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fernpost · 3 years ago

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Cycle 0 - Interviews

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Taako Taaco. 114. Elf. Wizard; Specialization in transmutation and inventive magical applications.

Previous experience: Top of class at Tredore, Academy of Magics and Technology; recently graduated.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of petty theft.

Davenport likes to think of himself as calm and composed. It’s hard to throw him off. He has to be in order to have gotten this far in his mission as fast as he has.

But when he turns around from shutting the door to see his interviewee with his feet kicked up on the table, twirling a wand through his fingers, he’s a little shocked. He’s been doing these interviews for two days now, and even the more relaxed and confident people have held a bit more sense for decorum.

It’s a bit rude.

It’s also a little interesting.

He sits at his desk, pulling the elf’s papers away from his boots (shiny, and though they look expensive he can see they’re worn down and well taken care of) and glances down. “Tell me, Taako Taaco, what makes you want to explore the planerverse?”

“Bored.”

If the feet on the desk threw him off for a second, that floors him entirely. “Bored?”

“I’ve got nothing else to do on this plane, why not, you know?”

“No burning desire to go further than any being has gone before?” That’s one of the normal responses, the well-planned out speeches he keeps getting in response to his opening question.

The elf crosses his feet, leaning back somehow further into the provided chair. Davenport worries for a second that he may fall as he continues on, “that’s cool too, I guess. But I figure, why wouldn’t you want the great Taaco name aboard your ship.”

Davenport picks up a pen from his table and makes a small note on the paperwork, “no offense, Mr. Taaco, but you’re rather cavalier about this interview that determines whether or not you’re accepted into a program that may redefine our understanding of the world.”

The elf shrugs and takes his feet off of Davenport’s desk, flashing him a smirk, “you’ve seen my sister’s paperwork, yeah? No way you’re not going to accept her, and we’re a package deal. Says it right there in bold at the top of my application, my man.” It does, in fact, say that at the top. Cursive words noting how he refuses to accept any position on the ship if his sister isn't there too. When reviewing who he was interviewing today, he saw similar words on Lup Taaco’s paperwork.

“You’re very confident in your sister’s abilities.” Davenport begins, pausing for a second as he notes the way the elf begins to tense up before continuing, “however, I wouldn’t sell yourself so short. You also graduated top of your class, and excelled in the art of transmutation multiple times. One of your letters of recommendation even noted how you made many spells easier to cast, somatically speaking.”

“What can I say, I’ll find any short cut I can.”

Davenport makes another note on his paper. “Now, I do need to ask about your record of petty theft.”

“Oh, natch.”

Lup Taaco. 114. Elf. Wizard; Specialization in evocation and applied magic regarding planar research.

Previous experience: Top of class at Tredore, Academy of Magics and Technology; recently graduated.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of petty theft.

“Lup Taaco, it is nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Captain.” The woman in front of him smiles. The resemblance to her brother couldn’t be more clear, and though her demeanor is quite similar, she at least doesn’t have her feet on his desk.

Not that his desk is anything fancy, but the point stands. “I’m not technically the captain yet, you know.”

“Potato, potato.”

Davenport is fairly certain that’s not how that phrase is used. “You did research into the planes at Tredore, correct?”

“Quite a bit, yeah. I’m sure my brother told you?”

The slight tilt of her head and lit of her voice tells Davenport this is some sort of test, which is confusing and a bit disconcerting, considering he is the one conducting the interview. He checks a quick box on his papers. “He talked you up a bit, yes. But this is your own interview, and I wanted to discuss your own knowledge with you, personally.”

She smiles, a touch more warmth to it than her previous attitude. “Oh, of course. Did quite a bit of studying at Tredore. First real school we attended. Kinda boring at times, you know?”

“If you’re accepted into this program, it’s going to be four intense months of studying and teaching you the more complex workings of the ship. Plus the two months of actually being on the ship.”

“That’s the fun stuff. Not a third semester in a row of another language I already figured out most of years ago.”

“How many languages do you speak, Ms. Taaco?”

“Including common, five languages.”

“Impressive.” Davenport himself only speaks three. “Now, I would like to ask you about your criminal record, if you don’t mind?”

Her smile grew sharp as she laughs.

Honestly, he isn’t surprised. Her explanation is the same as her brothers. Grew up on the road, needed food and other items on occasion. Didn’t always run fast enough. Davenport can’t fault them, and certainly won’t hold it against them.

He glances down at her paperwork, about to ask another question about her education, when she speaks up. “I’ve got a question for you, Captain.”

“Oh?”

“The ship- we’re really going with the name ‘The Starblaster’?”

Davenport sighs. He knew this question was coming, but he was expecting it to come during a press conference from a reporter, not a potential shipmate. “Yes. To be fair, it was a communal name we put to a vote from everyone who worked on building the engine.”

Ms. Taaco smiles. “Dope.”

Barry J. Bluejeans. 37 years old. Human. Wizard; specialization in applied magic regarding bonds and planar research.

Previous experience: Current assistant professor at Duffman University of the Arcane, part-time employee at the Institute of Planer Research and Exploration.

Criminal Record: Previous altercations regarding necromancy; no crimes against the nature of life and death ever committed.

Mr. Bluejeans is an interesting man. By the look of him, you’d expect to see him fumbling his way through a PTA meeting for his two kids. Instead, Davenport is staring down the word ‘necromancy’ on his paperwork on an application regarding literal planar travel on a ship called 'the Starblaster.'

So far, the interview has been going well. He’d listened to the man explain his research into the arcane, and he’d understood planar travel as well as any of the current scientists and engineers at the Institute. He was called in often for conferences and meetings about the bond engine. He’d seen the man walking around on occasion. They’d never been in a meeting together before, but he’d seemed nice.

But he also had a history of necromancy.

Now, Davenport doesn’t like to judge people. However, being in an enclosed space with someone who needed to specify he had never technically committed “crimes against the nature of humanity” isn’t the most comforting.

But, he was a smart man. Easy to get along with, too. So far. Necromancy notwithstanding.

Best to get it over with, “so, Mr. Bluejeans. I do need to ask about your criminal record-”

“Oh! Yeah, I never killed anyone. Or un- killed anyone. Uh, resurrected, I mean. Just did lots of studying into the application of necromancy and necromantic spells. Got in trouble because I toed the line of ‘research’ and ‘bringing my cat back to life,’ but got a stern talking to. Didn’t try it again, and don’t plan on needing to deal with those types of authorities again.”

Okay, normal enough answer, far as the situation applies-

“My current research into it has stayed purely theoretical, and it won’t interfere with the mission at all.”

So the man is still into necromancy.

Davenport glances down at the man’s file, thick with it’s attached papers Bluejeans has done on planar research. He’s not even stuck up about his level of education, and that’s extremely rare for the field.

Holding back a sigh, Davenport asks, “Can you explain the paper you wrote on the outer planes interactions with the inner planes for me?”

It was a really good paper.

But the man is still into necromancy.

Lucretia. 20. Human. Chronicler; Specialization in journalism.

Previous experience: Due to multiple NDA, she is unable to give us the exact number and titles of books she has written, but she sent letters of recommendation from Duke Rensburg, Lady Norabelle, and Warren of the Seatree Clan.

Criminal Record: Acquisition and attempted use of a false ID.

“So, Ms. Lucretia, I understand you cannot provide us with most examples of your works, but from what you have provided, you seem to be very, very good.”

“I like to think so, yes.�� The young woman in front of him seems polite. She’s quiet; he saw her waiting outside with a few others before her interview, and while most of them were engaged in some awkward small talk, she sat away from them. Likely partially due to her age- she is much younger than the people outside- but she also simply seems quiet.

Which wouldn’t be the worst quality in someone you would be sharing a small, enclosed space with for an extended period of time. But, if she couldn’t bond with the others sufficiently, the bond engine won’t work.

(Hell, the bond engine was already finicky, they figured out the tech only a month ago, and they only have four months to bond an entire crew to pilot it and-)

“Can you explain to me why you acquired a fake ID and tried to use it at a, uh,” Davenport glances down at the records in front of him, holding back a chuckle, “at the forbidden section of the Library of Runar?”

Lucretia looks uncomfortable for a second, and he’s sure if the lighting in the room were better he would be able to see her flush with embarrassment. She gives him a hesitant smile, “I can’t get into the explicit details, but I was working on a book for an older client whose memory was becoming patchy, and I wanted to confirm some details before I put their name to it. They wouldn’t allow me into the section without the proper documents, but my client refused to agree that I should double check his work, even though I was almost certain he was wrong, so I simply… found a way to get past their guard. I wasn’t going to steal anything and I was going to use the proper equipment to read through the documents.”

Davenport smiles, “pursuit of knowledge and truth is important to you, then?”

“I don’t think spreading lies, especially in that context, is very honorable, no.” Her hands are folded in her lap now, and she seems a bit more relaxed.

Considering the others he is planning on accepting, he may be wrong about her getting along with them. Anyone willing to break the law just to prove an old man wrong would at least get along with him. Davenport refuses to have any pushovers aboard his ship.

Magnus Burnsides. 19. Fighter; Specialization in protection fighting and mechanical engineering.

Previous experience: Current bouncer at Apex Club. Currently enrolled in Gallier’s Fighter Academy and College.

Criminal Record: One count of assault and battery, appealed for defense of another person present. One count of indecent exposure and public intoxication.

Davenport will be the first to admit it can be tricky to follow human aging patterns, but he knows he’s not mistaken in thinking the man in front of him is barely out of “child” territory. Nineteen is a very, very small amount of time to be alive. Also, a very, very small amount of time to learn important things, like how to run what is basically a ship right out of a science fiction novel- complete with breakthrough technology.

Despite this, it’s hard to not find the young man in front of him to be endearing, and mostly knowledgeable in the things they need him to be.

“Magnus. You’re very young, one of the youngest applicants we have. What makes you think you’re qualified as the head of security of the ship?”

The young man in front of him- Gods, he really is young- grins and lifts his arms to flex, a show of pride and ego almost unbefitting of an interview setting, “Have you seen my muscles? I’m very strong, and a very good fighter.”

Many of today’s interviews have been quite different than he was expecting.

“I was referring more to job experience.”

“Oh!” Magnus shifts in his seat, fingers drumming against the table as he thinks. “I worked as a bouncer for a club while I was in college and did, if I must toot my own horn, a very good job. You should have a letter of recommendation from the owner-” He leans forwards, reaching a hand out as if to look through his own files to show him the letter.

“Yes, I did read through it. She was very thorough in stating how eager you were to help.” Davenport glances down at the papers in front of him, holding back a sigh. It truly was a glowing review of this young man. While his grades from the aforementioned college weren’t the highest, especially in classes one might consider important for an institute of planar research, the two letter of recommendations he submitted from teachers of his explained how Burnsides was very persistent when he wanted to learn something he didn’t know. He also had taken quite a few classes regarding vehicles- not enough to claim the young man was an expert but enough to provide a solid basis to show him how things worked and could be repaired on the ship.

The kid’s attitude was something of a breath of fresh air in this place. However, there was one glaring concern.

“I was also a bit concerned about the criminal record we have on file for you. Assault and battery as well as the indecent exposure and public-”

“In my defense for the second one, I was drunk with some friends and maybe thought it’d be funny to streak in the lake. Who hasn’t been to a party that gets a little out of hand.” He holds his hands out as if to say “am I right?”

Off the record, Davenport is inclined to agree that he was right. On the record, he is choosing to ignore it. “And the assault and battery? The file says it was in defense of a young person.”

Burnsides grins, “that’s how I got hired as the bouncer!”

He waits a moment, expecting Magnus to continue. When it seems the young man is assuming that is enough explanation, he prompts, “by beating up a man outside the club?”

“Yeah! He was harassing someone outside, and I was walking home and passed by. I told him to step off, and he didn’t. So I decked him, and he was out right away.”

It lined up with the records he had, and honestly, seeing someone so ready to step up to the defense of a stranger was a good quality. Better than some of the older applicants who were much more… formal in their training. He wonders briefly how Burnsides would react to an altercation against someone with magic.

Glancing down at his records, he guesses he would run headfirst without thinking.

Stifling a small grin, Davenport continues, “Now, tell me. Assume we’re up in space, and something goes wrong with the bond engine. What would your course of action be, Mr. Burnsides?”

Merle Hitower Highchurch. 214. Cleric; Specialization in botany, religion, and medical treatment.

Previous experience: Current botanist at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. Professor of botany at Narvick’s University for four years.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of loitering.

The door is pushed all the way open before Davenport can even call out the next person.

A short dwarf slides into the room with a wide grin, “hey Dav!” A mug of tea is pressed into his hands.

“Hello, Merle. You do know this needs to be at least a little formal, yes?”

“Formal schmormal. Ask me your silly questions already, bud.” Merle Highchurch, resident botanist at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, plops right down in the seat he’d taken to commandeering once a week, for the past three weeks.

Davenport had seen him around before, but a botanist in an institute designed for exploring other planes that had little capabilities to actually go to those places yet was rarely busy, and even more rarely called upon. He still barely knew the guy, but after the day they’d gotten stuck in the elevator for ten minutes when it broke down, the dwarf had come to his office for tea each Wednesday.

It was a bit strange, but the tea was good.

“Tell me about your work experience.”

Merle laughs heartily, “they barely have me do anything around here, ‘cept tend to the couple of plants they’ve grabbed from the ground plane.”

“It’s the Elemental Plane of Earth, and don’t sell yourself short, Merle. This is basically a job interview, you know.”

Merle slurps loudly at his own mug, “aren’t you planning on nepotism hiring me, because we’re buds?”

“That isn’t even what that word means, Merle.”

“Isn’t it?”

Davenport stares into the tea, “is this made from the Earth plant?”

“Maybe?”

Davenport. 276. Captain and navigator; Specialization in mechanical engineering and arcane components combined with contemporary technology.

Previous Experience: Crewmate on the Lady Blue for twenty years. Graduated from Grensville University. Current staff at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration.

Criminal Record: Unlawful resistance of orders from captain, raising of commotion on board ship while employed.

Davenport handed the six files over to Selune, “These are them.”

The halfling woman flips through them, eyebrows raising higher with each one she sees. “You’re sure you grabbed the right ones? A few of these I understand, but you do know we had the Issaiah Broler apply.”

He folds his hand in front of him, nodding. “I also know that during the interview he made me want to pour my tea on his lap. There’s no chance of getting the bond engine going with him. These are the six I picked. They’re all qualified- and the ones that are less educated in the specifics in the field I’m sure will pick up on the important information quickly. The Taaco twins already will give the bond engine a huge boost. Ms. Lucretia will ensure we have everything chronicled, something I’m sure you can appreciate, Selune. Mr. Bluejeans previous work shows he will thrive given the opportunities awaiting us. Mr. Highchurch is an educated man, and I trust him to keep the crew healthy and provide ample information on anything botany related we encounter, and I’m certain Mr. Burnsides will provide ample help in any task we show him how to do.” He sighs, glancing out the window of her office. There were a few people lingering outside in the courtyard of the Institute. “We have been given a tremendous opportunity to explore beyond what we can imagine, Selune. The last thing I want is to be bogged down by people stuck in their ways, who have been working in this field long enough to have their preconceived notions about what to expect and who will react badly when they’re proven wrong. I trust my own judgement in picking a crew, and I hope you trust my abilities to get these people ready to set sail in four months.”

What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t want a bunch of stuffy jackasses on his ship. He’s not even sure picking all the over-qualified people would pass through the higher-ups' inspection of the crew. The people he picked were qualified enough to get a quick sign-off, but not too much. Anyone “overqualified” would probably get rejected. The ship had been built in basically six months. It’d get them off the ground, sure. It wasn’t going to explode on them once they got up there, but it wasn’t safe. There was a reason Davenport was the captain at all.

The six candidates in those files didn’t have a name for themselves as “important” to any stuffy scientific group or noble family. These people he picked were just that- people. A group of people who he believed deserved this opportunity. If anyone was getting the chance to make a name for themselves- to have the chance to redefine everything they know about the planar systems, he wanted to make sure they deserved the chance. A dangerous chance, sure. But what was science if not a little risky.

She sighs, opening the file on top. Her hand reaches for her pen, “Davenport, I got the final say on the name of the ship, I suppose the least I can do is give you final say on the crew.” She begins to write ‘approved’ at the top of the file, flipping through each one before giving him a pointed look. “But when I get angry calls about how you approved a bunch of nobodies and two people not even old enough to drink, I’m transferring them straight to your crystal.”

“And I will not be answering a single one.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, Captain.”

#davenport #taako #lup #magnus burnsides #lucretia #barry bluejeans #merle highchurch #taz balance #the stolen century #my works

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janicho88 · 4 years ago

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In This Together Part 3

Pairing- Dean x Wife!Reader

Word count- 5821

Summary-Find out what these two have been up to for the last year. What obstacles are thrown at these two now?

Warnings- Possible sick reader, hospital/doctors, little language, little angst, fluff, implied smut, talk of possible infertility, pregnancy.

A/N-This is the third part of my first fic. It started as a oneshot but turned into more. The first part of this story was written, because I needed someone like Dean at the time. This miniseries I guess you can call it, is very personal to me. I’ve lived a majority of the first two parts. If you’ve read it you can see why I wanted someone like Dean to lean on. In this part I wanted to give the reader something I don’t know if I’ll ever have. Thank you for reading! Pictures found on google.

Part 1 Part 2

11 months later August 2021

Slowly opening your eyes back up, you were staring out the window of your fourth-floor hospital room. This time your window looked over the street below, every time you were on this floor you had a different view. Dean was still sitting in the bed next to you, you leaned your head on his shoulder as you thought back on the last year and everything that had happened.

October 2020 came around and your doctor let you go off your birth control. He knew you and Dean were trying, or more not trying to stop anything from happening. You knew nothing would happen right away and didn’t want to get your hopes up, you were also trying to stay positive that nothing was going to go wrong with you again. You were due a win.

You had been back to work for about four months now, there were still some things you were trying to get used to at the new store. Because of the two surgeries you could wear down easily and were mostly five days a week trying to get up to six. You had already rearranged the office and some of the shelves in the kitchen area to make it more efficient, but some of your employees kept moving things on you so you had to redo them. It would take a good year for your foot to be back to normal which was February, but it would never be pain free. As long as it was better than before you were happy.

Halloween was coming close and Sam and Jess invited you over to their house again. Since you and Dean didn’t have any other plans you decided to join them along with Dean’s parents. Jake’s costume this year was an adorably fierce lion.

With things still crazy in the world and covid still around there weren’t many trick or treaters. Unfortunately, this meant more candy for Dean. Being a Saturday night Dean didn’t have to work the next morning. and you went in later on Sundays, so you stayed for a while. After Jake went to bed the guys turned on the, All Saint’s Day, movies Dean loves. They weren’t exactly your favorite so at least he could try and drag Sam into his madness this way. Dean was enjoying his brother being a bit more into Halloween now that he had Jake around. You bid them goodnight just before midnight and took your sugar high husband home, he wouldn’t be sleeping for a while.

Thanksgiving was late again this year, so your parents had decided like last year to do their Christmas party the week before Thanksgiving again. Even though you were working less this year you somehow got distracted and got to planning late. This meant the first two and half weeks of the month would be filled with baking. The nice thing about the store you took over was the regular oven it had so you could do some of it there. Although first things first, you had to assemble your as baking list. The night after Halloween you were sitting on the couch with the Hallmark Channel playing its Countdown to Christmas. Computer in front of you with Pinterest pulled up. Dean walked in from the kitchen during a commercial.

“Hey Sweetheart, what are you up to? Anything good on?”

“Nine Lives of Christmas, is on. I’m looking..”

“No, Seriously Y/N? It’s the day after Halloween, and you’re watching Christmas movies?”

You turned and glared at him. “One, I have been watching Christmas movies whenever you weren’t around for the last week. Two, you like this one so hush. The guy is a fireman, your missed profession. Three, I’m trying to get into the Christmas mindset to put together my baking list.”

“Oh great, it’s that time of the year again. What crazy ideas are you going to come up with this year, actually wait, let me grab a beer first.”

You laughed as he walked back to the kitchen. Dean might give you a hard time with the Christmas crazy baking list you come up with, but you also know he very much enjoys the sweets you bake. You two had been dating since your freshman year of college and he was always your official taste tester. Although anything pie related was his favorite.

“I think I’m going to just do round sugar cookies again, while I was off after surgery, I watched a cookie decorating class that showed how to paint the frosting with food coloring and alcohol.”

“That sounds like a mess,” you threw a pillow at him. “I mean great Sweetheart, I’m sure they will be amazing.”

“Keep talking Winchester, see how big a hole you can dig. Here’s a recipe for mini pie like cookies, I co”

“Yes!”

“..uld try. Okay, adding to the list https://www.pinterest.com/pin/518406607102183606/

You were bound and determined one year you would get these cupcakes done; just not sure this year would be it. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/174584923040748115/

“How about Christmas Cheesecake Cookies?” You showed Dean the picture and this time he glared you. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/174584923040791076/

“Do you remember the red and green Krinkle Cookies you did last year? Your hands were dyed red and green and so was everything you touched while rolling them. I’m voting no more dyed cookie dough.”

“Fine spoilsport.”

“How about you put the computer away and come to bed with me.”

“You’re heading to bed already it’s only, oh. Be right there Babe,” quickly shutting everything off you chased after your husband to the bedroom.

The party was a little smaller this year, some people still weren’t all for getting together with people yet. It was mostly family and some close friends. Honestly, you preferred it that way, less entertaining you and your mom had to do, and the more you could relax and enjoy the night. The best part about having this early, was your baking was now done, you had even gotten Dean to get the decorations out and most of the house was done. You enjoyed cuddling on the couch with the Christmas lights glowing around you.

Thanksgiving was once again split between both of your families. You went to your dad’s mom for a late lunch and spent time with your family. Then headed over to John and Mary’s for well, for Dean dinner, you were still full, so you just picked at a few things. After cleaning you ladies joined the guys in the living room where they were watching the game and supposed to be keeping an eye on Jake. You and Jess talked sales you saw in the ads and tried to get gifts ideas out of Mary for her and John. Like your mom, she wasn’t very helpful and just said you guys didn’t have to get them anything. Usually you and your mom would hit a few stores tonight, but nothing was really open with everything going on. The two of you had planned for the next day to get a few things before you both headed for work. It was nice to spend time with just your mom anyways.

Every year December seems to fly by, it was the second week now and you had been feeling a bit off, and more tired than usual. According to Dean you had become a bit moody too. Which of course you snapped at him when he mentioned that. He’d been watching his step after that. One morning you were taking care of the dogs when you felt sick and had to run to the restroom. You didn’t go into work that day, since you didn’t want to get anyone else sick, but felt fine as the day went on. The next day at work you walked into the cooler and for some reason the dough smelled strong to you and you had to walk back out and get some fresh air. You attributed it to yesterday’s stomachache. Then the burping started again. Donna heard you at work and came over.

“What’s going on lady?”

“Something’s off, I haven’t been feeling well, I started throwing up and the burping restarted.”

“You know what you need to do right?”

“I know, but really Donna, can’t I catch a break. I don’t know how Dean is going to take it if the doctor tells me there is another problem, I don’t know how I’m going to take it.”

“Okay, well before we send you into the operating room again, maybe you should see what the doctor has to say first.”

“That would be the logical thing to do, I prefer worst case scenario.”

That night when you got home from work you told Dean what was going on and when you called your doctor’s office, they actually had an opening on Friday and could get you in then. Dean was unable to go since Benny would be leaving that morning for a weeklong trip to see his wife’s family for an early Christmas.

The day of your appointment arrived, the nurse, Julie that took you back was your cousin’s friend who first introduced you to this doctor. You two chatted on your way back to the room. When you got to the room, she asked what was going on and when your last period was. You explained your symptoms and how you were worried about another mass or fibroid. It had been over a month since your last, but you hadn’t been regular since your surgery and going off birth control. They took a blood and urine sample to send for tests before you saw the doctor. The doctor pushed near your uterus to see if he could feel any bumps around there. He wanted you to get an ultrasound, so that was scheduled for Monday, your labs would be done then also.

It was a quiet weekend for you and Dean. Monday rolled around and your appointment was that afternoon. Dean was supposed to meet you at the hospital, where the doctor’s office was located, but was stuck in a meeting with a new supplier. Since you were there for an ultrasound you were just supposed to see the tech who would do the test, but Julie was the one who came and got you. She took you back to the ultrasound room. When you were back, she told you the test results came back. You left the doctor’s office in a bit of shock after scheduling your next appointment. As you passed the mall on the way home you decided to make a quick stop.

That night during dinner Dean asked you what the doctor had to say. When he called you after your appointment you said you were fine and would talk to him at home you didn’t want to discuss it over the phone.

“I’m going to need follow up appointments for the next few months, but everything is good.”

“If it’s good why do you need follow ups, what aren’t you telling me?”

You got up and went to get the package you picked up from the mall, handing it to Dean you sat back down. He looked at you and back to the wrapped box.

“Open it.”

Ripping open the paper he looked at the open back and back to you. “Wait, what? Really?”

“Yes!”

You told Dean what happened at your appointment. The results came back, and you were pregnant. Because of your history though, the doctor still wanted an ultrasound just to make sure there wasn’t a fibroid or a mass there. They didn’t find any problems; the tech could just make out the embryonic sac the baby would be growing in. They figured you were around 5 weeks, and due around August 14th. Dean jumped up and grabbed you in his arms, tears were gathering in his eyes, he was so happy.

Later that night you were laying with Dean on the couch and he was going through his phone.

“Hey, the baby is about the size of an apple seed right now. An apple seed, that’s smaller than my fingernail!”

You looked over at his phone and saw he was going through baby sites. “Yes, that is tiny.”

“I can’t wait to see them in the activity walker car, they are going to love it like Jake does.”

“Dean, honey, you know we still have like 8 months till the baby is here, and then they aren’t going to be able to use that right away, right?”

“Yeah, well they still will one day.” He learned closer to your stomach, “right little on, can’t wait to play in the car walker daddy got you.” You had tears in your eyes watching Dean talk to your baby, you had been so afraid this day would never come.

Wiping your eyes, “I thought you said you bought that for Jake?” Knowing that was his excuse at the time, hoping one day it would by your child playing in it.

“Well, I, um,”

“It’s okay Dean, I get it.”

Sitting in the hospital bed you looked down at the little one in your arms, and still couldn’t believe how lucky you and Dean were to be here. Your mind went back to last year’s Holidays, and what happened after you found out you were pregnant.

The two of you debated on telling anyone about the baby yet, since it was early. As excited as Dean was you didn’t know how long he could keep the secret. You would only be seven weeks along at Christmas but decided to tell everyone Christmas Eve at your parents. You were going to tell them like you told Dean. You found some grandparent gifts for them to open. Since Sam had Jake it would be John and Mary’s second grandchild, but your parents first.

While playing games after dinner on Christmas Eve, you and Dean rigged a team game that had your parents all winning. Handing each of them the gifts you picked up Dean grabbed the camera to record their reactions. It took a minute before it sank in, but everyone was so excited for you. Mary and your mom rushed over to hug you while John and your dad congratulated Dean. The rest of the family joined in after the grandparents.

“The baby is the size of a blueberry now.” Dean proudly told everyone.

The two of you decided to have a quiet New Year’s Eve in. Your parents, Dean’s along with Sam, Jess, and Jake came over for dinner, and games. The guys ended up in the basement watching some competition, while you ladies were watching the New Year’s countdown and talking babies. On a trip upstairs Dean heard the conversation and informed everyone that the baby was now raspberry sized.

You had your 11-week ultrasound the Friday before Dean’s birthday. You scheduled it then because you thought it would be an early birthday treat for him getting to see the baby. They were going to confirm your due date, and there was a chance you would be able to hear the baby’s heartbeat. Dean looked over at you with a smile when you were walking up and threw his arm around your waist.

“What?”

“You’re starting to show, I can’t wait till I can feel him kick.”

“Remind me when this kid is playing soccer in me, how happy you are about it then.”

He put his arm around your waist as you walked. “Yeah, yeah, come on I can’t wait to see our little prune.”

“I can’t wait till next week, and we’re on a different food.”

Dean was so excited he could barely sit still in the office. They called you back and got you settled in the room before the tech came back to start. She started and was running the wand over your stomach when she found the baby and pointed him out to you. Dean grabbed your hand.

“Wow, Sweetheart, that’s our little one.”

“Yeah.” You both had tears in your eyes.

The tech turned on the volume so you could hear the heartbeat. ��There it is, wait a minute.” She was moving the wand again.

“What’s going on?” You worriedly asked.

“There’s another heartbeat. Here, we have a shy one.”

Looking at the screen you saw another tiny dot.

“Wait, are you saying?” You looked over at Dean and he was looking at the screen it hadn’t hit him yet.

“Congrats, you’re having twins!”

“Wwwhat?” Dean finally tuned into the conversation.

“Happy Birthday weekend dad, you’re getting two babies!” Dean’s look of shock wasn’t one you would be forgetting anytime soon.

Leaving the doctor’s office, you both were a mix of shock, nerves and excitement. It was hard to tell which one was winning out right now. You had the family over to the house for Dean’s birthday on Sunday and you let him share the news with everyone. You also decided it was time to tell the rest of your friends.

You moved your gaze from the tiny bundle in your arms to Dean staring down at the tiny swaddled baby in his. Someone had Daddy completely wrapped around his finger. Sensing you watching him he looked up with a smile on his face. “Sweetheart, I can’t believe our babies are finally here, I can actually hold them and see them when I talk. You did so good,” he told you leaning over to kiss you. Dean had been constantly talking to the babies and trying to feel them kick before they were born. Ever since you got back to your room and the twins were brought in, he had one in his arms at all times, relishing in the fact he now could.

Dean wanted to go all out for Valentine’s Day this year. He said it was the last one with just the two of you, and last year it had been a week after your first surgery, so you just stayed home. Thankfully, you had a dress that had been fairly lose on you before, so you didn’t have to go find something new. Dean had reservations at a nice restaurant in town, where you enjoyed each other’s company and the food. You were beat by the end of dinner and headed home to cuddle on the couch. Dean was rubbing your stomach and talking to the babies while you watched a movie, you were running your hand through his hair.

“How are my babies doing tonight? Did you enjoy the nice dinner I took your mommy to? I can’t wait till I can meet you guys. A few more months, you have some growing to do. You guys are 14 weeks, that means you’re as big as lemons now. You would fit in the palm of my hand.”

The next month went by fairly quickly, both you and Dean busy with work. There were things around the house that would need to be done to get ready for the birth of the twins. It seemed like Dean was quickly lessoning what we would let you do without help so you wanted to get started soon before he had you completely sidelined. You had decided to turn your guest room into the nursery and move the spare bed into the office neither of you really used. You cleaned out some of the lighter things because you knew Dean would freak out on you if you moved anything heavy. One night you went through Pinterest looking for different ideas for the nursery before you rushed ahead with anything.

March 16th was your 6th wedding anniversary; you suggested a quiet night at home. Dean vetoed that since you stayed home last year, again because of you. He booked you a weekend stay at a bed and breakfast a little over an hour away near the beach. Being March, it was too cold to get in the water, but you spent time exploring the quaint little town and its cute shops. While you were walking the beach at sunset your first night you stopped to admire the view and Dean stood behind you wrapping his arms around your stomach.

“I love you so much, Sweetheart.”

“I love you too, Babe. Thank you for doing this.”

“You know I would do anything for you.”

“I know, you have always been so good to me, and you’re going to be such an amazing dad. These babies are lucky to have you.”

“I love spending time just the two of us, but I can’t wait to meet these sweet potatoes.”

“Really Dean?”

“What that’s what the website says for 18 weeks.”

The rest of the weekend went very well, the highlight would have to be the last walk on the beach you and Dean took before you headed home. When you had stopped and were looking out over the water you felt a flutter in your stomach, and a few minutes later another faint one. That’s when you realized it was the babies moving. You told Dean and he kept moving his hand around to try and feel it too but was unable. He was still excited because it meant he would be able to soon.

Easter was the first weekend in April, you split your time between your two families. Sam and Jess hosted this year. While you and Mary kept Jake busy the guys hid Easter eggs around the yard for him to try and find. There were only about ten, but it still took him a little while. He was more interested in playing with the colorful plastic egg then finding the next one. Dean stood beside you while Jess was helping Jake. His hand was on your stomach when he suddenly pulled it back.

“What was, wait was that?”

“Yeah, that was one of the babies kicking.”

“So awesome! I can’t wait till we are out there helping ours find eggs, take their first steps, holding them.”

“I think your order was a little backwards, but I know how you feel, Dean.”

You had a surprise to share with both of your families. A few days earlier you had gone for you third ultrasound. Since you already had the surprise of twins you decided to find out the genders. While you were sitting around talking after dinner you let Dean tell his family, you had told your earlier in the day. Jake was sitting in his lap when he started talking.

“Hey buddy, do you know how big your cousins are now?” Jake didn’t understand and just looked at his uncle. “They are the size of pomegranates.”

“Dean, Babe, he’s not even two yet, he doesn’t know what that is.”

“He’s Sam’s kid. Sam eats all kids of healthy shi.. stuff. I’m sure he has those around the house.” Sam just shook his head and glared at his brother.

“Do you think you want a girl or boy cousin to play with?”

Mary was looking between the two of wondering if this conversation was going where she thought. Jake never answered Dean no matter what he did to try and pull something out of him.

“How about one of each, what do you think about that?”

“Is that one you’re having?” Mary asked not being able to wait for any more of Dean’s game.

“Yep, we are having a boy and a girl.” Dean grinned proudly.

“Oh man,” Sam started, “a little girl is going to have you so wrapped around her finger.” They all congratulated you and Dean once more.

It was the second weekend in May and you really needed to get going on finishing the nursery or starting it. Who would have thought the hardest part was going to be picking a theme you and Dean could both agree on.

“Come on Y/N, what’s wrong with that idea?”

“Dean, I’m not letting your obsession with scaring your brother using clowns scar our children with a clown themed nursery. Not going to happen Winchester.” The mobile and matching blanket he found even creeped you out a little.

“How about race cars? No, I got it! Let’s paint Baby on a wall!”

“Um, nice thought. We were trying to keep it neutral remember? How about when they get older, and this little guy can appreciate cars almost as much as his daddy, you can do a car theme. Who exactly is going to paint Baby, or did you suddenly become Picasso?”

“I didn’t get to who was going to paint it yet in my planning. Fine we can do cars down the road. Where are your ideas?”

“You have already shot them down, you didn’t want to paint the chevron lines, the silver and blue was to girly.” You just shook your head and went back to looking. This was going just as well as picking out names.

Dean looked over at what you had pulled up. “I like that color.”

“Seriously?”

“What, I can’t like that?”

“No, I was asking do you seriously like it, because I do too?”

“Well we like it, but how about my little rutabagas?”

“Really Dean? Do you even know what that is?” mumbling something he turned back to his phone; you wouldn’t be surprised if he was looking up rutabagas. On the plus side you finally had the nursery plans worked out.

Jess, Mary and your mom threw you a baby shower the first weekend in June you were about 30 weeks now. They had the party at your parent’s house, this worked out nice for you since you lived closest to them and it would be easy to take things home. Dean and the guys could hang out at your house since they didn’t want to attend the party the whole time. Jake was almost 2 and very interested in the presents on the table. You all had to keep him from trying to climb up there. It was a great couple hours playing games and spending time with family and friends. Babies Winchester were spoiled greatly!

Dean did come down toward the end, you’re pretty sure though he just wanted food. You excitedly showed him the wonderful gifts people gave the babies and you. He eagerly described the nursery, told people how fast the baby was growing, and how they were now as big as cucumbers.

Your birthday was a few weeks later, and at 32 weeks you weren’t up to doing much for it. Your families came over to the house for dinner. Your parents and Mary had been around and helped with different projects in the nursery. John, Sam, Jess and your brother on the other hand hadn’t been over in a while, so they had not seen the nursey. Dean was eager to show them all

“This is where my little squashes will sleep.”

Jess looked at Dean and laughed, “It’s cute that you think they are going to sleep Dean.”

The majority of the nursery was done now. You had gone with the soft aqua color you both liked, along with white furniture and trim. You had gone with light grey and white chevron curtains and pillows to accent it, along with soft grey carpet.

The Winchester’s always did a big 4th of July BBQ, this year was no exception. Ever since Sam and Jess got married you rotated hosting it between the three of you. This year should have been yours and Deans’ but since you were 34 weeks along Mary graciously told you they would have it. The doctor had told you to really start taking things easier, so you were trying not to overdo it. Mary didn’t let you help much in getting ready for the party, but you did busy yourself in the kitchen at home making a few desserts and Dean’s favorite pasta salad. You were thankful for them taking over you hadn’t been getting much sleep and wouldn’t have had the energy to get everything done you would have wanted.

Dean was manning the grill talking with Sam, Cass, and Benny when you walked over to join him. You could hear him talking as you got closer.

“Right now they are about the size of butternut squash, although they could be slightly smaller cause it’s twins.”

“I could have sworn you called them squash a few weeks ago, or was that a nickname for them?” Sam asked his brother.

“A few weeks ago, they were squash, now they are butternut squash.”

“I wasn’t aware there were different squashes,” Benny added.

“You know Dean for someone with an aversion to vegetables I’m surprised by the number of them you have called your kids.” Sam teased his brother with a laugh.

“What will they be when they are born,” Cas asked.

“Babies, Cas, they will be babies.” Dean shook his head at his brother and friends catching sight of you waddling over. “And there is my beautiful wife, and mom to be.” Dean leaned down and gave you a kiss while his hand went to your stomach.

Night came and you were heading back to you seat next to Dean to watch the fireworks. When the first ones lit up the sky you could feel both babies start to kick, apparently, they were as big of fans as their dad. Dean moved you around on the bench so he was sitting behind you and could have his arms around you. When he felt the babies kick, he moved his hands around and started talking to them calming them right down. The last few weeks whenever they were really active at night Dean’s touch and voice were the only thing that would get them to settle down so you could get a little sleep.

They figured your due date was around August 14th, but since you were having twins, they would most likely be early. Because of your previous surgeries the doctor wanted you to have a C-section to avoid any issues. It wasn’t what you really wanted, but it was what was best. They scheduled that tentatively for Friday August 7th unless the babies had other plans. Which they did. You were laying on the couch Monday morning with some heat on your back to help with the pain you were having while Dean was getting ready for work. Just before Dean walked out you started to feel some cramping. You were fairly certain you were in labor now. Dean actually took it much calmer than you thought he would. He called the doctor’s office while you went to shower and change. When you came back, he had both you bag and the babies in the car, and called Benny to tell him he would need to handle the shop today.

Once you go to the hospital things were a bit of a blur. They checked you in, took you to a room to exam you and prep for surgery. Dean disappeared at one point and came back dressed in scrubs. Before you knew it, they were taking you back to the operating room Dean right beside you the whole time.

“It’s time to meet our pumpkins Sweetheart.”

You just looked over to him and laughed.

“It’s the last time I can say that.”

“I know Dean let’s go meet our pumpkins.” Dean smiled widely at you as you headed down the hall.

Dean was holding your hand and trying to keep you calm when the doctor asked if he wanted to cut the umbilical cord. He did and came back to standing next to you with tears in his eyes as he watched a nurse take your screaming son. The doctor went back to work to get your little girl and Dean once again cut the cord. He was pushed out of the way quickly because she wasn’t breathing. The nurse who brought your son over said that could happen with C-sections and she should be fine. It seemed longer than the few minutes it really was before you and Dean heard her little cries fill up the room, both of you letting out a sigh of relief.

After recovering you were finally in your room with Dean and both of your babies. Your families were here and waiting for your okay to come meet the newest members. Dean proudly introducing the babies to the rest of the family.

“I would like you all to meet Patrick John and Sophia Allison. You spent a few days in the hospital Dean right beside you the entire time.

After everyone left your little family alone Dean sat down next to you on the bed holding Sophia, while you held Patrick. The two of you both lost in your own thoughts and the babies in your arms before you looked over to him drawing his attention to you.

Once you arrived home your mom and Mary took turns coming over to see if they could help you or just let you get some sleep. Dean had to go back to the shop but tried to be home as much as possible.

The twins were two months old and not sleeping well through the night which was leaving you and Dean exhausted. You were both working during the day, and the twins were waking each other up at night which had the two of you getting up each taking one of the babies. You told Dean that you would get up and he could sleep, but he just kissed you as he walked by saying you were in this together no matter what. One night you had finally got them calmed down early and both of you sank down on the couch. Dean asked if you wanted to watch anything on TV.

“Honestly, I don’t think I could follow along on anything right now, but the back of my eye lids. How about we head to bed before the little monsters wake us up?”

“Knew I married a smart woman.”

Just as you settled into bed you heard Patrick start crying, and then Sophia joined in.

“Seriously.” Dean grumbled.

As you were trying to calm both babies down Dean was playing on his phone. All of a sudden you head Samuel L Jackson voice reading Go the Fuck to Sleep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb0t9TUNLpg

“Seriously Dean?”

“What? They can’t understand and I completely agree with it.”

Much to your surprise the twins were starting to doze back off. If this actually worked, you weren’t sure if Dean would let you hear the end of it. This was the quickest they calmed down for you, and also the start of hearing this every night for the next four months.

Things weren’t always perfect, but they were perfect for you. You had an incredible husband who always supported you and two wonderful kids who would keep you both on your toes. No matter what happened good or bad you and Dean were in this together.

Thank you for reading! For now this store is complete.

Tag list @talesmaniac89 @deanwanddamons @flamencodiva @whatareyousearchingfordean @winchest09 @waywardbeanie @emoryhemsworth @katehuntington @malfoysqueen14 @anathewierdo @superfanficnatural @akshi8278 @sandlee44

#supernatural #dean x reader #dean winchester

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realityhelixcreates · 4 years ago

Text

The Mystic Garden: Sowing

Chapters: 1/5

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: PG

Warnings: death

Characters: Loki(Marvel)

Additional Tags: Infinity War Doesn’t Exist, Everybody Lives, Mutants Exist In The MCU, The Reparations Of Loki Of Asgard

Summary: Despite S.H.I.E.L.D. becoming a smaller and more selective organization, Loki still finds himself assigned to them upon Asgard's arrival on Earth. Required to perform a kind of specialized community service, Loki is paired up with another outcast, of a kind he is not familiar with: A mutant named Iris.

Loki of Asgard was a very beautiful man.

Loki of Asgard was a very powerful man.

Loki of Asgard was a very dangerous man.

And that was about all that anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. could agree on about Loki of Asgard.

To some, he was an asshole. To others, perfectly charming. To yet more, he was polite, but distant. Funny. Serious. Sarcastic. Aloof. Morbid. Morose. Intimidating. Shy. Threatening. Angry. Flirty. Each person Iris asked described him in a different way.

To Iris, he was a looming presence, staring her down with searing intensity. Her shiny, brand new partner. Joy.

“So you're the unfortunate one.” He grumbled. “Winner of the worst lottery this organization has ever thrown.”

“I'm Iris Devereaux.” She said, holding out her hand. “Pleased to finally meet you.”

He glanced at her hand with a sneer. “No you aren't.”

“Beg pardon?”

“No one is pleased to meet me.”

“Oh. Well. Here's the thing: you don't decide that for me.”

He raised one perfect eyebrow, tilting his head back.

“I don't tolerate men telling me what I do and don't think or feel. Only I can know that. Now, you gonna shake my hand or not, Mister 'of Asgard'?”

Loki harrumphed. “As you demand, Miss 'of the Riverbank'.”

“What?” Iris took his hand and gave it a firm shake. He allowed it, but drew his hand back the instant she released it.

“Your surname. It means 'riverbank'. Didn't you know? Named after a goddess, and yet you seem to have lived humbly.”

“I'm named after a flower.” Iris corrected.

“The flower was named after the goddess.” He re-corrected. “The personification of the rainbow, a messenger of the gods. She who waters the clouds with her ocean-filled pitcher, flying on glowing, golden wings to carry the pleas of mankind to the gods they prayed to. As she connected the sea and the sky, her rainbows connected mankind to the gods. Just as our Bifrost connected Asgard to Midgard with the beauty and magnificence of the rainbow.”

“Oh, please.” Another agent groaned from their nearby work station. Loki glared.

“Well, that's...informative.” Iris said. Was this what Loki was like? Standoffish, unless given something to talk about? He was certainly well-spoken. “I'm pretty sure my parents just had the flower in mind though.”

“A delicate goddess, an ephemeral rainbow, or a nodding blossom on the riverbank: it all paints a pretty picture, does it not?” He asked.

Iris narrowed her eyes. “What are you trying to say?”

“I wonder.” Loki said.

“Will you two just go get some coffee or something?” the other agent snapped. “I've got to finish this by ten hundred.”

“Fine, jeez, keep your vest on.” Iris said. Loki glared once again. “C'mon, there's a thousand break rooms on this old boat. We can take one over for ourselves.”

*****

“Who was that cur?” Loki demanded as Iris programmed the coffee machine for two cups. “Who does he think he is talking to? I am still a prince of Asgard, and a god! No pencil-pushing desk monkey speaks to me that way!”

“Hey, cool your chops.” Iris said, getting the mugs. “The pencil-pushing desk monkeys keep this whole show running. Who do you think runs this boat? Where does our intel come from? Who finds out if it's any good or not? Who does the budgets, communication, tech, cleanup, triage, programming, and supplies? The heroes get the fame, sure, but we're ultimately expendable. These guys own this shindig. Do you like caramel?”

“I...might?” He said, and Iris added a squirt of syrup to each steaming mug, then handed him his. “And you might be expendable, but I most certainly am not.”

“Cheers, bro. I'll drink to that.” Iris raised her mug in his direction and took a long gulp of fresh, caramel coffee. Oh boy, this was gonna be fun.

Loki seemed perplexed, either by the flavor of the coffee, or her casual acceptance of his declaration.

“Not that it will come to that.” He backtracked. “As my partner, you will have the advantage of my protection.”

“Joy. So, your highness, what's landed you here? You aren't exactly known as a friend to mankind. Why join S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

He harrumphed as Iris took another long pull from her mug. “You say 'join' as if I was given a choice. This is penance, nothing more. It was decided when Asgard had to relocate here, that I would work for a 'humanitarian' organization. Save lives equal to those whose deaths I was responsible for. Work towards paying off the cost it took to rebuild. And so I perform the Reparations of Loki of Asgard, defending this realm from itself. Once I have accomplished this, I will leave.”

“Mhm. And how far have you gotten?”

“It's only been a few months.” He huffed. “So not nearly as far as I'd like. How did they lure you in?”

Iris shrugged. “Job's a job. This one is steady, has good benefits, and it certainly keeps me engaged. It's no daily grind, that's for sure.”

“But with your power, could you not be a leader of some sort, rather than in a subservient 'expendable' position?”

“Ah. You've read my file.”

“Of course I did. As I assume you've read mine. Prying things. Why do they need so many personal details? But yes. It mentioned that you have an unusual power, beyond others of your type? Why are you not in charge?”

“Hoo boy.” Iris took a seat across from him. “You don't know much about human social structure, do you?”

Loki frowned. “It was never supposed to matter.”

“Well, it matters now. And it's mattered to me my whole life, because I can't just run off home to fairy tale land, so it looks like we both have no choice but to deal with it. You know what a mutant is?”

“I know what the word means, but I don't know how it applies to you.” Loki said, perplexed. “You look like any other human to me, so I assume it is something internal?”

Now it was Iris' turn to harrumph. “Well, you look like any other Asgardian to me, so I guess we've both got something going on under our skin, don't we? Tell you what: you explain to me what a 'frost giant' is, and I'll explain what a 'mutant' is in this context.”

“And if I refuse?” Loki sneered.

“Then I do too.” Iris said simply.

Loki stared at her across the table, the intensity of his gaze as hot as the coffee, and Iris tried her best to pretend to be unaffected by it. It wasn't that he wasn't intimidating, but an unfortunate lifetime of bigotry and constant background danger had given her a skin as thick as wood. Well, her mutation had done that as well.

“I can do this all day.” He warned.

“Alright.” Iris shrugged.

A few very awkward minutes passed, a silence spent sipping coffee, until her supervisor, Chris Timmitz, interrupted.

“Iris! Loki. There you are! I've been looking for you two. Lucky to find you in the same place, you've got a job coming up.”

“Oh yeah? Lay it on me boss.” Iris said. Loki grimaced.

“We think we've got another possible HYDRA shelter, kinda out in the open this time. We need more intel. That's where you come in.”

“It's located next to a forest, isn't it?”

“A meadow, actually.” He said a bit sheepishly. “We need you to, uh, plant some bugs on the property.”

“Ha ha.” Iris said flat-voiced.

“Aw c'mon, I didn't come up with the terminology.”

“Was that some kind of insult?” Loki asked darkly. “Do you degrade your employees?”

“Well, it wasn't meant to be.” Chris explained. “It's not my fault the language is what it is. And what about you? Iris may act tough, but she's really sweet and sensitive, so you'd better act right-”

“Or what?” Loki challenged.

“Chris. Cut it out. We don't have to be chummy, we just have to get the job done.” Iris said. “So give us the details.”

“Right, right. We're starting Tuesday. It seems to be when the fewest people are there...”

****

Iris crawled through the tall grass of the meadow, the plants moving naturally around her, so as to not alert her enemies that she was there. The shelter was an old schoolhouse apparently, that HYDRA agents had taken over, ostensibly to restore the historical building and turn it into a museum...all the while sheltering their agents from the law, and pushing revisionist history in an effort to spread their doctrine through yet another small town. They had done this so many times before, changing the narrative, changing the perceptions of the people.

HYDRA had many heads. It was the symbolism of the thing. Some of those heads infiltrated governments, and worked to influence world policy. Other heads overran small towns, influencing the vote, which served to make the jobs of the others easier.

Some people in S.H.I.E.L.D. likened them to a virus to be quarantined, cut out, and destroyed. Iris saw them as a sickness to be cured. Anyone could change their minds, given reason. The trick was to find the reason. That wasn't her job, and she didn't think she'd be good at it, but she knew that there were anti-radicalization support groups popping up here and there now, and no wonder, with the state of the current administration. Iris knew HYDRA must have gotten their voice very well entrenched into the government.

But Iris was more directly concerned with these little heads, with blocking their progress, slowing them down, and just generally inconveniencing them.

She'd gotten the usual stares and glares, upon entering the little town, but it was hard to tell if it was HYDRAs influence, or just typical American small town prejudice when faced with a dark-skinned stranger. Either way, she wouldn't want to live here.

She settled down in the grass, stretched out on her belly, and the sod began to part beneath her. Loki, who had simply made himself invisible with his alien magics, and crept along beside her, was clearly capable of sneaking with the best of them. He barely displaced a blade of grass. He crouched down beside her.

“We are stopping here?” He whispered. “How shall you place your devices? Will you throw them?”

“No, My aim isn't that good.” Iris said, ignoring his smug “Mine is.”, and beginning to sink into the newly exposed soil.

“Uh...Miss Devereaux...are you aware that the earth appears to be swallowing you?”

“Don't worry about it, it's fine.” She wriggled her feet out of her flimsy sandals and into the dirt. She was positioned to just be able to see the old schoolhouse over the edge of the trough that had been excavated beneath her. That was all she needed.

“Certainly. Nothing out of the ordinary here.”

“You're one to talk. Hand me the bugs.”

There were only three of them: tiny things, no larger than the creatures they were named after. Iris took them, then tore a packet of seeds open with her teeth, pouring the contents into her hands.

“This is going to take me a pretty long time. Couple of days, probably. What I'm going to need the most from you is tending. Every hour, give me something to drink. Every four hours, give me something to eat. Make sure no one sweeps through here with a lawn mower or a fire. I'm not going to be able to move, and will likely be in something of a trance. Sorry I won't be better company.”

“That's a lot of orders coming from one little human.” Loki grumbled.

“My life is in your hands.”

“That's...a bit better.”

She pressed her hand against the earth in front of her, and concentrated.

For some minutes it didn't appear to Loki that anything was happening at all. Then the first of the thin, white roots began squirming out from between her fingers, roping around her hand.

Loki stretched out in the tall grass next to her as the roots slowly formed a ragged, grasping ball of pale worms against her chestnut skin. He remained silent for hours alongside her, dutifully holding a small bottle of water to her lips every hour or so. As she had said earlier, Iris lay very still, and very trance-like, drinking without acknowledging that she even knew he was there.

“Hmmm.” He whispered. “I hate being ignored, you know. I wonder if you can even hear me? Could you explain what it is that you are doing, or are you so far away that you cannot even answer? What would happen if I touched you right now, Goddess-Flower of the Riverbank? Would I break your concentration? Would you even notice?”

He opened one of the little ration packs, half of which were specifically labeled with Iris' name. Within were little brown cubes that smelled deeply unappetizing to Loki, formed from a slurry of many mysterious ingredients.

“A special recipe, just for you? S.H.I.E.L.D. must value you more highly than you have previously stated. Here you go, Bright Blossom.” He held the little cube to Iris' lips, which parted automatically to accept the cube. “And so I have become no more than a nutrient dispensary. How far I have fallen.”

He fed her the cubes, one by one. Every brush of her petal-velvet lips against his fingers tempted him to push them into her mouth, a temptation that brought a chuckle to his own lips. There were only so many games he would be allowed to play, before S.H.I.E.L.D. kicked him out entirely. He wasn't attached to S.H.I.E.L.D., or anyone within the organization, but working for them kept him active, kept him relevant, kept him engaged, and most importantly, kept him out of prison. Community service was infuriating, but he had experienced the soul-crushing torment of solitary confinement, and this was much preferable.

A cold, uncomfortable cell? Or laying in the grass on a warm, sunny day, hand-feeding a pretty girl?

He was very tempted to lay his hand on the small of her back, where her uniform had ridden up just enough to show a strip of glistening skin, but it wouldn't have the proper punch with Iris in this deep trance. Without reaction, there was no fun.

The roots winding their way up her arms were somewhat unsettling. Was this what her file had meant when it noted that she was a 'mutant'? That she could cause plants to sprout? Could other humans do that?

Hours later, when the sun had set, and the roots had wriggled into the soil all around her, and crawled their way up to her shoulders, Iris stirred.

“Mph. Man, I'm sore.” She complained.

“Ah, welcome back. There is a powerful desire I need you to fulfill.”

“Not on company time. There's trees over there, go behind them and, uh, work it out? Also, for next time, I really don't need to know.”

“You flatter yourself, or you underestimate me. What I want, is for you to explain what you are doing. Are you making those plants grow?”

“Oh. Yeah, basically. You read my file; you know I'm a mutant.”

“Yes, but I do not know the significance of the term.” Loki admitted. “Is it this? This magic you wield?”

“It's not magic, it's just...it's genetic. I was born this way. At first it was just little things. Gardens grew better wherever I went, I didn't get hungry as much when there was sunlight, I didn't need to drink as much as long as there was water on the ground. I grew up in a way rural community tucked away in the Everglades. We were real poor, so being outside and having wet and muddy feet was just normal for all the kids.

As I got older, the signs got more obvious. I can do things that plants can do. I can direct their growth, and I sorta...change with the seasons, depending on where I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“Eh, stick around long enough and you'll see. Anyway, people aren't too fond of mutants, and it got...tough. To live at home, I mean. So I went out into the wild, and I did pretty well there, but S.H.I.E.L.D. found me and offered me something else. Not every mutant is like me. There's a lot of different ways to be a mutant, it's unpredictable. Some folks can fly, others can turn their bodies into metal, and some can heal wounds to their body in seconds. I manipulate plants, and am, in some ways, like them.”

“I see. And you are causing these plants to grow for what purpose?”

“Spying purposes. It's gonna take a few days, but these vines will tunnel through the ground, all the way up to the school house. When they break ground, I'll send one of them up that tree there, another one around the frame of that window there, and the third down the chimney. You saw those little devices? They're holding those in packets of leaves, and will position them so that they remain hidden, but they consist of audio, video, and heat signature recorders. Once I've gotten them in place, we'll leave. That's all this mission is; bugs on plants.”

“Then why am I here?” He wondered. “You seem to have this well in hand.”

“Someone's gotta feed me. And make sure I don't get found out. There's rumors you can make magic illusions. That's probably why. You can hide us both from any eyes or cameras.”

“And I have.” Loki said proudly. “And fed and...watered you, Little Blossom. What else do you need from me?”

“To do it all again tomorrow.” Iris said. Then she dropped her head into the nest of roots, and settled down to sleep.

*****

Iris was awake and in her trance just as the first light of dawn kissed the horizon. Loki had been awake even before that, every swish of grass or crackle of leaves grabbing his attention.

“Rest.” He commanded her. “I have not the need of it that you do. Never forget: I am no weak mortal. You require a large amount of sleep, but I am all the greater.”

Iris had snorted at the bravado, but accepted the cubes he fed her, and fell into her trance, the roots curling further and further around her body.

Loki idly wondered how far the roots would go. Would they cocoon Iris entirely, prompting her to 'hatch' into a new form? Would they drag her down into the earth, entombing her away from Loki forever? Or would they just die back?

He watched people come and go to the old schoolhouse, working on its restoration. They looked for all the world like normal workers; he didn't even believe any of them to be armed. Not all HYDRA agents were combatants, after all. Just as many of them were spies, thieves, politicians, PR specialists and spin doctors.

Ever since what the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents called 'The Big Reveal', both organizations had been frantically rebuilding. S.H.I.E.L.D. more slowly, taking only the best, only the most trustworthy. Loki supposed he should be proud, even though he knew he was only there as a glorified prisoner.

HYDRA's recruits seemed to be skyrocketing, as they took to the internet in search of easily radicalized young men-mostly men, and boys-to bolster their numbers. They found plenty of them, and quickly, but they were sloppy and unpredictable. All too often, one let their ego overcome their loyalty to the cause, an event that almost always led to public confrontation and violence. But the news media-already infiltrated, most likely-was always quick to exonerate or sympathize with a young white man.

HYDRA disgusted Loki, even back when he had 'convinced' a small cell to work with him. No one group knew what the others were doing. There was a severe lack of communication between cells. Yes, Loki supposed it kept them safe from discovery, but he found it inefficient. A waste of potential by people more invested in the pageantry of a secret society, than by the end goal they hoped to achieve.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was little better, in his opinion, but at least its people were more serious about their work. Communication was more open, their goals more achievable. It felt like they made a difference, whether they really did or not. And they didn't waste potential. HYDRA would simply kill someone like Iris, S.H.I.E.L.D. found her valuable enough to spend resources on her. Under Loki's regime, had he succeeded, Iris, and all people like her, would have been of personal interest to him. All of these so-called 'mutants' would have been given places of high honor. Loki did not waste potential.

But that wasn't worth spending more time dwelling on. It was never meant to happen in the first place. When and where he would rule was yet to be discovered, but it would not happen until he was finished with his penance.

He provided Iris with her water, barely able to see her under all the roots. It was no wonder that she could not go into the field without a partner; she could not be ready for combat, couldn't even eat on her own! If they had to run, was he just supposed to tear her from the root wrapping and toss her over his shoulder? Would disconnecting her like that cause her harm?

He would have to ask next time she woke.

A young man approached, wielding an unfamiliar device. Loki was immediately on high alert. Was that some kind of weapon? He wandered all the way up to the verge of the grasses, gazing placidly out over the meadow. This was a HYDRA agent? He was barely out of adolescence! But from what Loki remembered of his brothers youthful declarations of hatred towards the Jotunn, radicalization did indeed start young.

“Naw, I think it must have been a glitch.” He said into his lapel. “There's nothing out here, not even trails in the grass.” He paused, listening. “Naw. Maybe it was a coyote? There's plenty of wild animals that wander around out here. My bro swears he saw a puma last year. Anyway, I'm gonna trim the grass, since I'm here anyway. If you're really worried, come out and check your cameras. I ain't gonna do it for you.”

With that, the young man yanked a long string, attached to a pod on the device, causing the thing to roar to life. Its loud snarl effectively covered Loki's startled gasp, his invisible eyes wide at the noise and the fact that everything within a six inch radius of the device's head was shredded and flung in all directions.

He had to maintain the illusion. But Iris was right in the horrible things' path. It would rip right into her face.

Unacceptable.

Loki rolled over on top of her, covering her body, roots and all, with his own. He ducked his head just as the device passed by. The force was like a high speed whip, tearing at his hair. It would have lacerated his scalp, possibly to the bone, had he been human. It would have certainly injured Iris, whom he kept safely tucked under his body, protected by his armor and tough, godly flesh.

The young man made a few more passes, working his way down the edge of the meadow, leaving Loki with a stinging scalp from his impromptu haircut, eventually leaving after finishing a rough, sub-par job.

Loki kept still, concentrating on maintaining the illusion, now including fresh cut grass. He feared it had wavered under the assault he had suffered, but the young man hadn't seemed to notice. Hours passed with no movement from Loki, just watching as various people came and went, doing their jobs. Eventually they all trickled away.

The sun had grown low in the sky before Loki felt Iris stir.

“Um. Loki? What are you doing? Did something happen?” Iris asked, her voice muffled by his body.

“Pardon me.” He rolled back into the grass as Iris shook her face free of the grasping roots. “Some boy came through here with a horrible device that tore up the grasses. It was necessary to cover you.”

Iris sniffed the air. “Someone cut the grass. Geez, did he hit you? Your hair!”

“Is it bad?” He asked, then covered his vanity. “It doesn't matter. I made good on my word. Here, eat.” He held food to her mouth. It would be almost too bad when this was over. Feeding her was so easy, so satisfying, and his hair would grow back anyway. If only all missions could be this easy.

Iris ate, watching the sunset, Loki laying on his side in the grass next to her, just watching her. Roots and shredded grass decorated her body, cube after cube passing her lips.

“Miss Devereaux, how will you remove yourself from those roots? If I must tear them, will it hurt you?”

Iris shook her head. “No, the roots aren't attached to me. If we pull this off without a hitch, I'll direct them into the soil. But if we have to get out in a hurry, you can tear them; it won't hurt me.”

“That's good to know.” Loki rolled onto his back, hands behind his head. “There is much still to learn about this realm. What is this that you are eating?”

“You sure you wanna know?” She asked.

“I am suddenly less curious, now that you have said that.” He admitted. “They do smell incredibly unappealing.”

“It's fertilizer, essentially. Fish emulsion and seaweed, blood and bone meal, fermented vegetables, all mashed together. Sounds super gross, I know,” She said at his disgusted expression. “But it's really good for me. My body absorbs it so efficiently that there isn't even any waste. Like roots inside me that absorb everything.”

“Are there? Roots inside you, I mean.”

“Sometimes.” Iris said quietly. “Maybe.”

“It bothers you? I see. It removes you from humanity. Sets you apart. And yet, you think that makes you inferior, rather than the other way around?”

“I'm not better than anybody else.” Iris said.

“You think not? Is there anyone else in this world who can do what you can do? How many people have your S.H.I.E.L.D. actively recruited? They came to find you specifically, why would they do that? Because you were completely average? You are a valued agent of a semi-clandestine organization bent on world improvement. You have been partnered to a god. You are above-average, Iris. Why is that difficult to accept?”

“Are you 'above average' in Asgard, Loki? Have you always been celebrated for it?”

“Mostly.”

“I haven't. I've been despised. I've been misunderstood. I've been coddled and hidden away by my parents in an attempt to protect me. I've been discriminated against by strangers, and teachers, and employers, and neighbors whose kids I grew up with. By those same kids.

I walked out into the wild one day, and didn't come back. I never planned on coming back, never planned on seeing another person ever again. But S.H.I.E.L.D. weren't the first to find me. There were two others. There was a man, a strange old man who could fly. He floated down from the sky, and told me that as a mutant, I was naturally superior to all other humans. He wanted me to come with him, said he was building some grand future for mutantkind, as if we were a different species.”

“Who was this man?” Loki asked, intrigued.

“No idea. I told him to leave. It wasn't long after I had left home, and I really didn't want to go back to any kind of civilization. I was kinda fantasizing about becoming some kind of cryptid, you know? The Everglades Swamp Witch, or something like that.

Then the botanists came. A whole group of them, trying to catalog Ghost Orchids. They're endangered, and people keep stealing them, and wrecking up their habitat. But I knew where they were. All two thousand of them. And I convinced them that I was in contact with all the remaining plants, so if any went missing after their expedition, I'd know, and come hunting for them.”

She grinned. “Like I said, Swamp Witch vibes. They even believed me!”

“So you cannot actually do that?” Loki asked. The stars had come out, forming unfamiliar shapes in the night sky. His eyes could pick out fainter lights than a humans could, and he admired the active beauty of this part of the universe while eating from one of the non-specialty ration packs.

“Well, I can, but not automatically. And not that far away. I have to be closer to a plant to really sense it, and I have to be trying really hard. Like, if I wanted to figure out where the nearest maple tree was, I would have to concentrate on that, and block out all the grass. But a maple has a different...I guess you could call it a signature? A different signature than grass does. A Ghost Orchid grows on trees, and is basically just a ball of roots when it's not blooming. Kinda like this-” Iris nodded at the roots tangled around her. “But way smaller. It looks like nothing, almost. They're very hard to spot. But they have that different signature than the tree they grow on, and I can follow that to where they are.”

“So you found all their plants, as if by magic.”

“Yeah, and they paid me pretty well for it, and I sent the money home to my parents, and then the botanists went home and blabbed. Next thing I know. S.H.I.E.L.D. is on my tail.”

“Because you were friendly to botanists?”

“Well...I might have also...sabotaged a development project.” Iris said sheepishly. “But it was right on the edge of the National Park, and I didn't let anybody get hurt! And I'm pretty sure it was dubiously legal anyway.”

The edges of Loki's mouth curled, even as his eyebrows lifted.

“What's this? You're 'shy and sensitive' I was told. Was I sold a bill of goods? Are you, in fact, a naughty little mutant?”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Ugh, don't joke. Naughty little mutants end up dead.”

The amusement drained from his face.

“You would be celebrated in Asgard.” He said.

“We aren't in Asgard.” She answered. “The only thing that matters is where we are now. Those guys in there? They'd kill us both just for being born. They'd make it so that no one like us could ever be born again. When S.H.I.E.L.D showed up, in their black uniforms and started introducing themselves as 'agents', I thought that's what they had come for. The government was there to kill me.

At that point, I'd been off the grid for over a year, and I didn't know anything about the S.H.I.E.L.D./HYDRA internet explosion. But when they started talking about rebuilding as a humanitarian organization, dedicated to the protection of people-marginalized people-from, like, terrorist groups and hostile aliens, I realized they weren't there to kill me or arrest me, they were just there for me.

So I didn't make them disappear, and went with them instead. I still send money home to my parents. They don't know where I am, or what I do. They don't know the true extent of my capabilities. I'm not sure I do either. The thing about being a mutant is that a lot of these powers don't get replicated exactly, so we each have to figure ourselves out. There's no training regimen or curriculum for this.”

“So all of this is self taught?” Loki asked, impressed. “I'm not even entirely self taught.”

“You were taught? This all didn't just come from being a god or whatever?”

“No, of course not. The power is there naturally, but it needs directing. Like you, I suppose. You're born with it, but need teaching to use it. I had the best teachers the universe could offer, and was exalted and encouraged. You had only yourself, and adversity. I've seen but little of you, but this seems a great feat so far.”

“A compliment?”

“An acknowledgment. It's good to know S.H.I.E.L.D. has become more discerning in its recruitment. I hear it was more than a little disastrous for them last time.”

“Like I said, I didn't find out about that until after. Though, I guess it's not all that surprising that it happened. There's a lot that can go wrong inside an organization that big, and with that much reach. There's just too much going on; there can never be enough oversight.”

“I know.” Loki said. “I used that against them when I attempted to bring down the planet. Somehow, they still didn't notice the traitors among them.”

“You worked with HYDRA?” Iris asked defensively.

“No.” Loki said. “I used them. I didn't...make many distinctions then, in my interactions with mortals.”

“Kinda seems like you still don't.” Iris pointed out. Loki took a breath and hesitated.

“Moreso than I did then.” He said slowly. “Then, you were just tools. A means to an end. Disposable. Interchangeable. There are so many of you, so it wasn't like any of your could actually be important.”

“Right up until barely six of us beat the tar out of you and blew up your entire army?”

Loki scowled. “That is a misstatement. The plan was always to lose.”

“Bull. Shit.”

“No, I'm serious. Earth was the weakest link in the Nine Realms, and it needed to be awakened. And you were. Spectacularly. Look what it's lead to. S.H.I.E.L.D. was purged, HYDRA exposed, and your world made ready for the arrival of Asgard. You've been opened to higher interactions, as a progressing member of the Realms.”

“Uh huh. That was totally the end goal, right? Inter-species altruism? That was what filled your heart while you blew people up?”

“Norns, no!” Loki snorted. “I hated every last one of you. I took a special delight in destroying that which was weaker than myself, never think I didn't. It's just...It wasn't entirely up to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean...I mean that losing was an act of defiance that sparked off the strengthening defense of Midgard, which I continue to participate in. Doing small jobs for S.H.I.E.L.D., rubbing out the likes of HYDRA and A.I.M., all of this contributes to this strengthening.”

Iris regarded him suspiciously through her framework of roots.

“You sound like you're running some sinister, behind-the-scenes shadow plan.” She accused. “You wanna explain?”

Loki smiled, a wan, false thing.

“Do you want some water?” He offered instead.

Iris rolled her eyes. “You're not gonna distract me.”

“And I am not going to elaborate further. Your curiosity will have to remain unsatisfied, or supplemented by your own imagination.”

“Hmph. Why'd you even bring it up then?”

“I? I think you'll find our conversation naturally meandered in this direction. That does not mean it must come to the conclusion you desire.”

“So this is what Abby meant when she said you were a pain in the ass to talk to.” Iris grumbled.

“I was not put here to satisfy Abby.” Loki said airily. “Who is Abby?”

“She asked you on a date.” Iris said. “You don't even remember her? Harsh.”

Loki shrugged. “She sounds frightfully dull. I may have to play nice for now, but I needn't entertain every persons sordid fantasies. Do you leap through every hoop set before you? Or do you also tell unimportant people that you aren't interested in entertaining them?”

“All right, that's fair.” Iris craned her head back to look up at the stars. “Which one is Asgard? Can you see it from here?”

“You can't.” Loki said. “The star is too far away, too small. And it doesn't matter now anyway. Home is gone, and we must rebuild from scratch. But that one, right there-do you see? Another realm orbits that one, the Frozen Realm of Jotunheim. They were our enemies once, and yours, but no more. Partly because they are under 'house arrest' as it were, trapped on their own planet. My father drove them off your planet over a thousand years ago. Your world actually warmed up without their influence, at least for a little while.”

“There were aliens here a thousand years ago?” Iris asked, incredulous.

“There have been 'aliens' here for ages.” Loki said. “Visitations and experiments, and failed colonies, and raids. Your ancestors were still getting the hang of fire, and there were 'aliens' visiting your lush and beautiful world. Making plans. Then your lot discovered agriculture and metal, and ruined a lot of those plans.”

“Seems like we're good at that.”

“Yes, yes, I was defeated by mortals. I am aware. I was the first to know.” Loki grumbled.

“Wait, does that mean the aliens really did build the pyramids?” Iris wondered.

Loki snickered. “The hubris of humanity is not universally shared. You are known for several things, and your inexplicable drive for monument building is one of them. Visitors did not build your great buildings; you did. They did come to see them though, like tourists. Some of them even took artifacts back home with them. Hopefully they weren't too historically important.”

“That's so rude.” Iris said.

“And you would never have known to take offense if I hadn't told you.”

God of Mischief indeed.

“What other realms are there? Just the nine?”

“Eight now, I suppose. But no. There are many peoples out there. The Nine Realms were just those places that were somehow related to Asgard. Allies, protectorates and...penal colonies, you might call them. But all interconnected, and all at least a little dependent on the others, at least some of the time. That has come to an end. There is a very powerful spot now empty. I fear there will be a great deal of turmoil before things even themselves back out. It would be interesting to see how that all plays out, but alas, I am trapped here for now.”

“Where would you go?” Iris asked.

“Alfheim first, I think.” Loki said. “They like me there. They are much less dour than the Dverguar, less serious than the Vanir, not so boastful and bombastic as Asgardins, not vicious as Jotunn, and nowhere near as hectic and anxious as Midgardians...humans, I mean. They like jokes and pranks, and value magic...perhaps I should have been Alfar? If only I could have chosen.”

“Yeah, I think we all feel that way sometimes. But I guess even gods don't get that choice. Hey, how do gods work, anyway? I mean, I stopped believing in any all-powerful force a long time ago. About when the only answer anyone could really give me as to why God would make someone like me was that I was put here to test faith. My own, or other people's maybe. It made me sick. What kind of 'father' puts a burden like that on a little kid?”

Loki scoffed. “The first mistake that humans make is in thinking that anything can be all-powerful, all-knowing, or infallible. It is a ridiculous fantasy notion, immature and irresponsible. That kind of thinking can only lead to two things: complete disillusionment, or harm to the self or others. I am a god, because I have a singular connection to a certain aspect of the universe, as does my brother, but neither of us are any of those things. How boring, to be all-knowing! How banal, to be all-powerful. And I have known people who seemed to think they were infallible, and the amount of misery and suffering they caused is unspeakable.

No, gods were never supposed to be all that. Greater than others, yes, but omnipotent...no, that's only for people who are overcompensating I think.”

“What's that about a special connection to the universe?” Iris asked.

“The universe is ridiculously unstable. Did you know that? I believe it was a human that posited that reality destroys and remakes itself fairly often in the scheme of things, but by the nature of it, it's impossible to ever know if that's true. Because if reality is destroyed, so are you, and so, you would never know. And if reality rebuilds itself, then that is the only reality that exists, so you would never know.”

“Oh hell, I don't like that.”

“Well just don't think about it. In any case, this instability seems to be occasionally expressed through individuals of particularly resilient and long-lived species, by connecting them to certain random forces. For my brother, it is the natural occurrence of thunder and lightning, those two things being directly connected. For me, it is an expression of sophisticated behaviors. Those forces are ours to deploy and manipulate to our will, and we affect them in the world around us, even as they effect us.”

“So you're just born with it too, huh?”

“So it seems.”

Iris settled back down into her swaddling roots to sleep, leaving Loki to stare up at the stars. The grass-cutting human had mentioned cameras. Loki had shielded them from that kind of surveillance on the way in, just in case. They must be hidden somewhere out in the trees. Could Iris detect such things? Would it be worthwhile to disable any, if suspicion was already on them? Or would that merely draw even more suspicion?

Perhaps while Iris remained incapacitated, actions that might bring more enemies out should be avoided. She did not have his durable skin, after all, nor his speed or strength. But with her unusual and largely unexplained powers, he hesitated in thinking of her as weak. More like...a specialist.

He felt her stir, just as the sun was lifted into the sky, and he fed her her morning cubes. She settled into her work trance almost immediately. Perhaps she was put off by the previous nights conversation, and didn't want more of the same. Perhaps she simply wanted to finish this mission quickly. Surely she too found it boring to lay in the same spot for days.

He watched the people come and go about their work restoring the schoolhouse. How many of them were just regular workers, and how many were enemy agents? Impossible to tell by looking, especially if even the youth were involved.

The sun had not risen particularly high when he noticed a difference. The roots that wrapped Iris' body were thinning; as he watched, more and more broke away from the tangle to bury themselves in the dirt at her sides. It was like watching worms escaping danger.

Finally, Iris pulled her hands from the soil, and pushed free of the roots.

“Alright.” She said. “Bugs are in. Now it's time for us to bug out.”

In retrospect, Loki could admit that he had been too eager to leave. He simply didn't do well with long periods of inactivity. So when he walked into the trees surrounding the meadow, and found himself face to face with a shotgun-wielding hunter, he wasn't too embarrassed. No, what really made him kick himself was when the one behind them held Iris at gunpoint. How could he have let one of these yokels get behind him?

“Who the hell are you freaks?” The one in front demanded. Loki recognized him as the youth with the loud grass cutting device who had ruined his hair.

“Gaw, this one stinks!” The other one exclaimed. “Well what do ya expect? She looks like mud, of course she smells like it.”

“We were just out looking for a...private place, if you catch my drift.” Loki said smoothly, getting ready. “Nothing to get worried about. It's just such a nice day, and we couldn't help ourselves.”

“Gross.” The one behind Iris said.

“We don't want you degenerate types around here.” The one in front of Loki said. “Now hands up, freak. You're way too close.”

“To what, pray tell?” Loki said. Almost ready.

“Don't talk about it, dumbass!” The other one hissed.

“Look, let's just kill them, to be sure.” The one in front of Loki said. “World ain't gonna miss a few freaks. And then nobody knows, and we don't get in trouble.”

Loki lifted his hand in a gesture he knew humans considered to be rude. Both men fired their guns.

Neither of them saw the illusions of Loki and Iris fade away, sprawled as they were one the forest floor, bleeding from the bullet wounds they'd inflicted upon one another.

Several yards away, Loki took his hands from over Iris' ears, and approached the HYDRA recruits. One of them was still alive. Loki carefully wrapped his hand in a cloth he manifested from seemingly nowhere, and casually suffocated him.

He then led the horrified Iris back to their rented car, and got back onto the highway as quickly as he could.

The silence stretched on for several hours, Loki watching the road, Iris gazing out the window at the scenery.

“Why didn't we sneak off as soon as you put up those illusions?” She finally asked. “We were invisible. We could have just left.”

“They had seen us.” Loki said. “They could not be allowed to go and inform their superiors. If there was suspicion that we had been snooping around the school, the entire point of the mission would be moot. Besides, they were extremely rude.”

“Don't joke.” Iris said sharply. “You killed that man in cold blood.”

“I killed him on cold practicality.” Loki corrected. “He could not be allowed to live, and let others know that he and the other one hadn't actually accidentally shot one another. Once anyone had seen us, that had to be the end for them. It is understandable that you might not like that, which is why I would not ask you to participate. But if I am sent on a mission as a protector, then that is what I will do. These were men who wanted to kill you just for being born, remember?”

“They were radicalized. They could have been deradicalized.”

“And how do you propose we were to do that?”

Iris huffed. “Damnit.”

“Sometimes we aren't afforded the choices we would prefer. But don't fret. I will take full responsibility in the report. I know the Director isn't keen on too many work-related killings.” It was part of why Loki took such delight in reporting work-related killings. Just to remind them of who he was, and what he was capable of.

Once they had reached their destination and returned the rental car, Iris called their contact agent for extraction. She wasn't exactly distant, but with other things to focus on, and other people demanding their times, the closeness of the last two days was fading fast.

Oh well, Loki thought. It had been nice while it lasted. But nothing was forever, and all affection was fleeting; he knew that well enough.

But it was a little odd to see her so preoccupied with her phone.

“Have you a Tweety account, or some such?” He asked, trying to strike up a conversation once again.

“Since that doesn't exist: no.” She answered, distracted. “No, there's just...I'm seeing someone, and he wants to meet up as soon as I get back.”

Loki frowned. For some reason, he didn't like that sound of that. “You need rest, don't you?” He suggested.

“Yeah, and it's a little last minute, I admit. But he's an agent too, and our schedules don't match up very often, so we've got to meet when we can, or not at all.”

“That sounds like a difficult arrangement.”

Iris shrugged. “I'll take what I can get. At least he doesn't seem to mind the whole mutant thing. That's kinda important when you're in my shoes.”

“You do not sound entirely enamored of this man.” Loki probed.

“Well...I'd like to get to know him better, but he's very private. Mostly, I just don't want to be alone. It's hard for people like me, you know? I can't just throw a relationship away because it's not some perfect storybook romance. Gotta be more realistic than that. But I sure hope I get a few days rest before I get sent out again.”

It sounded...practical. She had to take her opportunities where she found them. It wasn't as if Loki had never been there. It was perhaps a little sad, since it sounded like she really did want that storybook romance.

Perhaps it was none of his business. It was absolutely none of his business. He followed her anyway, curious about what kind of man made this little flower bloom.

The man in question was not impressive, in Loki's opinion. Not much more than average. Maybe that didn't matter to Iris.

“Bet you're glad to be done with all that, huh?” He asked. “Dealing with that creep couldn't be easy.”

“It wasn't really all that bad, honestly. He-”

“I don't really want to hear about him. C'mon, we have the whole evening! Let's not waste it!”

Loki decided then and there that he did not like this man. Not in small part because he wanted to know what Iris had to say about him.

She took him to what must have been her apartment, and there Loki left. There were a few things he didn't want to know after all.

#themysticgarden #loki (marvel)#loki x ofc

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atinykidult · 4 years ago

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A War Against Your Personal Space — Jung Wooyoung

[prompt request] [1900 words] — spy!au, enemies to lovers, “Hold your fire!”/”Suck on that!”/”Shut up for a second, will you?”/”I don’t even know why we’re doing this.”

[content notes] [fluff] — There’s firearms, cussing, respectively dramatic/knowing Seongsang, endearingly annoying Wooyoung, competition, red cheeks, a lowkey cliche but satisfying(?) premise, etc., etc.

[a/n] — I’m so sorry if the lack of action is disappointing! I’m not great at it, so I focused on the recon/practice/snarky/non-fabulous aspects of the Spy!au. But there’s still plenty of aggression haha Thank you for reading! <3

Jung Wooyoung is a piece of shit.

That’s the only thing you can think as you continuously fire at the moving targets.

Bang, bang, bang!

Next to you, he’s doing the same.

(That is, firing at the targets. The shithead probably doesn’t even have thoughts in his head, and, therefore cannot be thinking.)

You’re doing well until you miss one target on your non-dominant side.

You aim more carefully and—

Bang!

Next to you, Wooyoung’s looking at you with an infuriatingly cocky smirk.

“You took my target!” you growl at him, angrily tearing off your ear protection.

He gives you a look. “And you missed!”

You let out a screech of anger, and without thinking do the one thing every firearm safety instructor says not to do:

You point your gun at your teammate.

His eyes are still sparkling with competition and mischief as he raises his hands. “Hold your fire,” he says almost lazily. (Your eyes keep getting drawn back to the damn smirk on his lips.)

Annoyance courses through you like a migraine.

Your hand’s itching to cock and fire.

Sadly, you would be in loads of trouble and job searching if you did.

So you drop the gun and walk away. Let him clean up.

You’re almost out the room when you hear him.

“I knew you wouldn’t! You love me way too much for that!”

“Asshole!”

Then you’re out of earshot, and Yeosang’s dry voice echoes over the intercom.

“You know, I wouldn’t have blamed them if they’d done it.”

“Hey!”

“It was their shot. And we both know they could have gotten it. You just wanted to show off.”

Your pride’s still smarting two days after the firing range incident because it was true you had missed.

But, still.

As you walk into work a few days later, everyone’s gathered around the whiteboard.

“Y/N! Congrats!”

With that, you know you’re employee of the month.

Yeosang’s smile is a little knowing as you join him in the center of the crowd.

There’s your name on the board, with the most votes collected.

“Your last case was really, really good!” someone comments.

Giving your thanks over your shoulder, you’re looking over who voted for you when you reach it.

The reason why Yeosang has that shit-eating grin on his face.

“It really was a pristine field mission,” a sugar sweet voice whispers in your ear. “So exquisitely done.”

You force your face to be emotionless. “Morning, asshole.”

“Morning, sore loser.”

(That’s been your nickname for the last two days.)

“But, very clearly, I’m the winner.” You nod to the board. “For the whole month. So suck on that!”

“Oh, yes. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Yeosang’s judgmental gaze reminds you that Wooyoung is still standing too close to you, that his warm breath is still fanning over your ear. That your cheeks are burning with anger.

Was he in a war against your personal space or something?

You storm out of the circle, trying to keep your blood pressure to a reasonable level.

When you’re sorting through files with Yeosang later that day, you’re ranting about Wooyoung.

Eventually, he must get fed up with it.

“I know something you don’t,” he singsongs, casually dropping a folder on your side of the desk.

His expression, for what feels like the millionth time this week, is annoyingly knowing. Like he’s watching a friend push the door that says pull.

Because he’s just that kind of person, you grouch to yourself.

“...And what would that be?”

He glances at the folder he just tossed down.

Snatching it up, you find a single page of infuriating news.

“I am not working with that infantile, ridiculous, shit-for-brains—”

“I see you got the memo, too.”

And, within eight seconds, three things happen:

Wooyoung and his damn smirk materialize next to your desk.

Yeosang and his faux sweet grin leave the space next to you.

And you lose your highly annoying but perfectly lovely filing-help to the utterly disappointing replacement of Jung Wooyoung.

The disappointing replacement leans back and throws an arm around you. “I’m looking forward to working with you, partner.”

You groan and shrug his arm off.

“Of course you both have to do it! We picked our two prettiest agents! For this level of case, you really should blend in after all.”

“Seonghwa, sir,” you seethe, “literally any other person in this whole building is prettier than Wooyoung.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Both men level a searching gaze at you. Seonghwa’s is more analytical, and you avoid it. But that means you end up staring at Wooyoung’s for a moment too long.

You both look away at the same time.

“Anyways.” You swallow. “You’re absolutely sure?”

“Y/N.” Seonghwa’s using his director’s voice; now you’re in for it. “You’re staking out the bars where all the pretty movie stars spend their evenings and get drunk, and find nice, also pretty companions for the night, and…”

You don’t know why you glance at Wooyoung when Seonghwa’s saying that. But you do.

You’re surprised to see him already looking at you.

“...So, yes, I’m sure you have to do it. And yes, I truly mean both of you.”

Realizing your cheeks are burning (a common theme recently), you stand abruptly. “Fine.”

Wooyoung has a triumphant grin on his face and copies you. “Fine!”

Seonghwa waits until you’ve both left his office when he texts Yeosang:

I did it T-T I convinced them they’re both prettier than me

u mean u took the first step at getting them past their rivalry?

At the cost of my self-esteem T-T

You spend the first four days doing research, where you try (and fail) to keep things peaceful by ignoring him.

Just email the link, even though he’s sitting next to you.

Just scribble down your thought on a sticky note.

Just ignore him when he bothers you.

Just! Ignore him! Especially when he bothers you.

“I’m telling you!” you finally shout. “If you actually read your contract you would have realized that your fucking lunch break—”

“Okay, okay!” he surrenders, grinning like he’s the one who won.

A few people look over at you, and as you realize this, you also realize how Wooyoung had propped against your side of the table in his ever-constant war against your personal space.

“Sit up and act like you’re a half-functional adult,” you snap.

“I’m not the one who shouted. But yes, ma’am.”

You bite your lip at the way her purrs the last words.

Don’t kill him, don’t kill him, don’t pull out the knife… you remind yourself.

So, it’s sad but true that some days you feel like you fail more than you succeed.

But you can’t be too angry when you realize at the end of day four:

“I can’t believe it. We have a whole case proposal — names, proofs, dates, everything,” you murmur, proudly scrolling down the document.

“All we’ll have to do is actually plan the operation and pick out our outfits,” Wooyoung agrees.

“Which is basically nothing since we have all of next week!”

“This is true.”

The euphoria a doing good work washes over you, and you can’t help but beam at him. “It should have taken way longer.”

"I know! We’re—” He snaps his mouth shut, shaking his head as though his words were unimportant.

To be honest, you feel fond of him as he just smiles softly. (He actually has a really nice smile, you notice.)

Then the moment passes, and you turn back to the computer.

(But he keeps looking at you.)

Wooyoung’s sitting down for lunch with Yeosang when the latter blurts: “You had stars in your eyes earlier. With Y/N.”

“You think I don’t know it?” he groans.

Yeosang pulls out his phone a few minutes later:

fuck i almost let it slip that we were watching them earlier but i dont think wy noticed bc hes oblivious as a rock

Only one hour after that, Wooyoung and you receive the worst possible news.

Which leads to you finding yourselves in an empty office at 11 that night.

“Fuuuu-uh-uuuuck,” groans Wooyoung.

You tiredly rub your eyes and kill all your tabs.

“My brain... is just… fuuuuck.”

Inclined to agree, you open a new window with slow, depressed typing.

“I can’t believe Seonghwa thought we could go in tomorrow. Tomorrow, Y/N! Why tomorrow?”

The screen doesn’t change for a good ten seconds. What were you even thinking again?

“I haven’t pulled a night this late ever! Besides field jobs obviously. But for those you’re doing something, and here we’re doing basically nothing, and I wish we were doing something—”

You draw circles on the screen with your mouse. What even were you thinking... it was a thought… it existed...

“And this is a form of abuse! I swear! If Yeosang somehow got Seonghwa to do this to us just because ‘you had stars in your eyes,’ I’m going to fucking—”

“Shut up for a second, will you?” you moan.

“...Make me.” His voice is sounds different from tiredness.

“Never heard that one before.”

“Please make me?”

There’s something in his tone that catches your attention.

When you give him an incredulous look, you find him looking at your lips. And you’re so exhausted you literally can’t process. (As you head home about fifteen minutes later, you start to process. And you realize you hadn’t hated it at all.)

“Let’s go home,” you suggest quietly. “I don’t even know why we’re doing this.”

(As you step inside your house, the rational side of you wonders what would have happened if you had stayed.)

At some point, he moves very close to you.

(He finally won his war against your personal space, you realize as you brush your teeth.)

Very close.

(Capping your lip balm container, you press your lips together and recall how his felt, pressed against yours. So softly, at least for your perception of Wooyoung. So skillfully, which does match your perception of him.)

His face is still close, but now he’s looking into your eyes.

(He has very pretty eyes; you picture them as you slip under your blankets.)

“Let’s go home,” you repeat breathlessly, “and deal with this all tomorrow.”

His hands, callused and controlled thanks to your profession, rest gently on your neck.

“Do you think all of this… All of this will work out?”

His voice is like starlight, wavering and hopeful and the sole brightness in the dark office.

“I think there’s a very good chance that this all will work out.”

(As your head hits the pillow, you look forward to the next day. Sure, Seonghwa’s going to throw a fit because you’re not ready for a case tomorrow. But you’re really looking forward to working everything out. Everything.)

[general ateez taglist] — @s1ardusk @seongghwaa (thank you so much for your sweet support/friendship! <3)

#jung wooyoung #ateez #ateez imagines #ateez scenarios #ateez fluff #ateez wooyoung #wooyoung imagines #wooyoung scenarios #wooyoung fluff #kpop #ateez x reader

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ratingtheframe · 4 years ago

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Everything wrong with... Ep 3 - Pretty Woman

*sigh* *big sigh*. I’m back here giving you another politically charged review of a film I like to call a femmeçade:

Femmeçade /fɛm//fəˈsɑːd/ noun noun: femmeçade; plural noun: femmeçades; 1. A genre of films directed by men that forefront yet misinterpret the female narrative and representation on screen. "Pretty Woman is the worst femmeçade of them all in the way it depicts women as the lesser gender" (definition by yours truly).

I have to say, I have never felt more compelled, more angry in my entire life to write such a review and tear this film down until there is nothing left but the underlining, prominent misogynistic aspects of this film. I am talking about the 1990s classic, Pretty Woman starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. Now a musical, the film has survived three waves of feminism (if you count MeToo), and yet is still available to access for our entertainment. Even though censorship is less common in the Western World, the only good thing about watching Pretty Woman would be to see how vile and unacceptable it is in the eyes of our modern and ever changing society. It truly brought tears of anger to my eyes to watch such a film and see how its lead was shoved into the spotlight for a round or two of humiliation and prodding by the fingers and eyes of the male gaze. There is A LOT to go through here, so grab a snack and buckle in as I put Pretty Woman to shame.

Let's just start with the title itself Pretty Woman, a pretty lazy title for a film if you ask me. I understand it does what it says on the tin, like any title should, however the irksome thing about the film and title is what it’s selling. The lust and beauty of Julia Roberts as opposed to her character or story for that matter. Stood alongside Richard Gere in thigh high boots with her legs for days, months and years on show. We get it, Julia Roberts is a beauty, but why does a film have to focus on that sole part of her? By doing this it creates the idea that it’s her only asset and BOY does this film do a good job at reminding us just that. They’ve got the man’s vote and supposedly the woman’s seeing as the story is about them or who they’d like to be. WRONG, seeing as the crew behind Pretty Women were mostly men themselves. The writers, cinematographer, director, producers, best boys and gaffers, you name it. So who was this film for if it wasn’t to satisfy at least it's mostly male crew members?

Male satisfaction are the appropriate words to use when we are introduced to our leading lady in close up shots of her bra and knickers. Vivian is played by the highly talented and ordained Julia Roberts. Ever since seeing Erin Brodkovich which bagged her an Oscar in 2001, I’ve been in love with her spirit and confidence on screen. As we all know she is certainly one of Hollywood’s shiniest stars, up there with the elites like Meryl Streep, Viola Davis and Angelina Jolie. Why she decided to sign onto such a film, I would hate to speculate seeing as Feminism was more of a dirty secret than a positive movement back in the 1990s. Many (mostly men, though women too, especially those in the film business) would accuse the movement of threatening the comfortability and fun out of life’s pleasures, like women wearing makeup, dresses and being groped at office parties (sarcasm). However, as we now know, feminism isn’t the demon that the 1990s tried to make it out to be and I hope that Julia Roberts was unaware of feminism back then rather than being a strong opposer of it.

Vivian Ward is a hooker living and working on the streets of LA, the city of dreams as some may brandish it. She lives with her roommate Kit (Laura San Giacomo) and between them they spend their nights trying to scrape enough money for their rent. I’m glad that sex work isn’t as scrutinised as it was back then and another arresting aspect of Pretty Woman is the way it depicts the so called “atrocities” of being a sex worker. The propriety and haughtiness of those who laid eyes upon Kit or Vivian was degrading and dehumanising, simply because they choose to lead a different lifestyle to those around them. It seemed so archaic, almost Victorian like the way people ogled and gazed upon Vivian at the hotel where she was taken in by her male counterpart. Pretty Woman again proves itself to be an anti-feminsit horror show for shaming women on choosing what to do with their own bodies and how they dress. We need to cut this BS out of society ASAP that women dress in certain ways to attract the attention of the opposite sex. Clothes are a form of expression and 9 times out of 10, that expression hasn’t anything to do with wanting to be leered at in public. Enough with the victim shaming as well; asking women what they wore when they were sexually assaulted. Instead let's ask what the attackers were THINKING when they decided to prey on an innocent victim....

One night whilst Vivan is looking for clients, she meets the so called delectable and mouth droppingly handsome male lead that is Edward Lewis, played by Richard Gere. I didn’t get the hype at all as I felt Vivan to have enough personality and lust for life to fill both of her and Richard Gere’s character. Edward Lewis was wooden, stern and boring, and despite this, Vivian seems to see more in him beyond her usual hookups. That’s another irritating thing about Pretty Woman. Edward Lewis didn’t have to do FUCK ALL to prove his love or worthiness in the life of Vivian.

He didn’t have to (nor did) change one thing about himself throughout the entire film and that’s not only extremely sexist, but shit filmmaking. Did the writer of completely forget or give up on Edward Lewis’ character arc whilst he was too busy making drooling over Vivian? All Edward Lewis had to do was wave his card around and POOF Vivian was at his knees. No wonder the 1990s shamed feminists because this is the exact sort of crap they were trying to prevent from happening on screen. It may seem like fun and games when Edward Lewis tells Vivian to go shopping, buy herself a new dress for dinner, but in reality this is just a fresh case of misogyny, served up with a side of degradation and bigotry for dessert.

Edward Lewis goes as far to hire Vivian for the week as his...escort? His actual motive isn’t known and we are left as an audience to conclude that it’s because she’s pretty. Again, selling the film title through and through and deminishing the worth of women with each scene. Vivian is never actually asked what she wants, nor do we get to know her seeing as Edward’s inflated ego and wallet covers up most of the screen time whilst watching this film. If you didn’t think this film could get any more horrific is the age gap between Julia Roberts and Richard Gere at the time of filming, to which Roberts was 22 and Gere, 40.

One moment in particular that proved this film to have zero substance to it, is when Vivian eventually gets down on Edward and to my absolute horror, her bra strap is INCREDIBLY and shockingly inauthentically loose. Like falling off loose. Not one woman in the world who chooses to wear a bra; not in China, India, Pakistan, the U.S, Ukraine, Hooker, doctor, astronaut, teacher, hairdresser or not would ever EVER wear their bra strap so loose. An impractical and uncomfortable choice, this tiny infinitesimal yet significant part of this film showed that this film doesn’t care or know how to show accurate female representation on screen and goes against any sense of providing women with strong characters they can use as role models. And all from one bra strap.

The shopping and transformation part to this film had to be the big red thumb that stood out the most from the eternity of this film as AGAIN for the fifteenth time this film has proved itself to be in favour of entertaining those who like to ogle at Vivian as opposed to getting to know her. Edward thrusts his card at her once again (without giving her much choice, a common behavioural pattern associated with sociopaths and abusers) and she goes to Rodeo Drive to essentially pretty herself up for him so that Edward isn’t judged by those he introduces Vivian to.

When Vivian had attempted to go shopping alone on Rodeo Drive in her casual attire, the female employees of one of the stores behaved abominably towards her, classing her as someone who didn’t have the means or appearance to shop in such a place. This film just got even worse as not only do we have the opposite gender dictating the appearance of women, we’re having our own sisters do the same whilst investing in the patriarchal narrative of the way women should be seen in public. At this point you may think I’m going crazy and repeating myself, of which I am doing both, however once you’ve fully taken the time to wake up and smell the patriarchy’s cup of coffee, there’s no turning back. These details become smoke signals that turn into epiphanies and realisations that have you questioning is this really okay? And a Pretty Woman is NOT okay.

Once Vivian has had her transformation (so kindly afforded by the dominant Edward Lewis) she seemingly begins to enjoy her new life as a piece on the side, until she is presented with Edward’s lawyer, Philip Stuckley.

So here’s what we have so far on our checklist of misogyny and anti-feminsit motifs to Pretty Women

A poster and title created in the eye of the male gaze CHECK

A female character whose worth is based on her desirability and propriety CHECK

A mediocre white man who doesn’t progress and gets his way through charm, money and power CHECK

Women who take unkindly to other women because they don’t fit the normalised standards of the patriarchy CHECK

Shaming women for their dress sense and career choices CHECK

Lack of women in general, most of which don’t speak throughout the film CHECK

The list could go on but another motif to add to the list from this film that acts as big shiny wrecking ball that smashes up feminism and leaves its values in the dust is sexual assault. Or attempted sexual assault at that, as when we see Phillip Stuckley’s first interaction with Vivian he says right out that he knows she’s a hooker, whilst running the edge of his sunglasses down Vivian’s arm and suggesting they get together after Edward’s demise back to wherever he came from. EW, this was one of the many moments of the film where I had to swallow my vomit. Phillip attempts to rape Vivian back at Edward’s penthouse suite, when luckily Edward comes in to stop it happening, which was the most decent thing he did the entire film. Edward’s lawyer represented a hoard of men that existed back then and now who feel entitled to a woman’s body, hooker or not. Even though Pretty Woman had dug itself a big enough hole, by the time I got to this part of the film I had been sold on the idea that this film is completely out of line with women’s liberation and empowerment. It’s just one big game to prod and poke at women, seeing how far they can go, which in itself is a metaphor for sexual assault.

I’ll wrap up on the lack of diversity in Pretty Women. Because the world affords white men and women more luxuries and privileges than people of colour, they were at the forefront of this story whilst black and asian minorities were put in the background as butlers, maids and chauffeurs. It makes me so angry that on top of being a whirlwind of misogyny and sexism that such a film would have the audacity to misrepresent minorities entirely and highlight their so called use as servicing white people. IT. IS. GETTING. OLD.

Hopefully you’ve made it to the end of this “review” (kinda) and seen the damaging implications such a film has on our society. On reading Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies curated by Scareltt Curtis, I read that “Books and things reflect what’s happening in the world, Hollywood movies DICTATE IT and MOULD what people think”.

You may think movies don’t matter or a film of the 1990s doesn’t matter, but if we are to learn from our mistakes and progress our movements, we must unpick the past and see it for how it was. Movies are our culture, our representation of what we’ve learnt or seen in the world. I don’t want to see women as sexual objects without their permission. I don’t want to see them being moulded by the patriarchy or by women who support it. I don't want to see women only good enough to be hookers, wives or mistresses. I want women to be the strongest versions of themselves and for films to buckle up and show that shit on screen.

Pretty Woman can kiss my ass and if it’s a film you like in unlike it. Pronto.

#prettywoman #julia roberts #richardgere #movies #hollywoodmovies #90smovies #romcom #cinema #feminism #everyday feminism #feminist

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prorevenge · 5 years ago

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Blame me for your mistake, lose your job.

This story was relayed to me from the teachers at my old high school and is about the school's administration. This all happened last school year. TL;DR at the end.

First, some background.

The principal of my school (we'll call him Matt) had been with the school since it started up in the early 2000s. He worked his way up from a regular teacher to the principal, and then assistant superintendent, although he spent most of his time at the high school. His immediate superior, who we'll call Katie, was pretty much a figurehead while he did all the administrative stuff for not just the high school but the rest of the district.

The thing was that Matt was a narcissist. He constantly belittled and berated students. He once publicly told an entire graduating class that he would make sure that none of them graduated and they were all the worst the school had ever had. There were also numerous other instances of him doing this stuff to students in private, especially with the kids who did the school announcements which he also ran. I two friends on there. One was dismissed (student volunteer) out of nowhere for literally no reason. The other was fired (she chose to work for the school after graduating) after calling him out for saying she was worthless.

Despite this, all of our teachers assured us that Matt wasn't as bad as we thought he was. We never believed them because we thought they were just covering for him. After we graduated, we discovered that he was indeed not as bad as we thought.

He was worse.

Matt frequently told the teachers that they were worthless, dumb, that he could fire them, and that anyone could do their jobs. From what we saw over the years, it didn't take a lot for him to fire anyone.

Now, at this point, you may wonder why Katie didn't step in and at least try and tell him to knock his shit off. Well, again, he did all the admin stuff. They also were friends from back in the day. So while she heard numerous complaints about him, she never acted on them.

Now onto the revenge:

Like everywhere else, the state mandates that we take their standardized test. The state was always VERY clear about when the deadlines for the tests were, what portions were to be taken by each grade, and what the penalties were for not making the deadlines.

A few weeks prior to the deadline, the school gets issued all parts of the test except for the science portion. Matt says he'll talk to the Department of Education and get it squared away. After a couple weeks, they still don't have the portion they need, and Katie asks where it is. Matt informs everyone that the State said they didn't have to take it. Some of you might be wondering why the State would say they didn't need to take it after making a big deal about it. The answer is simple: they didn't.

Matt, in his infinite narcissistic wisdom, decided not to get them. Because of this, the State opened an investigation and held meetings about revoking the charter for the entire district, essentially shutting them down. But Matt didn't get in trouble. Since Katie was superintendent, it was her job to make sure those tests were ordered. The story ended up going public and Katie took full responsibility for the screw up. Matt also berated her in private like he did with everyone else. She later steps down from her position as superintendent, but maintained her positions on the school board and the corporate board (remember this for later). Matt takes over as superintendent of the entire district.

Matt could have stopped there, but, being a narcissist and a dictator, he doesn't. He publishes a scathing open letter on the school's website blaming her for the whole ordeal and the fallout. He then has the principals of the other schools do the same. As far as the media, the public, and the Department of Education are concerned, the whole affair was due entirely to Katie's utter incompetence. Matt also continues berating her in private.

After two months, the State decides that they aren't going to shut down the district, much to everyone's relief. Some months later, they go back to not giving two shits what a small charter district does. Now that there are no eyes on them, Katie starts making moves. She wanted to get control of the district back from Matt now that she knew that all the claims that students, parents, and employees made over the years were true. As I mentioned earlier, she did maintain her position on the school board and they could theoretically remove him. The problem was that the other two people on there were put on there by Matt, so she'd always be on the minority on any vote. But also as I mentioned earlier, she had a position on the corporate board; a body whose decisions and authority superseded that of the school board.

She goes about gradually restaffing the corporate board. When Matt asks her why, she says it's to make sure that a similar mistake would never occur again. Matt believes her and thinks nothing of it. After a about a month, she added seven people, including her husband, onto the corporate board. They hold their first meeting and then call in Matt to inform him of their first order of business:

He was being given the option to resign. And if he didn't resign, he'd be fired.

Matt, not really having a choice, resigns. The next day, the high school's principal, a friend of his, also resigned. The day after that, the athletics director for the high school, Matt's son, followed suit. Katie then takes over in the interim and begins looking around for people to fill all the positions that Matt had consolidated (I think that there were seven or eight total).

The teachers and faculty all breathed a sigh of relief knowing that they didn't need to be afraid of being fired at the drop of hat anymore. As for the students, they hardly noticed. My old English teacher put it as "not even a ripple". Outside of those differences, the only thing anyone noticed after Matt and his cronies left was that a lot of really nice furniture went missing.

TL;DR Narcissist burns the person who lets him do whatever the fuck he wants and gets fired.

(source) story by (/u/poizunman206)

#prorevenge #by /u/poizunman206 #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/ap-news-in-brief-at-604-a-m-est-national/

AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST | National

States submit vaccine orders as coronavirus death toll grows

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — States faced a deadline on Friday to place orders for the coronavirus vaccine as many reported record infections, hospitalizations and deaths, while hospitals were pushed to the breaking point — with the worst feared yet to come.

The number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 hit an all-time high in the U.S. on Thursday at 100,667, according to the COVID Tracking Project. That figure has more than doubled over the past month, while new daily cases are averaging 210,000 and deaths are averaging 1,800 per day, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Arizona reported more than 5,000 new COVID-19 cases for the second straight day Friday as the number of available intensive care unit beds fell below 10% statewide. Hospital officials have said the outbreak will exceed hospital capacity this month.

The state expects to get enough doses of new coronavirus vaccines by the end of the year to inoculate more than 383,000 health care workers and long-term care facility residents, the state’s health director said Friday. Next in line are teachers and other essential workers, followed by older Arizonans or people otherwise at higher risk of serious cases of COVID-19.

Nevada reported 48 new deaths from the coronavirus Thursday, marking the deadliest day since the onset of the pandemic as cases and deaths continued to rise more than a week after new restrictions were implemented on businesses. One hospital was so full it was treating patients in an auxiliary unit in the parking garage.

Is Georgia a swing state? Groups spend millions to find out

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs don’t take place until Jan. 5. But there are already some clear winners.

At the state’s most influential television station, Atlanta’s WSB, an ad that cost candidates $8,000 in July now goes for about $18,000. In the smaller market of Savannah, ad rates have soared nearly twentyfold.

With control of the Senate, and the scope of President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda in the balance, the millions in political spending verges on something close to an unlimited budget.

The contest will test the limits of how far money can go in a political climate in which both sides are entrenched and few voters seem open to changing their minds. And President Donald Trump has complicated the contest by claiming baselessly that the November election in Georgia was beset by fraud.

Also at stake: whether Georgia, long a Republican stronghold, may be on the road to swing-state status, particularly after Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1992 to carry the state.

Biden weighs pick for agriculture chief from diverse slate

WASHINGTON (AP) — One leading candidate for agriculture secretary hails from Cleveland, has the backing of progressives and has worked for years to boost food stamp programs. Another is a former senator from farm-state North Dakota who has championed production agriculture and boasts of a voting record squarely in the middle.

Three other possible selections have similarly varied backgrounds — one helped write and implement federal regulations for organic foods, another is California’s agriculture secretary and represented wine grape growers, and a third has spent his career ensuring protections for farm workers.

President-elect Joe Biden’s choices for secretary of agriculture are as diverse as the department of 100,000 employees that she or he would represent — and is especially critical this year as USDA provides extra aid for the hungry and oversees food production amid the pandemic.

For Biden, the emerging choice between Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio, former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and several other potential candidates seems like another test of his vision for the Democratic Party — a contest between urban and rural and liberals and moderates, with the pick potentially placing an added emphasis on anti-hunger programs, farm subsidies or worker protections.

Besides Fudge and Heitkamp, other candidates mentioned for the post — and who have been pushed by some advocacy groups — are Kathleen Merrigan, deputy agriculture secretary under President Barack Obama and one of the architects of federal organic rules; Karen Ross, California’s agriculture secretary, former USDA chief of staff and a former longtime president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers; and Arturo Rodriguez, the former president of the United Farm Workers.

Pressure mounts on Biden to make diverse picks for top posts

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden is facing increasing pressure to expand the racial and ideological diversity in his choices for Cabinet and other top jobs. A month and a half before he takes office, he’s drawing rebukes from activists who fear he’ll fall short on promises to build an administration that looks like the country it governs.

Of the nine major picks Biden has made so far, only two — Secretary of State choice Antony Blinken and chief of staff Ron Klain — are white men. That’s a historic low that so far outpaces the historically diverse Cabinet that Barack Obama assembled in 2009.

But civil rights leaders are grumbling that none of the “big four” Cabinet positions – the secretaries of state, defense and treasury and the attorney general – has yet gone to a person of color. And Biden is declining to commit to doing so.

“I promise you, it’ll be the single most diverse Cabinet based on race, color, based on gender that’s ever existed in the United States of America,” the president-elect said instead during a news conference Friday.

That came after Congressional Hispanic Democrats expressed dismay during a call with Klain and other Biden advisers on Thursday about the treatment of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who reportedly removed her name from consideration to be the new administration’s interior secretary. They urged that she remain a candidate to head the more prominent Department of Health and Human Services, but it’s not clear she will.

Swiss slopes buzz as those of neighbors sit idle in pandemic

GENEVA (AP) — Two weeks after beating COVID-19, Thierry Salamin huffs as his ski boots crunch through Swiss snow near the Matterhorn peak, readying for a downhill run with his mood as bright as his blue and fluorescent yellow ski getup and the sun overhead.

The 31-year-old real estate agent from the southwestern Swiss region of Wallis can’t believe he is skiing during a pandemic, let alone one that he personally endured — and which has driven a wedge between his country and its Alpine neighbors over where people can ski, and where they can’t.

While the coronavirus resurgence has led Austria, France, and Italy to shut or severely restrict access to their ski stations this holiday season, Switzerland has kept its slopes open — a move that has fanned grumbling about an unlevel playing field when it comes to Alpine fun.

“It’s true, we’re privileged,” said Salamin, enthusing about the “paradise” of the Zermatt slopes and gesturing over the ridgeline toward Italy. “It’s too bad that people can’t go skiing on the Italian side, because those slopes are magnificent.”

The discord among countries during the worst pandemic in a century cuts across issues of health, business, economy, culture and wellbeing. But it also violates one of the key tenets that the World Health Organization promotes to help fight COVID-19: solidarity.

California on the brink: Virus rages and closures imminent

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Much of California is on the brink of sweeping new restrictions on businesses and activities, a desperate attempt to slow the frighteningly rapid escalation of coronavirus cases that threatens to overwhelm hospitals.

Five San Francisco Bay Area counties imposed a new stay-at-home order for their residents that will take effect Sunday. Southern California and a large swath of the central portion of the state could join this weekend.

Those two regions have seen their intensive care unit capacity fall below the 15% threshold that under a new state stay-at-home order will trigger new restrictions barring all on-site restaurant dining and close hair and nail salons, movie theaters and many other businesses, as well as museums and playgrounds.

If their capacity remains below that level when the data is updated Saturday, the closures will take effect Sunday and stay in effect at least three weeks.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the new plan Thursday. It is the most restrictive order since he imposed the country’s first statewide stay-at-home rule in March.

COVID-19 relief: What’s on the table as Congress seeks deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — After numerous fits and starts and months of inaction, optimism is finally building in Washington for a COVID-19 aid bill that would offer relief for businesses, the unemployed, schools, and health care providers, among others struggling as caseloads are spiking.

Under pressure from moderates in both parties, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have initiated late-game negotiations in hopes of combining a relief package of, in all likelihood, less than $1 trillion with a separate $1.4 trillion governmentwide omnibus spending bill. The duo were the architects of the $1.8 trillion CARES Act, the landmark relief bill passed in March.

Success is not certain and considerable differences remain over items such as aid to states and local governments, liability protections for businesses and universities reopening during the pandemic, and whether to issue a second round of $1,200 direct payments to most Americans.

But renewing soon-to-expire jobless benefits, providing a second round of “paycheck protection” subsidies, and funding to distribute vaccines are sure bets to be included in any deal.

Here are the top issues for the end-stage COVID-19 relief talks.

Japan awaits capsule’s return with asteroid soil samples

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully released a small capsule on Saturday and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from a distant asteroid that could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on our planet, the country’s space agency said.

The capsule successfully detached from 220,000 kilometers (136,700 miles) away in a challenging operation that required precision control, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said. The capsule — just 40 centimeters (15 inches) in diameter — is now descending and is expected to land Sunday in a remote, sparsely populated area of Woomera, Australia.

“The capsule has been separated. Congratulations,” JAXA project manager Yuichi Tsuda said.

Hayabusa2 left the asteroid Ryugu, about 300 million kilometers (180 million miles) away, a year ago. After it released the capsule, it moved away from Earth to capture images of the capsule descending toward the planet as it set off on a new expedition to another distant asteroid.

About two hours later, JAXA said it had successfully rerouted Hayabusa2 for its new mission, as beaming staff exchanged fist and elbow touches at the agency’s command center in Sagamihara, near Tokyo.

Moscow opens dozens of coronavirus vaccination centers

MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of doctors, teachers and others in high-risk groups have signed up for COVID-19 vaccinations in Moscow starting Saturday, a precursor to a sweeping Russia-wide immunization effort.

The vaccinations come three days after President Vladimir Putin ordered the launch of a “large-scale” COVID-19 immunization campaign even though a Russian-designed vaccine has yet to complete the advanced studies needed to ensure its effectiveness and safety in line with established scientific protocols.

The Russian leader said Wednesday that more than 2 million doses of the Sputnik V jab will be available in the next few days, allowing authorities to offer jabs to medical workers and teachers across the country starting late next week.

Moscow, which currently accounts for about a quarter of the country’s new daily infections, moved ahead of the curve, opening 70 vaccination facilities on Saturday. Doctors, teachers and municipal workers were invited to book a time to receive a jab, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that about 5,000 signed up in a few hours after the system began operating on Friday.

Russia boasted that Sputnik V was the world’s “first registered COVID-19 vaccine” after the government gave it regulatory approval in early August. The move drew criticism from international experts, who pointed out that the vaccine had only been tested on several dozen people at the time.

Kuwait votes for parliament amid economic, virus challenges

KUWAIT CITY (AP) — Kuwait began voting Saturday for its National Assembly, the first election since the death of its longtime ruling emir at a time the oil-rich nation struggles with serious economic problems during the coronavirus pandemic.

This tiny country’s hundreds of thousands of voters will select lawmakers for 50 seats in the parliament, the freest and most-rambunctious of all of the Gulf Arab countries. However, Kuwait’s parliament has tamped down opposition to its ruling Al Sabah family since the 2011 Arab Spring protests that saw demonstrators storm the chamber.

Parliaments typically don’t serve out their full terms in the stalwart U.S. ally, but this one did.

Kuwaitis are voting across 102 schools in the nation the size of the U.S. state of New Jersey. Authorities said masks and social distancing will be required due to the pandemic. Several schools will take those with active cases of the virus, with the sick first receiving permission from the government to vote.

Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

#brief #National

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Headlines

Western wildfires (NYT) Across a hellish landscape of smoke and ash, authorities in Oregon, California and Washington State battled to contain mega-wildfires on Sunday as shifting winds threatened to accelerate blazes that have burned an unimaginable swath of land across the West. The arrival of the stronger winds on Sunday tested the resolve of fire crews already exhausted by weeks of combating blazes that have consumed around 5 million acres of desiccated forests, incinerated numerous communities and created what in many places was measured as the worst air quality on the planet. “There’s just so much fire,” said Ryan Walbrun, a fire weather meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “And so much smoke.” The fires, which have killed at least 24 people in the last week alone, have engulfed the region in anguish and fear, as fairgrounds have turned into refugee camps for many who have been forced from their homes.

The Maitre d’ Will Take Your Temperature Now (NYT) In recent weeks, a new cadre of gatekeepers armed with thermometer guns has appeared at the entrances of hospitals, office buildings and manufacturing plants to screen out feverish individuals who may carry the coronavirus. Employees at some companies must report their temperature on apps to get clearance to come in. And when indoor dining resumes at restaurants in New York City later this month, temperature checks will be done at the door. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the practice of checking for fever has become more and more commonplace, causing a surge in sales of infrared contact-free thermometers and body temperature scanners even as the scientific evidence indicating they are of little value has solidified. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York last week called for checking patrons’ temperatures as one of several ground rules for resuming indoor dining in restaurants, along with strict limits on the number of tables and a mask mandate for diners when they are not seated. Restaurants also will be required to obtain contact information from one guest at each table.

Voting by mail (California Sunday Magazine) Voting by mail is an increasingly attractive and necessary option for voters, but it requires actual infrastructure to accomplish, large machines to be built and acquired, and a significant effort to get the ballots where they need to be. In 2016, 20 percent of Americans voted by mail, but this year it could be as high as 50 percent. A commercial grade printer can make 50,000 ballots in an hour, but it takes an enormous $500,000 device called an inserter to get the envelopes—linked by barcode to a specific voter—appropriately stuffed at the clip of 14,000 ballots per hour. The process is meticulous: when in 2014, an inserter misfired for 35 seconds in Phoenix, 232 voters in California and 1,000 in Colorado and Arizona got misprinted ballots, and when they caught the error they were able to fix that. The other 3.8 million ballots handled at the facility were fine.

As Sally chugs to coast, Gulf residents get ready (AP) Hurricane Sally, a plodding but powerful storm with winds of 90 mph, crept toward the northern Gulf Coast early Tuesday, with forecasters warning of potentially deadly storm surges, flash floods spurred by up to 2 feet (.61 meters) of rain and the possibility of tornadoes. Hurricane warnings stretched from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to Navarre, Florida, but forecasters — while stressing “significant” uncertainty — kept nudging the predicted track to the east. That eased fears in New Orleans, which once was in the storm’s crosshairs. But it prompted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to declare an emergency in the Panhandle’s westernmost counties, which were being pummeled by rain from Sally’s outer bands early Tuesday.

Russian opposition leader Navalny able to leave hospital bed (AP) Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is off a ventilator and is able to leave his hospital bed briefly, his doctors said Monday, while Germany announced that French and Swedish labs have confirmed its findings that he was poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. Navalny, 44, was flown to Berlin for treatment at the Charite hospital two days after falling ill on a domestic flight in Russia on Aug. 20. Germany has demanded that Russia investigate the case. Although noting the improvement in Navalny’s health, the statement didn’t address the long-term outlook for the anti-corruption campaigner. Doctors have previously cautioned that even though Navalny is recovering, long-term health problems from the poisoning cannot be ruled out.

Lukashenko meets with Putin (Foreign Policy) More than 100,000 protesters flooded the streets of the Belarusian capital of Minsk on Sunday in one of the largest demonstrations against the rule of longtime President Aleksandr Lukashenko since his disputed victory in last month’s presidential elections. Police said they detained 400 people during the protests. The demonstrations came before a meeting between Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin scheduled for today, during which they will reportedly discuss deeper integration of their two countries. Lukashenko’s relations with Moscow had deteriorated in the months leading up to the election, but he has since warmed to Moscow again as the threat to his reign has grown more acute. Putin recently confirmed that he would send a reserve police force to Belarus if Lukashenko requested it.

US issues sweeping new travel warning for China, Hong Kong (AP) The U.S. on Tuesday issued a sweeping new advisory warning against travel to mainland China and Hong Kong, citing the risk of “arbitrary detention” and “arbitrary enforcement of local laws.” The new advisory warned U.S. citizens that China imposes “arbitrary detention and exit bans” to compel cooperation with investigations, pressure family members to return to China from abroad, influence civil disputes and “gain bargaining leverage over foreign governments.” “U.S. citizens traveling or residing in China or Hong Kong, may be detained without access to U.S. consular services or information about their alleged crime. U.S. citizens may be subjected to prolonged interrogations and extended detention without due process of law,” the advisory said.

In Japan, coronavirus discrimination proves almost as hard to eradicate as the disease (Washington Post) When a cluster of coronavirus infections broke out in Kyoto’s Horikawa Hospital, medical staff were not only battling a potentially deadly disease at work. They came home to fight an even more unsettling disease—fear and discrimination. Their children were turned away from nursery schools and after-school clubs, their spouses were told not to come to work, three were fired from their second jobs and one was told point-blank to stay away from a favorite diner. “Our staff were really shocked, severely shocked,” said Masaaki Yamada, the hospital’s administration chief, explaining that the affected workers had not necessarily been in close contact with infected patients. “Some even said they were afraid to go home, and afraid of being seen by their neighbors,” he said. “They got family members to put the garbage out for them. Some said they would go to work when it was dark and come home when it was dark again.” The hospital received anonymous phone calls telling employees to die or threatening to burn the place down. Nearly nine months after the coronavirus first arrived in Japan, “korona sabetsu” (coronavirus discrimination) is proving almost as hard to eradicate as the virus itself.

Mideast deals tout ‘peace’ where there was never war (AP) For the first time in more than a quarter-century, a U.S. president will host a signing ceremony between Israelis and Arabs at the White House, billing it as an “historic breakthrough” in a region long known for its stubborn conflicts. But while the optics of Tuesday’s event will evoke the groundbreaking agreements that ended decades of war between Israel and neighboring Egypt and Jordan, and that launched the peace process with the Palestinians, the reality is quite different. The United Arab Emirates will establish diplomatic relations with Israel, a fellow U.S. ally it has never gone to war with, formalizing ties that go back several years. The agreement cements an informal alliance against Iran and could pave the way for the UAE to acquire advanced U.S. weapons, while leaving the far more contentious Israeli-Palestinian conflict as intractable as ever. A similar agreement announced Friday with Bahrain, which welcomed a visiting Israeli Cabinet minister as early as 1994, also formalizes longstanding ties. But it’s debatable whether agreements like these, among already friendly countries, do much to advance regional peace. “Normalization of states in the region with Israel will not change the essence of this conflict, which is the systemic denial of the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to freedom and sovereignty,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official.

Nigeria reels from twin crises that threaten food availability (Reuters) Mal Shehu Ladan took a boat across what was, until this month, a growing rice paddy. Now, like thousands of hectares of rice in Nigeria’s Kebbi state, it is under water. Floods early this month across northwest Nigeria destroyed 90% of the 2 million tons that Kebbi state officials expected to harvest this autumn, the head of the state branch of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria told Reuters. The loss amounts to some 20% of the rice Nigeria grew last year, and the waters are still rising. Farther south, outside Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, chicken farmer Hippolite Adigwe is also worried. A shortage of maize forced him to sell most of his flock of more than 1,000 birds, and the 300 left are hungry. Chicken feed prices have more than doubled, and he isn’t sure how long he can cope. Twin crises, floods and maize shortages, come just after movement restrictions and financing difficulties caused by COVID-19 containment measures complicated spring planting. Some farmers and economists say it could push Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, into a food crisis. Rice is the country’s staple grain, and chicken is a core protein. “There is a real fear of having food shortages,” Arc Kabir Ibrahim, president of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria told Reuters. “The effect on the food system is going to be colossal.”

After Two Decades of Rot, Zimbabwe Is Coming Apart at the Seams (Bloomberg) In Zimbabwe, pregnant women are left alone in hospitals to give birth, taps have run dry in major urban centers, infrastructure has all but collapsed and more than half the population needs food aid. This is the toll that two decades of economic mismanagement have taken on a nation once considered one of Africa’s shining stars. Promises of an economic revival and more political freedom made by President Emmerson Mnangagwa, now in his third year of rule, have rung hollow and public anger over intolerable living conditions has spurred protest action that’s been brutally quashed by the military. Western governments that berated long-time ruler Robert Mugabe for violating civil rights are leveling similar criticism against his successor. And even South Africa, a regional power broker and long-time Zimbabwe ally, has now entered the fray, dispatching envoys and ruling party officials to Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, to try and help its neighbor resolve the deepening crisis. No headway was made in initial talks and more are planned in coming days.

#headlines #news

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anthonybialy · 4 years ago

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Settled Virus

You’ve been kept safe, according to those who kept you in danger. The virus narrative’s been proclaimed in defiance of evidence, which makes it like every rumor about what to fear and how to stop it. Have you selflessly tried breathing through a surgical mask wrapped in a bandana?

Making up the story is just another irony those who claimed to save us from the zombie plague haven’t embraced. It’s tough for action heroes to pause and appreciate literary themes. Also, these Schwarzeneggers seemed to aim their awesome weapons at those they were saving quite frequently, as it’s also a challenge to maintain barrel direction. Don’t criticize your rescuers over petty details.

It’s your fault everyone’s sick. Feel guilty for your selfish existing. Blaming humans for outrageous activities such as employment and acquiring energy is totally not distracting from how the real source of viral carnage was Democratic governors shoving every patient zero they could find into nursing homes.

Giving the Grim Reaper a 5-hour Energy may have been a poor way to protect life. Are you telling me the same people who thought bringing the sick and elderly together was a good idea don’t understand market forces?

Asking why the death toll was so high is the sort of subversive independent thought that’s not guarding the hive. Sure, this sort of illness is particularly dangerous to the elderly who require assisted living. Andrew Cuomo’s orders dropped napalm on tinder factories, which he’ll leave out of his riveting book that’s definitely nonfiction. States with particularly bossy governors just so happened to be the center of the Target logo. I naturally blame Donald Trump.

Eschewing personal responsibility is personal for politicians who blame the public for their own atrocious choices. Today’s flailing putzes in state capitals would’ve blamed citizens for not growing vegetables fast enough during World War II. You’d wear a hazmat suit if you weren’t a virus fan.

It will remain an eternal mystery how six feet became precisely the right distance to preserve humanity. Five is committing murder. Those who’ve noticed arbitrary makeshift commands from elected lawyers aren’t precisely scientific are also aware of the effect on those who weren’t susceptible to infection, namely not enough to close life for most of a year. But at least halting civilization didn’t save lives.

Obeying evidence begins with harassing supermarket patrons who’ve noticed the medical professionals wearing masks do so in a sterile environment around sick people. Parties daring to patronize a restaurant should be treated like the Manson family. And serial killers stalk campuses in the form of college parties, as if cooped-up 19-year-olds should be expected to not develop social skills and alcohol tolerance after months under curfew.

Those spreading a false narrative about a real pandemic condemn routine activities just like how they ignored how exposing grandparents to lepers may have been as unhealthy as it was unwise. They will disregard what happens next for identical reasons.

Very research-focused liberals love pretending Texas and Florida are hellholes in non-virus years. They now portray states that dare not to hassle residents as toxic zombie outbreaks. Poor unenlightened and unguarded residents spend days ducking bullets only to be felled by a virus. Sure, the death rates are way lower than in noted harsh libertarian hellhole New York City. But paying attention to what’s happening would mean having to change ideologies, and nobody wants to make new friends this deep into the semester.

The greatest cold indicator is who’s fleeing where. Electoral votes tell the truth in a way blaming states with low crime for not having enough gun control spreads a lie.

Population redistribution is particularly amusing in the year we’re counted. Liberals adore demanding census compliance so they can plunder the Treasury with what they risibly consider their fair share. Meanwhile, their mooching power is diluted as the exploited spend the last bit of savings that haven’t been confiscated on U-Hauls to already-packed Texas lots. The direction of permanent travel can’t be denied, like which states had the worst death rates. Cuomo is going to be so surprised by how New York lost population this time.

We’ll define 2020 by its lack of definition. Humanity has idled for most of the year slowing the spread. It’s the longest two weeks imaginable. Sitting still may have ruined the economy and need to socialize, but at least it didn’t help. Bend the curve just like all that federal spending destroyed poverty. Unilateral emergency orders are another endless government program. But you must relinquish control so you can not feel better.

Why not elect a cure? Joe Biden would halt the virus by winning, as Barack Obama benevolently shared his magical powers by shaking his erstwhile underling’s hand. We just need to obey science, which is apparently good according to the candidate’s tweets. Conduct research by treating experts who happen to be government employees as prophets. The real cure would involve the media not covering what they classify as Trump’s virus anymore.

Liberal politicians have to pretend they don’t enjoy telling everyone what to do. Noting it doesn’t seem to work out ever is useless when citizens must obey by semi-law. Their visions must be good if their orders have to be mandatory. There’s a reason politicians don’t pursue private sector success, namely that nobody will obey awful ideas voluntarily. Why do you think they loathe business? Like a scorpion stinging at the precise wrong time, it’s in their nature to boss around.

Today’s goofy restriction keeps Korean War veterans from being KIA by contagion, you independent ghoul. Democrats believe they’re saving existence itself, which is why they’re so fervid about implementation. Everyone in opposition is therefore logically for death. The monsters are just slightly more demonic when the issue involves a virus and not net neutrality. Sickos who didn’t keep us from being sick have everything on their side but outcomes.

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charmingturkeysandwich · 5 years ago

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I Could Use a Love Song (2/22): where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases

Pairing: Emma Swan/Killian Jones (AU) Words: 3k(ish) Rating: T for this chapter, I’d say. (M overall) Chapter Summary: The band’s first day with their new roadie gets off to a shaky start.

Read on AO3.

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Having grown used to shitty sleeping situations through foster homes, homelessness, couch surfing, and now touring, Emma awoke the next morning refreshed and ready to fight.

Yep, fight. Because the prior evening she’d been exhausted and hovering in that weird stage of drunk where you’re basically pre-hungover, and life had thrown a hot roadie at her. Except it wasn’t life that had done that. It was David. David who in the year of our lord 2019 most fucking certainly had a cell phone and could have shot her a text that a stranger was going to crash her quiet night alone.

Not that Killian crashed in any sense beyond sleep. They were seemingly both out before even the first song had finished playing through her speakers and he was still eyes-closed and breathing steady now that Emma was crawling over the seat and out the door, dead set on properly raging about the ridiculousness of this decision in addition to the lack of communication that shouldn’t exist among people who literally write words for a fucking living.

Seriously. How hard is it to send a text? Don’t wanna do your dirty work yourself, you can just tell Siri to piss of your bandmate on your behalf.

A little warning might have been nice. But she got none. So they weren’t getting any either.

“Rise and shine, motherfuckers!” Emma squawked as she flung open the door to David and Mary Margaret’s bedroom (they knew she had a copy of it, so really they should have thought twice before giving her no warning that she was going to have to deal with some weird ass alternate universe, very fuckable Captain Hook every single day for the foreseeable future. And pay him.

“Emma!” Mary Margaret gasped, yanking the comforter over what was probably her bare chest, but Emma didn’t bother to even glance at her. Accomplice in lack-of-communication, probably… but David was her object of fury.

Speaking of… “What the hell are you doing?!” he shouted, more confused than angry at her intrusion.

“I have a leather-jacket-wearing bone to pick with you, sir.”

“Aw, shit. You met Liam’s brother then?”

“Met him, slept with him, you know, the basic first steps in an employer-employee relationship.”

“Emma! You had sex with Killian?!” Mary Margaret sounded positively scandalized, which made sense for her own personality in addition to the fact that Emma hadn’t slept with anyone in … well it would probably be measured in years and not months, so. It would have been a shock if it were true.

“No, mom, but he slept in the van with me, which is my happy place. Not a place for strays.”

David stood up from the bed, raking his fingers through his hair in what looked like frustration or perhaps the pain of a hangover headache (good).

“We’re all strays, Emma. Can’t you be a little more accepting?”

“Can’t you be a little more with the warning?! You’re lucking I didn’t punch him when he approached me in a dark fucking alley, David.” Which was true. After much of the shit she suffered in her younger years, she didn’t take a chance or give anyone the benefit of the doubt if they seemed to have ill intentions.

He paused, daring blankly at her before taking a swig of the water next to their little bed. Light was just barely filtering through their curtains, so it was still early. No rush to hit the road quite yet, still time to get breakfast and drink their weights in coffee.

Usually the mornings were more pleasant than this.

Usually it was just the five of them in a diner, and usually she was listening to their post-gig stories, not sharing much of her own.

“Where did you leave him, then? Or did you already fire him?”

“Now, David, how could I fire someone I never even hired?! You remember we voted that we didn’t have the money to add staff.”

At that, Mary Margaret perked up, her back straightening as her mascara-smudged face scrunched in guilt. “That one is actually on me. We were on FaceTime with Killian and he’s just so… he’s in a bad place, Emma, and he needs money and people and we couldn’t just let him… “

“Go to the pound with the other strays? Fine. I get it. He doesn’t seem like the worst person in the world. But, like, give a girl a heads-up? And to answer your question, David, I left him soundly asleep in the van. I’m not a goddamn monster.”

Emma stormed out with no real destination in mind, just a deep craving for coffee and a bear claw and space from any other living human who might attempt to converse with her when she needed a minute to wallow in her semi-justified rage.

Of all the people to find her, of fucking course it was Killian.

Known him 12 hours or less and he was already the biggest pain in her ass.

“Swan, fancy seeing you here!” His voice was bright despite the wrinkles in this clothes and the hair that was no longer ‘artfully mussed,’ but more… hurricane-ravaged.

“Why are you so chipper?” is all she croaked back in response.

“Well I’ve already had an unpleasant encounter with Brother Dave and figured I would try to make this one a little less fraught with tension and don’t get any ideas about Emma you wanker.” Killian plopped down across from her, already clutching a coffee from somewhere that definitely was not the diner she’d wandered into and been sulking at for at least 2 hours.

“Why would he yell at you? And why are you calling him brother? And… just why?”

“Apologies, Swan, I assumed you’d had enough coffee and sugar to cope with me by now. I was warned of that. You see, apparently I was supposed to just go ‘sleep on a bench in a park’ or something to that effect and then not introduce myself to you or the rest of the crew until morning. Silly me. So David, who appears to think of himself as your father but who was best friends with my brother, proceeded to lecture me about how I’m not allowed to get in your pants. As if you didn’t have a say in the matter. Don’t worry, darling, I clarified that you will without a doubt never care for me beyond tolerance and he seemed to unbunch his knickers.”

“You know, Jones, if I’m not your love I’m probably not your darling, either.”

“Goodness sakes, woman, can you perhaps glean the important information from my babbling and not focus the filler?”

“Fine. Fuck your filler. We’re probably late for leaving by now, though,” Emma said, glancing at the clock on the wall and then at her message-filled phone. She rose from the table slowly, downing the rest of her lukewarm coffee and shoving a doughnut toward Killian in the process. “Shall we?”

He did some type of bow/curtsey nonsenense and flourished his arm toward the door as if to say ladies first and Emma stomped right past him, already 110% fed up with his weird country boy/Jane Austen hero attempt at chivalry when she knew he was no gentleman and she was no goddamn lady.

It appeared that the new guy had already met the rest of the team, Ruby fist bumping him and Graham giving him a hungover nod to acknowledge his return. David and Mary Margaret were blessedly silent about any of the morning’s arguments and simply hopped in the driver and passenger seats so they could meander over to the next tiny ass New York town full of Their People.

Some days were harder than others when it came to the places they played. None of them were the hellish ‘hometown’ she’d steadfastly refused to ever revisit, but each seemed to capture some kind of echo of her past. It was really a shame that scent was so tied to memory, because dive bars were smelly places. The right combination of Marlboro Menthol Lights, Miller, and whatever was in that black bottle from Avon and suddenly Emma was back at the Buckhorn, drinking to forget the hurt she hadn’t quite sustained yet, but was inevitably coming.

She always got past it. Rage was good like that, strong enough to overcome the heartbreak of individual memories. Whiskey helped, too.

Graham and Ruby were sprawled on either side of the middle row in the shabby van, both passed out (clearly they hadn’t done enough sleeping wherever it is either of them had gone the night before). David and Mary Margaret, meanwhile, were quietly singing to each other from the front, songs too cheesy for the other three bandmates to ever agree to allow to be performed on stage.

So that left her and Killian, the only two life forms currently active in actual reality.

“So what’s your story, Jones?

He rolled his head on his shoulders, sliding his line of sight from the video to meet her (probably too-harsh) stare. “What makes you think I have a story?”

“You’re on the road with a country band. In my experience you don’t get to that point without some stuff preceding it. Come on, Jones. Someone stole your truck, shot your dog, or screwed your wife. Which one?”

“Where are your manners, young lady, you definitely take a bloke to dinner before you ask for his Tragic Backstory. That’s got to be written somewhere. For shame!” he whisper-shouted, quite overdramatically.

Maybe he’d gotten his heart broken at drama camp.

“What else am I supposed to ask you? I don’t have much information to go on here.”

“Why don’t you start with, ‘Killian, it’s so nice to meet you. How about you tell me a little about yourself?’”

Her answering eye roll reminded her she hadn’t properly removed her makeup from the night before, not having taken her usual five minutes in the lovers’ hotel room bathroom to allow for proper skin care. Fuck, her pores were going to be pissed.

“I’m not quite that polite, but fine. We’ll have it your way. Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

That “little about himself” went on for about an hour, covering everything from his love of football to how underrated asiago cheese was on casual dining menus. They disagreed on silly subjects like the best fast food and what to take on a deserted island. They pretty much only agreed that David and Mary Margaret were insufferable and that love was for losers.

(And yes, that was the closest she got to unlocking even one small detail about his Tragic Backstory.)

They talked all the way to the next hole-in-the-wall bar, which did, in fact, like it might have some holes in it in the light of day.

“Thank the fucking lord we’re finally here. Will you two shut up now?” Ruby moaned into the seat cushion, apparently not as knocked out as Emma had assumed from her unmoving silence the entire ride.

“’s not our fault you two oafs don’t use the nighttime for sleeping,” Killian snarked back at her.

Hmm. Maybe they’d gotten more acquainted than Emma had realized.

Add that to the pile of Killian Jones-related mysteries.

Graham had been so exhausted, he didn’t even awake when the van emptied out, still snoozing even as they hauled all their shit into the bar. Just to be a jerk, Emma even tossed a drum stick at him. But he just grumbled and turned, unfazed by her minor assault.

“Hope he lost sleep for the good reason, if you know what I mean,” Killian said, as he bumped his shoulder into hers. He was carrying a guitar case in his right hand and had his left forearm wrapped around one of the boxes carrying electrical equipment.

“Yes, in that tone, I’m pretty sure people up in Vermont know what you mean?”

“I’m not sure about that one. Have you been to Vermont? I don’t think I’ve ever met a fuckable person from that whole state.”

“Don’t say that around David. I’m 99% sure he’d fuck Bernie Sanders.”

The two of them laughed so hard they almost dropped their very expensive equipment, especially when David, as if on cue, turned back toward them: “what’s in Vermont? There’s this ski place I’ve wanted to go to…”

Their laughter turned to near howling as poor, out-of-the-loop David rambled on about Mt. Snow being a great place to take a date and how exactly that could be so funny that two people who’d met last night had already been reduced to giggling middle schoolers.

Mary Margaret and Killian quickly started setting up for their set, even though they had a few hours until people would actually show (she was a worrier, and it was technically his first day on the job). So that gave the other slackers some time to rest and eat greasy food and hopefully get properly buzzed before the show so Emma didn’t have a random panic attack at some dude wearing a blue plaid shirt with pink Vans like Neal used to, once upon a time.

Catching up on the night before was usually their breakfast routine, but having avoided that, Emma assumed she’d just end up not knowing how Graham and Ruby had spent their time. Thankfully, both were perfectly happy to provide a secondary replay of their evenings.

Well, Ruby was happy to. See, she hadn’t done anything scandalous the night before. No fucking strangers for her! Turns out, a friend of hers from college lived in that little town and she’d gone over to her place to catch up. Friends old and new were there and she mostly missed out on sleep for conversation and a few truly ridiculous board games (who played Chutes and Ladders when they were plastered?).

Graham, on the other hand, had not had as enjoyable an evening. He’d met a girl, a very pretty girl, and she’d asked him back to her place. He had enthusiastically agreed right up until he was pounding into her against her kitchen counter only to be interrupted by her boyfriend. Thankfully there was no macho how dare you touch my girlshowdown, but it did leave Graham with a bad case of blue balls and nowhere to sleep.

“Wait! Why didn’t you come to the van with me? I don’t bite,” Emma protested as Graham was describing wandering the roads with streetlights until it was appropriately light enough to be breakfast time.

“You don’t think that’s the first place I went? I peeked my head in the fan and saw his shaggy ass and thought you might actually have taken the leap and met someone. No chance in hell I was going to spook you if you finally found a guy you didn’t want to murder on first sight.”

She yelped out a very offended hey, but deep down, he wasn’t wrong. He and David were just the only two men to ever prove to her they were interested in her as a human being and not a punching bag or human fleshlight. She was thankful for finding them and realizing that the whole not all men has some merit, but not enough to take any chances on a guy.

“Well now that you know your assessment couldn’t have been further from the truth, I bet you’re feeling pretty silly for missing out on sleep.”

“No, I stand by my decision. But, yeah, tonight I’m crashing in the van with you two. Unless, I mean, if you ever want privacy with him…”

“YES!” Ruby squealed. “You two would make the cutest babies. You know, someday. With little leather jackets and horrendous attitudes. It would be legit adorable.”

From the corner of her eye she could see David’s face turning fuchsia and she was reminded of the speech he’d apparently given Killian that morning (as if she needed protecting). Not even close.

“Hah, very funny there, Rubes. You think he’s so good looking, you can go for it.”

“Oh, no you will not!” David shouted. “No casual sex within the band.”

(Hey, at least he was yelling at someone who wasn’t her.)

“But you and Mary Margaret!” she protested.

“Nothing casual about that. Marry Killian, fine. I’ll throw the bridal shower. But do not fuck him for fun. We need him and he doesn’t need another mess.”

Before Emma had a chance to ask David to elaborate on that clear Tragic Backstory Hint, Mary Margaret and Killian plopped down at the table, set-up apparently finished.

“So… what do we do now?” Killian asked, the blunt end of his left arm fiddling with the thick ring on his right thumb.

Mary Margaret, David, and Graham collectively responded, “Eat!”

Ruby and Emma were more of the let’s get drunk frame of mind and instead replied, “Shots!”

So the crew of six ordered shots for 12 and their first official day as a team had begun.

By the time they were being announced for the stage, Emma was red-faced and stumbling, Mary Margaret was giggling about the word “banana” and Killian had already told sixteen different dirty jokes, all met with a deeper scowl from Emma each time.

That night Graham’s drumming was just a tad out of sync and David forgot that he wasn’t actually supposed to sing the girl parts of their one duet-style song, but none of that mattered. The crowd was wild, totally tuned in and screaming their hearts out right along with them. Halfway through their set, just before Emma relinquished lead vocals to Mary Margaret for Sappy Hour, she clutched the microphone in her hand, swaying as she returned it to the stand at the edge of the stage, yelling, “I love everyone in this bar!”

This whole ‘having friends’ thing just got better and better every single day.

Especially when puking in the dumpster at 3am. You find out who your friends are, right about then, and only Ruby was mockingly taking SnapChat videos. Killian got her water and Graham held her hair and the last thing she remembered before she passed out was telling the other strays she was just so glad they all somehow found each other.

#cs ff #cs au #multichapter #keisha writes #i could use a love song

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laliberty · 5 years ago

Link

Left-wing Democrats in Congress have decided on a new version of “Medicare for All.” Turns out its going to be nothing like the Medicare program seniors are used to. What they have in mind is what we see in Canada.

Everyone (except American Indians and veterans) will be in the same system. Health care will be nominally free. Access to it will be determined by bureaucratic decision making.

Here’s what to expect.

Overproviding to the Healthy, Underproviding to the Sick. The first thing politicians learn about health care is this: most people are healthy. In fact, they are very heathy – spending only a few dollars on medical care in any given year. By contrast, 50% of the health care dollars will be spent on only 5% of the population in a typical year.

Politicians in charge of health care, however, can’t afford to spend half their budget on only 5% of the voters, including those who may be too sick to vote at all. So, there is ever-present pressure to divert spending away from the sick toward the healthy.

In Canada and in Britain, patients see primary care physicians more often than Americans do. In fact, the ease with which relatively healthy people can see doctors is probably what accounts for the popularity of these system in both countries.

But once they get to the doctor’s office British and Canadians patients receive fewer services. For real medical problems, Canadians often go to hospital emergency rooms – where the average wait in Canada is four hours. In Britain, one of every ten emergency room patients leave without ever seeing a doctor.

A study by former Congressional Budget Office director June O’Neill and her husband Dave O’Neill found that:

The proportion of middle-aged Canadian women who have never had a mammogram is twice the U.S. rate.

Three times as many Canadian women have never had a pap smear.

Fewer than 20% of Canadian men have ever been tested for prostate cancer, compared with about 50% of U.S. men.

Only 10% of adult Canadians have ever had a colonoscopy, compared with 30% of US adults.

These differences in screening may partly explain why the mortality rate in Canada is 25% higher for breast cancer, 18% higher for prostate cancer, and 13% higher for colorectal cancer.

A study by Brookings Institution scholar Henry Aaron and his colleagues found that:

Britain has only one-fourth as many CT scanners as the U.S. and one-third as many MRI scanners.

The rate at which the British provide coronary bypass surgery or angioplasty to heart patients is only one-fourth of the U.S. rate, and hip replacements are only two-thirds of the U.S. rate.

The rate for treating kidney failure (dialysis or transplant) is five times higher in the U.S. for patients age 45 to 84 and nine times higher for patients 85 years of age or older.

We can see the political pressure to provide services to the healthy at the expense of the sick in our own country’s Medicare program. Courtesy of Obamacare, every senior is entitled to a free wellness exam, which most doctors regard as virtually worthless. Yet if elderly patients endure an extended hospital stay, they can face unlimited out-of-pocket costs.

Rationing by Waiting. Although Canada has no limits on how frequently a relatively healthy patient may see a doctor, it imposes strict limits on the purchase of medical technology and on the availability of specialists. Hospitals are subject to global budgets – which limit their spending, regardless of actual health needs.

In addition to having to wait many hours in emergency rooms, Canadians have some of the longest waits in the developed world for care that could cure diseases and save lives. The most recent study by the Fraser Institute finds that

In 2016, Canadians waited an average of 21.2 weeks between referral from a general practitioner to receipt of treatment by a specialist – the longest wait time in over a quarter of a century of such measurements.

Patents waited 4.1 weeks for a CT scan, 10.8 weeks for an MRI scan, and 3.9 weeks for an ultrasound.

Similarly, a survey of hospital administrators in 2003 found that:

21% of Canadian hospital administrators, but less than 1% of American administrators, said that it would take over three weeks to do a biopsy for possible breast cancer on a 50-year-old woman.

50% of Canadian administrators versus none of their American counterparts said that it would take over six months for a 65-year-old to undergo a routine hip replacement surgery.

Jumping the Queue. Aneurin Bevan, father of the British National Health Service, declared, “the essence of a satisfactory health service is that rich and poor are treated alike, that poverty is not a disability and wealth is not advantaged.” Yet, more than thirty years after the NHS was founded an official task force (The Black Report) found little evidence that the creation of the NHS had equalized health care access. Another study (The Acheson Report), fifty years after the NHS founding, concluded that access had become more unequal in the years between the two studies.

In Canada, studies find that the wealthy and powerful have significantly greater access to medical specialists than less-well-connected poor. High-profile patients enjoy more frequent services, shorter waiting times and greater choice of specialists. Moreover, among the nonelderly white population, low-income Canadians are 22% more likely to be in poor health than their U.S. counterparts.

These results should not be surprising. Rationing by waiting is as much an obstacle to care as rationing by price. It seems that the talents and skills that allow people to earn high incomes are similar to the talents and skills that are useful in successfully circumventing bureaucratic waiting lines.

No Exit. The worst features of the U.S. health care system are the way in which impersonal bureaucracies interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. Those are also the worst features of Canadian medical care. In Canada, when patients see a doctor the visit is free. In the U.S., the visit is almost free – with patients paying only 10 cents out of pocket for every dollar they spend, on average. In both countries, people primarily pay for care with time, not with money. The two systems are far more similar than they are different.

In Britain, private sector medicine allows patients to obtain care they are supposed to get for free from government. Middle and upper-middle income employees frequently have private health insurance, obtained through an employer. A much larger number of Britons use private doctors from time to time. The rule seems to be, “If your condition is serious, go private.”

Canada, by contrast, has basically outlawed private sector medical services that are theoretically provided by the government. If doctors, patients and entrepreneurs think of better ways of meeting patient needs they have no way of acting on those thoughts.

This is where the U.S. system is so much better—even though, as in the Canadian system, U.S. Medicare pays doctors the same way it did in the last century, before there were iPhones and email messages. Many U.S. employer plans are just as bad.

But because U.S. employers are free to meet the needs of their employees rather than live under the dictates of a politically pressured bureaucracy, one of the fastest growing employee benefits is concierge care. For as little as $50 a month for a young adult, patients can have 24/7 access to a doctor by phone and email and all the normal services that primary care physicians provide.

Uber-type house calls, consultations by phone, email and Skype, cellphone apps that allow people to manage their own care and other innovations in telemedicine are taking some parts of the private sector by storm.

These are the kinds of innovations that would be outlawed if the congressional Democrats have their way.

For more on these and other issues, interested readers may want to consult my congressional testimony, delivered with Linda Gorman, Devon Herrick and Robert Sade.

#politics #Health Care #libertarian

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the-good-noodle-kf · 5 years ago

Text

Heeyyy so that fic I posted four months ago now has a second and third chapter!

I posted it on AO3 two(?) days ago, and I sort of forgot to post it on here at the same time, but better late than never ig..

This is the second chapter, and I’ll leave the link to the third at the bottom, because the third chapter is v long eheh

Kaito is more pale than Shuichi remembers. Then again, if he looked in a mirror, he’d notice he’s more pale too. The simulation helmet looks out of place on his head; it covers up his signature astronaut-gravity-defiant hair. He’s still, which is so disconcerting for the otherwise animated magenta-head.

When he turns to Maki she has an expression that Shuichi has never seen in the time that he’d known her. She is just staring at Kaito’s unmoving form, but the former detective has a feeling that she isn’t completely there, in that room. He could guess there are a mixture of emotions threatening to rise to the surface; she’s probably feeling regret, despondency, and some form of pity, much like himself. However, the shaking of her hands and the stiffening of her shoulders pair to form what could only be fear. He’s never seen Maki show anything even slightly reminiscent of fear.

He wonders what she’s afraid of. Is it the fear of the future, for Kaito, or for herself? He doesn’t want to consider the possibility that she’s scared of how things will change once he wakes up, even though it’s fairly likely. He clearly remembered her last few words to Kaito, and his lack of bilateral response. He isn’t the one who’s in love with Kaito (the word sounds weird as he thinks it), but it’s got to be harder to face for her than it is for him. He knows she remembers too; how could she not?

He settles on the assumption that the brunette just fears the unknown… it’s ambiguous but realistic. Isn’t everything about this new reality unknown anyway?

It starts to feel like he’s intruding, so he quietly leaves the room. He hadn’t realized how helpful the beeping of the heart rate monitor was for synchronising with his breathing, because once he’s back in that hallway, he can’t seem to steadily breathe without thinking about it.

Now that he is noticing it, it’s like his breathing is a voluntary motion. He tries to distract himself by walking towards the others and thinking about other things. It works until he acknowledges that it works, but then he’s back to thinking about it. He inhales, he exhales. Himiko’s still talking to Tenko, but they’re sitting on the sectional now. He inhales again. Tojo’s somewhere else now, but the tea cart is still there. He exhales.

Seeing Kaito had brought more questions to his mind, and they’re the type of questions that he can’t figure out the answer to without additional information. He doesn’t necessarily want to talk to any employee of Team Danganronpa ever again (he actually wants to distance himself from any one of them as much as possible), but he won’t get answers otherwise. His disdain for anything Danganronpa related (aren’t they all technically ‘Danganronpa related’?) doesn’t outweigh his tenacious curiosity, so he asks the woman, “What... decides... when they’ll wake up?”

She grins like more of a lunatic than any of Danganronpa’s killers could ever be. “There are the questions I’ve been waiting for!” She looks through her files and starts reading one of them aloud. “Their awakening is determined by a number of factors. The most prominent one is their will to live, however, the severity of their cause of death can substantially delay this. It also depends on when they passed on and how real the simulation felt to them. The more skeptical participants are likely to wake up sooner. At the same time, no exact time can be calculated due to external circumstances, like the game’s psychological impact on them. Anything else?”

“Ah. How long will it be?”

“It will be a while. He definitely won’t wake up until after participant number eight-zero-zero, Miu Iruma, awakens.” She smiles, even though there’s nothing about the conversation that’s worth smiling about.

There’s one more question that Shuichi needs to ask, but he doesn’t want to know the answer. No, that’s not true; he wants to know the answer, but he’s definitely not ready for it. “Are they... is it possible,” he swallows, “that they won’t wake up?” he braces himself.

The Team Danganronpa employee taps her pen to her lips. “Well, the retaining of in-game memories and the removal pre-game memories is a new implementation this season, but based on how the previous season went, everything should work out alright. Of course, because of unforeseen circumstances, nothing is set in stone.”

He presses his lips in a line. It’s like none of their lives are any consequence to this woman. To her, it doesn’t seem to matter if they live or die.

“You can go visit them though, any time. I advise you to not remove their helmets though, because that will kill them. They need to rejoin reality on their own terms. Forcing them out now will be too much for their psyche to handle!” She giggles, and Shuichi hides an unsettled shudder. He instead forces a smile and puts some distance between the two of them.

Shuichi begins weighing his options; he needs to find a way to kill time - waste time. He supposes he could go through that locker with his old belongings, but he’s not... ready. He doesn’t feel ready for anything. Nothing makes sense anymore and he just -

He needs to start small.

He decides that he should probably eat something even though he has no appetite. Just the thought that (at least) the last hundred times he ate something, it was probably tube fed to him by more members of Team Danganronpa because of his… incapacity, makes him want to do it for himself while also ruining his appetite further.

He can’t win. (He did win.) Isn’t winning supposed to be a good thing? Shuichi doesn’t remember being competitive, especially not in such a dreary situation, but shouldn’t he be at least a little glad that he didn’t have to experience dying like most of the others did?

He’s not.

Shuichi is pushing himself to eat some bland crackers when Kaede Akamatsu walks into the room.

“Hey Shuichi.” she greets him with a smile.

He startles when he sees her, and almost spits out some cracker crumbs, before he realizes that he has to swallow the food in his mouth before he can talk. The dry pieces scratch his throat in his rush to speak, and all he can say is, “K-Kaede.” His eyes are wide open and she’s just smiling like nothing’s wrong about the situation they’re all caught up in. Then he realizes that she was gone before the worst of it happened. But, his brain supplies, she died horribly.

“I…” He has so many things he wants to tell her but all of them are gone from his mind now.

“You did it Shuichi, I knew you could.”

He doesn’t know where to begin. “Wh-?” he lets out a questioning noise. He unintentionally grips the bag of crackers hard enough that a number of them break with a crunch.

“You beat the mastermind at their own game. If anyone could do it, you could,” she tells him, and she’s so nice and so supportive, but he doesn’t really feel like he did anything. Almost everyone died. He should’ve stopped the killing game before it began like Kaede set out to do, though perhaps in a different way...

The first full sentence that comes out is a self-deprecating one, “I didn’t do anything.” His head is down-turned, and he almost wishes he had his hat to hide under. It’s true though. Himiko’s the reason that they figured out the mastermind’s secrets; if she hadn’t found the secret door in the girls bathroom, they never would’ve found out the truth.

“Of course you did! Don’t put yourself down so much, be confident.”

But, he can’t. He nods absently, because he isn’t going to say that aloud.

“I believe in you Shuichi.”

How could someone like Kaede believe in him when he doesn’t even believe in himself? Why does she believe in him? He’d failed to stop her execution, failed to stop the killing game until the very end, and the only thing he did successfully was help lead the rest of his friends to their executions. He should’ve recognized Kokichi’s plan to stop the killing game instead of revealing Kaito. He should’ve listened to Kaito, and never voted Gonta in the first place. He should’ve been more perceptive before the seance. He should’ve noticed that Hoshi wasn’t okay, and prevented his death. He should’ve realized what Kaede was doing before it was too late.

Even if they voted incorrectly, none of it was real. They could’ve spared each other the additional trauma that stemmed from witnessing murder after murder, forced upon them by Tsumugi and Monokuma. What did it matter if he died in the simulation instead? It’s not like he ever cared about winning. Or, maybe he did before he got his memories wiped and rewritten, but that doesn’t matter anymore either.

He’s not sure when Kaede leaves the room, but soon he’s alone again. He hears Amami call out, “Kaede! It was Tsumugi. Shuichi told me,” but it’s muffled by the closed door. He’s glad that she’s cleared of the guilt. He can tell by how happy she seems now. He’s happy for her too, and he wonders if he’ll ever get back to normal.

(What is… normal?)

His first therapy session happens a few days later. The therapist, another member of Team Danganronpa is, surprisingly, sort of nice. She doesn’t seem to have any ill intention, and Shuichi almost thinks her eyes show kindness.

“What you’re experiencing is a form of survivor’s guilt. You may feel like you shouldn’t have made it through the game mostly unscathed while all the others didn’t. You might think you could’ve… put an end to it sooner, or spared them the pain. This is normal, but you should know that nothing that happened was your fault.”

He understands what she’s saying, but he has a feeling it’ll take a little while for him to accept it, if he ever does.

She moves onto the next topic quickly. “How have you been adjusting?”

“Um… I’ve been… okay, I guess.”

“It’s probably been a little overwhelming.” A little is an understatement, and Shuichi can tell that they both know this. He figures she’s downplaying it on purpose, trying not to be too pushy on getting him to open up. He’s grateful for that.

“...yeah.”

It continues along like an ordinary discussion, and the therapist gives some recommendations to help with his appetite and the nightmares. It’s not a very lengthy session; Shuichi doesn’t have much to say. It is helpful, but he’s not ready to talk about everything. The therapist, however, is already privy to all the information involving their lives within the simulation. She encourages him to do things like reading to pass the time because it might take his mind off of the trauma, if only for a little while. She also suggests that he might benefit from visiting the other three that haven’t woken up yet. It might make him feel better to talk to them, even if they can’t hear him.

She’s right, but he hasn’t prepared himself for that yet. He hasn’t visited Kaito since that brief time with Maki, and he can’t bring himself to go back. Maybe that’ll change soon, but for right now, Shuichi is taking his time.

His appetite has already improved a bit. He’s been eating two meals a day, which is a start. His stomach must’ve shrunk while he was in the simulation, because he isn’t hungry for anything else.

Somehow, Shuichi finds himself outside the door of the room that Kokichi Oma currently resides in. It’s not exactly a surprise, though. Something’s been gnawing at him - he wasn’t sure what it was until now. He tries telling himself that he has nothing to say to Kokichi, but…

...that’s a lie.

He sighs.

Logically, Shuichi, and everyone else’s distrust towards Kokichi was warranted, but… he could’ve tried harder. No, no matter what he did, he’s sure he wouldn’t have figured out Kokichi’s true motives.

But, he… he ignored the fact that Kokichi would’ve been the victim if he hadn’t persuaded Gonta, and that was wrong. He knows that Kokichi was cornered; no one would believe him if he tried to tell them about Miu. He even went as far as to lie and falsely implicate Kokichi during the trial, and that makes him feel worse than when he solved his first homicide case. That first case never really happened though, he reminds himself.

Kokichi dug himself into a hole, and he could have tried and tried to claw himself out, but he would never make it alone; it wasn’t his fault that no one was willing to give him a hand and pull him out. And then, the hole became a grave, and Kokichi sacrificed himself (why did he sacrifice himself?) to help them when they did nothing for him.

He… wants to say sorry.

So, he swallows the saliva in his mouth, trying to clear away the thick feeling in his throat, and looks both ways before entering as if he’s a child about to do something he’s not supposed to. He knows Kaito and Maki would probably have something to say about it - though, that might’ve changed for Kaito after the fifth trial, and Maki probably wouldn’t actually say anything, but he can picture a judgemental look. If Shuichi had to guess who Maki hated the most during the entirety of the game, even after everything, it would doubtlessly be Kokichi; and, he would be right.

He almost expects Oma to jump up and say, “it’s a lie!”

He doesn’t, of course. He just lays there, looking sickly and pale. The bags under his eyes are ironic considering how long he - they’ve all - been unconscious. Then again, sleeping more than necessary does that too, he’s heard.

He swallows more of the dryness clotting his throat and turns away. The room suddenly feels suffocating, like it’s closing in on him, almost like that hydraulic press closed in on Kokichi, the intrusive thought passes through his mind, and he internally scolds himself, stop it, don’t think about it.

He promises himself that he’ll say sorry when Kokichi wakes up. If, his thoughts remind him, prompting a grimace.

He visits Miu right after. He knows it’s only to justify himself for visiting Kokichi, but seeing her so quiet and not cracking some crude joke or reference is also so unusual.

He probably wouldn’t feel sympathetic for her if she hadn’t been the one who ended up dead, but he still can’t fault Gonta for trying to save them all… She planned out a murder, and it’s messed up, it’s so messed up -

She would’ve gone through with it too. He’s sure of it.

She’d been so calculating, designing the simulation - (a simulation within a simulation, Shuichi pointlessly notes) - for the sole purpose of murder, and even going so far as to pin the blame on Kaito. He wonders how different things would’ve been if she had succeeded. Not much of one, he supposes. It still would’ve all been fake, fake, fake. Maybe the killing game wouldn’t have been prolonged for as long as it did, not like it would matter.

Shuichi stews in the thought as he walks back to his room. He’s too tired to think right now. He hopes that everything will stop being so exhausting if he takes a nap, but he knows that’s just wishful thinking.

I also posted it on my Ao3 Account along with chapter three :}

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #fanfic #postgame #shuichi saihara #maki harukawa #himiko yumeno #rantaro amami #kaede akamatsu #ryoma hoshi #kirumi tojo #korekiyo shinguji #angie yonaga #tenko chabashira #gonta gokuhara #eventual romance #eventual oumasai

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