke even more, which seemed impossible at this moment. You were lost. The world lost its colour. Your face lost its colour. Everything was pale. Completely lifeless.  

“Y/N, why are you crying?”, you heard Chanyeol say. 

“Because I am fucking stupid.” 

“That’s no reason to cry.” You didn’t reply to his obliviousness. You were way too focused on the person on the dance floor who was having the time of his life with a girl. He looked at that girl like she was his life. 

He loved her. 

Seemed like it. 

Why did he cheat on her? Were they on a break when the two of you happened?  

No. He didn’t exactly break things off with you. Why did you have to be in the midst of this? Whether he cheated on his girlfriend or not, why did it have to be with YOU? Why were you the person who heard the lies that rolled off his tongue with such ease? 

 “I’m so glad I met you.” 

“You’re absolutely beautiful, you know that right?” 

“Your smile lights up my day.” 

“I can’t wait to see you.” 

Fuck off, Jeon Jungkook. Fuck off. 

You needed more alcohol. 

“More”, you demanded by sliding the black tray with empty shot glasses towards Chanyeol. 

“Coming right in.” 

Your throat was dry. Bile rising up in your stomach. An uneasy feeling taking over you. You couldn’t really describe your feelings with words but whatever it was, it fucking sucked. 

“Here!”, Chanyeol came back with three more clear vodka shots. You didn’t have it in you to thank him, you just needed alcohol inside you, right fucking now. You just downed the first shot when you heard the music stop and heard some clichéd clinking of glass noises. 

“Hey, everybody! Attention please”, you looked at the girl Chanyeol said was named Yeri, making a grand announcement. 

“Right, so I am Yeri. Nice to meet you all”, she bowed down in all directions earning light chuckles from the crowd. 

“And this is Jungkook, who is also the birthday boy!” The crowd hooted loudly. Jungkook blushed a little at her gesture and had his hand scratching the back of his neck innocently. 

 “I can’t begin to express the love I have for this person, I am so glad to have him in my life. He made everything a thousand times better. So, I request you all to please, PLEASE”, she made extra emphasis, “wish him happiness on his birthday because he means the world to me.” She looked at him with eyes full of fondness while everyone hooted and shouted happy birthday. 

 Well, Happy Birthday indeed, Jungkook. Happy Birthday. You wished him in your thoughts. You were trying to turn your stool back to the bar counter when you accidentally knocked one of your empty shot glasses down to the hard floor. 

“Oh shit”, you exclaimed, “I’m so sorry.” You got up from your seat to pick up the broken pieces of glass from the floor so that no one would get hurt. Only if it were this easy to pick up the pieces of broken heart, you sighed mentally. 

 “Y/N, it’s okay! You’ll hurt yourself; here, I’ll get it cleaned”, he gave you a hand to pull you back up from the floor. You straightened your skirt and decided it was finally time for you to leave. You couldn’t bear the sight of Jungk- 

You turned to look at him when you found his eyes on you. His face had an unreadable expression. He was stood still in his spot while everyone around him clinked their glasses in joy. You felt sick to your stomach. You took out money from your purse and placed a hundred dollar bill on the bar towards Chanyeol. 

“Hey you forgot your change-” You completely ignored his protest as you were hurriedly rushing towards the door. You didn’t need confrontation. You didn’t want any explanations. You didn’t expect any reasonable arguments. You just needed him to disappear. Forever. You wanted to never see his face again. The thought of never seeing him again was very painful, but you needed it. You wanted to get away from him. As far as you could go.

You exited the bar with no intentions of coming back. Not to the bar. Not to this city. Not to him. 

You walked away as fast as you could. Your eyes were watery. Almost giving you a stinging sensation when it started to rain. Fuck this. 

“Y/N!”, a familiar voice called out. Fuck him. It was too late for you to be calm or rational.

“WHAT?!”, you screamed as you turned on your heel. 

“What the fuck do you want, Jungkook?!”

You turn around so quickly it made your head spin a bit. Jungkook stopped in his path when he saw you turn. 

“Let me fucking guess the things you’re gonna whip out? Hm” you respond comically with maybe a bit too exaggeration as you’re practically screaming at this point, “Y/N! I can explain; Y/N! I meant to tell you; Y/N! It is not what it looks like; Y/N things were different when this happened!” you scream in his direction while enacting in different ways with flailing arms and innocent faces. 

“Y/N, please stop and liste-” You completely ignore him, “Well guess what Jeon Jungkook, I don’t fucking care! You’re a fucking asshole I wish I’d have never met in my life. I hate you so much it is making me sick and I can vomit any time”, you step closer towards him, “Preferably on you.” 

“Y/N, please I didn’t mean for this to happen”, he almost looked apologetic, “Listen to me pl-” 

“No Jungkook, I won’t listen to you. Just answer this question clearly”, you gulp before continuing, “Did you cheat on her with me?” 

He stood still without saying a word. He was looking at you but after hearing your question he looked somewhere far away behind you as if the answer was there. 

“Fine, I’ll rephrase my question; are you an adulterous bitch? Were you unfaithful? Did you commit infidelity? Yes or fucking no?” 

He stood for a minute completely still and you were trying with every nerve you’ve got to stop yourself from murdering the man standing in front of you. The rain was getting heavier by the moment but you didn’t give a fuck about that. 

You were getting completely drenched along with Jungkook standing on a side walk with functioning street lights and very rare cars passing by. The raindrops were gathering on his face. Some drops falling off his eyelashes when he blinked while looking down at the concrete path both of you stood on. Some raindrops were leaving his face after staying at his lower lip for some seconds. You hated the fact that you were still admiring the beauty of the person who stabbed you right in the heart without thinking twice. Never judge a book by its cover, indeed. 

You were completely blinded by your anger. You couldn’t think straight. You just wanted everything to end. 

“Answer me, Jungkook!”, you screamed with all the power remaining inside you. “Now”, you say after a few seconds when Jungkook was still speechless and fixated on the cemented sidewalk. 

 "Yes", he sounded almost inaudible, “I cheated on her. And you.“ 

He was still looking down, almost like he couldn’t look you in the eye. When you heard him admit the fact you’ve been loathing ever since you saw him with that girl, something snapped inside you. All the anger, it was still there, but in the form of physical pain. It was almost like your heart literally shattered into a million pieces. You still wanted to scream at the top of your lungs but you were exhausted. The lump in your throat almost felt unbearable. And the only thing you could wonder was; why? 

 You stepped closer to Jungkook. 

 "Why?”, your voice cracked as you were trying to hold back the ugly sobs. 

“Why would you do that?” You took another step towards him; your hand involuntarily flung to his chest hitting it with weak force. Your other hand followed. You were hitting his chest with a mix of closed fists and open hands. You couldn’t hold back your tears anymore. It was impossible. The tears left your eyes as if they were welled up for centuries. The pain you felt was indescribable. And all you could do was throw weak punches at the reason for your unbearable pain. He didn’t try to stop you; he stood there, budging at the initial hits but then accepting all the attacks you had for him, Still looking down at the sidewalk. Your crying increased in volume, you were sobbing; ugly cries escaping your mouth, hands working at a fast pace; complete actions of a toddler when it loses something it loves. 

You did lose something you love, didn’t you? 

“I hate you”, you cried between your loud sobs. It took every single cell in your body to resist the urge of crying in his arms. But you despised him too much to do that. 

“Why?”, you cried multiple times as you retracted your hands from his chest and rubbed your eyes. You tried to wipe away the tears but it didn’t matter as the rain was still going strong. 

“I didn’t mean to”, you heard him between the peaceful sounds of raindrops striking against the hard surface simultaneously. 

“You did anyway”, you laughed. 

He finally looked up and took a few seconds before completely looking back into your eyes. He wanted to find something go soft in your gaze but he was wrong. The sight of him was making your blood boil. Your eyes were filled with nothing but disgust and hatred for him. The same eyes which were filled with love and affection a few days prior. Oh, how things change. 

 "You should be clear about one thing Jungkook”, you say firmly with a tired tone, “this is the lowest I’ve ever felt in my entire life right now; but do yourself a favor and never come near me ever again because God knows what I’ll do then.“ 

“Please jus-”

 "Leave”, you say sternly before letting him complete his sentence. He stepped towards you and tried to hold you by the side of your shoulders but you were quick to snap away his hands. He was completely appalled by your cold actions towards him. 

“But I lov-“ 

Enough. This was the last straw. You shut your eyes as tight as you could preventing any more tears trying to escape. 

“Leave! Leave me alone!”, you screamed in such high volume it was almost deafening. 

 "Just leave! I don’t ever want to see you again!“, you kept screaming and screaming as you lowered to the ground on your knees. You didn’t want to know if he cared enough to stay or calm you down; you wanted him to go away. 

"Go away!”, your voice was cracking but eyes still shut tight. You screamed for about 5 minutes that felt like an eternity, the screams gradually decreasing in volume. You slowly opened your eyes that were hurting now from all the force you shut them with. 

He left. 

“Leave”, you said in an undertone for no one. He wasn’t there anymore which made your chest hurt even more. You were in the middle of a sidewalk in NYC, settled down on your knees in pouring rain with heavy sounds of drops striking the hard surfaces around you, breathing heavily because of all the screaming and crying; you were ready to give up. Maybe curl up here and sleep till the morning. Your body was completely drained of energy. Your mind was completely void of thoughts. But your heart was filled with pain. The throbbing feeling hurting you physically. You got up on your wobbly feet and started walking towards the subway. 

He left. 

You fell in love with the wrong person.

pls give feedback ;-;

PART 2

[cabiba]

Occasionally, my nine-year-old son and I indulge in something we call the “Misunderstanding Game”.

Thomas: “Mom, I want another round of Among Us.”

Me: “Of course, darling, you are absolutely welcome to be among us, you know you don’t have to ask.”

Thomas, giggling and rolling his eyes, patiently explains yet again that there is a computer game called Among Us. In other words, he wants more screen time. I carry on pretending not to understand what he wants. Games, I say, what a good idea. Which one would you like to play? On and on it goes, as I keep on deliberately misunderstanding him.

I do, of course, have a hidden agenda: all this time that he is fooling around with me means less screen time. He also enjoys the maternal attention. I think of it at times as a useful activity, at times as amusing and entirely harmless.

When I listen to people discuss today’s encounters between Islam and the West, I am reminded of this game. The only problem is that these conversations are rarely useful and not in the least amusing. Quite often they lead to more harm than good.

The best illustration of this Misunderstanding Game relates to the issue of immigration from Muslim countries and how European societies should absorb Muslim immigrants.

The first deliberate misunderstanding is the pretence that unskilled immigrants with little formal education are absolutely necessary for advanced economies. With Europe’s shrinking populations and falling fertility rates, the woke and Leftist enablers say, surely no one can argue that enticing young and vibrant people to immigrate is a bad thing. Those terrible xenophobes who fixate on cost/benefit exercises — how much, in monetary terms, immigrants cost society versus how much they contribute — simply don’t get it. Those who point out the large-scale welfare dependency of those immigrants and even of their children a generation later, let alone the emergence of an underclass of ethnic and religious enclaves, are met with cheerful accounts of benefits that cannot be quantified in material terms: the cuisine, attire, sights and sounds of new exotic cultures that locals can now sample at leisure.

Related to this wilful misunderstanding is the argument of compassion. Let’s reject the economic immigrants, say some, and only allow in those who qualify for asylum. In any case, it is just a temporary measure until their countries return to normal. But this approach raises myriad questions. How on earth do we design a vetting process that can distinguish those in search of economic opportunity from those who are true victims of civil strife? When will their countries return to normal? What will they do in the meantime? And who will pay for it all?

Those adept at playing the Misunderstanding Game, however, have some very compelling distractions. Empathy is required, they say. Imagine if it were you or your family who had to endure the ravages of war and upheaval. It wasn’t that long ago that Europe was going through such turmoil. Would you have turned away Jews fleeing what would become the Holocaust?

In any case, we’re told, it is our own fault that these societies are falling apart because we colonised them in the first place. Worse, we even profited from the slave trade before and during the colonial years. Here the conclusion of the Misunderstanding Game is made clear: the moral atonement for historical wrongs is more compelling than any rational attempt to analyse the issues on the table.

A third version of the Misunderstanding Game is the assertion that immigrants are all the same. This approach is partly a response to those such as Dutch sociologist Professor Ruud Koopmans, who has questioned why is it so much harder for immigrants from Muslim societies to integrate into Western countries. Why, for instance, are Lebanese Christians Lebanese more likely to become fully assimilated in Australia than Lebanese Muslims when their circumstances of arrival and departure are practically the same? Or why do Bangladeshi and Pakistani immigrants struggle to integrate in the UK, while their Hindu and Sikh counterparts flourish and, in some cases, even do better than the natives?

Koopmans has compelling data to explain these trends. But who is interested in such questions, let alone such tedious things as data? The game is to misunderstand, to mix up and muddle. So Mr Koopmans, they say, let’s talk about your intent. Your work may be empirical but it is your underbelly that matters: for even though you claim to be a Social Democrat, you are in fact a racist. Busted. You can’t hide behind that pro-labour façade when you defame the true workers of the world with your anti-social science.

Finally, when played at its most mischievous, the Misunderstanding Game simply insists that we all want the same things. We all want to be free and equal; we all want to abide by the law; we all share the same basic values and we all want to respect the dignity of others. For those of us who are men and women of faith, in the end we all pray to the same God. For those of us who are secular, we are all led by our reason. Save for a subset of misfits — and every society has those — we are all just human beings.

To this kind of argument, I always have the same response: not everyone’s concept of God is identical. How else would you explain the existence of Islamist sermons of hatred? Or the harassment of women, gays, Jews and others? What would you say to the victims of the Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs or the Muslim girls who are forced into marriage? If we all pray to the “same” God, then what about the knife attacks, the beheadings and the use of trucks as weapons of murder by perpetrators screaming Allahu-Akbar? What about ISIS and Al-Qaeda? Radical views exist and we urgently need to grapple with them.

Hold it right there, the misunderstanders reply. Didn’t we already make it clear? There are misfits in every society, including ours. Sexual violence against women is universal. And look at the latest report from the UK Home Office. It concludes clearly — after an allegedly long and rigorous research process — that the whole gory business of grooming gangs had nothing to do with Pakistanis and absolutely nothing to do with Islam.

So who is playing this Misunderstanding Game? A class of undergraduates doing a workshop on Public Policy? No. It is in fact our elected political leaders, as well as senior editors from highly regarded news outlets, professors from reputable universities and think tanks, senior civil servants and, at times, EU leaders. These conversations on the thorniest issues facing Europe are taking place in parliamentary committees, debating chambers, international seminars and on national television.

Scrutinise the transcripts of these talks, replay the recordings, read the numerous reports, books and articles generated over the last three decades on immigration, Islam and integration, and the picture that emerges is the same: it is an endless version of the Misunderstanding Game.

Meanwhile, the numbers of immigrants in Europe from Muslim-majority countries has swelled to… who knows? In 2017, the Pew Research Center projected that the Muslim share of Europe’s population could rise from 4.9% to between 7.4% (if there is no more immigration) and 14% (if there is a lot) by 2050. Even if there is less blitheness today about the wonderful ways immigrants from Muslim countries will enrich Europe — especially in France — an end to immigration is not in sight. Europe’s borders continue to be porous, the reasons that compel people to leave their countries get increasingly compelling.

It is, perhaps, a disappointment to those who have always insisted that we humans are all the same to see so many Muslim groups form organisations and movements with the objective of isolating their communities from the rest of society. In some countries, like France, they have succeeded enough to alarm the president to introduce new legislation that signals he has had enough of the Misunderstanding Game. And yet President Macron can hardly be said to be leading a Europe-wide change of sentiment. In most countries, the Misunderstanding Game goes on. Why?

One theory is that there is a genuine desire within the European political elite to atone for the past; today’s leaders don’t want to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. Another possibility is that Western leaders have simply lost confidence in Western Civilisation. It has all been one long tale of horrors: slavery, oppression, colonialism, genocides, misogyny and massacres. Hence there are no values to protect from large numbers of outsiders and certainly nothing worthwhile to ask immigrants to integrate into. A third explanation is that some European leaders genuinely wish to do away with borders. For them it is a matter of principle and they couldn’t care less who pays the price for the pursuit of a borderless planet.

But I believe there is one more reason: incompetence. Quite simply, none of the leaders whose job it is to resolve the issues of Muslim immigration and integration has a clue as to how to go about it. These politicians around the table who do have the right sort of principles but lack the ability to persuade the others. Some grasp the fine details of the issue but are incapable of seeing the big picture. And as with all policy areas of this magnitude and complexity, there are also those leaders who parrot the interests of organised groups who benefit from the status quo. It is they, I assume, who enjoy the Misunderstanding Game the most.

The incompetence of each set of leaders is often masked by an eye-catching political photo-op expressing a grand gesture or a soundbite along the lines of “history will be our judge”. But, as they know all too well, history does not vote; it does not promote or appoint a politician to a senior level. So let it judge away.

In the meantime, the flow of migrants has abated somewhat in the past few years, but large numbers of people still attempt to reach Europe, even during the pandemic. Last year Europe saw more than 336,000 first-time asylum applications and, from January to November, 114,300 illegal entries.

Looking forward, it seems inevitable that as European countries emerge out of Covid lockdowns and their economies reopen, some countries in Africa will face food shortages and other economic problems arising from pandemic-induced disruption. You don’t have to be a sage to foresee masses of young men heading towards Europe. As they attempt to cross the Eastern and Southern points of entry into the EU, be ready for European politicians to speak of a sudden surge and an unforeseeable crisis.

Then watch them play the Misunderstanding Game once again.

[hoynovoy]

'Younger's Best Author Parodies, From Quinn Tyler To Edward L.L. Moore

New York media has been the backdrop for what feels like millions of TV shows about women chasing their dreams. But so few get it right. (I’ll never forget the series in which a magazine editor berates a writer, “You didn’t even leave space in this story for ads!” Which, for the uninitiated, is something an editor would never be concerned with.) But despite Younger’s outlandish premise — a rom-com about a 40-year-old woman passing for 26 — it’s become perhaps the most authentic show ever about the world of book publishing. Through seven seasons, it’s delivered plots that lived and died by the peculiar inner workings of publishing — and managed to make dishy twists out of inside-baseball stuff like bulk sales and imprint/parent company dynamics. Don’t tell anyone who worked on my own novel, but the jargon I tossed off in conversation? Hilary Duff taught me all of it.

The best part of Younger’s evolution into an industry love letter is its prescient author characters, who always feel ripped from the splashiest book world conversations. See: this season’s Greta Thunberg dupe, played to yellow-slickered perfection by Nadia Alexander. “She has our favorite name from Season 7,” writer and executive producer Dottie Zicklin tells Bustle. “Füpa Grünhoff. Her name wouldn’t clear [with the show’s lawyers] until the umlauts were added!”

Füpa is just the latest in the show’s list of standout faux scribes, whose spot-on plotlines were in part the work of the show’s anonymous publishing consultant, who helped guide the staff on the industry’s trends and conversations. We still can’t reveal his or her identity, but we did get to talk to the consultant — along with Younger creator Darren Star, Dottie Zicklin, and fellow executive producer and writer Eric Zicklin — to get the stories behind how the show’s most iconic fake authors came to life.

Season 1: Jane Krakowski as Annabelle Bancroft

Bancroft, played with nightmare-diva energy by the 30 Rock star, was based on Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell. Star famously made the series based on that book, so an homage to Bushnell — in the form of Bancroft’s iconic scenester who spends her book launch party smoking indoors and fixating on the size of the crowd — felt like a safe place to start testing author parodies. “I thought Jane was hilarious playing [a version] of my friend Candace,” Star says. “She really made me laugh.” Writer and executive producer Eric Zicklin adds: “We loved her double-bounce off the glass door most of all.” (Bancroft runs into the door while chasing her coke dealer. Twice.)

Season 2: Kobi Libii as Rob Olive

This caricature of John Green — complete with a soulful leather necklace — hit just as I realized I was reading books about dying teen lovers almost exclusively. Libii is perfectly troubled and self-serious as the bestseller workshopping a Fault in Our Stars-style YA romance with Hilary Duff’s Kelsey at lunch. (Ever the brilliant brainstormer, it’s Kelsey who comes up with the idea for a hospice prom.) “We learned the term ‘sick lit,’ and the genre seemed natural for Millennial Press’ readers,” Dottie Zicklin says. “Trying to say John Green” — aka the author of Fault — “without using the words ‘John’ or ‘Green’ led to a great name.” Long live Rob Olive.

Season 2: Justine Lupe as Jade Winslow

With Lupe’s flaky influencer character, Younger dipped into the hazards of traditional publishing chasing Instagram sensations — Winslow gets a huge memoir advance, then fails to deliver a single page of work. (Liza has to cobble together a draft from the girl’s Instagram captions.) “The younger Younger writers brought up Cat Marnell as inspiration,” Eric Zicklin says. Marnell, a former beauty editor and socialite, wrote the smash 2017 memoir How to Murder Your Lifeabout her drug addiction and magazine-world adventures. “That story led Kelsey and Liza into learning about the balance between hype and substance.”

Season 2: Richard Masur as Edward L.L. Moore

Between his aggressive rascalling around the office and his misogyny, the show’s George R.R. Martin homage became its best work in terms of authentic publishing tension holding up plotlines. Martin’s Crown of Kings fantasy series is key to Empirical staying afloat, so he gets away with — well, not murder, but making Liza wear a fur bikini in Times Square might actually be worse? It takes Empirical far too long to do the right thing and drop the author. (Right around the time Moore debuted on the show, publishing was scrambling to reckon with its own legacy of harassment.) And when they do, Moore strikes back, outing Liza as the 40-something she is. The writers didn’t know when they started writing the character’s arc that he would unpin the show’s central secret. “We had no idea how instrumental he would become in exposing Liza,” Star says. “But Richard Masur was so hilarious that I wanted to bring him back and back and back.”

Season 3: Jay Wilkison as Colin McNichol

Remember the guy who asked Kelsey at the end of their first date to take a look at his novel? Or did you try to forget you ever heard the chilling invitation, “Come on in, I’ll print you out a copy”? Ah, the perils of being a single girl presiding over New York’s hottest imprint. Kelsey actually dates Colin for a while anyway — his 600-page epic turns out to be good, by her measure — but it doesn’t stop the character from feeling It-Boy insufferable all the way through his arc. (Which includes Netflix jumping on the option for his book, naturally.) As for the trend that inspired Colin? The big-money debut epic that seemed to dominate publishing years ago — see books that scored massive paydays like The Art of Fielding or City on Fire — has subsided somewhat. But Younger’s publishing consultant says it’s never really gone. “I think there was a moment where books like that were happening more often, but it could still happen,” the consultant says. “Everyone knows attention spans are shrinking, but people still want to find that ‘It Book’ of the year.”

Season 4: Kristin Chenoweth as Marylynne Keller

Younger’s first episode in the post-Trump era featured Chenoweth as a Kellyanne Conway sendup who declares the world post-facts and claims that “Truth is a four-letter word.” (When Charles corrects her math, saying truth has five letters, she purrs: “Not the way I spell it.”) One trillion bonus points to costume design for the jacket that mirrors Conway’s inauguration outfit. “Not to say the show was ahead of the culture,” Dottie Zicklin jokes, “but when the national conversation became about Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer cajoling the truth, we felt like we were already on that topic. Liza was living it from episode one.”

Season 5: Gina Gershon as Chrissie Hart

If you had Patti Smith’s Just Kids and Chrissie Hynde’s Reckless on your rockstar memoir shelf, you were so ready for this plotline starring Gershon in heavy bangs and week-old eyeliner. She plays Chrissie Hart, a famous singer whose memoir Charles and Liza chase to Shelter Island. (Obviously, Chrissie Hart doesn’t email drafts, because the internet is suspect.) The head of a major publisher personally retrieving a manuscript, messenger-style? Zany but plausible, the show’s consultant confirms. “If anyone’s ever worked on celebrity books, they are their own beasts — totally fun and awful and amazing,” the consultant says. “You know what you’re in for, and yet we can’t help ourselves because they sell and they’re glamorous to work on.”

Season 6: Willa Fitzgerald as Audrey Colbert

Fitzgerald, um, kills it in this tribute to wink-wink-did-I-murder-someone-or-not books. Her character goes around shopping a memoir meant to refute her villain status on a Serial-like podcast; she’s chaperoned by Michael Urie’s Redmond. (The only lit agent in New York, according to Younger, but would I want Urie sharing screen time? I would not.) Fitzgerald’s dead-eyed smize is what gives this character her hall of fame status. As Dottie Zicklin says, “Willa was able to give that staredown that says ‘beware’ and ‘I might have sex with you right now.’” Eventually, though, a press outcry kills the project — totally realistic, according to the show’s consultant. “If you are dealing with someone who the public believes to be guilty, or unworthy of a book deal, that can bring a major backlash,” the consultant says. “See Jonathan Mattingly or Josh Hawley — and, years ago, O.J. Simpson.” Yeah, remember If I Did It? Unlike Beaufort Books, the shop behind that one, Empirical eventually declined to publish Colbert’s book.

Season 6-7: Laura Benanti as Quinn Tyler

Quinn is the one Younger author who’s transcended cameo status. Once a Sheryl Sandberg parody in a wiggle dress, she’s become a prolonged meditation on the subject of women doing it all. “To us, the key to Quinn was understanding that she’s just as smart and successful and impulsive, and just as tone-deaf, as any male billionaire,” Eric Zicklin says. This season, Quinn becomes much more than a villain with an endless font of ice-queen comebacks — proof that Younger is well versed in publishing’s golden rule: Never judge a book by its cover.

Get More Dating Advice Here

[bitchinparty]

Panel Voting is open!

Since we only got 7 more panel submissions than there are slots for panels, we decided not to do two rounds of voting as planned. Instead, voting will be open from now until February 18th. The voting form contains all the panels and descriptions along with mod names--please let me know ASAP if I missed any of the co-mod arrangements flying around! Voting closes at 11:59pm on Sunday, February 18th. VOTE HERE! (Voting instructions are in the form. You must be registered for the con for your vote to count. Side effects may include increased heart rate, shortness of breath, uncontrollable gigglefits, and inability to can. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.) Panel Descriptions SINGLE FANDOM Women of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (mod: Minim Calibre) Natasha Romanoff, Peggy & Sharon Carter, Jessica Jones, Shuri, Gamora, Valkyrie, Maria Hill, and many, many more! Let's talk about the wonderful women of the MCU and why we love them. Avengers Reassemble (mods: Lucifuge5, mizface) MCU's been kicking it for 10 years and counting. Where is it going and where would we want it to go next? Captain America: The Star Spangled Man With a Plan* (*for certain values of plan) (mods: Minim Calibre, Gwyneth) From a kid from Brooklyn to a bearded outlaw, come talk about Captain America and Cap fandom as it stands on the eve of Infinity War. Pacific Rim: Uprising - Next Gen Heroes Yay? (mod: Raine Wynd) Pacific Rim Uprising gave us another apocalypse and a set of new heroes to like. Let's talk - and maybe discuss where Raleigh and Herc were doing while this was going on. :-) The Real Bad Place Is The Friends We Made All Along (mods: SDWolfpup, Brynn, Minim Calibre) The Good Place started with a straight-forward premise and became one of the most complicated, delightful, and philosophy-loving shows on TV. Let's talk about why we love it (so many reasons!), how it manages to keep turning its own premise with such skill, and what we hope for next season. The State of Bandom: 2018 (mods: aethel, Lucifuge5) Bandom in 2018 is a different beast from Bandom in 2007. We'll chat about how the fandom has changed (and how it hasn't) and what the musicians are up to now. Come reminisce about your time in Bandom! A short time ago, in a fandom not so far away... (mods: bessyboo, exmanhater) Let’s talk STAR WARS! Originals, Prequels, Sequels, Rogue One, Clone Wars, Rebels, EU—which parts are you really feeling, and why? Which parts that you’re not already into should you check out? What did you think of The Last Jedi? Everything from the galaxy far, far away is on the table! Miss Fisher's Intersectional Feminism (mod: krytella) The adaptation of MFMM from books to the screen aged Phryne up into a rare portrayal of a glamorous heroine over 40 surrounded by a broad range of supporting female characters. The show tackles social issues around gender and class and occasionally attempts to grapple with racism and Australia’s colonial history. What do we love about it, what do we wince at about it, what do we wish we had fanworks about for it? Visit Themyscira (mods: cyborganize, metatxt) Share your Wonder Woman story, whether you're a movie lover, a Lynda Carter devotée, or a long-suffering comics fan. A conversation about the conversation about Wonder Woman: why we feel how we feel about her, what she represents, how she has been represented. Explore Diana's origin in the early 1940s (see: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women) and her fictional origin in the Amazon culture of Paradise Island / Themyscira, and why the character and her worlds are still relevant. Will involve the F word – feminism! (And the other F word – femslash!) META AND MULTIFANDOM Sometimes we pay for it (mod: rivers_bend) come talk about queer romance novels, fannish tropes in pro fiction, and finding the perfect book for you. It's the End of the World As We Know It, And I Feel Fannish (mods: SDWolfpup, cyborganize) Post-apocalypse shows & fic are plentiful, and have plenty of fans, even though they're (usually!) very dark. What draws us to these worlds? What are your favorite post-apocalyptic media and why? What do we learn about ourselves from watching others struggle with the destruction of everything they knew? Where Do We Go From Here? (mods: Minim_Calibre, cyborganize) As the Internet changes and sites rise and fall, how do we stay connected as a community? Can we? Explore the state of fandom in 2018 and how has it changed since the first Bitchin' Party ten years ago! Fandoms That Won't Die (mods: aethel, Lucifuge5) Come talk about the fandoms you love that surprised you with their longevity! Why do some fandoms last and others don't? Fannish Osmosis Fic Exchange (mod: Scribe) Write a stranger the fic of their dreams...for a canon you only know about via hearsay! Other types of fanworks welcome, as long as they can be completed in about fifteen minutes; reading/sharing with the room is encouraged for maximum hilarity, but not mandatory. You Like My Thing Wrong (mod: bessyboo) You know that moment when you’re really into a popular thing, but you hate the popular pairing, or character, or fanon characterization? Or maybe you’ve been into something for a million years and suddenly everyone else is on board too, but everything they’re saying and creating is just…WRONG? Friends, let us get together and discuss strategies for taking a breath, chilling out, and avoiding feeling like horrible fandom hipsters or Bitter Old Fandom Queens when other people just Like Our Thing Wrong. Cest is Best (mods: bessyboo, metatxt) Incest and step/pseudocest have seen a rise in popularity recently in the mainstream, from Game of Throne to Billy & Billie to The Flash, but they've been popular in fandom for over a decade. What's the continued appeal of incest in fandom? And why do you think it's starting to hit more mainstream popularity now? Do you have limits on what you will or won't read--and has that changed? Are you here for the sitcom fluff, the dirtybadwrong angst, or something in between? Let's talk about fandom's fondness for keepin' it in the family! Feelings Are The Worst (mod: jedusaur) Emotions run high when you care a whole lot, and fandom is all about caring a whole lot. Let's talk about different types and contexts of fannish feelings, what sparks and alters our fannish interests, how and why conflicts arise in fandom, what feelings even are (your mod will make a sincere effort not to derail the conversation too far into the intricacies of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex), and what situations lead to fandom obsession, frustration, gradual indifference, and loving everyone in this whole damn bar. Alphas, Omegas, Doms, & Subs: Alternate Gender System Tropes (mods: krytella, keerawa) Why do A/B/O, BDSM AU, and other AUs that play with alternate gender designation have such strong appeal? Do they provide a safer space to eroticize gendered oppression, create a dystopian critique of gendered oppression, or both at once? Are slash gender system AUs an expression of internalized misogyny or badly written female characters or something else entirely? Do slash and femslash uses if this trope serve to straighten the queer relationships they depict? How about alpha/alpha and omega/omega stories, or D/s AUs centering switches? Wait, we only have 50 minutes? Documenting Fandom (mod: aethel) Fans have been writing down the history of fandom since fandom began. Let's discuss the various ways and reasons that fans document fandom! And also Fanlore. Speed Dating Small Fandoms (mods: metatxt, cyborganize) A semi-structured con-game where we share and explore why we love the small fandoms we love. By generating a creative categorization structure, together we will match-make fans with new small fandoms relevant to their interests. Our goal is for everyone to leave with a new fandom to date and a new fan joining one of their small fandom faves. TECH AND WORKSHOP A Song and a Dream: Now What? (mods: SDWolfpup, scribe) You've got the perfect song for your fandom - what's next? How do you get source? What do you do with mkv files? Square pixels? Frame rates?! To outline or not to outline? Do I really need a clip database? Let's talk about it all! Break on Through: Getting Beyond the Block (mods: Minim Calibre, thewightknight) Come share tips and tricks for defeating a creative block. Why We Write: Fandom Needs You! (mod: keerawa) This panel is aimed at aspiring writers, experienced writers dipping their toes into fanfiction, fanfic writers who've been going through a dry patch, or anyone looking to get the creative juices flowing. Topics will vary based on the participants, but might include how to start, where to find cheerleaders and betas, where to post, how to get over that hump and throw ourselves into writing something we and other fans will love. I'm sure the FBI has a file on me: research and fandom (mod: Minim Calibre) Ever find yourself needing to know the marriage requirements in places you'll never live? In-depth information on weaponry? Best ways to hide a body? And, of course, sex tips you may or may not ever need. Come share your tales of research gone wild and/or pick up research tips and tricks from your fellow fans. Oral Not!Fic (mod: bessyboo) In this workshop, we’ll define what oral not!fic is, talk a little about how to create it, and then finish up by creating an oral not!fic before the panel is over! Cosplay 101 (mod: bessyboo) Have you ever wanted to get into cosplay, but weren’t sure how or where to start? This panel is for you! We’ll discuss strategies for choosing/designing a character & outfit, and putting together a costume (for both DIY & “I am 0% crafty” options!) Makeup Fandom 101 (mods: bessyboo, visionshadows) Do you not wear makeup because you find it intimidating, but would like to start? Are you a total makeup pro who loves to talk brands and share your knowledge? Maybe you're somewhere in between, but want to know how that person on tumblr achieved that super sweet eye look or particular nail art you loved. This panel is for all of you, as well as anyone else who wants to come talk everything from skin care to shadow to nail polish. (There may be a makeup swap at the end of the panel!)

[creativitytoexplore]

Announcing the 2020 Winners of the Insider Prize https://ift.tt/2DNkREu

For the last three years, American Short Fiction has sponsored a contest for incarcerated writers in Texas. A group of writers at the Connally Unit, in Kenedy, Texas, came up with the name: The Insider Prize. Each year we get dozens of essays and short stories from men and women in prisons and jails across the state, some handwritten and others produced on typewriters. They tell stories about their lives before prison, about the conditions inside, and about the many places their imaginations take them.

This year’s award is marked, like so much in our world these days, by tragedy.

Back in April, as we prepared to share the good news with the winners and finalists, we learned that finalist Timothy Bazrowx had died at a prison hospital after testing positive for COVID-19. He was 63. As the virus continues to rip through shockingly ill-prepared prisons and jails, the men and women inside remain especially vulnerable. Bazrowx knew this—he wrote to one correspondent that in prison, “sickness runs like a crazy horse through a flower bed.”

Through three books and countless shorter pieces, Bazrowx had cultivated an incisive, vivid, and frequently hilarious style, which he didn’t abandon even as his home became a deathtrap. As the virus spread in his prison, officers threatened to punish his peers for going shirtless in a common area. “The world is dying and these bastards want us to be fully dressed to see it happen,” he wrote. “Geewiz.”

It is with his unique spirit, of smiling while speaking truth to power, of finding joy in the face of horrors both natural and manmade, that we present this year’s winners, along with Bazrowx’s own submission.

The winners were selected by guest judge Justin Torres, whose award-winning 2011 novel We the Animalshas proven popular among writers behind bars.

In the fiction category, Torres selected “That Place on Daniel Island” by F.R. Martinez. Martinez also won in the fiction category last year, when Joyce Carol Oates selected his story “Mother’s Son.” This new piece is told entirely in dialogue, and Torres wrote that it “feels so alive, to not just the syntax and rhythms of everyday speech, but also to the very need for dialogue itself. Talking is a way to both dig up trouble, and put it to rest. The two characters are talking from two very different sides of a shared experiences—marriage, incarceration—and the effect is quite moving.”

In the memoir category, Torres selected “The Promise” by Steven Perez. “What I loved most about this piece,” Torres wrote, is “that the story moves beyond the narrative of the gruesome attack that serves as the inciting incident to raise important questions about witnessing, responsibility, codes of conduct, failed guardianship—all the systemic issues that foster and allow for prison violence. It is tremendously well written.”

The memoir runner-up this year was “My Time Paradox,” by Jacob Jills, which Torres called a “real achievement in prose style” that “provoked an eerie claustrophobic feeling while reading.” The fiction runner-up this year was “Classic Rock,” by John Rodgers, which Torres called “troubling, funny, and hazed with a kind of dreamlike nostalgia.”

We hope you enjoy this year’s winners.

—Maurice Chammah & Emily Chammah

  So I said to her ‘Let’s go to that place over on Daniel Island where we used to go.’ And she said ‘What place?’ I said ‘You know, that place that was kinda like a beach bar or something.’ ‘Beach bar? I don’t know what you’re talking about. You mean the bagel place? The one that had the everything bagels?’ ‘No, no. Well— is that still there? We used to go there.’ ‘They only open for breakfast and lunch. Not dinner.’ So I said ‘I mean that place that had the jukebox with that Billy Joel song we like.’ ‘Juke box?’ ‘And there was a bar in the front, even though it was always half empty. They had good burgers.’ ‘You don’t mean the hotel? The restaurant in the hotel where we went with Nick and his wife before they broke up?’ ‘Damn. That must be like twenty years ago. No. Is that still there? I don’t even remember how to get there.’

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‘Well, I’ll drive.’ ‘I sure would like to go to the other place though. I used to think of it when I was down for some reason.’ ‘Really. Were the burgers THAT good?’ ‘No. I mean they were good but—I don’t know I just liked the place because it was so laid back, so peaceful, so—Charleston. I mean, I know there was no beach there on Daniel Island, but when I remembered that place it felt like there shoulda been one nearby, like right down the road or something. It’s hard to explain, but when you’re locked up a place like that just seems like heaven, you know? To be away from everything. . . ’ ‘There’s that other place on Daniel Island over there by where we used to live.’ ‘That’s right. I forgot we lived on the island for a few months when they were building our house.’ ‘Over there in the mall, where the Ross was,’ she said. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s gone now. It’s been gone for like–I don’t know—ten years?’ ‘Ten years—’ ‘You were gone a long time.’ ‘Yeah. I barely recognized that part over there when we come into our neighborhood off the highway. That used to be a Piggly Wiggly over there.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘What happened to the Blimpie’s?’ ‘That’s gone. Been gone.’ ‘I was down a long time, but I bet that place on Daniel Island is still there. Maybe with a different name and a different owner.’ ‘Maybe. But don’t have to go there. There’s lots of new places. There’s one by Folly Beach. I’ve gone there with Tina and Rosemary.’ ‘Rosemary?’ ‘Yeah. She used to work with me at Bosch, remember? She retired before I did.’ ‘I didn’t think you were friends with people from Bosch, I mean except for Dennis.’ ‘Dennis died two or three years ago. I don’t remember exactly when. You know how memory is. I didn’t go to the funeral. It was too sad.’ ‘I remember you told me he died. . . on the phone.’ ‘You’ve been gone a long time, baby.’ ‘I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I used to hear people in prison talk about their lives outside. I’m talking about people with fifteen and twenty year sentences. They had a long way to go, and they’d just started. I used to wanna say to them: listen, forget that life, man. It’s over. But I did it too, talked about my life, you know, with you and the kids here. But that was at first. After a couple of years, I stopped that. I didn’t talk to anybody. What for? People left. Or they got transferred to other prisons. Or they died. What was the use of trying to make friends, to get close to anybody.’ ‘You used to talk to me on the phone about your ‘friends.’’ ‘That was nothing. Just people I met. People to hang out and bullshit with, people to bitch about the conditions and whatever was going on. There’s no real friendship in there. The place is like a bus station, or an airport. Anyway, it’s illegal to contact other ‘felons.’’ ‘Is that what you are now? A felon?’ ‘No. I’m still me. I’m still the same guy you married.’ ‘No. You’ve changed.’ ‘You’ve changed, too. I mean, c’mon, thirteen years. I swear. I thought I was gonna die in there. I had one celli who was a psycho, another one was a drug addict, another one almost killed me with B.O. Another was a pest, always begging for attention, bugging me with his problems. And then you had that stroke. I thought you were gonna die. The kids wouldn’t answer their phones.’ ‘I know. That must’ve been terrible.’ ‘More terrible than you think. I thought I’d have nobody left when I got out, you know? And then I used to think you didn’t forgive me—for what I did.’ ‘I was angry. I still am. You fucked up our lives.’ ‘I think you need to put some of the blame for that on the wonderful government.’ ‘No. I put it on you. What you did was wrong.’ ‘Not thirteen years worth of wrong! For God’s sake! I didn’t kill anybody!’ ‘You should have known better.’ ‘How could I? It’s not like they tell people what kind of sentences they’re giving out.’ ‘You should’ve known. Somebody smart like you should’ve known. What you were doing. . . didn’t you ever think there were consequences?’ ‘Okay. Right. Whatever. I just felt like all of you just let me rot in there. That if I died no one would care. I mean sometimes it was months before I heard from any of you.’ ‘You think it was easy for us? Paying the bills, keeping things running, ignoring all the people that kept telling me I should divorce you, that you were no good. It was no picnic, all right?’ So I said to her ‘Okay. Well. . . can we go to that place on Daniel Island? It was nice there. I remember we used to drink Coronas under one of the umbrellas in the tables on the patio.’ She was quiet for a minute, and then she said ‘Oh! THAT place. The one with the patio furniture outside.’ ‘Yeah! That’s it!’ ‘It closed down. About six years ago.’

—

Cuban-born writer and composer F.R. Martinezimmigrated to the U.S. as a result of the Cuban Revolution. He grew up in Miami then moved to New York City to attend the Juilliard School where he studied with David Diamond and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree. He went on to compose music for film, television, radio, and theater. He is the recipient of two Emmys (in conjunction with the writing team at Children’s Television Workshop, currently Sesame Workshop), and a Grammy for the Sesame Street album Elmopalooza in 1998, on which his song “Mambo I, I, I” is performed by Gloria Estefan. He worked with several other notables such as Cindy Lauper, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Trini Lopez, and various Latino music stars of the late twentieth century. In 1998, along with writer Luis Santeiro, he was the recipient of the Richard Rodgers Award offered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, for the musical Barrio Babies. He worked for Disney on the show “Handy Manny” as a composer, completing background music and songs for 100 shows. “Handy Manny” was also nominated for an Emmy in 2009. With the Charleston Symphony Orchestra he worked on various projects including one for Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish fame. He’s been creating poetry and fiction since the age of twelve and has only returned to a more serious involvement with writing in recent years. In 2016, his poem “300 Min” received an Honorable Mention from PEN America. In the past five years, he has completed over a hundred poems and five novels as well as a number of short stories. He is looking to publish more fiction and poetry and would be grateful for sample copies of literary journals and submission guidelines. For his mailing address please contact insiderprize[at]americanshortfiction.org.

  Two days ago, ATX, a five-foot-two pallid hispanic prisoner on our cell block in his mid- to late-twenties, got his throat slit with a razor from ear to ear. I was at the law library when it happened. I came back, and the officers were locking us all up in our cells while three prisoner janitors mopped blood off the floor. The bright sun and the smell of fresh air seemed miles behind me.

ATX had had a fistfight in the dayroom with Bubba, a fifty-sevenish bald-headed five-foot-seven clean shaven black man with another thirty years in prison, before I left to the law library. I caught the end of that fight when I came back to the cell block after lunch.

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Seeing Bubba exchange punches with ATX puzzled me because since I had moved in to the cell block two weeks before, Bubba had been polite, helpful, and respectable. He would life coach some of the men on the cell block. He was also an expert tailor. He had recently hemmed up my visitation pants. And I had been helping him identify some legal problems he had with his conviction. He complained about misidentification. I had written down some case citations for him so he could look into them.

ATX had only been on the cell block for about four days, but he too had been laid back and respectable. He and Bobby, who lived two cells down from ATX, had been exchanging ideas about God and the Bible.

The hispanic and black gang members in the dayroom (Tango Blast, Bloods, and Crips) were unsettled. There’s an unwritten G-Code on this building that the youngsters do not fight with older prisoners. ATX was violating that code. Bubba and ATX had had some kind of falling out in line in the chow hall. Bubba had accidentally bumped into ATX. ATX said, “You must think I’m some kinda ho!”

Bubba’s from the old school. He spent years in lockup for killing one of his cell mates. He couldn’t overlook ATX’s hostility.

ATX said, “If you fucked up about it, we can get under the TV and get that.” So they fought under the  TV, and ATX got a good hit in and busted Bubba’s lip. After the fight, ATX kept bringing the issue up to other men on the cell block out loud. In doing so, he kept the fire burning. For the next three hours, Bubba told the men he wanted to cut ATX.

Those men tried over and over to talk Bubba out of it. Bubba wouldn’t listen. His mind was set. To make matters worse, with Bubba’s old school penitentiary mentality comes the idea that once you say you’re gonna do something , it’s like making  a promise. And you gotta follow through with it. You gotta keep your word. Even if it doesn’t make any sense. Even on some shit like this. Never mind the fact that Bubba’s sister was talking to him about hiring a parole lawyer for him. That’s the old school penitentiary mentality. That’s what this system does to you.

Twenty years in prison is enough for a man to learn his lesson. Anything after that pushes you to the limit. The point of no return. If you’re not strong enough mentally, physically, and emotionally, the system turns you into a fully programmed machine. Bubba had reached that point.

These days, no one expects you to keep that kind of promise. Instead, they try to talk you out of it. The younger generation of experienced prisoners have to counsel the older, more experienced, more traumatized lifers. We have to carry the burden of trying to talk these men out of keeping those kinds of promises.

My neighbor Rudy was sitting next to ATX on the bench. Rudy told ATX, “Watch out because that old school’s gonna try to shank you.” ATX didn’t listen. He fell asleep on the bench while sitting down in front of the TV in the dayroom. Bubba snuck up behind ATX and slit his throat ear to ear.

ATX stood up and started walking around the dayroom talking shit. “I’m ready to die in here!” Blood leaked out of his neck and soaked into his white T-shirt. The gash on his Adam’s apple was wide enough and deep enough to stick the tip of your pinky into all the way past your pinky nail. “Somebody give me a blade!” No one did.

Yesterday, after Rudy and I finished working out, we got into a conversation under the stairs of the cell block about what happened. Me, Rudy, and Bobby. Rudy stands six-foot-one. He’s lanky, but physically fit. A hispanic thug out of San Antonio who recently told me that he used to inject into his veins a half an ounce of meth every day before he came to prison. He’s thirty years old. He has the San Antonio Spur emblem in the middle of his chest with Aztec Indian art all over the rest of his upper back. He will discharge a four-year sentence in eight months, and he complains that his lawyer fucked him over. His modus operandi is car theft rings.

Bobby is a five-foot-three white boy in his early forties with the body of a middleweight weight lifter. He’s got fifteen years in on a ninety-nine-year sentence for bank robbery. His brother-in-law testified against him at his trial. He’s a recent revert to Christianity and a recovering alcoholic with salt and pepper hair. His sister and two of his nieces were shot and killed in the mass church shooting at the baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017. His nephew was shot five times and lived. Another niece looked into the eyes of the killer and lived without a single gunshot wound. He told me yesterday that when his sister and the kids got shot, his sister covered his nieces with her body to protect them. He said, “She tried to cover their mouths so they wouldn’t make any noise. My sister was bigger than me. She wasn’t huge, but she was big boned.”

Me, I’m forty-one years old. Chicano brown skin. Thirteen years in on a sixty-year sentence with a murder conviction under the law of parties.

Rudy was sitting on the bottom flight of the stairs. He said he saw Bubba coming. He got up from the bench and shied away. He said, “I got up and left.” He cracked a slight smile. He had a shadow of guilt in his eyes. He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

Bobby’s lips took the shape of a seagull in the distant sky back home in Corpus Christi, at the beach on North Padre Island. I saw parentheses at each end of his lips. His eyelids formed a straight line and almost halfway shut. His eyebrows curved up toward each other. He looked at Rudy with disappointment. Bobby said, ‘How would you like it if I got up and left you there to get your throat slit?”

Rudy said, “I told him to watch out. And what did he do? He went to sleep. Shit, Old School could’ve cut me! If I’d have got in, it would’ve started all kinds of shit. He shouldn’t have been fighting with that old school. And he should’ve listened to me when I warned him.”

I said, “He should’ve stayed in the cell. He was already in there. He shouldn’t have come back out.”

Bobby said, “I thought about trying to make peace between them. We all ate on the same table at chow. But Bubba was already with that mindset. He probably would have come after me. You saw the way he got after his own people for trying to get involved. I could’ve said something or tried to do something to prevent it.” He told us that Bubba had big-faced ATX in the chow hall. He concluded that he and Rudy had cowered by not intervening.

Unsure of what to say, I took a deep breath and rubbed my head. I looked down at my brown skin; at my threadbare tennis shoes; at the snake and dragon wrapped around my leg that I paid a thousand dollars for twenty years ago during the cocaine-dealing chapter of my life, at Axis Tattoo shop, in downtown Corpus Christi across from the Greyhound bus station, before U.S. District Judge Janice Graham Jack sent me to federal prison, where I lost my wife Iris to cocaine, meth, Xanax, and other men. I can still hear her in 2001, eighteen years ago, behind limo tint, singing to me in the passenger seat of the red Grand Am I bought her while I drove through palm trees past the million-dollar mansions on Ocean Drive on the way to our house with the sparkling salt water bay to our left. Serenity, our then one-year-old baby girl, our pageant prize and trophy winner, sat in the middle of the back seat in her car sucking on the nipple of an empty Enfamil bottle. I can still see Serenity’s long eyelashes curling up and her black button eyes, blinking. I can feel Iris’s smooth milky skin at my fingertips; her long reddish brown hair in between my fingers. I can still hear her sober million-dollar voice in my head. The only woman who’s ever called me handsome. “How will I live without you?” The song from Con Air. Her voice echoes in my memories. I remember thinking, My life is complete.

Bobby said, “We’re supposed to stop things like that from happening.”

Rudy said, “Fuck that!”

I said, “We gotta be prudent in what we do. It’s like being in a war. We gotta get out of here alive.”

Later on, I reflected on the conversation. I thought, It’s like a war in many respects. But not all. ATX was not a fellow soldier. We didn’t even know him. And he violated too many prison principles. But does that make him less human? Does that make him deserving of death? We gotta make sure that we get out of here alive. That’s a duty we owe our families and ourselves. If you were there, what would you have done? And don’t tell me you’d have told the officers. You don’t do that in prison. If you do, then you might be the one getting your throat slit. Besides, the officers want us to kill each other. Not all of them are like that, but it always seems like the worst ones are around at the worst times. They won’t do anything for us until the deed is done. Then they’ll throw it in our faces as if we proved them right.

Weeks later while I sat in my cell thinking about how to end this story, I thought about promises. How promises are so easily broken. I remembered being in federal prison and promising myself that I’d never come back to prison. I was released. Yet here I sit. I write. Some promises you just don’t keep.

—

Steven Reynaldo Perezwas born in Corpus Christi, Texas, on July 5, 1978. He is a member of the Pen City Writers inside team at the John B. Connally state prison in Kenedy, Texas, which was established and is led and taught by author Deb Olin Unferth of the University of Texas at Austin. Steven is a self-taught paralegal; a staunch prisoner advocate against unlawful convictions and sentences and mass incarceration; and an avid defender of prisoner rights. In 2019, he earned a creative writing fellowship from the U.T. Austin English Department. He is in his 14th year of a 60-year sentence.

  Back in the age of the dinosaurs, which most consider around 1964:

My family and I lived in a small town called China, Texas. We had a huge rice farm/ranch operation with an average cattle count of fifteen-hundred head. We also had our cow horses (around twenty) and two Shetland ponies.

I was, at the time, around eight years old. My brother was eleven months younger than myself.

In my family, there were six kids, and at this time of year, in the dog-days of summer, us kids were not in school and pretty much had to make our own adventures manifest.

Read the Full Story

Mom had a new baby, another girl, and now there were four of them, with just the two boys, so the girls pretty much stayed in the house playing with Barbie dolls that had broken knees, for I couldn’t figure out how they worked. So, to make a long story short, my brother and I were pretty much exiled to the outside of the house to keep the peace. Besides, mom breast-fed, and we certainly didn’t want to see that; it was better this way because we got to play with our many dogs, and we killed water moccasins, which were in abundance because of the small rice field we had by the house. So my brother and I were guards of the ole homestead, terrors incarnate in the bodies of two rambunctious small boys.n other words, we were normal, mischievously under-supervised little boys doing what we considered fun.

My stepfather worked the big fields, and we had some chores that took place mainly if we were being watched closely, or if it had to do with our horses. We liked our horses.

We liked going out into the next pasture. Our house was surrounded on three sides with pastures, and rice fields.

The horses, or most of them, liked it when we went there. A couple of them always got special treatment. Blaze was my regular riding horse. A standard quarter horse mare with a white face and white socks, roan in color, a lustrous red, she knew that when she saw me, she was in for a good curry-combin’ and brushing, along with the sugar cubes that we gave those horses that would come to us.

Most were on to us. We went in the pasture with an empty bucket making them think we had sweet oats for them. When they got fooled a few times, only the sugar-addicted horses would stay for their rewards of sugar cubes, and yes, sweet oats, for my brother and I liked playing tricks on the horses. We only wanted to curry-comb the horses that liked us.

Of course, we made sure the water trough was filled. Playing with water in the hot summer days was fine with us, and when we got wet, who cared? That was our job.

Now the bigger horses were fun to mess with, but it was rare that we could saddle or ride one of the cow ponies without the help of our stepfather. Even though we rode them a lot, they weren’t kid horses, and when the saddles came out, it was work time for them, and they knew this. We did ride bareback at times, but this story isn’t about that.

We had two Shetland ponies, which this story is about, for they were the kid horses. They were for the girls, but we rode them more than anyone.

SugarBee was one of the most genial of creatures, and very tolerant of us. We liked her, she never tried to bite us. She liked sugar cubes, and to be combed as well as saddled and rode.

I don’t know where she came from, but she was such a sweetheart that even with two miscreants around her, her disposition rubbed off on us, and we always gave her special attention.

Frisky, though, was another matter. Frisky was an un-castrated cattle stud with a painted hide. He could have almost been an Indian Pony had his legs been longer. What he didn’t have in height, he had in malignity.

He would bite, he would kick, and step on feet with sharp little hooves as well as buck you off. . .if you could get on him that is. He was won by our neighbor during a raffle at a Catholic church fundraiser. When our neighbor came over to our place and just gave this critter to us to be rid of it, we knew that there had to be a good reason. I had to ear-hustle his conversation with my stepfather.

The neighbor was explaining how mean this pony was. He was also telling him that this horse didn’t like the sulky wagon, which basically is a seat with two wheels in it. You see harness racing with these wagons.

It seems Frisky waited for our neighbor to hook up this wagon, then, after he got in, the pony went into “stupid-gear” when the reins were snapped over his back. Frisky went to kicking, and bucking as well as snapping like a mad Chihuahua, then kicking the buggy until the neighbor fell off. The pony then kicked the light-weight wagon over his head, then backed out of the harness. He ran down old Highway 90, causing a cussing, winded foot race with the neighbor. Frisky now became ours, and with rascally glee I ran to tell my brother the good news.

Time would go on, and the summer dragged on. We had got Frisky in the spring, and got him used to us. I even rode him bareback, and was bit a couple of times, as well as had my toe stepped on, but he would come to us readily enough.

We kept these horses in the small field with the horse barn that had hundreds of mesquite and Chinaberry trees — which by the way, is where China, Texas gets its name.

One morning before it got too hot, my brother and I, like each day during the summer, were off and running full tilt into our shenanigans.

Being met at our front door by our mismatched pack of dogs (somewhere around fifteen  of them) we headed off to the horse field.

Dogs were running all around, chasing rabbits, and finding snakes and killing them. My brother and I were just accepted members of the pack.

We went into the horse pasture, grabbed the bucket, and were able to get SugarBee to us, then Blaze, but the others weren’t falling for these two human pups’ tricks. It made us no difference, because we were just out and about trying to stay away from the stupid girls that always wanted to dress us up in dresses. No sir, we was off and running because both my brother and I knew to get caught by that female horde might mean my other ear was getting a needle driven through it. It was safer out with the snakes, nutria rats, gators, horses, and such.

When we had finished messing with SugarBee and Blaze, we saw Frisky wandering slowly toward us. I had a couple of sugar cubes left, so when he got to us we were able to comb him, which he liked, and he smelled the sweet oak bucket, but we hadn’t gotten that far yet.

Now horses aren’t known for their proper etiquette, so while we were treating this mean little fart with kindness, he of all things decided to pee on us. He just flowed the ole whiz-wand out and peed like a racehorse on us, causing it to splash all over both my and my brother’s feet and legs.

“Oh no you didn’t!”

Yes he did, and now my brother and I backed away from the flash flood this guy caused.

Oh yeah, the horns came out on both my brother’s and my head. In fields like this what we called crawdad holes were everywhere. Small towers of hard mud-balls that crayfish have erected were everywhere, and ready ammo for two pissed off, and pissed on, boys.

We, of course, started throwing these things at the pony. I know it was wrong, but being seven and eight years old in 1964, we didn’t care, for retribution was at hand.

The pony must have held all that water through the night just for us. He continued on while we threw small clods of mud at him surely aiming for the offending member.

What we didn’t see was that menacing look and evil, what looked like a smile I later remember seeing; which, come to think of it, looked more like a snarl.

With his ears laying back now, as we got closer to throw these mud clods, that little fart’s back feet started flying up. He kicked me in the arm, throwing me to the ground.

My brother was close to a barbed wire fence, and he got kicked over and over as he went under the fence. I jumped up, and found an old rotten stick, then whacked him, breaking the stick. He then started chasing me with blood in his eyes, kicking and snapping at my butt with those sharp horse teeth while I tried to find a faster gear to get in.

My brother chased after the horse, or Shetland pony, which is what he was. He grabbed the tail, getting another kick in the leg, while the horse spun around, I yelled for my brother to climb a Chinaberry tree that was close by. I also headed for our ethereal heaven.

This heathenish fiend saw both my brother and I was out of reach now, so he started cropping grass under the tree. My brother and I could just look at each other and laugh.

Oh no, it wasn’t over though. Each time the horse edged away, we would try to sneak down the tree, and Frisky would lay his ears back, then start bucking, and running back and forth under the tree, thus keeping us stranded up that Chinaberry tree for at least two hours, until he finally wandered away. We got down and ran out of the pasture. I wanted to get even with him for doing that to us, but he had got our attention.

We never threw dirt clods at him again, and we seemed to have some deep rooted respect for each other. I would ride him, and he would bite me, or step on my foot, and I’d push him off, limp a little, then get on. I kept a small switch handy.

We would leave a year or so later because Mom was looking for another life. She took us with her, but I’ll never forget when that wild pony ruled the day.

—

Timothy Bazrowx grew up in China, Texas, and his writing about life in prison and out was published by The Marshall Project, Prisons Foundation, and Uncaptive Voices. In April 2020, he died due to complications from COVID-19.

  About the Organizers & this Year’s Judge

Emily Chammah and Maurice Chammah are assistant editors at American Short Fiction and co-direct the Insider Prize. Emily is a Fulbright Fellow, and the winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Her fiction can be found in The Common. Maurice is a staff writer at The Marshall Project, where he reports on the U.S. criminal justice system. His first book, Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty will be published by Crown Books in January.

Justin Torres has published short fiction in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Tin House, The Washington Post, Glimmer Train, Flaunt, and other publications, as well as non-fiction pieces in publications like The Guardian and The Advocate. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Justin’s novel We the Animals has been translated into fifteen languages and was recently adapted into a film. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for five Independent Spirit Awards. He was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library. The National Book Foundation named him one of the 2012’s 5 under 35. He was the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, a Rolón Fellowship in Literature from United States Artists, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is an Assistant Professor of English at UCLA.

[pickupthepen]

Little Demon

Hi there.

I want to tell you a story. A few years ago, back when I was consulting for 21st Century Fox, I found myself wandering in an airport market at LaGuardia, in search of my usual Diet Coke and, as always, perusing the book selection. As my eyes glazed over the occasional best sellers that were faced forward so shoppers could see the covers and make impulse choices on pretty colors and a couple of words printed in script typeface, my eyes locked on the name “Anne Lamott” on a little orange paperback. My mind clapped- “ha!” Not long before that, I was floating in her pool in Marin as she asked me how my relationship was going. She always had a handful of wonderfully eloquent words of wisdom to offer in moments like those, and I let her in on my heartache. I always forget what she does to afford a mission-style mansion and a gorgeous pool like that, and I’m always still a little surprised to see her name in bookstores. I wouldn’t say I’m a loyal fan of her work, but I bought the book- “Hallelujah Anyway”- and left it under a pillow in my NY boutique hotel room. That relationship ended, and I haven’t seen Anne in longer than I would like to admit.

Years later, this past weekend in particular, I sat in my neighborhood bookstore in a chair, staring down the Religion/Spirituality section. I may have been there for hours- I’m not sure. I read every book title, every back. I imprinted every cover into my mind’s eye. If you want to know the truth, I was hoping there’d be something there, something to take my mind off of what I was feeling, something that’d give me the secret to figuring out what I’m supposed to be doing with my hands and my heart, or some place to travel far away from this seat. Maybe my name would be up there one day after I find what is that I think I need. I’m always hoping that something as simple as a book can fix what feels broken, or maybe to find some way to keep what I fear losing. That’s why there are so many of these books to read, right?

But a question really worth asking myself, which I did, in fact, come around to asking- how many books would it take for me to get there? Could I find the right one, the key? How many “Hallelujahs Anyway” or hours floating in a pool with Anne is it going to take for me to figure it all out? What is “it”? How many books about travel, food and adventure will it take for me to have the courage to leave corporate life? How many tarot readings, meditation sessions, long conversations with friends, buddhist teachers, Tolle and Watts tapes, or “spiritual” instagram posts do I have to scroll through before I can be my authentic self, whatever the hell that means? How much studying will I have to do in order to feel the freedom of the wind blowing through my hair? Do you see what I mean?

Okay, take a step back. 

I want to paint a picture of my morning. Let me tell you about a girl named Sally. We have a unique friendship- our circles never really overlap, but every once in a while, we stay up late together. We cook, we talk about who we’ve loved and what we’ve lost, the things we battle in our hearts, what it means to be women of dignity and grace in the workplace, and that not all is as it seems. On occasion, we play a game where we ask questions in rapid succession to see if we can tap into what our intuition knows to be true, and we laugh at our answers. This weekend I asked her, “Do you think I’m psychic?”, and she quickly replied, “Yes!” Sally and I have built our friendship upon the foundation of honesty, and no one really knows how deep our commitment to one another goes. I kind of like that you don’t get to see everything about who we are as two people whose paths have crossed- it’s for us. I will say that she is an irreplaceable part of my life, that I’ve walked the beach in her hometown under a moonlit sky, and that I adore her mother. I’ve looked out at the stars above the San Francisco skyline from the windows of her Castro lair. I’ve heard her cry. She’s heard me cry. She’s my friend- a very important one.

This morning, after having cursed Anne for writing books that never fixed me, and that I never even gave a chance, I opened Instagram and one of her posts was at the top.

“What if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written, or you didn’t go swimming in those warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you have a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen.” -Anne Lamott

Trust me, I immediately realized the irony of having condemned Instagram to be a worthless wasteland with no real influence or value and to have my morning turned around by Anne’s post of text on a purple background (she’s a writer, not a designer). I thought about how Anne, although so far from me in this moment, was so close. She whispered to me, not knowing that I’d read what she had written, another one of her eloquent words of wisdom. What I would give to go back to her pool that sunny afternoon and listen once more to her words. What did she tell me way back then? What was she trying to tell me? I remember her seeming a bit ambivalent, as if my relationship wasn’t what I really needed to examine. I can almost see her watch me miss the point, thinking “this girl will understand one day, but not today.”

I thought, “I should tell Sally about this.” I thought of all those daydreams that I carry with me when I walk around the city, and I wrote them to her in a list. I told her about how I did want to learn how to land that big jump at Breckinridge, even though I never have. I told her about my daydreams of sitting on Edmond’s sailboat with him in the Aegean Sea, eating and singing together. I mentioned learning a new language, not to be a pretty girl who speaks in pretty tongues, but because I love learning, I find language fascinating (obviously), and fuck y’all, I want to! I told her about how I want to write a book, but every time the thought of what you might think of me crosses my mind, I stop. I told her about my imaginations of a blues band with my father- he’d play guitar, and I'd sing. I think about that a lot, but perhaps that’s the only daydream that can never come to life. I want to drive around the vast wastelands of Alaska, and sit under the stars. I want to climb mountains. I want to dance until I can’t walk with Allison in Berlin. I want to redesign a kitchen and prepare recipes in a workshop of my making. I want all of it. 

Amidst my daydreams, pontifications over Anne’s words, and texts to Sally, I received a message from my best friend. She had slept through her final exam for an important class. Minutes later, another came through- she talked to her professor, she’s going to take the test tomorrow, so now she has more time to study and to sleep. Hah, opportunity. Her dad always says, “when the garbage truck comes by, fill it up!” Then, suddenly, it popped in my mind that I hadn’t checked my mail in weeks, and my heart sank. I jetted up, set the pile on my desk, and sorted through each envelope. I always fear having missed something- I normally keep a watchful eye over my finances and commitments, but sometimes things slip through. I thought about my best friend and how I could channel her experience from this morning in embracing failure, and if there were some error that I had fallen blind to, I could fix it. But, I found no such ominous piece of mail in that pile, only a couple fliers, a beautifully designed AirBnB magazine, and a postcard with an image of ice and a man in a red jacket that read- 

“Hello from afar, you little demon. It’s cold and absolutely beautiful here, may it give you some inspiration, because all I can say to you is to live your life for you, to the fullest, and joyously each and every day. Until March, from Antarctica. 

-Edmond” 

Life’s gorgeous gems always have a magical way of landing where they began, don’t they? I seem to have a magical way of finding great joy in being wrong. Maybe the universe wants me to see that not every moment is a triumph over an obstacle- sometimes I’m allowed to simply relish in happiness. What might I miss when I’m strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing? What might I miss when I obsess over answers, and perhaps more accurately, a way to change how I feel?

I began writing you this letter in a moment of fear. I was hoping to convey some sort of message that there aren’t any real answers to feeling better, to being better, to having better. I was hoping I could find melancholic and meaningful wisdom within my soul about the realities of life- I wanted to say that there are no secrets messages in books, that the words that I choose don’t really matter, that we have so very little in life that we can control, and only a bit that we really know. I thought I had a really good idea about there not being a way to untangle yourself from confusion and uncertainty, so you might as well give up and stop buying those god damned books. But Anne’s words have changed the way I look through my lens out at the world in a number of ways. My best friend’s words change my perspective (and make me laugh) every single day. Sally’s words inspire me, and bring me home. This morning, Edmond’s words reminded me of who I am, what I believe in, and where I want to go. There still isn’t much I have control over, but I have more choices in this life than I sometimes admit, and I often pretend that I am completely powerless for fear that if my life were in my own hands in any way, I’d fuck it up. That being said, I know that I always choose my words methodically and with intention, and with that, I have the power to be radically honest. I can tell you what I desire, what has broken me, and stories of my past that have shaped the woman that I am growing into. When I release these words, out unto the stars, the earth begins to shift.

So, as always in my letters for you, my dear friend, I will say something honest: Sometimes I’m fucking terrified of life. Uh, redact that- I am often terrified of life. I want every item on that list of daydreams that I sent Sally, but I fear what I might lose when I walk away from certainty and the things that I rely upon. I fear deeply that I will never be loved or understood- that is a fear that I know very well, and that I’m not alone in carrying with me. I’m scared that I might lose my whole life to complacency, to playing it safe. I’m terrified that I am going to wake up at 75 and I will never have told anyone that I was deeply, madly in love with them because I was so fearful that I didn’t deserve to hear it back. I’m scared that I will have forgotten how to dance with freedom and power, that I'll have never left the safety of carefully curated sentences, paid bills, aced exams, tennis opponents that I can easily beat, jobs that I know how to do without flexing my mind, practical homes, acceptable relationships, inexpensive sheets, reasonable methods of transportation, and a blog that no one fucking reads because I refuse to be vulnerable (ok I'm getting a little dramatic). I’m just saying- I’m scared of settling, whatever that means, and not having at least tried to leap for something higher.

I think about climbing- I’m scared of what will happen when I jump for the next hold on a bouldering problem that is just out of reach. I think, “when I hit the ground, will I be ok?” But what if I never leapt? Would I be able tell you about that second when I jump, how my stomach drops, my hand slaps the rock, and to my surprise I find myself hanging on, lifting myself to stand on top of that boulder? I wouldn’t even know how to begin to describe a moment like that, had I never experienced it, and that’s mine to keep. I also wouldn’t be able to tell you that I have missed those holds more often than I have landed them, and I’ve always been okay. That’s really worth saying. 

If I never finished anything I started writing, would these words sit inside of me for the rest of eternity, would I lay to rest wishing someone had come here and finally felt as though they had a companion in grief, joy and downright lunacy? What if I played by the rules, and never wrote in a fucking curse word? What if I played by the rules? If I were never honest about what’s really inside of my heart, I wouldn’t have the friendships with Sally and Edmond that I do. If were never candid about having made friends with dishonesty, I wouldn’t have Caroline Godfrey. If I never told anyone about my love for women, I wouldn’t be able to tell my mother about how my heart sometimes hurts in romance, and to be held by her words of encouragement and love. I might have missed out on sharing myself with my own mother, and I might have missed out on hearing the hilarious words “that lesbian conference that you go to” come out of her mouth. If I hadn’t admitted to myself that I had become a prisoner of alcohol, I might not even have my life. Actually, I know for certain that I wouldn’t have my life, because every moment worth remembering came after the first time I muttered the words, “I’m Casey, and I'm an alcoholic.” I have a list of a million beautiful things which I have earned from honesty and trust in myself and others, but I will save them for another rainy day (it didn’t rain today but you know what I mean). To make this list complete: If I didn't know any of these lovely human beings, I wouldn’t have mornings like this morning, where everything seemed to make sense again, and I finally felt woven right back into our web of diamonds and silk.

I know I need to end somewhere, and I feel compelled to leave you with an idea. What if you did have some sort of control over how your life unfolds? What if Tolle isn’t exactly right when he says that you’re just being thrashed around by circumstance as the universe reveals itself as you, and that the only choice you have is to either wake up or stay asleep? I challenge you to consider that every move you make pushes your needle toward either courage or fear, freedom or complacency, love or isolation, inspiration or apathy. Every choice and every word matters, and you can choose. You can choose. And if you need a place to begin, you can start by taking a moment to ask yourself what is true for you, finding wonder in those with whom you share your life, and by going out into the world, because all of it is yours. If you don’t, like Anne said, it might break your heart. Leap, my darling friend, courageous human, and say something honest.

Best wishes.