#workers equal treatment is also a joke

[black-lakritz-dragon]

Using my ladle to push in my shitty ditching coworker who didn't do shit as always yet still consumes the fruit of my labor into the earthen bucket oven along the wood i stir for hours to nourish the flames

[maddiviner]

Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆

This review is many months overdue, sadly. The topic is pretty heavy for me, and you’ll have to forgive me for how emotionally-charged this review is going to be. I’ll explain why later on.

So, The Wisdom of Mental Illness. I requested it from NetGalley specifically because, as a mentally-ill person, the book’s allegedly about people like me. Of course I’m going to need to read it. So, how does it measure up?

Yikes. There’s some positives here, but precious little. The author does a decent job discussing the (frankly awful) American pharmaceutical industry and how it relates to the usage of psychiatric medication. My perspective? I do agree that many psychiatric medications suck.

While we can do better, I’d expect little else from the corrupt pharmaceutical industry. I’m thankful for Seroquel when I needed it, but am equally grateful I didn’t take it long term. I would hope that the future brings better options for people like me.

While Hughes seems to think the use of medication implies or depends on a biological model for mental illness, I disagree. The drugs are volatile and unpredictable, but many can be useful, regardless of whether they “cure” the illness or not.

I’m open-minded about drug use, even some of those awful laboratory chemicals. I also think the lines between self-exploration, cure, and alleviating symptoms (all three) can blur significantly at times, depending on the substance.

The author discusses what he calls the “pathologization of normal life.” This idea gets tossed around a lot, especially in books like this, and especially in the past few decades. It’s almost entirely a fallacy. It doesn’t really hold water.

True, something like “social anxiety disorder” sounds (to neurotypicals) like a universal experience rather than an actual condition. The truth is that when social anxiety becomes pathological, those suffering often get brushed off, not needlessly pathologized. Even getting other people to acknowledge there’s a problem (and get them on board with your recovery) can be extremely difficult.

Why? It’s primarily because of misinformation like this. If people think psychiatry is “pathologizing” normal experiences, they’re much less likely to take it seriously when a loved one expresses depression, anxiety (or even mania).

Most people with mood and anxiety disorders (like myself) have had the experience of someone saying to us, “everyone gets sad sometimes,” or “<I> get nervous sometimes, too, but I don’t treat it as a disorder,” etc. This response has become so common that we (people with mood and anxiety disorders) often joke about it, and how frustrating it can be.

It is true that, in cases of psychosis or suicide attempts, a person can be (sometimes) forced into treatment, but only if they’re dangerous to themselves or others. You won’t be locked up for normal human behavior that’s been “pathologized.”

As many neurodivergent folks know, even obtaining basic mental health treatment can be difficult if there’s not a perceived crisis point. Here in America, there’s a critical shortage of all mental health professionals - psychiatrists, therapists, social workers, and then some. This is especially true in rural areas, and it can lead to situations where someone (in crisis) waits six months for an appointment with an already overtaxed mental health professional.

With few people able to afford comprehensive (or even basic) mental health services, it’s hard to argue that we’re all at risk of being “pathologized” for our quirks.

Interestingly, it seems there’s not as much discussion of mental illnesses that aren’t either mystical shamanic psychosis or Jungian deep dive depression. Some of the other authors providing accounts have experienced illnesses like anorexia nervosa, but this is framed as resulting from said Jungian depression or societal pressure interfering with shamanic awakenings.

The author claims that there’s an epidemic of “narcissism” and entitlement because of selfies, social media, and participation trophies, though. Those darned millennials, no doubt! Not a particularly original, nuanced, or insightful take. I half-expected him to bring up avocado toast! I guess that particular illness (narcissistic personality disorder is a mental illness, after all!) doesn’t contain Hughes’s preferred brand of wisdom.

Some of the other authors who contributed do mention eating disorders and other experiences. It’s worth noting that some of these people seem to be former clients of Jez Hughes who came to him for “shamanic healing.” Many of them had terrible experiences with psychiatry, and it’s not my place to invalidate the healing they found elsewhere. Still, in a way, these folks are self-selected; you won’t find stories from people like me in here, because that’d torpedo the concept.

In a way, the book is a sales pitch for Hughes’s particular means of coping with mental distress. When Hughes highlights the abuses of modern psychiatry, it’s mostly to set up his “shamanic” alternative in a positive light. He puts a bit of effort into attacking the more biological claims of psychiatry, too. Specifically, the author claims that there’s “no evidence” that mental illness gets passed on in genetics.

Uh. The evidence is actually quite clear that it does have a genetic component.

Some will argue that any evidence of a genetic origin could just as easily point to a traumatic origin for the illness, given that trauma bonds are a thing within families. I do believe there’s an element of that in some cases, but there’s overwhelming evidence of an actual genetic component in many cases.

Hughes, on his website and elsewhere, namedrops the science of “epigenetics” to explain why some people need to come to home for ancestral healing. This isn’t a well-understood field, but it doesn’t undo the evidence we’ve seen of a genetic component.

When every child in a family (including those raised elsewhere) end up experiencing the exact same alternating cycles of depression and elation, you do have to consider the possibility that bipolar disorder could be passed down from family. I’ve definitely seen it in my own family, but the stigma made it hard for people to openly discuss.

In many instances the author describes how psychiatry makes people think they’re broken or inherently devalued due to having a diagnosis. Hughes seems to, in particular, associate this with the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness. And, he’s right - that sometimes happens. The stigma’s real.

He wants to do away with that stigma by reframing mental illness as “shaman sickness.” The problem is that it’s a false (and dangerous) dichotomy. It’s perfectly possible for us to acknowledge we have a diagnosis (chemical-inspired or otherwise) without automatically jumping to the conclusion that it means we’re broken.

We can accept our neurodivergence and love ourselves, even if we’re popping meds rather than living out the New Age movement’s romanticized notion of madness. While it may not be the intention, his approach does contribute to existing stigma.

But, once again, as I’ve said before, this is all just a way to set up psychiatry as the devaluing inquisitor so that Hughes’s “shamanic” alternative seems the only reasonable choice for someone wishing to keep their sense of self intact.

If you’re seeking other (in my opinion, better) books on mental illness, psychiatry, medication, and that sort of thing, I’d say this one pairs well with The Day the Voices Stopped as a counterpoint, and Muses, Madmen and Prophets as a better take on the subject in general.

Before I go, I think it’s wise to just be blunt here. I have a lot of trauma surrounding people trying to convince me my mental illnesses were spiritual in nature and interfering with my treatment because of it.

Several times I ended up in life-threatening situations. If this review is a bit “off,” that’s why. You can say I’m biased, but maybe that’s a good thing. I’ve seen where some of this can lead.

I also suppose there’s a conversation to be had about the definition of “shaman” and just what constitutes a “British shaman” (Hughes’s title of choice) here, but that’d be for other people to discuss. I think it’s not really my conversation to have. If you actually know anything about that, feel free to LMK.

Thanks for reading this book review, and apologies if it came across as emotional!

[urbandokkalfar]

Speaking of Looking to the Past to Preserve the Future...

This is gonna be a looonnngggg hot take, I'm sick/not feeling well so Niquil induced deep thought is your curse as much as it is mine.

Most industry is unnecessary.

Lemme explain:

Food industry for example. Everyone needs to eat, this is a fact. How do governments and powers that be start keeping the impoverished masses in line? Control the food. When you think about it, m o s t plants labled weeds or unappealing/ugly or even nuisances are not only edible and nutritious but a good number are medicinal (I'll touch on this next). There isplebes.ely no reason why cities, towns etc can not replace ornamental vegetation with fruit trees, berry bushes, vegetable plants like peppers, tomatoes and the like. They don't because it doesn't perpetuate hunger as a motivator to work for them.

Medicine - While I can concede that some artificial medicines can be useful and can help some situations but, again, disconnecting people from the past: foraging, herbalism etc you connect them to the modern 'machine'. Healthcare is the states is an absolute joke. I've mentioned before I have a broken bone in my foot and a cracked knee cap - to 'fix' both with modern medicine would require me to not only be out of work for an insane amount of time but pay half the costs upfront and continue to pay for the foreseeable future. I have neighbors who regularly come to my apartment every week to share meals because they can not afford their medicines to keep them alive, bills, rent, and necessitys ontop of regular grocery shopping. We pool resources, buy in bulk and split it equally.

Continuing with medical - Doctors in the US (not sure about other places) notoriously gaslight paitents and ignore them until it's to late or erroneously expensive to afford treatments and will require treatments or medications for the rest of their lives. I don't believe all medical staff is inherently 'evil' but I do believe they are taught in such a way to run paitents in circles to force them to keep paying for life saving meds/treatments. Insulin, Cancer treatments, Hormones and other life saving/gender affirmative/mental health care should not be putting people deep into financial crisis - it makes it worse and keeps them in the system.

Also - Abortion should be 100% legal.

Gender Affirmation Care For Trans Youth And Trans In General Should Be 100% Legal.

Sex Workers Should Not Be Demonized.

Automotive Industries should be abolished. Cars, roadways etc are another means to keep people paying into the money pit of government and society. Gotta pay 100+ to register your vehicle every year, gas prices fluctuate like my paitents with stupid people, people who have no business being on the road (looking at you 90 year old with Sundowner Dementia...) posing a threat, cars in general posing a threat not only to other motorists but pedestrians, wildlife, non motor vehicles and the planet.

Companies Green Wash products - Vegan leather is plastic...plastic is ass for the environment while real leather biodegrades and has been a part of the himan experience for centuries.

VEGAN LIFESTYLES ARE UNSUSTAINABLE, PROMOTE DEFORESTATION, DESTRUCTION OF HABITATS, EXTERMINATION OF SPECIES AND PROMOTE SLAVERY. While i fully understand people who HAVE legitimate medical reasons and even true moral reasons for being vegan I do NOT condone industrial veganisam - your destroying the planet JUST as much as industrial agriculture.

Pro-Lifers are a fucking joke and we all need to laugh at them. Ya'll only care about a clump of cells till it's birthed.... Why don't you put that money and effort into HELPING children already existing in the hell that is the foster system rather than force people to keep making people they can't have or don't wanna keep for whatever reasons they have???

Society has become a sham - there is no protection living in mass cities. Cops kill people for no reason, becuase they can. Doctors and other medical professionals can decline to treat you based on their religious beliefs, personal ideas, sexual status/orientation, financial situation etc. If you don't fit the mold, you're a threat. Everything is engineered to cost JUST ENOUGH to keep the poor poor, you can not be self sufficient without consequences and limitations.

We need to go back to small, self sufficient communities, embrace birth control for males and females to get the human population under control, reduce the human foot print, reduce conventional vehicle travel (long distance public travel and goods transport/emergency services being the general exception with limitations), get the ecosystems back in balance....

[enkisstories]

While in Detroit fear still reigns supreme, the DPD’s patrol androids at least have found a new home in Curtis McGavin’s remote logging camp.

For now the stable units get stowed in the same boxes McGavin Mining & Lumber’s worker androids used to idle in between their workshifts. For the elven deviants in the batch getting subjected to such a treatment is inacceptable, of course. So what to do with them?

Looking over his little kingdom, Curtis decides to rent the abandoned archive to the deviants.

“It’s still full of historic records, and now also of equally outdated androids”, he jokes.

Paying the deviants only to have them spend the money on rent and  thirium from Curtis’ fuel station sounds like a much better plan than to outright demand work in exchange for protection. It creates the illusion of the fugitives being part of the corporate family instead of eleven lines in an “expenses” table.

A little while later Curtis’ forewoman arrives. She hides her bandage underneath a cap now, what she cannot hide is the fact that she is close to tears after having received Curtis’ news about Moonwood Mill’s original androids’ fate. Avelina promises to help settle in the newcomers, but they can never replace those lifes that were lost today.

Avelina enters the archive wearing her work clothes.

“I’m the boss because I have workplace seniority, not because I’m a human”, the outfit is to convey. “I don’t just yell orders, I’m pulling my weight just like you.”

Speaking of outfits...

Even those of the former slaves who own street clothes instead of the dehumanizing android uniforms probably don’t want to continue wearing the clothes they got shot in. Therefore Avelina hands each fugitive one of the Moonwood Mill sweaters she has designed for the company’s androids. The sweaters function as semi-android uniforms, allowing the wearer to blend in with the locals, while still being marked sufficiently as an “object” to silence any passerby’s complaint.

“All of Moonwood Mill is private property, so by right there’d be no need for the uniforms”, Avelina explains. “But our “private” being a wide open space, we got into trouble for letting our androids wear human clothes in the past. That’s why the compromise.”

Not everyone accepts the gift. The Jericho rebels in particular scoff at how eagerly the former police station receptionists, Rika and Chika, are donning the semi-uniforms. Of course as former cops they’d be quick to obey anything resembling an order...

“I dunno... I can see the advantage of not sticking out like a sore thumb, but after how far we’ve come it doesn’t feel right to wear the semi-uniforms now”, Simon muses. “Markus wouldn’t do it...”

“We’ll earn our own money soon enough to buy new outfits”, Seth adds.

The statement is met with a smug smile from Rika: “But my sis and me already have blood stain free sweaters and therefore don’t need to work to afford different ones. We are free to explore our options first!”

“Yeah”, Chika sais. “I want to go to that bus bar we passed by earlier and in this pullover I can do that. You know, they have a stereo there!”

There probably is no right or wrong decision to make here - only deeply personal ones and as long as everyone is happy with theirs, it’s a good afternoon.

[zeravmeta]

I joke about Susie frying Count Bishmer alive but I really do like how they had Quercus stop Susie from killing someone in a moment of anger because it does show that even if you absolutely hate the person and are every bit justified in your anger, it's still not right to take a life for any reason, and that despite her power Susie isn't fundamentally a fighter.

During Caladon the characters around Susie are aware of her Originum Arts and are equally aware of how strong they are, but they also go out of their way to ensure that Susie is never caught in the line of fire. Quercus, Grani, Red, the bar goers, all of them are far more willing to fight for Susie than Susie is for herself, and throughout the event it does weigh on her that everyone around her keeps getting caught up in so much trouble just for her sake after her shop burned down. Obviously Susie didn't know the full scope of events going on behind the scenes, but she spent so many years learning from and making friends with all these mistreated Infected workers who weren't allowed a dream, saving up for years in order to buy the shop from Quercus and give a little back to the Infected community, all to learn that her own dream was destroyed just for money. She almost killed herself, and she learned that Count Bishmer ruined so many lives with his scheme just to make a quick buck.

Of course Susie is furious, and rightly so, and in a moment of cold, blinding anger she almost fries Count Bishmer alive. But Quercus stopped her because Susie didn't deserve to have that blood on her hands, no matter how justified it could be. She isn't a fighter, and she shouldn't have ever been forced to fight for her life the way she did.

The same anger that made her amost murder Count Bishmer is the same type of anger that Kashchey was able to manipulate into becoming the violent Reunion that destroyed Chernabog, because it was righteous at first, the anger that Reunion had at the treatment of the Infected is justified, but it was so easily manipulated into destroying itself.

Goldenglows profile constantly mentions that her Arts has the potential to make her one of the strongest casters on Terra, but that's all secondary to the fact that Susie had a dream of being a hair dresser and making the Infected feel worthwhile and presentable, because being a good fighter is not what you need to be an operator for Rhodes Island. Rhodes Island lives and dies by its creed of humanitarian goodwill, and odd-job operators like Susie aren't really uncommon, with operators like Scene and Click providing photography and journalism as contributing talent to Rhodes Island compared to the many genius doctors and pharmacists under its employ. Rhodes Islands goal as a whole isn't solely to treat Oripathy, but to ensure a better future for the Infected as a whole, regardless of wether or not the Oripathy condition is cured. And Susie said it herself, sometimes people care about their appearance and want to look presentable, and giving the simple right of presentability to the Infected is her big contribution to Rhodes Islands mission.

Rhodes Island has many Many powerful fighters and casters, but it didn't have a hairdresser before.

[justforbooks]

Susie Steiner, who has died aged 51, three years after being diagnosed with incurable brain cancer, was once asked how similar she was to Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw, the member of the Cambridgeshire Major Incident Team first encountered by readers in her 2016 novel Missing, Presumed. “Manon is only 98.34% me – the rest is pure invention,” she responded.

Although she was evidently joking – she had never been a police officer, and nor was she unhappily embroiled in the world of internet dating, as Manon is at the beginning of her fictional life – her answer had a core of truth. It was Steiner’s interest and intuitive understanding of the dynamics between people, her ability to be alive to the complexities of their desires and their frailties, and her commitment to exploring questions of justice and equality, that animated her protagonist and made her so memorable.

DS, and later DI, Bradshaw – her unusual first name, readers learn, is the Hebrew for “bitter”, and a caprice by her mother – had three outings: Missing, Presumed, which centred on the abduction of a young woman whose well-to-do parents are friends with the home secretary, placing the investigative team under increased pressure; Persons Unknown (2017), in which Bradshaw’s adopted son, who is black, is arrested on suspicion of murder, and which was inspired by a real case; and Remain Silent (2020), published not long after the beginning of lockdown, which explores a violent death in the Lithuanian migrant worker community and which also sees Bradshaw faced with her partner’s cancer diagnosis.

Steiner, unbeknown to her, had written Remain Silent with “a 9cm tumour pushing my brain over its midline” and, in a piece she wrote about writing, cancer and lockdown, she described wishing she could have included the specificity of her treatment in the novel: the hard chairs in waiting rooms, the contrast between vigorous medical staff and depleted patients.

The impulse to capture detail was typical of her writing. Born in north London, the daughter of two psychoanalysts, Deborah (nee Pickering) and John Steiner, Susie went to Henrietta Barnett school and read English at York University before embarking on a career in journalism. She started out at the Hendon and Finchley Times before stints at the Times and the Telegraph led her to a job as a features editor and writer at the Guardian in 2001.

She remained at the paper for 11 years, although she was out of the office at a writing retreat in Devon when she spotted a poster on the kitchen wall bearing the words Keep Calm and Carry On. She discovered that it had originated in an independent bookshop in Alnwick, which she contacted so that she could recommend it to readers of Weekend magazine.

She was cheered, she later recalled, by its “message of stoicism and patience”, although its phenomenal popularity also prompted her to insist, semi-humorously, that she could not be blamed for its subsequent ubiquity. (Posters were clearly something that caught her eye: in Persons Unknown, she introduces the shopkeeper Birdie Fielding, who often consults one emblazoned with the image of Tony Blair for advice. Birdie cropped up in a piece that Steiner wrote about the perils of “writer’s butt”: “While some authors’ fantasies are about sex and death, mine are very much centred on unfettered access to the crisps aisle. I dwell on Frazzles a lot in this novel. As Birdie says: ‘Whoever said nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, has never set in on her third mince pie.’”)

While at the Guardian, Steiner met the journalist Tom Happold (who is now director of the creative video agency Happen Digital); they married in 2006, settled in West Hampstead and had two sons, George and Ben. Steiner, her husband told me, had always wanted to have children and was a very loving mother; and the compassion and empathy with which she portrayed Manon Bradshaw’s experience of single life and childlessness, after which she first adopts a child and later becomes pregnant, is striking.

She worked on her first novel, Homecoming (2013), for several years, drawing on her knowledge of the North York Moors, where she and Happold had a cottage, to create a multi-generational portrait of a farming family. But it was with the Bradshaw series that she really found her fictional feet, earning praise from readers, reviewers, her fellow crime writers and prize juries; she was twice shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier novel of the year award, and Missing, Presumed was selected for a slot in the Richard & Judy Book Club. A great admirer of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie novels, she too had the ability of combining strong characterisation with social commentary, and folding both into a compelling plot.

She faced challenges that, like the poster she popularised, required stoicism and patience. Steiner suffered from a hereditary and degenerative sight condition, retinitis pigmentosa, which was diagnosed in childhood and worsened in adult life; in 2013, she was registered blind. Her friend the novelist Lissa Evans described fast-paced walks on Hampstead Heath, in which she would forget that Steiner had little vision, so engrossed were they both in their conversation; she was, said Evans, “so clever and funny, straightforward and kind, warm yet caustic, penetrating yet easy to talk to, a huge presence in an ordinary-sized person”.

In a piece for the Independent on Sunday about her blindness that cited Milton, Joyce and the mythological figure Tiresias, Steiner wrote fascinatingly about the links between her condition and writing, saying: “You are reliant on another’s help. You cannot dictate – you must wait. This is both frightening and difficult but, I believe, is of service to the writer.” It allowed her to appreciate, she was convinced, the sometimes invisible suffering of others.

The greatest blow was the discovery, in May 2019, of a grade 4 glioblastoma, after which she underwent six hours of brain surgery and months of radiation and chemotherapy; she wrote movingly of her situation both on social media and in print, retaining great humour even in exceptionally dark times.

She is survived by her husband and sons, her sister, Kate, and brother, Michael, and her parents.

🔔 Susan Elizabeth Steiner, writer and journalist, born 29 June 1971; died 2 July 2022

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[girlactionfigure]

“I give my child in your care, raise my child as if it were yours.”

These words were written by the mother of a six year old Jewish girl Rami, who was smuggled out of the Jewish ghetto in Nazi occupied Warsaw, Poland, during the Second World War. Little Rami was placed into foster care with her mother’s Polish friends on the Aryan side of the city and, unlike her mother, ultimately survived the war. The person who was instrumental in making Rami’s survival possible was a woman named Irena Sendler, a social worker and Polish resistance operative who helped save 2,500 Jewish children like Rami during the Holocaust.

Beginnings

Irena was born in 1910 in Warsaw into a Roman Catholic family. Her father, Stanislaw Krzyzanowski was a physician and a researcher in infectious diseases. He was a humanitarian and an idealist, who helped found the Polish Socialist Party. He believed in democracy, equal rights, universal health care, and an end to child labor, and was even expelled from university in Poland for leading strikes and protests advocating for those goals.

When Irena was two, the family moved outside of Warsaw, to the village of Otwock, where Stanislaw set up his practice for the treatment of tuberculosis. The village was fifty percent Jewish, and that percentage included the poorest of residents. Unlike other doctors in the area, Stanislaw treated everyone, the rich and poor alike, despite the poor not being able to pay. “If someone else is drowning, you have to give a hand,” he would often say.

Irena grew up in close contact with the Jewish villagers. She played with their children, and by age six even spoke fluent Yiddish. At home Irena’s family life was warm and nurturing. Stanislaw loved his little girl very much and hugged and kissed her so often that Irena’s aunts would warn him not to spoil her. “We don’t know what her life will be like,” he’d reply. “Maybe my hugs will be her best memory.”

In 1916 an epidemic of typhoid fever swept through the village and Stanislaw chose to be on the front lines. Typhoid, a bacterial disease spread through food, water, and close contact with infected persons, was especially prevalent in poor communities with bad sanitation. Unlike other well off villagers who isolated themselves to avoid contact with the sick, Stanislaw continued caring for patients and later that year succumbed to the disease himself. He died shortly after.

But Stanislaw’s spirit lived on in his daughter, and as Irena matured she resembled her father more and more in her beliefs and actions. She majored in social welfare at the University of Warsaw, and interned in charitable welfare clinics where the poor could get a free education and legal assistance. She also started becoming more politically involved, joining the Polish Socialist Party that her father helped start and beginning to engage in protests and activism herself.

In 1935 anti-Semitic sentiment was on the rise in Poland, and at Polish universities an informal rule nicknamed the “bench ghetto” was introduced. “A rule was established at the University segregating the Catholics from the Jewish students,” Irena recalled. “The Catholics were to sit on the chairs to the right and Jews on the chairs to the left. I always sat with Jews and, therefore, I was beaten by anti-Semites together with Jewish students.”

Later, like her father, Irena was suspended from university for boycotting the labeling of campus identity cards with the word “Aryan” to differentiate non-Jewish students from Jewish ones. “I was taught since my earliest years that people are either good or bad. Their race, nationality, and religion do not matter — what matters is the person.”

The War

On September 1, 1939, after the signing of a non-aggression pact between themselves, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. The country was split in half, with the eastern side going to Soviet Union and the western to the Nazis. Warsaw fell to the Nazis.

Overnight Jews became second class citizens in Warsaw. They couldn’t hold state or government positions, couldn’t own businesses, they had to register ownership of property, and lost access to their bank accounts.

Barred from offering social services to the Jewish population officially, Irena with a few friends began to circumvent the rules by faking paperwork in order to do so. This was the beginning of Irena’s resistance operations. Soon Irena and her resistance cell were providing money, food, and clothing to thousands of Jews in Warsaw.

A year after the invasion, moving forward with their ultimate goal of Jewish genocide, the Nazis established a ghetto for Warsaw’s Jews. 350,000 Jews, nearly 30% of the city’s entire population, were imprisoned in a 1.3 square mile ghetto. The ghetto was surrounded by a ten foot tall brick wall crowned with ribbons of barbed wire.

Irena sprang into action looking for blank documents that could give Aryan identities to Jewish friends destined for the ghetto. And once the ghettoization of Jews was complete, she continued helping in any way she could.

Life in the ghetto was miserable. The Nazis rationed roughly 200 calories of food per person per day. Death by starvation was common. Sanitation was terrible with refuse and human corpses littering the streets. There was a shortage of soap, clothing, and the means to heat living spaces. Many people froze to death. Disease was everywhere, including tuberculosis, dysentery, spotted fever, and typhoid fever, the same disease that claimed Irena’s father’s life.

But Irena was undaunted. Because of her work with Warsaw’s Department of Health and Social Services, she received a pass from the Epidemic Control Department that allowed her official passage in and out of the ghetto. She immediately began making daily visits, sometimes multiple per day, to smuggle food, money, and doses of typhus vaccine into the ghetto. She would hide items in the false bottom of her bag, or in small pockets sewn into a padded bra. Many women had their bras altered with padding and pockets. “It was a joke in wartime Warsaw that women’s breasts had grown dramatically everywhere in the city since the arrival of the Germans.”

Children

Sometimes Irena would smuggle candy or dolls for the ghetto’s children. Children were particularly vulnerable in the ghetto, succumbing faster to malnutrition, freezing, and to more varied diseases than adults. Some families facing starvation relied on their children to obtain food by smuggling it from the Aryan side of the city. Other families sent children across the wall hoping they would fare better as orphans on the Aryan side than inside the ghetto. In the beginning of 1942, about 4,000 children lived on the streets of the Aryan side. 2,000 of them were Jewish.

That year, fearing Nazi soldiers’ contamination with typhus and other diseases from children living on the street, the chief of the Nazi police ordered for Warsaw’s social services to get all homeless children on the Aryan side of the city off the streets and into orphanages and other local institutions. The roundups yielded a number of Jewish children, many of whom Irena and her network helped disappear into private homes and orphanages under false Polish identities. But there were thirty two Jewish kids that could not be placed, and so, in order to save them from execution, Irena had to smuggle them back into the ghetto. Knowing what was awaiting them there, Irena was devastated at not having an alternative solution. She vowed to never again return a single child to the ghetto, and started, along with her associates, an operation to smuggle Jewish children out of the ghetto and to provide them with false Polish identities and caring homes on the Aryan side of the city.

The price for helping a Jewish child in wartime Warsaw was execution, and Irena and her core group of twenty to twenty five mostly women operatives, risked their lives daily to save each and every child. Children were smuggled out of the ghetto in a variety of ways. There were secret routes to the Aryan side of the city via sewers and underground corridors. Children were able to get across by sneaking through an old courthouse and a Catholic church that stood on the border of the ghetto. Irena’s epidemic control pass allowed her to officially bring a child out of the ghetto for treatment if they were ill with tuberculosis. Children with or without the disease were brought out this way. Some kids were hidden in ambulances, under floorboards or dirty rags, or in coffins along with dead bodies. The Nazis were terrified of disease and performed only cursory checks before waving ambulances through. The youngest, including babies, had to be sedated with tranquilizers and hidden in trucks in toolboxes, in sacks masquerading as laundry or potatoes, or under vegetable boxes. Some were left in briefcases on early morning streetcars that ran in and out of the ghetto and later picked up by a friend.

Once out of the ghetto, children had to take on new identities in order to integrate into Polish society. Sometimes documents were faked, other times legitimate blanks could be found. If children looked too Jewish, they had makeovers to make them look more Polish. Sometimes it was as easy as dying a child’s hair, other times Jewish boys had to become girls in order to prevent the Nazi authorities from checking for circumcisions.

Escaped children went on to live in homes of friends, in convents, in group homes, orphanages, or religious institutions, and Irena kept a list of each and every child placed with the hope of reuniting them with families after the war. She encoded and recorded only the most essential information such as names, addresses, and an account of any money that parents gave to help with caretaking on cigarette paper that nightly she prepared to throw out of her kitchen window in case the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, ever came looking for her. Eventually, when it became too dangerous to keep the list at home, she buried it in glass bottles under an apple tree in a friend’s garden.

By this time Irena was already having nightmares on a regular basis. Not only did she worry about the children who would certainly be killed if they were ever discovered, she also worried about the families that were risking their lives to hide them. On top of everything, Irena was the sole person who knew the detailed histories of all the smuggled children. If anything were to happen to her, that information would be irretrievable.

Capture

In the fall of 1943, the Gestapo found and arrested a woman who ran a laundrette that the resistance used as a drop-off point for messages and packages. Charged with conspiring with the resistance, the woman was tortured and ultimately broke, giving up names of resistance operatives. One of those names was Irena Sendler’s. Days after, the Gestapo pounded on Irena’s door in the middle of the night. She was arrested, beaten, interrogated, and sent to Pawiak, a secret prison for intelligentsia and those politically involved. Most prisoners interned at Pawiak never left alive.

The Gestapo repeatedly tortured Irena for information, breaking her legs and feet, and permanently scarring her body. Despite the agony, Irena never said a word. She knew what divulging information would mean, a death sentence for thousands of children, friends and families. As luck would have it, the Gestapo thought they had captured only a fringe resistance operative, not the head of children’s division of the resistance movement, which meant Irena received no special treatment. Certainly if they realized who they were dealing with, they would have taken extra measures.

Irena lived at the prison for four months until her execution date was set for January 20, 1944. During the days, when she was not being tortured for information, Irena worked as a washerwoman cleaning soiled Nazi underwear. One day, when the Nazis found the laundry work not to their satisfaction, they lined up all the washerwomen against a wall and shot in the head every other one. Irena was one of the ones who survived.

On the morning of January 20th, a Nazi officer came to take Irena to the courtyard where she was to be shot. She was led down a corridor, but instead of being taken into the waiting room where she was to await her execution, the officer led her out of the prison and into the street. He released her and told her to run. As Irena later found out her friends in the resistance had bribed the Nazi with what today amounts to $100,000 to secure her escape.

End of the war and legacy

Once free, Irena went into hiding, and soon resumed her operations with the resistance. She continued rising in ranks until she was running meetings and setting agendas. In the summer of 1944, with the Soviets advancing, and the Nazis retreating, the Polish resistance army attempted to liberate Warsaw. They fought for two months, but were ultimately defeated by the Nazis. In response to the uprising, Heinrich Himmler, a most high ranking SS officer and the person responsible for forming and operating Nazi death camps, gave the order to kill all Polish residents of Warsaw and to level the entire city. “The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth…,” he ordered. “No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation.” Ultimately more than 400,000 people were killed and eighty percent of Warsaw was destroyed by the retreating Nazi army. Irena miraculously survived the destruction.

After the Nazis were driven out of Warsaw, Irena and a friend went to dig up the list of children they had hidden in bottles. They searched and searched for the tree under which the list was buried, but found only rubble. Irena then set out, along with her friends, to recreate the list from memory. She continued working for decades helping reunite children with their families, and even adopted two orphaned Jewish girls herself.

Irena lived until 98, and passed away in Warsaw in 2008. Until the very end of her life she felt that she did not do enough to help children during the war.

Five years before her death Irena received Poland’s highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, but she never enjoyed being called a hero.

“Let me stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes… Indeed, that term irritates me greatly.” 

“Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal.”

The children Irena saved during the war continued to call and visit her until the end of her life.

Historical Snapshots

[abusivelittlebunny]

How do you think Tommy's men tried to woo him in the period AU? I can imagine Lord Changretta turning up at the Shelby house on the gorgeous black horse from an earlier ask ramble and offering Tommy a ride.

Ooooh I could talk about this for quite a while that's for sure. Sorry for all my earlier unanswered asks, I'm shifting into period au mode.

Period AU moodboard

Let's take step by step.

Freddie, his best friend since childhood and of equal dirt poor social status, is the first one to court Tommy; they're still very young when it starts, Freddie 16 and Tommy 15, and Tommy thinks at first it's all a joke when Freddie comes to his house with a huge bouquet of wild flowers, that he shoves into Tommy's hands, and a basketful of cheese and meat and wine (already half drunk) that he presents to Arthur Sr as he officially asks for Tommy's hand in marriage. Tommy hits him on the shoulder and harshly whispers what is wrong with him but Sr just takes the basket with a heavy swig from the wine and says Freddie boy is a good lad... but. And his tone turns ice cold when he asks how does a little come from nothing factory worker kid supports himself a wife that can also bring nothing to the union? Despite Freddie's protests of how love is all that matters, Sr promptly kicks Freddie out the door, keeping the presents. Freddie still brings him flowers and meets him in the barn to press himself between Tommy's warm thighs and whisper against his lips how he'll gather enough money that they could marry and start again somewhere far away but Tommy just kisses the words out of his mouth and wraps his legs around him tighter to stop him from talking any more nonsense.

Campbell, similarly to how it was in my Pretty boy au, would be in similar new to town high police status as in the show, - let's say chief inspector although I am not at all familiar with the Victorian police system, - and would threaten Tommy's family with jail and even hanging for their illegal activities when Tommy comes back home from horse riding with his hair windswept, his cheeks flushed, his mouth cherry red and gasping for air, the sweat on his pretty freckled skin glistening and making his thin shirt stick to his body indecently and Campbell's brain short circuits from such beauty and stops midsentence of shouting at Sr to watch Tommy drink some fresh cold milk with trickles sliding from the corner of his whorish lips. When Tommy looks up at him with a questioning arch of his brow and a quick look over Campbell's frame the old man loses it and tells Sr that he will be lenient and even generous with not pressing charges against them if he would let the inspector borrow his son (the pretty one) for a few hours every week. From his tone and the way his eyes glued themselves to Tommy's waist as he left the room made it obvious that what Campbell had in mind was clearly prostitution but Sr didn't mind one bit if that meant all of them will be safe (And he doesn't have to skip town again). Tommy begrudgingly obliges, not outright refuses, because if he can help his family with selling his body so be it, besides, the old pig is not that bad to look at and Tommy has always been kind of interested in what it would feel like to lie with an older man, Freddie too fast and eager. Turns out it's quite satisfactory if not for the occasional beatings and rough treatment, Campbell can also be gentle and loving in bed if they pretend their arrangement is not a transaction. Campbell still uses him this way but takes Tommy to the theatre and tea rooms beforehand now days to make it more of a date and will murmur about how Tommy needs to act more decent or people will believe his wife is an unruly brat. Tommy curiously tips his head at these comments and reminds the inspector of how he's not his wife to which Campbell replies to as "No, not yet, certainly." But he already has the emerald engagement ring in his pocket.

Kimber didn't mean to court Tommy at first, he was just annoyed with the little gypsy' s operation of forcefully taking more of his land's outskirts with his little gang but then when confronting the little street rat Tommy bat his pretty eyelashes, bit at his plump lip as he talked in a honey sweet tone about how he admired Mr Kimber, the biggest land owner around town and how he could offer something as well so they could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement while opening his shirt collar. Who was Kimber to refuse bending the tight little tart over his billard table and giving it to him as he deserved? Only Tommy expected something a bit bigger and left the "meeting" quite frustrated, unlike Kimber, who got very quickly addicted to the sweet little thing withering under him which he took as more of squirming from the stretch while truthfully Tommy just tried to angle his mediocre prick to at least graze at his sweet spot. Tommy planned it to be a one time thing, enough to sate Kimber to carefully overthrow him and take all his land, Campbell would turn a blind eye, but things didn't go quite as he planned. Kimber wanted his ass hand in marriage, never met someone quite as pretty and slutty eager for his company and decided to keep the pretty little doll, offering Arthur Sr steadily rising sums for his son which Sr would be eager to take if not for Tommy ferociously fighting against it. He won't be locked down with such a repulsive 5 inch man.

Alfie came in the picture right after Kimber's first marital offer. Tommy knew Kimber was the most influential business man in town but he knew there must be some kind of rival of his, that could easily overpower him if provoked. Tommy hatched a plan to find this rival, pursue him to overthrow Kimber and strike a deal with him. His previous plan of overthrowing Kimber himself was much more difficult now as he was about to be sold off to him and he has to avoid the engagement at all cost. Mr Alfie Solomons, influential bakery chain and factory owner, also renowned scholar seemed to be the ideal help for that. Only Alfie had little to no interest in Kimber's empire, finding Birmingham no more than a shithole and reluctant to even agree to see Tommy. But oh when he saw Tommy his priorities immediately changed. Alfie was much more of an equal if not superior in intellect than Tommy anticipated and the man agreed to bankrupt Mr Kimber slowly, - it takes a bit of time treacle innit -, and told Tommy not to worry about the marriage. It's not like he'd let such an exotic flower slip out of his grasp. Tommy struck a deal with Mr Solomons on expanding the man's business beyond London and helping him with his people whenever called upon but Tommy was planning complete independency behind the scenes and that just won't do innit so the next time Kimber makes his offer to Sr at a quaint social gathering after a horse race he generously invited the Shelby family to, Alfie decides to give a visit as well, although uninvited, and raise his glass to make his own offering, tenfold of what Kimber said, and smirk at his ugly mug as he blurted out a slightly bigger price and their match went onward until Alfie said a number so high, he could buy all of Birmingham. Kimber crumbled to the ground in shame and said he'll take his offer back to which Alfie cheerfully turned to Tommy and asked "what you say sweetie? Wanna marry me?" Tommy gaped at him but shook his head that if he could he would like to think the offer over but now that Kimber publicly took back his offer it would give him time before the man would try again. Alfie just smirks that of course he hasn't even started courting him yet. Alfie's courting is fortnightly visits to London with museums, theatre and restaurants, not to mention the grand fucks, with weekly gifts of freshly baked goods and rum for the Shelby family that Sr scoffs at but accepts because it's not outright cash. But Alfie is patient. He knows that one way or another Tommy will want him just like he wants the cheeky little tart.

Luca is a more complex love interest. I'd like to imagine him as this Italian Lord planning to buy some business and land in England and while he's at it he might as well go hunting with some business partners... right where Tommy likes to horseride. So imagine Luca's surprise when he takes his horse down to the nearby stream to let it drink a bit, tired from all the hunting, and see this pretty little forest fae looking delicate creature bathing in the stream with his clothes and horse next to a tree giving just enough share for Luca to peek at the gorgeous boy without being instantly noticed. However he could barely hold back his desire and stepped right up to the edge of the stream to be closer and Tommy noticed, giving him quite the fright. Tommy rushed to get away and get his clothes but Luca easily caught him and picked him off the ground, wrapping him in his coat and chuckling at Tommy's meagre attempts to fight back. Tommy fumed and cursed, but also wildly blushed and not giving a serious struggle, since the handsome stranger didn't seem to want to hurt him, just hold him close and feel him up while sighing about what an exquisite little creature he was. Tommy yelped as he was put on Luca's horse and taken home like one of the wilds the men have hunted to Luca's new estate. Luca revealed his social status when he dressed Tommy in fine clothes to dine with him and Tommy didn't mind the luxury and pleasure filled weekend they spent together but did request to be let home after 4 days. Luca obliged, his beloved's happiness was most important after all, but began courting Tommy soon after, showing up in front of his house to take him to his estate almost every week and sending him flowers with expensive pastries and foods to win the family over. Tommy was quite surprised when Luca showed up with a huge black horse as a present to him but blushed wildly when Luca explained it's a gift to remember him by "Every time this beast is between your delicious thighs, I want you to think of me, as you ride it as expertly as you would me, amore mio." Luca presents Tommy with different engagement rings or jewelry or fine clothing with every visit, keen on buying the affection that Tommy feels for him for free.

James oh boy James. As I said before in a previous Ask, James would be some royal nephew or cousin so basically the biggest fish Tommy could catch among his suitors. They meet when James is travelling to meet some royal relative and his carriage breaks down - if it was maybe Johnny Dogs's aristocrat trap to rob them Tommy doesn't mention it - and Tommy rides by on his horse and offers his help with some financial help in exchange. It should be obvious to James that this was basically a hit but he's too enchanted with Tommy's beauty he doesn't even care. Tommy can see that the boy is harmless and cute an idiot and takes pity on him and doesn't let the others raid him and hides him away in the barn with his fancy carriage to be fixed (and also heavily de-decorated) by Curly and let's him spend the night in the hayloft where Tommy has his secret room. It's basically just blankets and pillows with some candlelight but James doesn't mind with Tommy helping him out of his fancy clothes to slip into something.... more comfortable. Tommy sees the boy's eagerness and he gives into him for the night, riding him with his voice muffled by their kisses so no one comes to investigate. Tommy ushers James out come dawn, if his family sees the little duke his life surely will be threatened but James can't be scraped off so easily. The boy comes back the next day with plenty of gifts for the family to thank Tommy's good heart and proposes on the spot. Tommy knows such an offer would be a lifetime's regret to miss but he still insists on being formally courted for pride's sake. James visits most often, with gifts aplenty and his affection growing by the second and it's hard not to fall in love with someone so charming and a couple of weeks later Tommy accepts the sapphire engagement ring. He knows he would be safe and in control with James as his husband even if the royals are strictly against it and his family will be in comfortable safety. James is also needy but is lenient to let Tommy do as he pleases which makes the other men feel as if Tommy was still on the market, courting him and pampering him while he's already married. The other men like to say that James is just a boy, not a man, so their frequent visits are justified but Tommy just leads them by their cocks just to get what he wants with James by his side as his loyal dog and greatest dear.

This au is so good I'm mad.

[thejolexgroupchat]

Would love to see a fic of prompt #57 !!! (“So stick that in your juice box and suck it.” ) I have no idea what it would be like but it just sounds fun ahaha

We absolutely LOVE the prompts you all sent us. This fic was written by Nina @doc-pickles and Leya @iamtrebleclefstories

Enjoy the first of many collaborative fics from The Group Chat!

the one with the juice box

It was an unusually hot May day in Seattle, meaning the ER was filled with heat stroke patients that kept everyone busy. Alex had been running back and forth from the peds floor to the ER all day, checking in on new patients while still maintaining his normal routine. To be honest, he was exhausted and all he wanted was to settle in for lunch with his wife. He hadn’t seen her since they’d walked in together almost four hours ago, which wasn’t unusual, but she usually popped by to see him at least once or twice. 

Clocking off for his lunch, Alex wandered down towards the main surgical floor in search of his wife. She’d seemed okay when they were getting ready for the day, extreme morning sickness turned to only an occasional swell of nausea now that she was in her second trimester. Still, Alex couldn’t help the worry for his wife that wound itself through his body. He knew that the pregnancy was taking a toll on her, both physically and emotionally, so, although he was sure she was going to be fine, he couldn't help but worry. 

After searching and finally asking a few nurses he’d passed, he found Jo laying on an empty gurney in one of the quieter hallways. She wasn’t asleep, just laying on her back and glaring at the ceiling with the most adorable angry pout Alex had ever seen. He smiled because the position she was lying in allowed him to see the tiniest curve of her stomach, so small and barely there that he was probably the only one who noticed.

He came up behind her and pressed a tender kiss on her forehead, “Hi.”

“Shut up,” Jo scowled.

“What?” Alex asked, a puzzled look on his face. “All I did was say hi. You can’t be mad at me for that.”

“I’m not mad because you said hi,” Jo rolled her eyes. “I’m mad at you because you did this to me. You knocked me up and now I can barely stand without feeling like I’m going to fall over.”

Alex wanted to laugh, honestly. But he knew if he did, he’d end up in the doghouse. Jo’s hormones had been a whirlwind lately. Most days, he teetered on the edge of saying something equally snarky back or just taking it in stride. Today, he decided to contain himself, “You’re not dizzy because you’re pregnant. Well, it’s not the only reason you’re dizzy. You’re dizzy because you’ve barely eaten anything all day. This morning when I made breakfast, you almost bit my head off for placing eggs in front of you, and proceeded to tell me how you couldn’t stand the smell and didn’t want to eat anything. I had to practically shove that piece of toast down your throat.”

“It’s still kind of your fault. Because if I weren’t pregnant, then I wouldn’t have weird food aversions that keep me from eating.” Jo pointed out. 

“As far as I remember, you’re the one who got us into this situation. You stopped taking your pills, and I told you that I didn’t have a condom but you said and I quote, ‘I don’t care. I’m naked and horny, stop stalling and just stick it in me.’ So really, you did this to yourself,” Alex shrugged.

“Whatever,” Jo glared at her husband. “What do you want?”

“I was wondering if you wanted to come eat lunch with me,” Alex asked sweetly, knowing if he won Jo over with his charm she might not realize he was just trying to get food into her over exerted body. 

“I honestly don’t know if I can even get up from this gurney,” Jo admitted, eyes moving up to meet Alex’s. He could see just from looking at her how much of a toll everything was taking on her. “I think I’m just gonna spend the next few months here, then I don’t have to move when I give birth.”

“I’ll carry you over there if I have to,” Alex offered, holding his hand out towards Jo. “Come on, I’ll help you up and hold your hand if you get dizzy.”

“Fine,” Jo huffed and held on to Alex as she let him help her off the gurney. 

They got to the cafeteria and Jo wrinkled her nose at the available options. Nothing looked appetizing, prompting her to grab an apple and banana and sit down at a table. Alex joined her a moment later, tray loaded with a burger, a sandwich, two bags of chips, and a fruit cup. He grabbed the burger and bit into it before fixing Jo with a pointed stare.

“Please for the love of god, force yourself to eat something besides an apple,” Alex pushed the tray towards Jo who glared at him. “If you don’t eat any of that, I’m putting you on my service so I can watch you all day and make sure you don’t pass out.”

“I’m not a resident anymore, you can force me on your service,” Jo pointed out, eyeing him warily.

“Dammit. That’s right. You’re a fellow,” Alex wrinkled his nose. “Well, good news is that I’m the chief, so technically I can have you follow me around all day.” 

Jo stared him down for a moment, Alex unfazed by his wife’s glare as he bit into his burger. Finally relenting, Jo grabbed a bag of chips and began to slowly eat them between bites of fruit. 

“You know I really hate you sometimes,” Jo mumbled as she took a final bite of the apple, a low groan escaping her as she did so. “Bailey would never abuse her power like this.”

“You didn’t know her when I was a resident,” Alex took another bite of his burger. “Are you sure you don’t want anything else? You can have some of my burger.”

“I’m sure,” Jo shook her head, a disgusted look crossing her face as she settled one hand onto her stomach. “Watching you eat is making me feel nauseous.”

Alex sighed, looking to Jo with a serious expression “This isn’t okay Jo. I can’t have you walking around the hospital alone without having eaten anything. You’re with me today, okay?”

“I don’t need to be babysat Alex, I can take care of myself,” Jo whined, crossing her arms across her chest like an angry toddler. “You don’t need to watch me 24/7.”

“You fell asleep on our bathroom floor yesterday after puking for 30 minutes. How about this,” Alex leaned in towards his wife with a small grin. “Shepherd and I have a Peds case together, you can come and help us so it doesn’t feel like I’m just dragging you around to make sure you don’t pass out in a storage closet.”

Jo eyed Alex warily, he was almost certain she was going to fight him on it, but he wore his ‘I’m the Chief don't test me right now’ expression well enough that she finally conceded. 

“Ugh… fine,” Jo groaned, standing and reaching for Alex’s hand. “Bailey’s out today anyway, so it’s not like I have anything better to do. But this is a one time thing!”

Alex joined Jo, one arm wrapped tightly around her shoulder as they headed towards the elevators. 

“That’s the spirit, your enthusiasm is appreciated,” Alex chuckled as they made their way to the Peds ward. “If you keep eating and stop feeling like shit, maybe I’ll let you do more things on your own.”

Alex led Jo into a patient room, Helm and Shepherd already speaking with a young girl and her mom. Amelia was explaining the procedure to them, so Alex and Jo hung back by the door until they’d finished. 

“I brought you something,” Alex whispered, handing a box of apple juice to Jo. “Figured you can keep your electrolytes up.”

Jo rolled her eyes as she snatched the juice box from Alex, sticking it in the pocket of her lab coat. "You're a pain in the ass. Stop hovering."

“Geez, Jo. Why are you so grumpy? I'm supposed to be the grumpy one,” Alex tried joking in hopes of lightening the mood. "You're the nice one in this relationship. "

“Did you forget that I'm literally carrying your genes right now?" Jo stared her husband down. "I am part Alex Karev at this moment and will continue to be for the next five and a half months, so you better get used to this.” 

Alex narrowed his eyes at her and reached for the juice box in her pocket. He removed the straw from the plastic and handed both items back to his wife, "Whatever. You can be mean and grumpy all you want, but you're carrying our kid and they need nutrients. So, stick that in your juice box and suck it."

Jo glared at Alex as she stuck the straw in the juice box. She was about to open her mouth in response when her smart remark was interrupted by Amelia calling Alex over to speak to the mom.

“Gracie and Delilah, this is Doctor Karev. He’s the best pediatric surgeon we have and he’s going to help me fix you up Gracie,” Amelia turned from Gracie to her mom. “Seriously this guy is a miracle worker, you’re lucky I convinced him to come consult.”

Alex pulled Delilah aside, explaining in more detail exactly what Gracie’s treatment plan would look like. He could tell she was worried, but hoped that he and Amelia could keep her nerves at bay. 

“Any other questions before we start doing labs?”

“Well just one,” Delilah blushed, eyelashes batting against her cheeks as she looked up to Alex. “Would it be inappropriate for me to ask for your number?”

Now, it’s not like Alex had never been hit on at work before. He had been, plenty of times, especially being a peds surgeon that dealt with scared moms daily. But since he’d been preoccupied with his Chief duties, lately he hadn’t spent enough time alone with moms to have them hit on him. Not to mention it was the first time Alex had experienced this since he’d gotten married. He also didn’t expect for his wife to be standing on the opposite side of the room when it happened.

So for that very reason, Alex blurted out the first thing that came to his mind, “I’m sleeping with her.”

Delilah looked stunned and a bit confused, scrunching her face as she looked to the doctors behind them, “Which one?”

Alex looked around the room and saw Jo standing with Amelia and Helm talking to Gracie. Jo clinked her juice box against Gracie’s and took a giant slurp. Alex turned back around to Delilah and motioned to Jo, “The one with the juice box.”

“Oh,” Delilah nodded, a strange expression on her face.

“Yeah,” Alex laughed awkwardly, his hand coming up to rub against his neck. “That’s my wife. My pregnant wife, sharing a juice box with your kid. Who I’m about to operate on.”

Alex and Delilah stood in an awkward silence that was only broken by Amelia announcing that Helm was going to run labs for Gracie before they prepped her for surgery. Alex quickly said his goodbyes to Gracie and Delilah, grabbing Jo’s arm pulling her out of the hospital room. 

“Geez you’re eager to get out of there,” Jo joked, sipping off her juice box as they walked down the hall. “What’s up with you?”

“She hit on me,” Alex blurted out, turning to Jo with a shocked expression. “Gracie’s mom hit on me.”

There was a beat of silence between the two before Jo burst into laughter, holding a hand to her chest as she tried to contain the giggles coming from her mouth. Jo wiped a few tears from her eyes, "What did you say? Please tell me you froze like an idiot."

Alex ran a hand over his face in hopes of disguising his embarrassment, "I told her I was sleeping with the one drinking the juice box." 

"Oh God… Alex," Jo's laughter started up again. She laughed in between her words. "Out of everything... that's what you said? Did you at least say that we're married. I don't need patients thinking I'm servicing the Chief." 

"Of course. I'm not that much of an idiot," Alex sighed. "I don't need patients thinking that the Chief of Surgery is a man-whore."

"He used to be," Jo muttered under her breath, nudging Alex with a smirk.

"Shut up," Alex stuck his tongue out, deciding to mess with Jo a bit. "I haven't been like that in years. You know that you're the only person I've slept with in the past six years? You can't exactly say the same."

"Hey!" Jo gasped and slapped Alex on the shoulder. "I thought we agreed to forget about that. Me sleeping with Schmidt was a momentary lapse in judgement. And I only did it because I was trying to get over you."

"Well, would you look at how that worked out," Alex poked her small bump lightly. "You ended up with me anyway."

"I know," Jo groaned. "And now I have to put up with you for the rest of my life."

"You love me," Alex bent down and gave Jo a quick peck on the lips. "Come on, we've got like forty-five minutes before we've got to meet Shepherd in the OR and I'm going to try to force a granola bar or something down your throat."

"We've got forty-five minutes free and all you want to do is make sure I eat something?" Jo shook her head in disappointment. "Gosh, being Chief has really mellowed you out. Who are you and what have you done with Alex Karev?"

"Huh?" Alex looked at her in confusion. "What did you want to do with your free time?"

"Alex, come on. You can't be that clueless," Jo looked at him expectantly. Seeing that he wasn't going to catch on anytime soon, she decided to spell it out for him. "Dude. I'm fifteen weeks pregnant and my hormones are raging right now,"

A look of realization finally crossed Alex's face, "Oh… Oh! You wanna?"

"Yup," Jo nodded and looked at him with an expression that could only be described as hungrily. 

"I could be into that," Alex whispered. "Let's get out of here before someone sees me and decides that they need the Chief."

[sierraraeck]

How to Make Friends (Pt.1)

Spencer x OC Aundreya

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Summary: Spencer’s had a problem with Aundreya since the start. How is she going to earn his respect? Story four.

Category: Some angst, some fluff.

Warnings: Cussing. Quick mention of normal CM stuff and the quick retelling of two rough childhoods. Mentions of bullying.

Word Count: 5.3k

So I’d been going about this all wrong. The whole time that I’d observed the FBI from the outside, they all seemed to be strictly business. I knew they cared about each other but I never expected them to be family. I was going to have to start slowly nudging my way in if I ever wanted to earn respect and do what I was hired to do. I had to stop thinking about this like a co-worker situation and had to start thinking about it like a client situation.

I had good social skills, I just hadn’t been using them correctly thus far. Whenever I needed to talk to someone that was vital for my survival, or the survival of my ring or gang, I could always be very charming. Usually, I would take them to a high end restaurant and we would talk things over. That’s what I decided I needed to do with each member of the team. They were my clients, and I was going to sell them Aundreya Chambers.

The first person I decided to take to dinner was Aaron. He was the nicest to me, by force or by choice I didn’t know, but either way, he’d be the most inclined to accept my offer. Plus, if it was okay for the Unit Chief to go to dinner with me, hopefully it would show that it was okay for the rest of the team to go to dinner with me. The night with him went well. We talked about work of course, but I also got to know about his family. He already knew what happened to mine, so he didn’t ask about it. That’s probably another reason I picked him first. I knew I wouldn’t have to answer as many questions.

Next I asked Emily. She was the first to voluntarily share a personal story with me about her tattoo, and I figured she’d be the next I could get to accept. She was also a big personality on the team so getting to know her would only be helpful. Emily was a lot of fun to go out with. She ordered wine for us, something Aaron did not do, and we talked until the restaurant closed at 11. I learned about her childhood, she taught me some French, and I heard all about her new cat, Sergio. She didn’t tell me about her time with Interpol (a fact I’d learned when I was privately investigating each member), which I knew she wouldn’t, but it was still interesting hearing about everything else she’d done. She asked me about my childhood so I told her and got the same sappy reaction I got from everyone. As much as I hated being pitied, I needed the team to soften their view of me. My childhood story was the most efficient way to do that.

After that, I asked Penelope, then David, then Jennifer. That’s when the easy part ended.

By the time I got to Derek, he already knew I was going to ask. Apparently, the rest of the team had already filled him in. I was just curious to see how much they told him. He clearly wasn’t ashamed to let on that he’d heard a lot, because he started asking me deeper questions, skipping over the surface level talk. I didn’t mind. Why repeat the same conversation I’d already had four times? For the first hour, he didn’t have any reaction towards what I told him, but as my backstory kept going, I could tell that he was softening up, just like everyone else. However, I saw something different in his eyes that I hadn’t in the others’. He was relating to me. He finally let me ask him questions, and I learned about his father’s death, how it was living with three girls, and how he worked hard to move up the ranks in Chicago PD to eventually get to the FBI. He didn’t neglect to remind me how much of a pain in his ass I was though, running around as The Figure. I joked that I made him a better investigator and he finally cracked a smile.

So that left one more person to win over. Doctor Spencer Reid. I was leaving the best, and the hardest, for last.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

I was sitting with Derek and Emily while I waited for Spencer to show up.

“So is it finally pretty boy’s turn to have to suffer through dinner with you?” Morgan teased.

“Oh come on. You know you enjoyed my company,” I said to him with a wink. Ever since getting to know one another better, Morgan was more inclined to tease me like he had when we first met.

“Or maybe you just aren’t as good at profiling as you think,” Derek replied.

“Oh, there he is,” Emily said before I could respond. I watched Spencer casually walk into the bullpen, then pick up the pace when he saw me watching. And those goddamn back muscles were twitching again.

Look, I understand that I make people uncomfortable. Some I make really uncomfortable. And I know that Reid is kind of awkward around a lot of people, but come on. After five weeks of me constantly being around, he still could barely stand to be in the same room as me. What was going on?

He rushed right past us to his own desk, not even stopping to say hi to Derek or Emily.

“Woah, woah woah. What’s going on, kid? Where’s the fire?” Morgan said, brow furrowed. I gave Emily a knowing look.

“Nothing. No fire,” Reid said, setting his bag down, then quickly moving toward the pot of coffee across the room from us.

Derek turned to look at me. “You sure you want to take him out?”

“We’ll see. First I gotta keep him in my vicinity long enough so I can actually ask him,” I retorted.

“What? Three seconds isn’t long enough to ask him to dinner?” Morgan said sarcastically. I rolled my eyes at him and sighed.

“What is it?” Prentiss asked.

I laughed. “I’ve been in a gang, an underground ring, drugged, hunted by the police, trapped by the FBI, and sent to prison. But of all things, what’s really going to stop me in my tracks … is an angry genius?”

Morgan laughed with me. “He can be pretty feisty.”

“But hey. You have made it all the way to the FBI, far enough so that you can even consider that a problem of yours,” Prentiss pointed out. I nodded along as she spoke, “And you're still alive.”

“That’s true,” I agreed. “I mean, it only cost me four ER visits, three ribs, two bullets, and a knife. Well, and now an angry genius.” Both of them whipped their heads toward me, shock taking over their face. I wish I could have captured their priceless reactions on tape.

“W-Wh-What?” Derek said through a confused laugh. Emily just stared at me open mouthed.

“But you’re right,” I casually continued, “being alive is important.”

“Guys we have a case,” Hotch strode into the room, holding up a case file. Morgan and Prentiss were still just staring at me. I tilted one side of my mouth up and shrugged at them, leaving our spot to head to the briefing room.

“You can’t just leave us hanging like that?” Derek called after me.

I turned around while walking so I could face them, putting my hands up in surrender. I tried to sound as innocent as possible. “We have a case.”

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

The case was standard, you know, just your usual headless bodies in a lake. The unsub was quickly devolving, so it wouldn’t be long until he made a mistake and we could catch him. I was getting the silent treatment from Reid, as always. On day two, him and Jareau went on air to alert people in the area.

The very next day, we had an odd visitor come into the precinct. And by ‘we’ I mean ‘Reid’. She was about average height, blonde, probably five years Spencer’s senior, and enthusiastic. Too enthusiastic for a person in a precinct.

She walked right up to him and started talking to him. I couldn’t really hear what they were talking about, and I couldn’t see her face because Spencer’s back was shielding it. Across the room, I saw JJ look over at them, but then quickly dismiss it. I was about to do the same when a familiar sight caught my eye. Spencer’s back was twitching.

He had a variety of tells of discomfort, but when he wanted to, he could keep himself completely composed. Except for his back muscles. They had become the number one thing I looked for every time I saw him, because every single time, they told me he was uncomfortable.

The longer he talked to this woman, the worse the twitching became. I was initially going to just leave it alone and let him figure it out, but my curiosity got the best of me. Who was she and why was he so uneasy?

I decided I’d pull one of the oldest tricks in the book, and hoped he’d pick up on it.

I approached the two of them, placing my left hand on Spencer’s right shoulder blade, slowly moving it up his back to rest on his shoulder. I knew he had a germ thing, so I didn’t want to get too cozy. I interlaced my fingers so it looked like I was leaning on him. I could feel the twitching beneath my fingertips, but he didn’t flinch or faulter at my sudden presence. I peered up at him through my eyelashes. “Hey,” I tried to sound as seductive as possible. “Who’s this?”

He cleared his throat. “Oh, uh, this is-”

“I’m Kristy,” Kristy said, holding her hand out to me. I ignored it and instead looked her over.

“I wasn’t asking you, sweetie,” I said. She opened her mouth and let out a noise of offense. She practically had the words ‘shallow bitch’ written on her forehead. I turned my attention back to Spencer.

“She and I went to CalTech together,” his voice was dry and he swallowed, like he was in desperate need of water. I hadn’t gotten the whole story, but I knew that he was relentlessly bullied in high school, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued on in college. If I had to guess, this girl fell into that category.

“Oh really?” I asked. I turned toward her again and she nodded at me eagerly. The level of fake radiating off of her definitely equalled ‘mean girl’, which to me meant she deserved to taste some of her own medicine. I aimed to be as demeaning as possible. “So, Kathy-”

“Actually, my name is Kristy.”

“Whatever,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes. I could already tell I was getting under her skin. “What brings you in?”

“Well, I work for a magazine, The Triplehorn Tribune, you’ve probably heard of it-”

“Nope,” I interrupted. It took all of my willpower to not roll my eyes.

“Anyways,” she said slowly, about to continue on.

“Anyway,” I corrected. She looked at me confused. “You meant to say ‘anyway’. ‘Anyways’ isn’t a word and is grammatically incorrect.” Out of my peripheral, I saw Spencer quickly press his lips together, fighting a smile. I’d just pulled his signature move. At this point, JJ had looked back to see what was going on, and had nudged Prentiss to pay attention. It wouldn’t be long before the rest of the team was watching.

Meanwhile, Kristy-bitch was starting to fume. She released an annoyed breath through her teeth. “Anyway, I’m here because we want to do a story on what it’s like to be in the FBI. I saw Spencer on the tv yesterday and figured he’d be the perfect person to interview.”

“Oh, so you only want to talk to him now that he’s been on tv?” I asked.

“What? No! It’s not like that-”

“Then what is it like?” I asked. When she didn’t respond quickly enough for my liking, I decided I’d answer for her. “See, I think that you’re only here for you. I think that you got out of college and got a crappy job working for a crappy magazine. You want to be recognized and appreciated which means you need an interesting article. This serial killer thing would be big, but what would be even bigger would be interviewing one of the top profilers in the top unit of the FBI about the serial killer, who has also been on tv for press conferences. Lucky for you, this top profiler just so happens to be the easily manipulated kid you bullied in college, so you think that you can just show up here out of nowhere and request he give you the big break you supposedly deserve. How’m I doing so far?”

Her mouth dropped in unspoken shock. She was floundering and I was more than happy to let her. Behind her I saw the team and at least half of the precinct watching. I hadn’t noticed that Reid’s back stopped twitching for a while until it started back up again at the increased attention. I gently squeezed his shoulder, trying to help him calm back down. Kristy finally regained her ground.

“What are you, his possessive girlfriend?” she spat, incredulous.

“Something like that,” I said. I could barely get the words out before I was left speechless by the arm that wrapped around my waist. His hand landed just above my hip and subconsciously brought us closer together. I was surprised, even more so at the slight swimming in my head, but I forced myself to keep my wits about me. So he did figure out what I was going for. I smirked at her.

“Well why don’t you let Spencer speak for himself,” Kristy hissed at me.

“Why don’t you show Doctor Reid the respect you neglected to give him years ago,” I returned, just as fiery. I felt Spencer’s shoulders straighten just slightly at my comment. I removed my hands from his shoulder and reluctantly moved my body out of his grasp so that I could step forward and look down at her.

“Look, Cassy-”

“Kristy.”

“Whatever. You clearly are one of the bitches that thought it’d be funny to pick on the young kid in your class. You didn’t accept him for who he was then, so you sure as hell don’t deserve him for who he is now. I think you should go.” I stared her down, and I have to admit, girl’s got balls to continue to stand her ground.

“I’m only asking for a simple favor-” she started.

I took another step forward, cutting her off. “Back off, he doesn’t owe you anything!”

She took a step back, clearly surprised by my sudden change in volume. “You need to control your girlfriend! She’s a psycho!” She gave Reid a quick glance before marching toward the door.

“That’s what makes me good at catching them, Misty!” I called after her.

“My name is Kristy!” she yelled as she stamped out the door like a toddler. It made her look like the pathetic, insecure fool she was.

Once the door shut behind her, I couldn’t help but start laughing. I turned to look at Spencer who was still in shock. I scanned the room and saw that the entire precinct had stopped what they were doing to observe the scene that I helped create. I made eye contact with the rest of the team, all of whom were gaping at me. I stopped laughing.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, turning back to Spencer. I was starting to worry that I’d misread the whole situation and just caused something to go horribly wrong. “I hope you don’t mind that I did that. I could just tell that she was making you uncomfortable and I figured that I could-” I was cut off mid-sentence. Spencer had suddenly erupted in laughter, which triggered an entire laughing fit to wash over the whole precinct. Even Aaron was laughing, which never happened. I let the joyful feeling I’d felt moments ago fall back into my grasp.

“I absolutely didn’t mind you stepping in. You have nothing to apologize for,” he said to me with a smile. The first one I’d ever received from him. It was contagious and I couldn’t help but return it.

“Thank god, I was starting to worry. I’m glad you picked up on what I was putting down,” I stated.

“Oh, yeah. The fake girlfriend trick, one of the oldest in the book.”

“It was the best one I could think of on short notice,” I joked.

“How could you tell he was feeling uncomfortable?” Jennifer asked, approaching the two of us. The rest of the precinct had gone back to what they were doing, but the team’s attention was still on us.

“Yeah, I looked over at them and all I saw was the normal level of awkward,” Derek stated. Spencer glared at him.

“That’s because you were looking at him from the front,” I said, raising my eyebrows.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Reid asked, his voice raising an octave.

“It just means that I’ve gotten very accustomed to your tells of discomfort, from all angles.” The mood of the group shifted at my reminder of the reality that Reid still had a very high level of dislike for me.

“Sure, but that still doesn’t make sense. Reid does a great job composing himself, but I think we all know him well enough to detect if he’s uncomfortable,” JJ pressed. I just shrugged my shoulders, not really knowing how to respond.

“Okay, let’s refocus,” Hotch said to us with a serious nod. I could tell when I made eye contact with him that I was in trouble. “Aundreya, that was inappropriate.”

“I know. That was well deserved, though,” I pointed out, unapologetic.

Aaron toyed with a half smile and let out a sigh. “Let’s just get back to work?”

“Fine with me,” I said with a grin. I got a nod from him and Rossi, a smile from the ladies and a clap on the back from Morgan. Reid gave me a small, closed-lipped smile, and directed his attention back to the maps and pictures hanging on the board.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

It took us the next three days to find and catch the killer. Three days full of Reid avoiding me at all costs. Maybe I was crazy, maybe I was hallucinating, but I thought we had a moment. I thought that I’d done something good for once, something to prove to him that I wasn’t a terrible human. But no. Nope. Not a chance, because for the rest of that afternoon and the three days following, the avoidance was actually worse than it was before. I didn’t even think that was possible. It had earned me more respect from the rest of them, but not him himself. Did I embarrass him? Was he weirded out that I touched him? Was his loathing for me just that strong? It didn’t make any sense and by day three, I was at my wits end.

“Emily.” I stated.

“What?” she asked me.

“What did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Our profile is good and we hav-”

“No, not about the profile. About Reid.”

“Oh,” she said, seemingly surprised. “How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I get it, I’m bad news, but this feels like more. Was it something I said the other day with Kristy..?”

“Ha! So you do know her name,” she said with a grin. I rolled my eyes. She was trying to get me off topic.

“Seriously, though. He’s not this cold to everyone.”

“Well, he can be a hard person to get to know,” she said, avoiding the breadth of my questions.

“But not this hard?” I tried to finish.

“No, not usually,” she replied. She clearly knew something I didn’t, and was very hesitant to give it up.

“If you aren’t going to tell me, at least tell me it wasn’t something I did the other day.”

“No, not really.” She was keeping herself distracted with the pictures in front of us, even though they were useless considering the rest of the team was already headed to a barn where the unsub kept his victims before decapitating them.

I sighed. “Fine.”

She looked over at me. “Sorry.”

It was all she had to say.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

They ended up finding the killer in the barn with his next victim, and were forced to fire because he refused to put the machete down. It was late Thursday night when we were getting on the jet to go home. We were all exhausted.

“Shouldn’t you be doing something?” Derek came to ask me a few minutes into the ride.

“Huh?” I asked, completely confused.

“With pretty boy?” he prompted. I’d lost all hope, at that point, of ever getting to know him. Even after he thanked me for swooping in and saving him from that bitch, he still seemed utterly disinterested.

“Probably not,” I said, tiredness running through my voice. Other thing: since when did Derek Morgan suddenly care and become my friend? The dinners must really work. All the more reason to lift myself out of my chair and go talk to Reid.

Morgan was still staring at me expectantly.

“Ok, alright, I’m going,” I said, getting up. He raised his eyebrows at me and flashed me that pearly smile of his. It made me want to praise him and hit him all at the same time.

I walked over to where Reid was sitting, thankful that no one else decided to sit across from him.

“Friday or Saturday?” I asked.

He looked up at me, puzzled. “What?”

“Friday. Or Saturday?”

“What are you asking me for?”

“Why can’t you just answer the damn question?” I asked a little too harshly, sliding into the seat across from him. He leaned back in his chair, putting as much distance between us as he could without just getting up and leaving. It seemed to me he’d rather just be swallowed up by the wall.

“Look,” I tried starting over with a softer tone. “Clearly you have something against me. Something more than the criminal thing. I’ve been killing myself for the past six weeks trying to figure out what it is but I’m at a loss.”

He scoffed, “Yeah, I’m sure.”

That set me off. I was trying to be nice, make an effort, but he just kept shooting me down. So I decided I was done being nice.

“Okay, Doctor Reid. I’ve been refraining from judgements because, who knows? Maybe I remind you of someone who hurt you. Maybe I remind you of someone you lost. I don’t want to push it if that’s the case. And, hell! If anything, you guys are the ones who are supposed to be judging me, not the other way around. You all have a six to ten year head start on making connections with each other. I’ve been here for six weeks. I’ve been doing this dinner thing with everyone because I’m trying to get to know the members of this team. I mean, you are considered part of the team right?” I looked around the jet to the audience I knew I had. “He is considered a part of this team, right?” It was rhetorical and they all knew it. Even if it wasn’t, I think they were all too flabbergasted that I was going after their baby to actually answer. I turned back to him.

“Like, I understand that you are up here in ‘Genius Stratosphere’,” I said, waving my hand around above my head, “but if I were to make a list of all the team members, you would be on it, right?”

“Yes!” he finally answered, exasperated.

“Great. So go to dinner with me,” I said. It was the most compelling argument I could make in the moment.

“Why?”

I sighed. He was not making this easy for me. Not like I expected him to.

I tried to make my voice sound neutral again. “I’m just trying to get to know you. If you ever decide to stop acting like a little bitch about it, or you finally wanna help me out and tell what your problem is … or just tell me exactly what you need from me, even if that is avoidance, let me know. Because I’m getting pretty sick and tired of … all this,” I said, gesturing to the air. Spencer was looking down again, and I figured he would continue to ignore me.

I got halfway out of the seat and was about to turn away when he said, “Friday.” It was barely more than a whisper and he was still looking down when I turned to face him.

“What?” I demanded.

“Friday,” he said with more confidence this time, meeting my eyes.

“Spectacular choice,” I said, lacking any emotion. I reached for the napkin sitting next to his coffee cup and the pen I had in my jacket pocket. I scratched my number on it. “That’s my personal number. I gave it to everyone in case you can’t reach me on my work one or it is for something non-work related, which this occasion would be. Text me the place. I wouldn’t want you to have to suffer through bad food you didn’t like, as well,” I stated, crossing my arms. I walked back toward my seat, Morgan long since evacuated. I gaged the reactions around me as I walked, and clearly no one had ever talked to Reid like that before. It didn’t surprise me since he seemed like golden boy number one and no one ever had any reason to get short with him. But I didn’t feel bad. He’d treated me like a pile of shit, almost less than human, and I was over it. I was going to earn my respect from him one way or the other, and it was now up to him to decide. We were either going to be working friends, or working enemies.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

Spencer just sat there the rest of the plane ride home, not really being able to focus on the book in front of him. No one had ever snapped at him like that, or at least, not in the last few years, and definitely not from a teammate. But she was not their typical teammate. She was not their typical anything. He may have been in ‘Genius Stratosphere’ but she was in a whole new stratosphere of her own.

He didn’t know why she got to him so much. Well, he did, but he wasn’t willing to admit it. Not even to himself. Plus, he didn’t have to justify why he didn’t like a top-notch criminal. She’d killed people and that in itself was enough reason. But the fact that she seemed bothered by him not liking her, and her genuine confusion and interest as to what was going on struck a chord. Maybe he had been too harsh in his treatment of her.

Spencer was sitting there recounting all of their interactions, or lack thereof, and started to question himself. Especially once he got to their more recent interactions.

Reid was bewildered, which rarely ever happened, and it made him all the more annoyed. Why’d she step in to help me? Did she really mean everything she said? Why was her touch so calming? The last thought took him by surprise, and he tried to shake the feeling.

He could remember the way she just lightly brushed up against him, resting her hand on his shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. He could also tell that she was being as delicate and considerate of his ‘not-a-fan-of-touching’ thing as she could while also selling the illusion. He remembered how it felt to have his arm around her and that slight squeeze she gave him to let him know she was there to help…

He forced himself to snap out of it. He could hardly stand to be in the same room as her, yet having her right next to him was fine? It didn’t make any sense. But the one thought that was driving him crazier than the rest was why, out of all the people on the team, was she able to detect his discomfort better and faster than anyone else? Yes, like she said, she’d gotten quite used to seeing him uncomfortable, but so had the rest of the team. They’d known him for six years plus and she’d only known him for six weeks. How was it that they couldn’t pick up on it and she could? Had she really been paying that much attention to him?

No, he concluded, definitely not. Someone like Aundreya would not care enough to pay that much attention to me. She was probably just doing her job. She was very skilled, after all.

But he still felt weird.

Once the plane landed, Aundreya bolted like her life depended on it. She’d never been one for sticking around longer than necessary. It made sense, considering she had gotten used to avoiding the police and now she was constantly surrounded by, not just police, but FBI. The rest of the team slowly made their way to their cars, and Spencer decided to stop Derek and ask him about it.

“Hey Morgan,” he said. Derek turned around to face him.

“What’s up, pretty boy?”

“Have I really been that awful to her?” That caught Emily and JJ’s attention, who turned around to walk a few paces back to where Spencer and Derek were standing.

“Are you asking about Aundreya?” Derek asked. Spencer nodded. “I mean, I get where you’re coming from.”

“That wasn’t my question,” Reid pointed out. The three of them stared at him, but he waited for an answer.

“Maybe a little bit,” JJ said.

“Look, Reid, we all had reservations about her going into this. But Hotch was right, she’s had a troubled background but she’s not a horrible person. I think it would benefit both of you, and the team, if you just tried getting to know her,” Emily said. She was always so good at making sense out of every situation without seeming to take sides.

“I know. I just feel … weird about it,” Reid stated. It was hard for him to describe what he was feeling and what the issue was.

“I understand how you feel. I didn’t want to go to dinner either because I just kept telling myself that she’s a criminal and I didn’t want to get involved,” Derek said. Spencer was looking at him intently. “But it was actually kinda good. It helped me understand her, and it’s been a lot better coming to work now that I feel like I can at least somewhat rely on her to help us out.”

“I agree. Talking to each other will only help,” JJ reminded him. They were right. It would help him feel more comfortable at work if he felt more comfortable with her.

“Okay. Thank you,” he said to them. He turned to walk toward his car when Derek’s voice stopped him.

“Oh, and uh, Reid,” he said, “Clearly she’s willing to put in the effort to make it work. She did step in to help you out the other day. I don’t think a cold-hearted criminal would’ve done that.”

Spencer nodded at Derek and he nodded back. Spencer got into his car and started driving back to his apartment, trying to think of the best place he could, to meet Aundreya for dinner.

Part 2

[insomniastillcannotsleep]

A/B/O Verse Guide

Hey guys! I have a fairly particular version of A/B/O I use on my blogs that includes the use of some specific headcanons and ideas that may not be prevalent in other versions of A/B/O, so I figured I would compile everything into this handy little guide! Please feel free to message with any questions not answered here and I will update this verse accordingly. This is going to be a long one, so I’ll put the rest under the cut. 

NPP/ORA 

This is the one I’m asked about most frequently. We’ll start with the NPP. NPP stands for National Placement Party, and is the main political party in the country. They control the government and the media. Members of the NPP believe that all orientations have their place in society that must be fulfilled, and not doing so puts society at risk. Because the NPP runs the media, there is quite a lot of propaganda spread this way, and you can expect to see TV shows aimed at omegas such as well loved classics like Dora the Explorer... the omega-targeted show about a young omega learning skills to please her alpha, as she adventures to find a mate. 

Because this society is incredibly oppressive to omegas, it has led to many fringe groups, the only one that has taken off being the ORA - Omega Rights Activists. Omega Rights Activists have good ideals at heart, wanting equal rights for all orientations, but because of their tactics, they are seen as militant and often considered a threat to society. The ORA is known for handing out pamphlets, staging attacks on NPP properties and events, putting out inflammatory PSAs, and targeting stay at home omega parents, often door knocking and shoving their way inside once it has been answered to try and convince the omega inside that they are being abused. These tactics have essentially made the omega rights movement a joke in the eyes of “civilized society”. Because of these tactics, NPP events are closed to those without an NPP card. To become a card-carrying member, you must pass a test proving you understand the party’s values, and pay yearly dues. Anyone can become a card-carrying member.

O-Space

O-Space, also known as Omega Space, is similar to sub space. An omega can go into O-Space during foreplay or sex, and will become nearly unable to think, with hazy eyes, and a complete inability to disobey a direct order. Emotionally they become very vulnerable, and require a lot of aftercare when it ends, usually during knotting or shortly after. Behavior is similar to a heat, without any of the physical reactions such as becoming hot or sensitive to touch.

Societal Expectations and Laws

Orientation Presentation is very important in society, and can happen any time between birth and puberty, although it is very rare for it to occur before 5 years or after 15 years old. Often, but not always, you can guess what a child will present as based on their personality. When presentation occurs, the orientations are split up accordingly for their education, with alphas being given preferential treatment over betas, and omegas being given a different curriculum entirely. This curriculum does not teach subjects like reading or math, but instead teaches cooking and sewing. Omegas ARE allowed to go to college, but only for a degree in Omega Studies, where they learn additional skills to make them more attractive and useful for alphas. 

With the NPP in charge of lawmaking, there are quite a few discriminatory laws in place. Free Use is in effect at all times, meaning that any unmated omega is essentially “up for grabs” to any alpha that decides to take them. Omegas are expected to be homemakers and breeders, and to always be submissive. However, there are a few jobs that an omega can hold if they want or need to. Examples of these professions include servers, attendants, and seamstresses. It is illegal for an omega to have any position of power. Omegas are rarely found in offices as they distract workers, and one of the only trained jobs they are allowed is CNA.

Betas have much fewer restrictions, being that they are essentially regular human beings. Their career opportunities are much richer, but tend towards opportunities like executive assistants, reporters, and doctors. Surprisingly, there are not as many alpha doctors as one would expect, because they are more aggressive than betas and do not do well caring for others. 

Alphas, of course, run the world. There are few laws regulating their behavior, and they are often in positions of power, as CEOs, politicians, engineers, etc. They are taught since presentation that they are above other orientations, and most take this to heart. It is typical for them to be aggressive and possessive. Because of this, it is very common for alphas to expect their omega to stand behind them at all times, not to speak unless spoken to, and eat on the ground beside their alpha’s chair. It is HIGHLY frowned upon for an alpha to pursue another alpha’s mate.

Omegas found to be openly disobedient towards alphas, or in extreme cases betas, are sent to retraining schools or are fostered by alphas in order to reintegrate into society.

Thoroughbreds

A thoroughbred is made when two of the same orientation produce offspring. Thoroughbreds have extra of the traits of their orientation, and can only be the same orientation as their parents, while regular a/o, a/b, or b/o couples can produce any of the three orientations. 

Thoroughbred betas are common, but are still favored above regular betas.

Thoroughbred omegas are much more rare, but not exceptionally hard to find if you’re looking for them. They tend to be extra submissive, small, and have a powerful scent. They also produce extra slick and are much more fertile and less prone to health issues with large litters. These omegas are sought after by discerning alphas, and are often sold by their parents at birth to be trained and then sold by the slaver to a rich alpha.

Finally, thoroughbred alphas are the most rare, as alphas have a notoriously hard time carrying children to term and when they do, are only able to produce one at a time, unlike omegas. These alphas are raised from birth for great things, are more aggressive, stronger, faster, and their scent has a profound effect on omegas. They are considered to be the peak of evolution.

Hybrids

Generally I do not include any hybrids in A/B/O verse. All orientations are human based, with no additional powers. Exceptions can be made if discussed, the most common being wolf hybrid omegas, which I will do without prior discussion upon request. 

Mating Rituals and Heats/Ruts

Heats are triggered by the biological need to reproduce, and can happen as often as once a month for particularly under-used omegas, or never for omegas that are mated properly and often. Most commonly, omegas have heats once or twice a year. Heats last between two and five days.

When in heat, an omega loses the ability to focus on anything but their desire to be bred. They will become hot to the touch, their skin becomes overly sensitive, slick pours freely, and their scent becomes overly strong to attract alphas.

Ruts are triggered by heats. An alpha will not go into rut unless they are near an omega in heat. Alphas in rut become overly possessive and aggressive, and will fight anyone they perceive as entering their territory or getting too close to their omega. They have the ability to think outside of mating, but they are reduced to base instincts in order to protect the omega that has gone into heat. Omegas in heat are often used by any alpha that can get their hands on them, but are rarely injured.

As for mating, alphas can mate as many omegas as they desire, but will have to care for all of them. Omegas on the other hand, can only be mated once. If their alpha dies, they are unable to remate. This is because they have a bonding gland on their neck that can only be used to mate once.

When an alpha decides to mate an omega, they bite the bonding gland and lap up the sweet oil from the broken gland. Once this happens, a chemical connection forms that lasts for both the alpha and omega’s entire life. If the gland is broken but mating does not occur, the gland will heal. Once an omega has been mated, the broken gland becomes a scar and the omega’s scent changes to reflect their status.

Suppressants

Suppressants are often used to help omegas smell and come across as an alpha or beta. Occasionally it is prescribed by a doctor for a myriad of health issues, but usually it is to avoid the restrictions of life as an omega, whether for work, school, or simply to avoid harassment. Alphas do not like this practice, and have stopped further research on suppressants, causing them to only be safe to use for approximately five years before they begin to pose a major health risk to the omega, which could cause permanent damage if use is continued long term.

Regular alphas can almost never tell the presence of suppressants, but thoroughbred alphas will notice a strong chemical scent in the omega using them. 

Mated Pairs

Mated pairs have an unbreakable bond. They can sense each other’s emotions, as well as as ability to tell when the other is hurt or in grave danger, no matter how far apart they are. Omegas become almost incapable of disobeying their alpha, and doing so hurts them. An alpha’s protective nature increases tenfold for their mate, and they would do anything to protect their omega.

[emma-what-son]

(Echee post) Emma Watson wants her privacy at Café Pacifico in Covent Garden

Posted on May 22 2014.

From standard.co.uk May 2014 "Emma Watson has gone from unknown schoolgirl to Hollywood actress, thanks to playing Hermione in the Harry Potter films. But fame ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.The Londoner spotted Watson at Mexican hotspot Café Pacifico in Covent Garden on Friday, heading to the bar to order some drinks. Heads swivelled, eyes turned upon her and Watson retreated to the corner where her boyfriend Matthew Janney was sitting. Even that didn’t do the trick. Shortly afterwards, he was seen asking a table of customers, all chaps, to move away from their spot to give the star some privacy. Watson is lucky: few would argue with her rugby-playing beau, but he still said please." So she was at a public place drinking and because people were looking at her she had her boyfriend ask them to move so she could have her space and privacy? If she wants her privacy she can go home to drink. Those patrons have every right to be there like she does. Was she being heckled? No. It's natural for some people to get a little star struck around celebrities. Society or more like the business they work for have them made out to be such perfect specimens and better than everyone else that people are bound to check them out when coming across one in public. It's not like they were running up to her asking for autographs and selfies. They were looking going, "Hey look it's Emma Watson". And it's really no different when people spot a really attractive person in a bar or pub. I think it could have been worse don't you? What is it with celebrities like Emma who talk about wanting to be normal and treated like everyone else but then expect special treatment when around us "commoners"? Or maybe they don't want to really fit in. They just want the best of both worlds? As the saying goes they want to have their cake and eat it to. Idk but this is a shit move on her part. Total diva moment for sure.

Here is a couple other stories from this year where Emma is being less than nice and sociable From jamesmeets.wordpress April 2014: ….This only left the two big guns to arrive, Russell Crowe and Emma Watson. A couple of cars pulled into the Square together, which meant one of the two was arriving, but which would it be? Heart in my mouth as out got Emma. Here’s the point at which I should probably provide a bit of a back-story… At one stage, Emma was my favourite person; I grew up watching the Harry Potter films, and when I started this crazy hobby nine years ago there was a (small) list of people I wanted to meet most, and she was very close to the top of that list. However… four years ago I went to Wimbledon for the tennis finals. Rafa Nadal had beaten Thomas Berdych in straight sets in b-e-a-utiful weather. A perfect Sunday afternoon, topped off by spotting Emma leaving the VIP pavilion. I genuinely don’t think I had (or since have) ever been so excited to see one person. I asked her and she said no. It wasn’t a polite no, I’d have no issue with that, but was a downright rude no. It’s hard to describe, but her attitude was really bad. Maybe she was a Thomas Berdych fan? Joking aside, I was gutted, and since then the overarching thought whenever anyone mentioned her was that experience. Even getting an autograph from her at the BAFTAs in 2011 didn’t help change my opinion, as even the hardest signers’ sign at the BAFTAs. Anyways, back to the present… Out got Emma, and in some kind of twisted fate, came straight over to where I was. She signed for the person next to me, and then it was my turn. Despite internally combusting with a mix of excitement and nerves, I managed to tell her I met her at SW19, even with the details of Rafa winning in straight sets, that she’d said no to a photo and I was gutted. I was probably less eloquent than I picture. I asked her if she’d make up for it by posing for a picture now, and she agreed. Say whaaaaaaaaat!!! Her brother (I presume it was her brother, I’ve no idea) took the camera and took an absolutely belting photo. His fan photo

Some comments from this person's page about Emma and the photo: Moviefan2k4-“No offense intended, but are British people always really serious? I’m only asking because Emma’s not smiling in that picture. She almost looks like she didn’t want to be at the screening.” James-”She’s not the nicest person in the world - she probably didn’t want to be there!” Moviefan2k4-“That’s sad; I hope she was just having a rough time, and that isn’t her daily temperament.” Dancingirl1-“Wish she would’ve smiled.” James-“It is. I met her four years ago and she was plain rude. Only reason I got this photo was because I told her how disappointed I was back then.” I bet if he was a hot guy she'd have no problem taking a photo with him. I bet that had something to do with it. She just seems like the type that would be so shallow. Plus she is there to promote Noah so she should be nice. It's part of the job detail. She can't work the crowd a little? It's not like she does it everyday. Idk but if I was making millions solely off the backs of working people I'd be ecstatic that they wanted my autograph. Here is another one From raleightelegram.com April 2014, "The after party was at the Central Park boathouse and they packed up 10 tour buses to get everyone over there.Jennifer Connolly sans any bodyfat whatsoever was shivering on the freezing cold carpet. Russell Crowe, who isn’t known for his social graces, was a surprisingly pleasant and social butterfly both on the carpet and at the after-party, even snapping selfies with me, Stephen, and rapper 50 Cent, while Jennifer Connolly looked on. At the party, Emma Watson sat drinking surrounded by friends and a formidable blonde haired woman guarding her. Emma didn’t chat with guests like Russell and the rest of the cast did, and she was a bit rude and snotty to me and other folks. Her guard was equally as unpleasant. I later learned this tough blonde was a hired bodyguard to protect her from stalkers. Emma was also the last celeb to leave the party, probably waiting for the bar to close." Ok she has a bodyguard but does she have to be rude to people at a party where you have to have credentials and be invited to attend? I'm sure she's as safe there as she would be in a panic room. She has her "formidable" bodyguard with her. Is it that much of a task to be nice to people.   And one more From skinnygossip.com Feb.2014,  "When she was in Iceland filming Noah she went to the bar I was working at. I didn’t see this but I heard some yelling from outside. Later I was told that she threw a hissyfit at a doorman for not letting her skip the line. She apparently kept screaming and yelling “do you know who I am?”. Such a cliché, I hope she was drunk…" Here is her latest tongue lashing moment of a service worker At first I thought she was upset with her new boy toy but actually she is giving some lip service to the security guard in the parking lot for a Rugby match. Her boy toy has to console her because she's upset about something. Oh the humanity!! lol

Click here to see her same reaction when yelling at cab driver in London and if you want to see her on video get upset at another event click here to watch her get animated about having to walk with Rupert Grint instead of staying on the arm of HP producer David Heyman. For more diva stories visit Sue at emma-what-son.tumblr.tumblr and click on her diva tags and check out my diva posts on this page. Once again: I'm no longer accepting comments here. If you have any questions or comments you can reach me at meettherealemmawatson.tumblr.com where I spend the majority of my time. I will still post here when I feel like it and when there is something worthy

[missmentelle]

What are the five stages of grief, in which order they are appear and how can you deal with grief?

Bear with me for a moment, because this is probably one of the biggest misconceptions in psychology. 

The “five stages of grief” refers to something called the Kübler-Ross model - it comes from the then-groundbreaking 1969 book On Death and Dying, written by Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The “five stages of grief” are as follows:

Denial. Denying that the event has taken place at all. “This isn’t really happening to me.” “There has been some mistake.” “This must be some sort of joke.”

Anger. Getting angry with the situation. “How dare this happen to me!” “This isn’t fair.” “I don’t deserve this.”

Bargaining. Attempting to strike a deal with God, the universe, or oneself to avoid or un-do the situation. “I’ll pray every single day if you let me live long enough to see my daughter’s wedding.” 

Depression. Being depressed over the situation. “There is no point in living anymore.” “Everything is pointless.” “I can’t possibly bear this pain.”

Acceptance. Coming to terms with the situation - the end goal of the grieving process. “I will enjoy the time that I have left.” “I will always cherish the memories that I have.”

The book outlines these stages as if it’s a linear process that people go through - starting from denial when you first get the bad news, and going through each stage in order until you arrive at acceptance - and suggests that this is the “normal” or “healthy” way to grieve. Her work has become so famous that references to the “five stages” appear in all kind of popular media, and many laypeople are under the impression that there may be something wrong with you if you don’t travel through those stages in that order. There are four big problems with this, however:

The stages were not necessarily intended to go in that order, nor were they meant to be mandatory. In her later writings, Dr. Kübler-Ross walked her original model back a little; she stated that she had never intended for these to be rigid stages, and she never meant to imply that they had to go in that order, or that every stage was mandatory. She stated that this was merely a general guideline, and that people may pass through the stages in different orders, skip stages, or return to a stage that they have already passed. 

The stages were not meant to describe the grief you experience after losing a loved one; they describe the grief you experience after being diagnosed with a terminal illness. Dr. Kübler-Ross did not work with bereaved people - she worked with people dying from terminal illness. These stages were written to describe the things that people go through as they process a terminal diagnosis and gradually come to accept their own death, not someone else’s. After Kübler-Ross’s death, a posthumous book on her work expanded these stages to apply to anyone processing any kind of loss - from a death in the family to a romantic rejection to the loss of a job - and for some reason, the connection between these stages and grieving for a deceased loved one was what really stuck. 

It only applies to a very specific group of people, but is presented as if it’s universal. Kübler-Ross did all of her work with patients at the University of Chicago teaching hospital in the mid-20th century. That’s her entire sample. She did not make any anthropological studies of human grief across cultures before declaring her stages of grief to be universal - like a lot of “classic” 20th century psychology, her work excludes people who were not middle-class white Christian westerners, and as a result, is far from universal. In reality, your culture and religion have a huge impact on the way that you process death; understanding and coping with death is one of the big reasons that we have cultural and religious beliefs in the first place. If you grew up in a culture that has a positive - or just less gloomy - perspective on death, you are likely to have very different emotions and reactions in the wake of this kind of news. 

There is little to no scientific evidence to support this model, and it is not useful. As it turns out, human grief is much too complicated to be summed up with a five-stage model. Dr. Kübler-Ross herself admitted that the five stages do not go in any particular order, are not experienced by everyone, and may look different in different people… which means that this model is so vague that there’s no point in using it at all. Not going through these stages is normal. Going through these stages is equally normal. This model is not useful for predicting how a person will experience grief, and it cannot tell us if a particular person’s grief is normal or not. The five-stage model is not something that mental health workers are trained to use, and these days it is taught only as a part of the field’s history.

At Columbia, I actually took classes in grief and loss from one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, and one of the most famous critics of the five-stage model. Dr. George Bonanno’s extensive research on the subject has found that people really do grieve in much, much more than five ways, and that the way you grieve after a major event is determined by a combination of environmental and individual factors. On the whole, though, people are much more resilient than we previously thought - most people bounce back quite quickly after even a catastrophic loss and are able to resume their normal lives, while only a small percentage (around 7% in most populations) experience debilitating grief. 

If you have recently gone through a major loss, it is difficult to predict how you will react, what you will experience and how you “should” cope with it - that is very much dependent on you. There are self-destructing coping strategies that I do not recommend - if at all possible, please try to avoid coping with substance use or life-risking behavior as much as possible - but as for what you can do to cope, that’s very much up to you. Some people might want to return to their ordinary daily life as quickly as possible, while others might prefer to retreat from the world for a while. You might want lots of reminders of your deceased loved one, or no reminders. You might want lots of distractions, or lots of time to yourself. The things that you want might vary dramatically over time. It’s okay. The only way out of grief is through it - in other words, the only thing that will truly dull the pain of the loss is time, and different people will need different amounts of time. Cope the best that you can while you wait for that time to pass, and don’t be afraid to reach out for help if you need it. If you find that you do go through something that resembles the five stages of grief, that’s fine - if you don’t, then that’s also fine too. 

The only time that we really get concerned about a person’s grieving process is if you find that you are still completely debilitated by the pain of a loss more than six months later - this is a condition called Complicated Grief Disorder. If you are experiencing complicated grief - or if you are experiencing suicidal ideation or substance abuse as a result of grief - you need to speak to a mental health professional who specializes in complicated bereavement as quickly as possible. Treatment of this disorder is still in development, but there are promising treatments already available that can help you process the loss and significantly improve your quality of life. Hope this answers your question!Miss Mentelle

[gayhanguangjun]

Sometimes i’m just amazed at how much people still hate older women in general

Like even when something is not exclusive to older women and older men do it too, the jokes end up being about the women

“What’s the male version of a Karen?” There is none, because older men just get away with being pieces of shit

And I see so many people like, pushing back at some idea that women in general are incapable of being assholes or that women in general are given special treatment and that’s just... not true? What special treatment is given to women that men of equal standing otherwise don’t get? Who is letting older women abuse retail workers who doesn’t also let older men do it?

Reminds me of how people say Hillary Clinton got special treatment for being a woman when the reality is Very Much the Opposite

And while i’m on my soapbox, I want to express frustration that talking about misogyny is apparently a “terf dogwhistle.” Terfs are out here talking about misogyny and the oppression of women and instead of like, also talking about misogyny and the oppression of women (a very real phenomenon), all other leftists just decided that the topic is terfish.

I stg, talking about misogyny is cringe and bigotry nowadays

[puppyandrade]

SORAYA BARBOSA-NAZARI

GENERAL INFORMATION

Born in Malta, on Psamathe, Soraya is a 27 year-old make-up artist who has been working on the Apex Games since their creation. She was raised among the rich elite of her planet and has always managed to get what she wanted thanks to her parents' connections — though both of them were extremely disappointed to see her choose to work in the hair and make-up department of the Games. She started low in the food chain but has risen to the top and recently become the Head of the Hair and Make-up Department. Soraya is also known to get involved in the designing of costumes for certain Legends, like Loba and Rampart.

PERSONALITY

"An enthusiastic and stubborn sweetheart who doesn't let anyone step on her feet". This how many of Soraya's colleagues perceive her, and it's extremely close to be exactly what she is. For most things in life, Soraya tries her best to be optimistic and to spread positivity around her, even if it can he complicated when you work at the Games, where people chase each other, guns in hands.

Soraya is known around most of the cosmetic departments of the Games as a very kind and generous person who can appreciate a good joke — good jokes, as well as the bad puns Wattson can come up with. Her smile and laughter are contagious. But the hair and make-up department also knows her as someone who can be strict and demanding when it comes to respecting schedules; Soraya is a kind boss, but she is a boss who wants things to be perfect. She can be a friend to co-workers, but she remains the Head of the department, something that she refuses to let others forget just because she is understanding and nice.

APPEARANCE

In spite of a personality that can appear imposing to many while Soraya is at work, she is far from having an imposing physique. She is a petite woman, not even visibly taller than Wraith, but she wears heels so often that she can fool people into thinking she's taller than she actually is. Soraya is a put together person who makes sure to look nothing short of perfect whenever she gets out of her apartment. She takes great care of her appearance, as her job relies solely on looks. Her go-to make-up is a natural look, but she will never be spotted outside without it.

Soraya has an unexpectedly toned body. Most people don't realize how much effort she puts in her looks and health. She has had to work out a lot to be able to put up with her crazy schedule and her late fiancé, and she has created a workout routine for herself that she enjoys. Soraya doesn't have the rippling muscles of a Legend, but she still manages to impress some people with her biceps.

In spite of an attractive and toned physique, her defining features remain her high cheekbones and strong jawline — many say that her light green eyes are what caught their attention the most. Soraya takes great care of her naturally tan skin and keeps her wavy black hair shoulder length, as it is easier to maintain it on a tight schedule.

FAME & GLORY

Soraya doesn't need to be a Legend and participate in the Games to be famous among fans (as well as the general population). With her father, Barbosa, being the CEO of a company responsible for the creation and production of weapons of all sorts, and her mother being a renown journalist, it is no surprise that she would have gathered attention. But while her parents' fame is partly to blame, the main reason why Soraya's name can be seen on TV and in magazines, is her former relationship with a man more famous than her parents. The fame has allowed Soraya to become Head of her department faster than she would have, had she been a nobody, but she often catches herself thinking that she would rather nobody knows her name. She is tired of being "the draughter of" and "the ex-fiancée of". Fame is nice, but Soraya would rather be her own person.

JAMES "THE FORGE" MCCORMICK

Rocky would be the perfect word to describe a large part of Soraya's relationship with Forge, but nonetheless, she loved the man, in spite of his many faults. Their meeting was far from romantic, as she was introduced to him by her father, a fan of his combat skills and a firm believed that he could offer "The Forge" a great sponsorship. Soraya thought that he was an arrogant jerk (she wasn't wrong), and he thought she was a spoiled brat (he wasn't exactly right). But Soraya was surprised to find that Forge was a man who could treat her like an equal, and not a rich little girl whose feelings needed to be spared — it led them go on several dates together, dates that were, of course, made known to the public. When Forge didn't deny being the source of the rumors, Soraya decided to break things off with Forge.

They found their way back together several months later, after it was revealed that her father was the one who had revealed to several news outlets that she was seeing Forge. They had many arguments about Forge covering Soraya's father being a shitty person to spare her feelings, something that Forge had never done, something that had made Soraya enjoy his company in the first place. They got engaged two years laters. Not too long after, another event almost broke up their relationship: the revelation of Forge's treatment of Bangalore. Soraya thought that his macho attitude was just an act for the public, as Forge had assured her so often throughout their relationship, and the reveal felt an absolute betrayal. It was the fact that The Forge himself swallowed his pride to apologize to her and promise that he would apologize to Bangalore that convinced her to stay.

Sadly, Forge's life was ended brutally, under her eyes, before they could even plan their wedding.

[ RELATIONS WITH LEGENDS UNDER ]

BANGALORE

Because of their link to Forge, Soraya and Bangalore had very tense moments. Until Forge was announced as a future Legend and Bangalore revealed how he treated her, they weren't particularly close or distant, but they later had arguments. Bangalore believed that Soraya was just a naive kid and a jealous girlfriend who couldn't handle the truth, while Soraya thought that Bangalore was unnecessarily rude to her over what her fiancé had done. They have found ways to communicate with each other, and Bangalore is impressed with how much Soraya wants to believe in redemption and see good in people. They have grown close to each other and have built a mutual trust and admiration.

BLOODHOUND

Because of Bloodhound's mask, those two don't really have reasons to spend time together. Bloodhound remains one of Soraya's favorite Legends in the Games, and they are someone that Soraya respects. They have brief but amicable conversations when Soraya helps the costume department.

CAUSTIC

Soraya has only worked with Caustic once. Since then, she has refused to take care of him. Being optimistic by nature, Soraya can't handle Caustic's scientific views on humans — she admires his brains, but she would rather be as far away from him as possible.

CRYPTO

They don't get along, and they don't not get along. Soraya doesn't often work with Crypto, but when she does, they know how to enjoy each other company in silence. Crypto doesn't care much for her, but he likes that she can do his hair and make-up without desperately trying to initiate a conversation like some of the other make-up artists do.

GIBRALTAR

Because he's a giant, sweet teddy bear, Gibby reminds Soraya of both her father and her maternal grandfather — both being two men that she loves with her whole heart. She rarely gets to work with him, but she really likes him, and she always makes time to talk to him, even if for just a minute, and wish him good luck before games. Gibby appreciates Soraya for her optimism and kindness, as well as their common need to see the good in people (even those that might not deserve it).

HORIZON

Horizon hasn't been around long enough for Soraya to have a proper opinion of her, but she is definitely intimidated by her intelligence. Soraya struggles to understand Horizon's accent a lot of the time and spends too much time asking her to repeat herself (until she gives up and pretends to have understood Horizon). From what she knows, Horizon is a good person and she can't wait to get to know her better.

LIFELINE

The first Legend Soraya worked with. Lifeline will always have a special place in her heart — she made her feel comfortable and at ease from the start. Soraya loves working with Lifeline more than anything else because it just feels easy, no matter how complex things can get when it comes to makeup. Her favorite thing is to compliment Lifeline on how pretty she is and to thank her for taking such good care of her skin, unlike some other Legends. They can enjoy chill conversations pre-games and sometimes even hang out outside the Games for a restaurant "date".

LOBA

Refusing to let anyone do her make-up because she couldn’t trust them, Loba originally avoided the hair and make-up department staff, but Soraya’s (very expensive) engagement ring caught her attention. While she only wanted to steal said ring and started to act friendly towards Soraya for that reason, Loba grew attached fairly quickly. The two of them now love their (not so) playful flirting and are unnecessarily touchy with each other all the time. No matter how much they appreciate each other, neither of them thinks that they can, or should, allow things between them to grow any further — though for the most part, it is Loba being worried for Soraya’s safety and believing that a thief isn’t good enough for ray-of-sunshine Soraya.

MIRAGE

Theoretically, Mirage and Soraya should get along well. Things aren’t bad between them, and Soraya loves that Mirage can be eccentric and enjoy crazy costumes and styling, but their personalities aren’t as compatible as some would expect. Mirage’s self-confidence can easily get on Soraya’s nerves, and Soraya’s strict work policies are far from being something that Mirage likes. 

OCTANE

As a Legend, Soraya absolutely loves Octane and his constant excitement and his daredevil attitude. As someone to work with, Soraya absolutely hates Octane. He can't sit still for more than three seconds and it makes it really hard for her to do her job — but she has figured out ways to keep him still enough, by telling him about all the new explosives and crazy weapons her father has been working on.

PATHFINDER

For obvious reasons, Pathfinder doesn’t require hair and make-up time, so they don’t get many opportunities to hang out. Pathfinder calls Soraya his friend, and she calls him her friend in return because she knows that it makes him happy. They have brief conversations in the corridors of the ships 

RAMPART

They have been on a first name basis since the day they met, even if they aren't the closest of friends. Soraya respects how strong Rampart is and her modder brains, being constantly impressed by her. Rampart isn't a big fan of the make-up team because they all can be fussy, but at least Soraya knows weapons and they can talk before matches. Just like with Horizon, though, Rampart's accent often leaves Soraya confused.

REVENANT

It's safe to say that everyone at the Games tries hard to make sure that Soraya won't end up in the same room as Revenant, or even see him in a corridor.

WATTSON

Nothing can ever stop Soraya from thinking that Wattson is an absolute sweetheart and an angel. They don't have deep and long conversations or anything of the like. Whenever Soraya works on Wattson's make-up, she just listens to her ramble about all her inventions. It's quiet and relaxed for the both of them. Soraya occasionally flirts with Wattson because she thinks that she's adorable when she gets flustered. They love to share jokes and puns together.

WRAITH

It took a while for Soraya to be able to approach Wraith, as there was no trust between the two of them. It took months of trying for Soraya to be able to approach Wraith, but they are finally going somewhere. They spend most of their time together simply quiet and enjoying silence. They have a mutual understanding: no personal questions, no long conversations.

[tinyshe]

Vaccine makers shielded from all liability as adverse reactions pile up

The potential health risks linked to fast-tracking vaccines loom large. On December 18, some 3 150 vaccine recipients had reported “Health Impact Events” according to the US CDC. This was from only 272 001 doses of the vaccine administered as of December 19. Published: December 21, 2020, 8:52 am

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a “Health Impact Event” means that someone is “unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional”. The information was revealed by Dr. Thomas Clark, a CDC epidemiologist on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an independent panel that provides recommendations to the CDC.

Incidentally, the mRNA vaccines must be given twice, and the interval between the two doses is about three weeks. So one has a double risk of side effects.

At least five healthcare workers in Alaska experienced adverse reactions after getting the Pfizer vaccine, the Anchorage Daily News reported. One recipient, a nurse at the Bartlett Regional Hospital required emergency treatment for at least two nights.

An Illinois hospital halted vaccinations after four workers suffered adverse reactions.

The Washington Post quoted doctor and study participant David Yamane. He reported chills and headaches and having been so tired that he fell asleep on the couch in the afternoon and only woke up the next day bathed in sweat. “These symptoms are no joke,” the medical professional told the newspaper.

The reported allergic reactions that occurred in some are even more dangerous. They can show up in the form of rashes, but they can also cause shortness of breath and become life-threatening. It is believed that this reaction is caused by the nanoparticles in the lipid shell that surrounds the actual ingredient according to Dr. Peter Marks, the director of Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Four cases of facial paralysis also occurred when tested with the Biontech/Pfizer vaccine. The placebo group, i.e. those who received an ineffective injection instead of the vaccine, was not affected.

The most common short term – not long term – side effects that vaccine producer Moderna reported to the FDA were:

Injection site reaction in 91,6 percent of patients Fatigue in 68,5 percent of patients Headache in 63 percent of patients Muscle pain in 59,6 percent of patients Joint pain in 44,8 percent of patients Chills in 43,4 percent of patients

Some have even argued that the Covid-19 vaccine could kill 8-16 times more senior Americans compared to no vaccine at all.

In October this year, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said a countermeasures fund should cover injuries from Covid-19 vaccines, giving drug companies complete immunity from potential liability lawsuits.

But as the Wall Street Journal reported, the fund is not remedy for the American public. According to lawyers and vaccine experts, since it began processing claims, the fund has paid out $6 million on 29 claims, averaging $207 000 per person, compared with $585 000 on average per person for an older vaccine injury fund.

The new fund has an almost impossible threshold for proving a relationship between an injury and the vaccine, experts say. The newer fund also has a shorter statute of limitations, no avenue for appeals and does not pay damages for pain or suffering. It was set up in 2010 to cover harm resulting from vaccines for a flu pandemic, or drugs to treat an anthrax or Ebola outbreak.

In November, India and South Africa approached the World Trade Organization (WTO) to waive patent protections for Big Pharma’s vaccine roll-out. Both countries said they wanted to ensure that poor countries had equal access.

“There are several reports about intellectual property rights hindering or potentially hindering timely provisioning of affordable medical products,” India and South Africa maintained. They were backed by Pakistan, Argentina and Venezuela and many US nonprofit activists.

The Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed has spent more than $10 billion to advance vaccine clinical trials, manufacturing and distribution, according to the WSJ.

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