#yes there’s very little public research and that’s a problem. that’s why I conducted a study on it my damn self

[binders-and-beanies]

“Ummm I’ve been researching dyspraxia and I’ve never heard of any of what you’re saying 🤔”

The research:

[qqueenofhades]

i'm going feral about queer icon hob gadling thank you very much. I JUST CAN'T WITH HIM. i cry because in the comic in the 1989 panel there's a person at the inn talking about how "of course AIDS isn't a punishment from god." hob has to sit there and hear that and just. JUST. hob being visible! hob being vulnerable in his love! hob surviving all his friends. hob buying the fucking pub with the power of his queer money!!! committing the crime of graffiti to SPRAYPAINT A SIGN FOR HIS LOVE TO FIND

It is... probably because I am a queer historian and that is why I imprinted on Hob in the first place, but uh, yes, I have many feelings about this too, and the subtle way in which queer places and spaces work both in the show and in the Dreamling story specifically. Obviously there are many queer characters in Sandman (and we love it for that), but the White Horse, and then the New Inn, is one of the few physical locations I can think of that is a literal embodiment of queer devotion. Hob buys the old pub and builds the new one so Morpheus, if he does ever come back, can find him! He appropriated the spot where they met the first time, where their relationship was built over centuries, and he both saves the old one and builds a NEW one (new step in their relationship etc etc). And physically paints giant signs because his immortal boyfriend is very stupid! He makes it visible and explicit, he builds his devotion into every fiber of that pub, he does it especially so Dream can still come back and find him if he chooses, he waits patiently, and like... the New Inn is absolutely brimming with queer adoration, and ack.

Also, there was that tantalizing tidbit about the real, historical White Horse pub that the Sandman version was based on, being best known for being run by two women in the 18th century who called themselves "Mr. and Mrs. How." Granted, I found that in the IMDB trivia section and if I was writing an actual paper on it, I'd have to do a heck of a lot more research. However, happily, I am NOT writing a paper, and I say it's real because it feels right. In that case, the White Horse itself is embodied as a queer establishment, a place previously run by married lesbians in Hella Gay 18th-century London, and adds another layer to that being the place where Hob and Dream meet every century to conduct their careful, tentative, tender, unspoken romance.

But then! Tragedy! The pub has been bought and will be shut down, and with it, the physical and literal heart of Hob’s relationship with his "stranger!" As I wrote in my meta about the 1989 scene, everything is so careful, so subtextual, so unspoken, whether it is Hob saying he has been stood up and the bartender deliberately not assuming it was by a woman and offering oblique reassurance that Hob is safe here, as a queer man in violently homophobic 1989. So of course Hob can't stand to think of it going away, and has to save it both for himself and as a queer-friendly establishment! So he takes his queer money, as you say, and does something about it! Maybe bad people get to do whatever in this country with that money too, but so does Hob, and he can claw back a little of the place that has always most belonged to him (and him with Dream).

Hence the New Inn, where Hob absolutely hung Pride flags in the '90s long before it was cool or popularly accepted to do so, was able to use his status both as owner of the establishment and Queer Who Can Kick Your Ass to deal with anyone who had a problem with it, and otherwise keep it ready for the day when his love might get to show up again. It's beautiful! It's visible! It's symbolic! And then when Dream does walk in and make their relationship "visible," i.e. apologising and calling Hob his friend, they get to sit down together in that space that Hob has created and kept as an altar of queer devotion both private and public, they smile at each other adoringly, and then what scene/setting do we cut straight to??

THE GIANT BEATING HEART OF THE THRESHOLD OF DESIRE. FROM ONE BEATING HEART OF DESIRE MADE VISIBLE DIRECTLY TO THE OTHER.

They were insane for this, truly. Insane.

[oss-crime]

Chapter 4-Project “Ma” –Seth–; Scene 4

Original Sin Story: Crime, pages 167-175

Let’s take a little walk down memory lane.

.

I first met Adam when he had only just been born.

As Miroku’s steward, I had been given the order to take the twins Queen Alice had birthed and discard them in the river.

They were both quite adorable babies.

Though, well, I didn’t get attached to them over that or anything.

But I did wind up having a fairly interesting idea.

I had wanted “friends”.

I had been carrying out several efforts for that purpose.

And my endeavoring to save those twins was also part of that.

.

I met Ceci Vaju through Miroku, and under his patronage I became head of the Royal Research Institute.

At the same time, I also began to meet with other people I viewed as appropriate “friends” and built up a network.

Venom was an extremely useful drug, and so now and then I would also use it when increasing my number of “friends”.

Only, it’s not like Venom was a cure-all for my problems. It also had several downsides, so I had to hold back from using it too much.

When things had calmed down to a decent degree, I decided to go check on how those twins were doing.

But…around then I ended up having a bit of a problem.

That is, I was in “poor physical health”.

Which meant that I couldn’t just go around places willy nilly.

So I decided to entrust one of the twins to a “friend” of mine. Raiou was a considerably skilled man, and so, though he had founded the organization “Apocalypse”, I gave him the order to leave it and go collect one of the twins.

I went to the beach and found the other one—Adam—and took him up myself.

…Ah yes, and there I wound up reuniting with an old colleague. Well, that didn’t matter to me so much. She’d always been a rather stupid woman.

All that aside, it was my first time ever raising a child, so it was fairly novel for me.

I did my best to raise him to grow into someone with my favored “emptiness”.

It was a busy time. My “friend” network was expanding, and I was kept occupied with my work at the institute as well. I also couldn’t forget to go to the castle and dose Miroku with the drug, too.

And then there was something else I had to do—to solve the source of this “poor physical health” problem.

For that, I needed to conduct research somewhere where I wouldn’t be seen by the public.

The facility called “Lunaca Labora”…That was where I had been born “as a human”.

My body at the time was an inferior product, and aged at a rate much faster than that of a normal human.

I needed to create a new body that would be sturdier, and last longer; prodigy that I was, I overcame this difficulty quite readily.

I was quite keen on my completed work, and so while I was at it I decided to create two more “ghoul children”—that is, clones.

It was also part of a new test to give me more “friends”. If I were to implant a fake personality based off of my own mind in the clones that I created, they would make ideal “friends”!

Or that’s what I thought…Well, even prodigies have failures sometimes.

One of them went flawlessly.

But the other one was a miserable dud.

Still, I could probably still use it as an emergency spare…Thus, I wound up keeping the failure in cold storage for the time being.

I named the “ghoul child” that had been successful “Pale Noel”. And then I entrusted him with the “Apocalypse” that Raiou had fled.

Pale is still doing excellent work even now. He is my clone after all, so I suppose you could say it’s only natural. 

…Only, he was doing a little too well, and as such it started to cause problems for my public position.

After all is said and done, Pale, a man who has the same face as me, was causing havoc as the leader of an anti-government organization, so obviously this was putting me under suspicion as well.

It’s not like Miroku could deal with all of it. I had to take care of it somehow before it got too troublesome.

First I ordered Pale to avoid showing himself in public any further, and to just work behind the scenes. Then I had all of the documents on Pale erased from the information bureau, and after that went to “Apocalypse”’s founder, Raiou, and erased his memories pertaining to my physical appearance.

Even then, doubts about the “head of the Royal Research Institute, Horus Solntse” hadn’t completely gone away.

I figured that this inferior body had begun showing its age about then anyway.

I decided to have the man named Horus retire from this world.

I went to “Lunaca Labora” and swapped my consciousness into the new body I had completed.

…Truthfully I did wonder if I should make some adjustments to my flawless features…

But! It would be an unthinkable sin to alter this handsome face!

--And thus changing my mind, I left it the way it was.

Well, I decided that if I ever got pressed on my similarity to Pale I could just tell them we were “twin brothers” or something like that to smooth it over.

It was actually true, in a sense.  

.

The new body was more comfortable than I had thought it would be.

I felt so good that I decided to stop using false names, and went by my true name of “Seth”.

I ended up staying in “Lunaca Labora” until all the excitement surrounding Pale could die down, working hard on making new “ghoul children”.

Though I couldn’t afford to cause another problem like the one I’d had with Pale by making clones that were exactly like me.

So I went on a bit of a venture with my third “ghoul child”.

I would make even the gender different, not just the face…A completely brand new “ghoul child”, that was a clone but also wasn’t!

And this, surely, would be a great enterprise on par with the “god creator of mankind’s bodies, Behemo” himself!

My “old friend”’s face came to mind.

Ha ha…That one would surely be stomping his feet in a rage if he knew about this!

.

…I’ll say it again.

Even prodigies have failures sometimes!

No! Rather, to be a prodigy is to be made up out of one’s failures!

It probably was a bit of overkill to implant in an “inheritor” power on top of changing the gender.

The moment I put in the pseudo-personality the girl took on a rebellious attitude, and as soon as my back was turned she escaped from “Lunaca Labora”.

I was unable to grasp her whereabouts for a while—but eventually I received word from Pale that he’d found her and was taking care of her.

It seemed that she showed quite the obedient side towards him.

…Why!? Pale is a clone of me!

--Well, whatever the situation, I decided to entrust her care to Pale.

.

I grew tired of making “ghoul children”, so I decided to go play with Adam again.

He’d seemed very rattled when we reunited at that bar, but the sight had also been quite pleasant.

Yes, at present, Adam was the one I could enjoy myself with the most—that was what I had thought.

.

I would let slip certain details to get Adam to hate me.

He soundly got on board with the idea, and so started plotting to have me killed.

Gosh, that had been fun…

Though, as you might expect I was a bit upset that my third “ghoul child” had genuinely tried to kill not just the other researchers but also me, in direct opposition to what we had arranged previously.

.

--Adam.

One of the “Twins of God” that had been abandoned right after he was born.

He had been most enticing as raw material.

I wondered how I might change him into one of my “friends”—that is, “evil”.

It was elegant sport.

.

He’d been superb at being “evil”.

And yet…or rather, because of that, perhaps.

Adam withdrew from the stage, and left.

.

For, to cast aside the role you are given, and run away—

That, too, is a type of sinful “evil”.

.

--And then there’s Eve.

Let me say it quite plainly here…the death of “Cain” and “Abel” was absolutely not my fault.

I wouldn’t have minded at all if those twins had been born properly.

For I had the suspicion that a new, altogether different story would have started there.

Simply put…their blood had been too dense.

The survival rate of children born between blood siblings isn’t all that high to begin with.

.

And another thing.

There is something Adam was mistaken about regarding Eve.

And something Eve was hiding from Adam.

.

The explanation I gave to Adam on Venom.

I did tell a few lies in that.

My extracting the genes from an “Inheritor of Levia”—

It wasn’t from a corpse.

It was from a newborn baby.

.

At present, there is one “Inheritor of Levia” in this world.

And her name—is Eve Zvezda.

Adam’s twin sister.

.

Venom has some drawbacks.

The drug was created based on the genes taken from an “Inheritor of Levia”.

So, while it might sound obvious—

On one who has the antibodies to it—that is, an “Inheritor of Levia”, it has no effect.

Venom doesn’t work on Eve.

.

Naturally…I have no obligation to tell any of that to Adam.

<<prev------directory------next>>

[alexthepartyman]

Fine Line

Chapter 4: Take me back to the light.

“Easy there, tough guy, have some coffee with your sugar,” Derek teases, grabbing a mug. 

“I need something to wake me up.”

“Same. I feel like I’ve slept for five years,” I joke.

“You had brain surgery a couple of weeks ago, it is normal to be tired.” I sigh, rolling my eyes as my phone vibrates against my ass. 

“Back pocket,” I groan as Derek pulls my phone out of my pocket. “It’s probably more get well soon wishes.”

“Oooh, you had a late night?” Derek asks, handing me my phone before going back to make coffee. 

“Very.”

“My man.” Oooh, it was probably with Grant, too. Oooh. I slowly type, trying to remember how to spell certain words.

“Not that kind of late night.”

“Really? I was rooting for you,” I groan as Derek chuckles.

“Okay, so tell me, what does keep young Dr Reid awake at night? Wait, let me guess. Memorising some obscure textbook. No, no, no, no,” Derek teases. “Working on cold fusion. No, I got it. I got it. I got it. Watching Ster Trek...and laughing at the physics mistakes.” 

“Actually, there aren’t that many scientific errors in Star Trek, especially considering how long ago it was made.”

“Did his face just fall?” I ask with a big smile on my face. 

“There are certain improbabilities, but not that many outright errors.”

“Right.” I laugh lightly as Derek walks away awkwardly, holding my head in my hand. 

“Hey, Morgan?” Spencer asks, following him. I grip my crutches and turn myself, slowly following along. “Uh, do you ever have dreams?” 

“I’m sorry?”

“I guess nightmares would be a more accurate description.” 

“Is that what’s keeping you up?”

“I used to get them occasionally, but lately it’s like I have them every night.”

“What are they about?”

“This. What we do. Do you have nightmares?”

“When don’t I?” I remark. 

“Reid, I’m not sure I’m the right person for you tot alk to about this.” 

“Why not?”

“It’s just, uh...did you ask Gideon about it?”

“No.” 

“You should. Both of you.”

“Hey, Hotch wants everyone in the round table room.” 

“Derek, carry me. I’m not getting anywhere with these things,” I retort as Elle walks away from us.

“Nuh-uh, little buddy. You gotta do it yourself. I ain’t gonna be around to carry you everywhere.” 

“Fuck...I take forever!” I groan, stumbling towards the staircase. 

“Something up with you three?” Elle asks.

“No.” 

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

“McAllister,” JJ says as we head in. “Western slope of Massanutten Mountain in Virginia. Two bodies discovered in the woods, both with apparent bult trauma to the head.” 

“Skeletons?”

“Skellingtons?” I ask, approaching the table and looking at the picture in Spencer’s hand. 

“One of them. The second victim was just killed this morning.”

“How do we know there’s a connection?” Elle asks. 

“Found about seventy-five feet apart with nearly identical head wounds.” 

“Where’s the rest of the case file?”

“There isn’t one. The sheriffs are on the scene waiting for us.” 

“Their location is only half an hour away by plane.”

“What’s the rush?”

“Well, there was evidence on the scene that could cause a bit of public uproar.” 

“Satanic cult.”

“But...killer satanic cults...those don’t exist…” 

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

“JJ, we obviously need to keep this out of the press for as long as possible.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Why is that so important?”

“There was a nationwide scare in the 1980s involving Satanic ritual killings and abuse. The Satanic panic, it was called. It began after the publication of a book about repressed memories being recovered through hypnotherapy. Memories of growing up with devil worshippers who use children in their rituals and ceremonies.” 

“Most of the claims were later found to be false or just impossible.”

“Still, numerous therapists accepted the assertions as true and began searching for similar signs in their own patients. After one year, thousands of people reported the exact same repressed memories.”

“But the bureau conducted an investigation and concluded that most of the ritual killings or abuse were more urban legend than anything else.”

“You’re saying that there’s no such thing as Devil worshipping?”

“Not at all. But most of the Satanism we’ve seen is juveniles damaging property, descerating churches, cemeteries. To my knowledge, there’s never been a proven case of a satanic ritual killing in the United States,” Uncle Jason says. 

“Well, maybe there is now.” 

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

“Morning. John Bridges,” the sheriff greets us. 

“Yeah, we spoke on the phone,” JJ shakes his hand. “I’m Agent Jareau, this is Agent Gideon, Dr Reid, and our intern James Rossi with the FBI’s Behavioural Analysis Unit,” JJ introduces us.

“What’s with your intern?”

“Concussion. Can’t walk on my own yet. Hi.”

“Thanks for coming out so fast, all of you.”

“Yeah, of course.” 

“There was an in-service in Charlottesville last year, said if we ran into any unusual homicides, we were supposed to call you folks soonertather then later.” 

“They were right.” 

“So is this unusual enough?”

“It’s certainly interesting. Is that blood or red paint?” I ask, nodding my head towards the carving in the tree.

“You guys must get a lot of this, huh? Satanic stuff?”

“Not really,” Uncle Jason answers. “Who found the body?”

“Hikers found the first one at the trail, my deputies located this one while searching for evidence. Don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman.”

“It’s a man. The male pelvis is more narrow, and the opening at the bottom is heart-shaped, as opposed to oval,” Spencer rambles. “Melted wax?”

“Candle wax?” JJ asks.

“Candles are used in rituals.”

“Also used on birthday cakes,” Uncle Jason says, watching my feet carefully.

“Actually, they were orginially used to protect the birthday celebrant from demons for the coming year. As a matter of fact, down to the fourth century, Christianity rejected the birthday celebration as a pagan ritual.” 

‘What kind of doctor are you?”

“One that knows everything,” I quietly comment.

“Does LOD mean anything to you?” 

“I don’t know of any significance in Satanism, either.” 

“Well, I’d have Garcia research this LOD thing, if I could get a call out.” 

“Not much of a chance of that out here.”

“Are there any cults in the area that you know about? Secret groups? People you see you don’t know much about? People who stay to themselves mostly?” 

“This is a very religious area. Church on Sundays, fellowship on Wednesday, bible classes. If there was a secret group, I’d probably know about it.”

“That’s an inherent contradiction,” Spencer chuckles. 

“Excuse me?”

“Spencer,” I hiss, picking up the tip of my crutch and stomping his foot with it.

“Ow…”

“He means if there was a group being secretive, you probably wouldn’t know.” 

“Look, people out here just want a quiet place to raise their kids. What I know is that none of them are capable of doing this.”

“Rethink that statement,” I comment. 

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

“Here you go,” Jason says, setting me back down on the ground after carrying me back up the road. 

“Thanks, Uncle Jason.”

“It’s no problem, Jamie.” 

“Find anything interesting down there?” Aaron asks.

“Yeah, it does look like some kind of ritual site,” Uncle Jason answers. 

“Have any of you ever heard of LOD or the acronym L-O-D?” Spencer asks as Elle helps Spencer up onto the road. 

“Not me.”

“Cherish? Cherish? Sheriff Bridges!” A woman yells, being blocked off by an officer behind the yellow tape. 

“It’s okay, Harris. Let her in.” 

“Was Adam Lloyd killed out here?” She asks, marching up towards us. 

“Who told you that?”

“Was he? My daughter was with him. They were out running together this morning. Oh my god, and I can’t find her. Cherish is missing. Cherish is missing! Help me, please.” She starts to cry. 

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

“Take her home.”

“I will.”

“Who are we looking for?” I ask as we head back to the team. 

“Someone who can overpower our victim, abduct a girl from a traveled path without being seen.”

“A local would know their way around here,” I add. 

“It certainly fits with the cult theory. More than one unsub to control multiple victims.” 

“But if the attack were ferocious enough...a single unsub could do it too. Kill Adam and grab the girl while she’s still in shock.” 

“This is some rough country. I don’t think Jamie could do it right now,” Elle comments, walking back to us with Derek. “We only went a quarter of a mile, and we almost got lost.”

“Jamie was right. The unsub is a local. You don’t just stumble onto a place like this.” 

“JJ, where’d the sheriff go?”

“He’s setting up a search party.” 

“Tell him I want him to use volunteers from the area.”

“Do you want him to know why?”

“No, not yet.”

“Is it wise to alienate him?”

“Well, he thinks we’re looking for a monster. If we tell him we’re looking for volunteers so we can profile who shows up, he might call the whole thing off.” 

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

“State won’t be here for over an hour. We’re not gonna wait. I want you to gather everyone up, and I’m going to assign grid locations.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“You have a moment, sheriff?” JJ asks. 

“I’ve got a missing girl, a hundred square miles of woods, not enough men, and in a couple of hours, it’s gonna be dark.” 

“Have you considered using the people that live in the area?”

“I’m not gonna have civilians messing up the crime scene.”

“We can instruct them not to touch anything until a member of Law Enforcement arrives.”

“What if they get lost, too?”

“We can have them sign into a volunteer sheet and keep track of what grid square they’re in. Look...I grew up in a small town. You have the state police coming in?”

“Yeah.”

“Your locals can do a better job of finding this girl than any statie. Especially in these woods,” I cut in. “You know that.” 

“You’ll keep track of them?”

“She’s coordinated searches across the country.” The sheriff nods, and we head towards the vehicles.

“Let’s go. Harris, I’m going downtown. Don’t do anything until I get back.”

“Hey! Can I come with you guys?” Spencer calls out, catching up to us and nearly knocking me over. 

“Spencer, I will hit you again,” I threaten. 

“Sorry. I need to call Quantico and have them research that whole LOD thing,” he says, stumbling after us. 

“Yeah, sure. Hop in.” JJ helps me carefully climb into the back of the truck, and Spencer hops in after me, holding my crutches. 

“No bickering, you two,” JJ scolds us both from the shotgun seat. “Sorry, they get along like cats and dogs sometimes.”

“I wanna be the dog,” I whine. “Spencer can be the cat.” 

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

JJ helps lift me out of the truck, and I grab my crutches from Spencer. 

“What’s happened, John?” A man asks, stopping them and giving me a moment to catch up to them. 

“Reverend Paul Burke, this is...I’m sorry, I forgot your names.”

“I’m Agent Jareau, this is Dr Reid and our intern James.” 

“They’re with the FBI.”

“FBI? It’s true, then? Adam’s dead?”

“Cherish Hanson’s missing, too.” 

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Actually, yes,” the sheriff answers. “We’re putting together a search party. Could you call the congregation?” 

“Of course. I’ll go make some calls.”

“Thanks, Reverend. This way.” We follow sheriff Bridges into the station. “You can use any phone you want, Dr Reid, just dial 9 to get an outside line. I’ve got an emergency phone list back here in my office.” I see Spencer wander off to the corkboard, and so I redirect myself to follow. 

“Why is there a football?” I ask.

“Did you play ball?” A boy asks, coming up to us, donning a letterman jacket. 

“No,” Spencer scoffs.

“You hold that thing right, or I swear to God-” I reach for the football. 

“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have either, if not for my father. I’m Cory.” 

“Spencer Reid. This is Jamie, he played.” 

“You’re talking about me like I’m dead. I would play, if it wasn’t for these crutches and my three month ban from sports. Who’s that, Nietzsche?” I ask. 

“Thus Spake Zarathustra is rather antagonistic of the Judeo-Christian world view for this town, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think too many people here would’ve bothered to read it. If they had, they wouldn’t understand it. Might as well be a Hawking essay on quark theory.”

“People don’t typically read Nietzsche.” I look to Spencer, who laughs to himself.

“Hey, nobody ever got that reference before. Is my father around? The sheriff?” 

“He’s in his office with another agent.”

Agent? Hey, uh, Jamie. Why don’t you sit down? You should give that leg a rest,” Cory says, pulling out the closest chair. 

“Leg? Am I…” I look down at my legs. “I’m limping again, aren’t I?” 

“I didn’t notice. We’re with the FBI, the Behavioural Analysis Unit.”

“Profilers?” We both nod. “This is mad cool. I got, like a hundred questions I go...wait. Why would FBI profilers be here in McAllister?” 

“There was a murder outside of town on the mountain,” Spencer explains. 

“A murder?”

“And a girl’s missing.” 

“It’s Cherish, son.”

“Cherish Hanson?” 

“We’re putting together a search party. I need you to get the rest of the team together and meet us out at the trail about half a mile south of the point.” 

“Yeah, okay.” 

“Spencer, can you get me my drink out of my bag, please? Thank you.” Spencer hands me a bottle of Mountain Dew, and I screw open the bottle and gulp it down. 

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

“Man, this is one Peyton place of a town.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

“Most everyone lives well above the median income of the country. You have doctors, lawyers...one guy owns a bunch of shoe stores up and down the Eastern seaboard.”

“Is he married?”

“Yep. Story of my life, sunshine. Reverend Paul Burke, looks like he became born again in prison.”

“Love that. What was he in for?” I ask. 

“Yeah. Two years as a guest of the state of Ohio for embezzlement.” 

“JJ, what’s embezzlement?” I ask.

“It’s when people steal money from their jobs.” 

“I’m seeing a lot of tax sheltering and various hanky-panky here, but I’m not sure what would suggest potential Satanic cult members. Hold on.”

“You got something?”

“Yeah. I got a guy with a ton of debts, spotty work history, his house is in foreclosure. He’s got a record, too. Assault with a deadly weapon three years ago.” 

“Wait, does it say what the weapon was?” JJ asks.

“Baseball bat.”

“Our unsub used a blunt object.”

“Bats are blunt, aren’t they?” I ask. 

“What’s this guy’s name?”

“Dent. Henry Dent.”

“Apt name.”

“Jamie, where is he on the list?” 

I look over the list of names, quickly finding it. “Grid B-5. That puts him with...Elle. JJ? Should we let her know?”

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

Spencer yawns. “Tired?” Aaron asks.

“I’m fine.”

“We all get them sometimes.”

“Get what?”

“Nightmares.”

Spencer looks straight at me. “I didn’t say anything,” I recount. 

“It’s not that bad.” 

“If you want to talk about it, you know where I am.” We watch Aaron walk away from us.

“Uh, they’re ready,” JJ says. 

“Okay.” I look to the crowd gathering near one end of the station. Wait, when did they start showing up? What? 

“When did they show up?”

“Why don’t you catch another nap, we have to deliver the profile.”

“Hell no, I’m not napping right now.” 

“Contrary to popular belief,” Aaron begins, “there has never been a proven case of Satanic ritual killing. Never a verified human sacrifice. Having said that, there have been isolated cases of animal sacrifice…and many, many cases of vandalism in the name of Satan.” 

“Now, that doesn’t mean that ritual satanism is impossible,” Derek adds. “More importantly, for our purposes, there have been cults that killed, just not in ritual fashion.”

“The Reverend Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple...his followers killed a US congressman and three people before committing mass suicide, leaving over nine hundred people dead.”

“This also happened with the Order of the Solar Temple and Heaven’s Gate, and perhaps the most notorious of the killer cults, the Manson family, they, uh, killed nine people in a four day period in an attempt to initiate a race war,” I cut in, getting up from my chair and onto my crutches.

“Killer cults do exist, and they all have one thing in common. Invariably, they’re headed by charismatic megalomaniacs.” 

“You’re looking for that leader. He’s who will stand out. He’ll be memorable to somebody, people who aren’t in his group will see him as strange, weird, scary.”

“Since we’re dealing with professed Satanists, which is often practiced by younger males, we may be looking for teenagers. Heavy metal music is often associated with satanism, and these kids and their leader may reflect that in their look.” 

“Most likely, there’ll be sex, drugs, and alcohol. Now, the leader, he’ll be older. It’s part of his charm.”

“And he is from this area. He’s definitely local. These woods are too thick and confusing for a visitor to get around in.”

“You think one of our own people is doing this?” An officer asks.

“I believe that anything is possible,” I simply answer. 

“I would know if someone was capable of doing -”

“Dad. I know somebody like that,” Cory says.

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

 “His name’s Mike Zizzo. He graduated about five years ago. He’s in his twenties, but he still hangs out with high school kids. He’s got a group of them. They follow him everywhere. They all get high and listen to heavy metal. He calls them the Lords of Destruction.” 

“LOD,” Spencer and I say in unison before staring at each other. 

“How do you know this, Cory?” Silence. “It’s alright, son.” 

“I’ve been there, where they hang out drinking beers. He talks about Satan all the time. Says he’s the one true God.” 

“Where is this place?” Uncle Jason asks. 

“On the other side of the mountain. The old Jenson house.”

“It’s out of my jurisdiction.” 

“Not ours. We’re federal.” I look up to see Spencer, Jason, and Aaron get ready to leave.

“I’m sorry, Dad.” 

“It’s okay to let loose once in a while, Cory,” I say. 

“It’s alright, son,” the reverend says, and I walk myself out of the office and station, seeing the team load up into the SUVs. Uncle Jason stands outside of one, and I head over as fast as I can. 

“What’s going on?” I ask, turning to where Uncle Jason is looking, a girl stands on the other side of the road, staring at us. She watches the SUVs drive off, lights blaring, and I turn my attention back to find Uncle Jason crossing the road to get to her. God, what is with you people? Move slower, all of you! Fucking assholes. 

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

I look around and inwardly groan at the fact that I had followed Jason into a church. Of all the fucking places? A church? He unwraps his scarf from around his neck and sits in the front pew, next to a silent girl. Ignore the pain, ignore the pain.

“Do you believe in God?” She asks, I stop next to the pew behind them, gulping and ignoring the sharp pains in my chest.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you believe in God?” She asks again.

“Yes.”

“How about the Devil?” I look away, taking in how red the interior of the church is. Why is it so red in here? “You’re one of the FBI agents, aren’t you?” 

“Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Do you think God is vengeful?”

“I don’t know.” 

“You don’t think he punishes us?” Well, I have a lot of reasons to be punished, if that was the case.

“After Hurricane Katrina, I read some essays by religious scholars. One writer said God was punishing America for its immorality. New Orleans was a wicked city, like Sodom and Gomorrah. Another one, a priest from New Orleans, he thought the hurricane was proof of God’s love.” Sure, show them you love them by killing them. Nothing like sending a fucking hurricane to prove your undying love. “Those levees didn’t break until after the storm was over. If they’d broken sooner, thousands would’ve died. So...I guess the answer to your question depends on whether or not you think you have something to be punished for.” Uncle Jason looks past her and right at me. I hate you so much. 

“My friend Cherish...she’s missing. And it’s my fault. The skeleton under the tree, he died a year ago. He fell off the trail, cracked his head open. He was just some tourist or something.”

“How do you know that?”

“We went to see the body all the time. We watched it decompose.” 

“Who did?”

“We did. Everybody, the whole group. At first, we were just curious, you know? We’d go, a couple of us at a time, show each other. None of us had ever seen a dead body before. And then it kind of became our thing.” Uncle Jason nods along. “Something we had that our parents didn’t know about. It was ours.” 

“This was a human being.”

“I told you that we’re being punished.” 

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

“I’ve been with Brandi Dreifort. Do you know her?” 

“Yeah. She’s a friend of my son’s.” 

“She’s a friend of Cherish’s, too.” 

“And?”

“They all knew about that skeleton,” I cut in. 

“Who did?” Sheriff Bridges asks. 

“The kids. Football team, cheerleaders, everyone. They all watched him decompose...like a game…”

“What?” Elle aks. 

“Far as I can tell, the only kids in the area who didn’t know were Mike Zizzo and the LOD.” 

“That’s ridiculous.” 

“Sounds impossible, it’s unbelievable, but she told Jason all about it. Guy was a...a hiker. He’s probably listed, missing person somewhere…” 

“How do you know the LOD wasn’t involved?”

“She said the pentagram and the candles, they weren’t there a few months ago.”

“Which means?”

“Someone’s framing the LOD. Somebody wanted us to believe there were Satanists here.” I answer. 

“Jamie, you should sit down. You’ve been up a while-”

“No, no, no, I got more. Unsubs like to...insert themselves into investigations. Who gave us the LOD? Who gave us Zizzo?”

“You’re talking about Cory?”

“Con...con...convin...convien…”

“It was convienent, wasn’t it? Lucky we had a kid right in the room who could tell us where the LOD was. A group of fringe kids nobody in the town would like.” 

“But-”

“You called us here to advise you. My advice would be to get in front of this before yourson hurts himself or anybody else. You know where he is, Sheriff?”

“He went up to the Jenson house to see if your guys found anything on Cherish.” 

“Morgan and Reid are out there right now.”

“Hey, Sheriff. DId you open the gun locker?” An officer asks. 

“No.”

“Someone did. There’s a revolver missing.”

“Cory,” I solemnly answer. 

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

I stare at Spencer, who just zones off at the wall behind me. “Stop staring at me, Spencer,” I whine. “I can’t exactly go anywhere without the damn crutches.” 

“Reid,” Uncle Jason says, bringing the beanpole’s attention back to reality. “Deborah Louise Addison. Her husband Tim. The kids are Amber and Kieth. Eight and six. In 1985, Deborah Louise was walking home from school. She was abducted. She was thirteen. We profiled the unsub, and we were able to locate her before he harmed her. She writes a letter to the BAU every year. She updates us on her life.”

“It’s nice, but -”

“We all have bad dreams. Everyone on the plane. Even Jamie. Jamie, do you remember that one recurring dream where Hotch’s neighbour killed you and your dog?”

“No?” 

“Who wouldn’t have nightmares? We hunt the worst of humanity, we see the depths of depravity, we dream of monsters…”

“Inmy dream, there’s a baby in the middle fo a circle and there’s someone on the other side. And I can’t get to her before…”

“Every night I look at Deborah, helps me go to sleep thinking of the victims we’ve saved. We don’t always beat the monsters to the babies, but we do enough to make the job worth it, keep the nightmares bearable. Jamie, you should catch some sleep before we land. I’ll take you straight home to your dad.” I nod and lay my head down in his lap, staring at blurry pictures of my friends from the last play we were in.

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

“Your show sounds lovely. I’m sure if you tell Jordan how much you want to be in the show, then he’ll find a way for you to be in it,” Jason advises as he pulls into my dad’s mansion driveway, driving me up to the front door. 

“Jason? What if nothing ever goes back to the way it was?” I ask. “What if I’m stuck on these stupid crutches forever? I’d have to rethink everything-”

“We’ll take it a day at a time, remember?” He cuts me off immediately. “I’ve known you all your life. You have tendencies to over worry about things. It’s going to work out okay.” 

“Will it? I can’t go back into school until next semester, I lost my hair again, I lost all of my activities. I can’t even watch music videos without getting a massive headache. All I want to do is everything I’m not allowed to do! It’s so fuck-”

“Don’t. Your fracture is still healing.” 

“I can’t even get my anger out, cause I’m not allowed to box or wrestle! Fuck this!” 

“Jamie, Jamie. I need you to look at me right now.” Jason rotates my head towards him. “You’re allowed to be mad about this. You are a fighter. You overcame a cancer scare, numerous spinal injuries and concussions. Your conditions don’t hold you back. Just because you’re going through a set back doesn’t mean it’s time to give up. Come on, I’ll walk you in and put you to bed if you want.” Jason climbs out of the drivers’ seat and rounds the front to help me onto my feet and position my crutches so I can use them. “I think you worked yourself too hard, and you should rest some more.” I groan in pain, wincing at the throbbing in my head. 

“Headache?” I nod weakly. 

“Here, I can carry you in,” Uncle Jason offers, swinging an arm under my knees and sweeping me into his arms with a groan. “You’re getting too big for me to carry you.” 

“Mio bel ragazzo,” I hear Dad exclaim from up ahead. 

“Dad,” I quietly answer back with a smile. 

“He tired himself out. Headache right now, Spencer almost tripped him a few times.” I hear Dad groan as a door closes, and dogs start barking. “Oscar, Mudgie, down,” Dad commands. “Go put him in bed, I’ll get his medication ready.” I nuzzle my head into Jason’s warm chest and whine, scrunching my face as the throbbing gets worse. 

“I know, I know. You’ll be in bed soon.” It feels like a lifetime before I feel my mattress dipping under me, my soft covers enveloping me. “There. Your dad’s gonna be up soon.” I hear a dog whine as I bury my head into the bed. “Here you go, Oscar. Cuddle up nice and tight, will you? Here’s your blankie and your turtle.” I make my grabbie hands as the items are handed to me, Jason wraps me in my favourite bright green blanket and puts my turtle into my arms. I nestle my head into the crook of the turtle’s neck, squeezing it tightly against my chest. Rough fingers run gently through my hair as I feel a small dog walking up and starting to lick my neck. 

“Oscar…” I whine. Jason chuckles as my pup moves to lay on my stomach. 

“Goodnight, Jamie. Your dad’s here now.” 

“Daddy…” I mumble, pouting my chapped lip. 

“Here, it’s time for your meds,” Dad whispers, gently helping make sure I don’t choke on pills or water. “There you go. That’s my boy.” I smile, breathing deeply and gently opening my eyes as Dad plays with my hair. “You must have tired yourself out, huh?” 

“Daddy...stay…” I reach out, grabbing his rough yet gentle hand. 

“Of course. Anything for you, ragazzo.” My other hand rests on Oscar’s soft curly hair, my thumb gently cascading the soft, gentle skin. “Sssh, it’s okay. You can sleep now. I won’t go.” 

“Hol...hol...hol me…” I murmur. 

“You want me in bed with you?” 

I gently nod.

“Okay. I’ll be right back, I just have to get ready for bed. Don’t wait up for me, okay? Ti amo.”

[grindskull]

Shit that fucks me up #1 - Toxic Masculinity and being a “man”

Gotta have some way to organize my random thoughts here. I’m going with the obvious thing - Shit that fucks me up (STFMU). This is about me and my experiences. It is not my intention to discredit or question other human experiences. Sharing in the hopes of connecting with others who may have feel similar in their own skin. There are things here that others may define as triggers so read at your own risk (rape, abuse, and this fucking world). ---

Here is me being vulnerable.  I am putting myself out there by discussing masculinity and how I often do not identify with the larger concept of “being a man” in any positive way. You can call it toxic masculinity if you prefer. It’s acceptable shorthand for something that is just as nuanced and difficult to wade through as anything gender related.  I read this article on The Atlantic yesterday and there were some things that really resonated with me and my experience as a man/male (he/his/him). You can read it here (sorry there is a pay wall if you read more than 4 articles a month) but I will also be quoting some of the article below.  If you have time to read the article I’ll wait. It’s a bit long (many articles on The Atlantic are) and kind of academic at times. It’s okay if you don’t agree with everything in the article. Just read it.  Done? Okay let me set the stage a bit for how this shit fucks me up. ---

I’m male. I have always identified as a male/boy/man in my life. Unfortunately my experience with other males/boys/men has been mostly negative. It started at an early age when I had a hard time connecting with other boys my age. I was not interested in typical “male” interests like sports, violence, competition, and achievement. I had few (usually 1 or 2) friends at any one time and they typically had some kind of unhealthy power dynamic over me where I was subservient to my “friend” in some way.  I have some thoughts on reasons why this happened. The short version is I lived in poverty (often extreme) and I was searching for help and support in order to survive. At home I had abuse (mental, physical, verbal), drugs, addiction, and neglect. It was not a safe place to be so I did whatever I could to not be there. It was not unusual for me to eat maybe one meal during the day (typically what I could get from others at school or their home). Winter was the worst as we often did not have heat. Some of my “friends” used this as a way to hold power over me and make demands of my personality, time, and attention. Imagine finding yourself in this situation - you have to actively work to not be yourself in order to appease others for your very survival. Of course as a youth I didn’t identify it this way - my “friends” were just bossy or demanding. All of my male role models were basically assholes who did not give a fuck about anyone except themselves. This was a huge part of the 80′s zeitgeist in popular culture at the time as well. In some ways nothing has really changed. “... when asked to describe the attributes of “the ideal guy,” those same boys appeared to be harking back to 1955. Dominance. Aggression. Rugged good looks (with an emphasis on height). Sexual prowess. Stoicism. Athleticism. Wealth (at least some day).“ Under this common definition of “masculinity” I do not see myself. I am loyal, honest, caring, and sweet (to those I love). I love my body though I am non-athletic and have been most of my life. I am an attentive and talented lover but I have had very few sexual partners in my life and never saw them as moments of “conquest”. I was dirt poor most of my life but now live comfortably in my own home with my long term partner. So while not “wealthy” it is far beyond anything I could have imagined I would have in my life as a boy. Stoicism I have down. That one was easy. For me it’s just a nice way of saying “I have completely disconnected from my emotions and not having feelings or emotions is the best way to be a man”. I believed that for a very long time - it’s only in the past 2-3 years I have begun the work of breaking that down and reconnecting with my own emotions. It’s all tied up in trauma, depression, and anxiety so it takes a bit of fucking work but it’s very much worth it. If you are a man/male who thinks it is normal to not have emotions (or that emotions make you feminine/weak) please listen to me - THAT IS BULLSHIT. YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO HAVE EMOTIONS.

“... young men described just one narrow route to successful masculinity. One-third said they felt compelled to suppress their feelings, to “suck it up” or “be a man” when they were sad or scared, and more than 40 percent said that when they were angry, society expected them to be combative.“

Emotions are not weakness. You are not weak for having them, feeling them, or connecting with them. There is great strength in connecting with yourself and understanding your emotions. Don’t let anyone tell you different. They are delusional at best and actively trying to harm you at worst.

“While following the conventional script may still bring social and professional rewards to boys and men, research shows that those who rigidly adhere to certain masculine norms are not only more likely to harass and bully others but to themselves be victims of verbal or physical violence. They’re more prone to binge-drinking, risky sexual behavior, and getting in car accidents. They are also less happy than other guys, with higher depression rates and fewer friends in whom they can confide.”

---

How did we get here!? Have men always been this way? What about the good ole masculinity of ye olden times? It was a simple time where men were men right? A man’s man? “According to Andrew Smiler, a psychologist who has studied the history of Western masculinity, the ideal late-19th-century man was compassionate, a caretaker, but such qualities lost favor as paid labor moved from homes to factories during industrialization. In fact, the Boy Scouts, whose creed urges its members to be loyal, friendly, courteous, and kind, was founded in 1910 in part to counter that dehumanizing trend. Smiler attributes further distortions in masculinity to a century-long backlash against women’s rights. During World War I, women proved that they could keep the economy humming on their own, and soon afterward they secured the vote. Instead of embracing gender equality, he says, the country’s leaders “doubled down” on the inalienable male right to power, emphasizing men’s supposedly more logical and less emotional nature as a prerequisite for leadership.”

Take a minute to read that and really take it in. Like many things in the US (and the world) the effects of industrialization and war shaped our current version of accepted masculinity. More specifically the leaders of this country (and leaders in other countries) used their positions of power to strengthen men and this new masculinity in our institutions. Then we were taught that this was the “right way” to “be a man”. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

“Today many parents are unsure of how to raise a boy, what sort of masculinity to encourage in their sons. But as I learned from talking with boys themselves, the culture of adolescence, which fuses hyper-rationality with domination, sexual conquest, and a glorification of male violence, fills the void.“

Here we have the core of what I experience as a man when it comes to the current socially accepted version of masculinity and why it fucks me up. I don’t identify with any of this shit! It does not feed me. It does not make me feel fulfilled and happy. It doesn’t make the world better for anyone it simply dehumanizes us all. 

“In a classic study, adults shown a video of an infant startled by a jack-in-the-box were more likely to presume the baby was “angry” if they were first told the child was male. Mothers of young children have repeatedly been found to talk more to their girls and to employ a broader, richer emotional vocabulary with them; with their sons, again, they tend to linger on anger. As for fathers, they speak with less emotional nuance than mothers regardless of their child’s sex. Despite that, according to Judy Y. Chu, a human-biology lecturer at Stanford who conducted a study of boys from pre-K through first grade, little boys have a keen understanding of emotions and a desire for close relationships. But by age 5 or 6, they’ve learned to knock that stuff off, at least in public: to disconnect from feelings of weakness, reject friendships with girls (or take them underground, outside of school), and become more hierarchical in their behavior.“

I’m not going to get into the topic of my own father (that’s another post in this series for sure) too deeply but I will say I completely identify with these ideas. Emotional distance, only expressing anger, telling me having emotions was weak. This was reinforced societal norms throughout my youth through today. Don’t talk about your problems or feelings. Ball them up inside. Wall yourself off from the world. Connections = weakness that others will exploit. You must control every situation and hold power over others. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

---

So when did I wake up? When did I start to see through this shit in some way? When my younger sister was born. It was really obvious to me that she was treated in a different way and expectations of her as a girl/woman were not the same as the expectations others had for me. Mostly I just saw the negatives in this. It took me time (and lots of communication and experiences with my partner and others) to recognize the root of this was more fucked up socialization. 

“Girlfriends, mothers, and in some cases sisters were the most common confidants of the boys I met. While it’s wonderful to know they have someone to talk to—and I’m sure mothers, in particular, savor the role—teaching boys that women are responsible for emotional labor, for processing men’s emotional lives in ways that would be emasculating for them to do themselves, comes at a price for both sexes. Among other things, that dependence can leave men unable to identify or express their own emotions, and ill-equipped to form caring, lasting adult relationships.”

Read this carefully. Nobody is responsible for your emotional well being but you. If you are a male/man this is especially true - females/women are not responsible for managing your emotions and your reliance on them to take care of this is a form of abuse. They are not responsible for your emotions. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN EMOTIONS.

It can be really hard to see this. It was a blind spot for me for way too long. Don’t let it be one for you. Connecting with and taking responsibility for your emotions is one of the biggest things you can do to improve yourself as a human being. If you are sad you can cry. If you are happy you can laugh. You have a wide range of emotions and they don’t all lead to frustration or anger.

“As someone who, by virtue of my sex, has always had permission to weep, I didn’t initially understand this. Only after multiple interviews did I realize that when boys confided in me about crying—or, even more so, when they teared up right in front of me—they were taking a risk, trusting me with something private and precious: evidence of vulnerability, or a desire for it.“

---

Okay so putting aside all of the reinforcement we get from our parents and institutions and our lack of emotional vulnerability why do we all buy into this dumb shit? Who convinced us all this is what masculinity is? And why do we listen?

“What the longtime sportswriter Robert Lipsyte calls “jock culture” (or what the boys I talked with more often referred to as “bro culture”) is the dark underbelly of male-dominated enclaves, whether or not they formally involve athletics: all-boys’ schools, fraternity houses, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the military. Even as such groups promote bonding, even as they preach honor, pride, and integrity, they tend to condition young men to treat anyone who is not “on the team” as the enemy (the only women who ordinarily make the cut are blood relatives— bros before hos!), justifying any hostility toward them. Loyalty is paramount, and masculinity is habitually established through misogynist language and homophobia.”

Sounds familiar right guys? Don’t kid yourself. This is what being a man looks like in almost all situations in which we feel “safe” to express our self right? You are either with us or against us. Anything different or anyone questioning this behavior must be “othered” as they are clearly not “on the team”. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

This was my entire experience as a youth. As someone who did not fit into this group (nor wanted to) I was immediately “othered” and deemed a “pussy” or “fag” or “homo” or “weirdo”. My friend group reflected this - mostly others who also were “not on the team” like women, gays and lesbians, and men who also did not identify with this version of masculinity. Which just made it easier to group us all together and identify us as the enemy. 

“Just because some young men now draw the line at referring to someone who is openly gay as a fag doesn’t mean, by the way, that gay men (or men with traits that read as gay) are suddenly safe. If anything, the gay guys I met were more conscious of the rules of manhood than their straight peers were. They had to be—and because of that, they were like spies in the house of hypermasculinity.” Without the ability to connect with and express my emotions I often reacted in anger. I started fights. I got violent (with words and writing mostly). I returned this “othering” and treated them all as the enemy. I had other reasons for this (being abused by men as a boy) but at the crux of the issue I had no trust for men. This helped me connect with women and my gay friends as they also experienced this distrust in similar (and different) ways. 

Years later I found myself in a job where I managed a group of men (100 or more at any time) working as a team (video game industry) and totally unable to connect with any of them as a human let alone a man. It was at this time that I realized this was a problem beyond my own experiences and when I started to understand my own participation in this system. 

I tried to question things as they came up. I tried to hear my teammates and help them navigate this murky sea of masculinity to find their own place in it. Most people didn’t want to participate. They learned to keep their mouth shut if I was within earshot of their typical “bro talk”. They learned to act differently around me so as not to incur my wrath (using my anger and position of power to punish them for being sexist, racist, or intolerant). I felt powerful and I tricked myself into thinking I was making a difference. I was wrong. 

---

“Recently, Pascoe turned her attention to no homo, a phrase that gained traction in the 1990s. She sifted through more than 1,000 tweets, primarily by young men, that included the phrase. Most were expressing a positive emotion, sometimes as innocuous as “I love chocolate ice cream, #nohomo” or “I loved the movie The Day After Tomorrow, #nohomo.” “A lot of times they were saying things like ‘I miss you’ to a friend or ‘We should hang out soon,’ ” she said. “Just normal expressions of joy or connection.” No homo is a form of inoculation against insults from other guys, Pascoe concluded, a “shield that allows boys to be fully human.”

It wasn’t long before my “making a difference” spread into our hiring, training, and management of the team. I brought in women who wanted to work in the game industry. I tried to shut down any of the bro culture bullshit that came up and used it as an opportunity to teach other men why it was fucked up. It worked for some (maybe 5-6 people out of hundreds) but the majority either quit or tried to get me fired. Most did not change their behavior in any way. 

The women said they knew what they were getting into. I don’t believe they knew what it was like to actually be in the middle of the situation. I assume women in the military probably have a lot of experience like this. In short - it’s fucking toxic and disgusting. Like other males/men they too have to fall in line and “become one of the boys” or risk being antagonized and ostracized for being “different”. It’s Lord of the Flies. It’s fucking mob mentality. It’s masculinity at it’s absolute worst. And this was in a “progressive” creative city working for a small company with a woman CEO. Men simply don’t give a fuck and it’s almost always easier to go with the flow. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

My first experience with a trans individual in a work setting occurred was while I was managing this team. One of our long term employees made the transition and I had to watch how they were treated by the “bros’. Jokes were made, memes were shared, snickering and fucked up behavior was rampant. I had to talk to, discipline, and fire many individuals. These were men I thought were “on the team” and working to be good examples of masculinity. I should have known that was just part of the act - their way of surviving and showing subservience to me as a man in a position of power over them. My trust was further eroded in masculinity. 

Putting yourself over others is not power. It is dehumanization and it stems from hate. We can be different without being better or worse than someone else regardless of who they are. Not everything has to be a competition. It took me way too long to undo the damage done to me by these ideal of toxic masculinity. You can do it too - you just have to start today. 

---

Beyond the negative effects this version of masculinity has on us as males/men it also fucks up our interaction with women and sexual partners and it’s certainly done so to me. I’m actively working on unfucking my fucking and aware that many of my heterosexual ideals of sex stem from the same shit I have been actively fighting against most of my life. Connecting emotionally with your sexual partner takes things to a completely different level.

“It’s not like I imagined boys would gush about making sweet, sweet love to the ladies, but why was their language so weaponized ? The answer, I came to believe, was that locker-room talk isn’t about sex at all, which is why guys were ashamed to discuss it openly with me. The (often clearly exaggerated) stories boys tell are really about power: using aggression toward women to connect and to validate one another as heterosexual, or to claim top spots in the adolescent sexual hierarchy. Dismissing that as “banter” denies the ways that language can desensitize—abrade boys’ ability to see girls as people deserving of respect and dignity in sexual encounters.”  

This is the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the term “rape culture”. As men we are taught that to be masculine is to claim “wins” in sexual conquest. Sex is property and we can collect it. Even if it’s with our long term partners or spouses. Ever tried talking to men about this? Ever questioned others on how it’s fucked up? You probably heard about how it’s all in jest. Just a joke! I’m just joking!  “When called out, boys typically claim that they thought they were just being “funny.” And in a way that makes sense—when left unexamined, such “humor” may seem like an extension of the gross-out comedy of childhood. Little boys are famous for their fart jokes, booger jokes, poop jokes. It’s how they test boundaries, understand the human body, gain a little cred among their peers. But, as can happen with sports, their glee in that can both enable and camouflage sexism. The boy who, at age 10, asks his friends the difference between a dead baby and a bowling ball may or may not find it equally uproarious, at 16, to share what a woman and a bowling ball have in common (you can Google it). He may or may not post ever-escalating “jokes” about women, or African Americans, or homosexuals, or disabled people on a group Snapchat. He may or may not send “funny” texts to friends about “girls who need to be raped,” or think it’s hysterical to surprise a buddy with a meme in which a woman is being gagged by a penis, her mascara mixed with her tears. He may or may not, at 18, scrawl the names of his hookups on a wall in his all-male dorm, as part of a year-long competition to see who can “pull” the most. Perfectly nice, bright, polite boys I interviewed had done one or another of these things.”

Let me be clear in case you are confused. This shit isn’t funny. Laughing at other people’s misfortune is a long standing human tradition yes - and it still dehumanizes everyone involved. That doesn’t make me laugh but maybe you are still amused? Why?

“At the most disturbing end of the continuum, “funny” and “hilarious” become a defense against charges of sexual harassment or assault. To cite just one example, a boy from Steubenville, Ohio, was captured on video joking about the repeated violation of an unconscious girl at a party by a couple of high-school football players. “She is so raped,” he said, laughing. “They raped her quicker than Mike Tyson.” When someone off camera suggested that rape wasn’t funny, he retorted, “It isn’t funny—it’s hilarious!”

The classic toxic masculinity force field present in my life has been the “just joking” phrase with the ultimate no consequence phrase “it’s hilarious!”. Say something you don’t want to manage the consequences for? Just a joke! People still question you or your morals after saying some heinous shit? No.. it’s cool... it’s hilarious! You just gotta laugh! FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

“Hilarious” is another way, under the pretext of horseplay or group bonding, that boys learn to disregard others’ feelings as well as their own. “Hilarious” is a haven, offering distance when something is inappropriate, confusing, depressing, unnerving, or horrifying; when something defies boys’ ethics. It allows them to subvert a more compassionate response that could be read as unmasculine—and makes sexism and misogyny feel transgressive rather than supportive of an age-old status quo. Boys may know when something is wrong; they may even know that true manhood—or maybe just common decency—compels them to speak up. Yet, too often, they fear that if they do, they’ll be marginalized or, worse, themselves become the target of derision from other boys. Masculinity, then, becomes not only about what boys do say, but about what they don’t—or won’t, or can’t—say, even when they wish they could. The psychologists Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, the authors of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, have pointed out that silence in the face of cruelty or sexism is how too many boys become men. 

I feel like I may have already gone too far into this dark hole of shit that fucks me up around toxic masculinity. I hope I didn’t lose you. I hope you have questions and thoughts about how this impacts your life. Perhaps ways that you make a change today to fight against this bullshit. You may be asking yourself “what can we do!?” At the end of the day its up to males/men to change this culture. It’s not about self-hate or self-abuse. We gotta name this and own it. We need more men to step up and say ‘It doesn’t have to be like this”. Our collective mental health requires us to be more flexible and connected to ourselves and emotions. We need to find ways to deal with our anger, frustration, and desires in ways that don’t hurt ourselves and others. We need to teach ourselves (especially youth) that it isn’t enough to only talk about things we shouldn’t (and hopefully won’t) do. 

If this shit fucks you too you can do something about it. Start with yourself. Question these things when they come up. And not only when you feel “safe” to do so. Do it consistently in ways that are non-confrontational (they will probably lead to confrontations with most men anyway - sorry). Be okay with not always “winning’ in these situations. You’ll be surprised who you might connect with in the process. Hopefully one of those people will be yourself. 

[morbid-n-macabre]

Fayetteville, Georgia-

40 year old Chris Benoit was a famous WWE wrestler and family annihilator. The "Canadian Crippler", as he was known in the wrestling world, murdered his wife, Nancy, their 7 year old son, Daniel, then committed suicide during the 3 day weekend of June 22nd through the 25th of 2007.

On Friday Nancy lost her life. She was killed in a second story room; her limbs had been bound, a cord wrapped around her throat, and she was strangled. There were bruises on her stomach and back where Chris had presumably pressed his knee into her, and at some point she suffered a blow to the head. When she was deceased, Nancy was covered with a towel and a Bible was place near her body. Toxicology later proved that Vicodin and Xanax were in her system, but sources claim that these were her everyday medications.

It's believed that someone during Saturday night little Daniel was murdered in his bed. It's thought that Chris drugged his son with Xanax ahead of time, then suffocated him; many believe that Chris used his famous signature wrestling move, the Crippler Crossface, to end his child's life. As with his mother, a Bible was discovered in very close proximity to Daniel's corpse.

Throughout this weekend Chris had been in contact with his close friend and fellow wrestler, Chavo Guerrero. Chris had missed a show, which was very much out of character for him; Chris explained that both Nancy and Daniel both had a nasty case of food poisoning and he may need to take them to the hospital.

On Sunday, Chavo and a a few other wrestlers received text messages from Chris's phone. These messages named the Benoit family's full street address, stated that the garage door was open, and the dogs were chained up in the back yard.

Since I try to be as factually correct as humanly possible, I'm not real sure as to who initially discovered the bodies. Most sources state that the police were called to conduct a wellness check, but others say that the Benoit's neighbor, Holly Schrepfer, was sent to the home to check on the dogs thereby stumbling upon the crime scene. Chris had passed away from apparent suicide just after he sent those texts to his buddies. He'd gone into his workout room, stacked on 240 pounds, and rigged the weight machine to hang himself; the wrestler's neck had been broken. The home computer's search history showed that someone had recently researched "the quickest and easiest way to break a neck".

As for Chris's motive, some think that Chris murdered Daniel because he suffered from "Fragile X Syndrome", but doctors say that the boy did not have this condition. It's said that Daniel had needle track marks on his arms at the time of his death, that Chris had deemed Daniel small for his age so he was treating the 7 year old with growth hormone injections. It's also said that Daniel had been having a hard time in school, and was being held back a grade; it must be mentioned that the boy's teachers say this is absolutely not true. As for Nancy, it's rumored that there had been some recent problems in the Benoit marriage. The relationship had been a passionate one; at one time the couple had separated and Nancy had filed for divorce, but according to friends those troubled times had seemed to be behind them. Furthermore, the shape of Chris's brain definitely needs mentioning. The man had been a superb wrestler, willing to perform stunts in which few others would dare attempt. Due to this, Chris's brain had been severely damaged; he'd suffered multiple untreated concussions, a broken neck in '01, and the steroid abuse certainly hadn't helped his condition. During autopsy the athlete had ten times the level of testosterone in his system, and his brain was comparable to that of an 85 year old Alzheimer's patient. Matter of fact, had this tragedy not occurred, doctors say that Chris would've had maybe 10 months left to live.

Those close to the wrestler say that Chris had been acting increasingly strange before that tragic weekend. He'd been quoting scripture and seen with a rosary around his neck. The wrestler had not been a religious man, yet Bibles were found next to all 3 corpse; a note which read, "I'm preparing to leave this Earth" was discovered inside one Bible. He'd been having strange nightmares, and kept a diary in which he wrote to his recently deceased best friend, Eddie Guerrero. Chris had become paranoid, thought people were following him, he wouldn't even take his trash out to the curb for fear that someone would rifle through it. Chris wouldn't allow his son to play in the yard, he had began taking detours on his way home, and was adamant that Nancy not stay out late after dark. The man had been terrified that someone was watching him, planning something sinister against him.

For many, these are little signs that all was not well in Chris's mind; for others, it's proof that he truly had been in trouble. Maybe someone really had been following him, meant to do him harm. Some believe that Chris and his family were murdered, and yes it does sound preposterous, but there is some evidence which points towards it.

The most popular theory is that fellow wrestler Kevin Sullivan murdered the family, and he did have some pretty serious motive! Back in the day Kevin and Chris were very close friends who played adversaries in the ring; during this time, Kevin and Nancy had been married. You know how the wrestlers have their storylines? Well, the Chris/Kevin story eventually lead to Nancy, who played a character known simply as "Woman" in the wrestling industry, had been having an affair with Chris. Kevin, Nancy's then husband, was not only cool with this fantasy, but he helped to write the story! In order to make it more realistic, Nancy and Chris were seen hanging out alone, they were often purposely discovered out in public on romantic dates, etc. Well, eventually this pretend affair turned into the real deal; the pair fell in love. Nancy divorced Kevin and married Chris, understandably creating a rift between the three. Kevin always blamed his former friend for the disillusion of his marriage. So, knowing this, there are some things which do not sit right.

First, and this is chalked up to coincidence, but at 12:01 am on Sunday morning, before anyone was aware of the murders, Nancy's death was announced on a wiki page. This has been explained away as a silly fan prank, but it's still odd. More worrisome are the statements from Chavo, which have made many people question the whole thing. We've already discussed that he had been in contact with Chris throughout the weekend. He's stated that during an early weekend call with Chris, someone came to the door; Chavo listened to what he would later describe as a scuffle, then the call disconnected. A few hours later Chris contacted his good buddy to say that all was well, and he ended the conversation with "I love you Chavo". This unnerved Chavo; he said that Chris sounded tired, and he was concerned for his friend. Again, Chavo and Chris had been very close, they hung out all the time. One of Chris's final texts to Chavo read, "My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayetteville Georgia. 30215". Why would Chris send his best buddy his address when Chavo knew exactly where he lived? Though I can not confirm this, it is reported that some of these texts were sent after Chris was already dead. Another bothersome fact, there were empty beer cans found near Chris's corpse, but autopsy concluded that the wrestler had not been drinking. So, who drank all of that beer? And do you remember the neighbor lady, Holly Schrepfer? She claims to have seen another wrestler near the Benoit home during this weekend, a wrestler who had absolutely no reason to be there. If all of this weren't enough, these murders took place on the 10th anniversary of Kevin and Nancy's divorce!

Now I'm not giving my opinion on this case, just telling you what I found during my research. That said, one thing is for sure: it doesn't appear that police conducted a thorough investigation of the case. It was automatically deemed a family annihilator situation, and that was that; Nancy's family claims that the police had left behind suitcases of steroids; these definitely should've been seized during the a search of the home. If they missed illegal substances, what else didn't they pick up on?

http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/24-reasons-that-will-prove-that-chris-benoit-is-innocent.453787849/

Out of this entire case, one fact chilled me to the bone when researching this case. You'll find very little mention of it, but young Daniel had a large kitchen knife tucked under his pillow at the time of his death. Why would a 7 year old boy be sleeping with a knife? Was he afraid, and if he was, of who? What did that child know, what had he witnessed during this weekend of hell? Had he been aware of his mama's murder, was he aware that he was next?

*There's much, much more to this, I could be here writing for a few more days but I wanna go ahead and post this. If you'd like to jump down this vast rabbit hole with me, here's a link to get you started. You gotta check the facts with links like these, but this one will get you started. Let me know what you think!

[thismightbewynn]

Wahoo, saw some of @deniigi‘s lightening prompts and the little impulse gremlin in my head yanked my chain and here we are, let’s go wahoo!!!  I did go a little hamwild with it though so big oopsies there but also I regret nothing and so I will not apologize!  Very long though, so I’mma slam dunk some of this under a read more.

-

“Foggy,” he nudged lightly.  “Foggy.  Foggy, Foggy.”

The accused raised his brow.

“What?”

“Take it back, Foggy.”

And back down the brow goes.  Up went the corners of his lip.

“Naahhh.”

This guy.  Ugh.

“You’re disgracing me, Foggy,” he said, without even a little bit of pouting.  Not even draping himself over a door frame or anything.  Certainly no theatrics.  “Slandering my name.”

“Denial is just the beginning, Mattias Murdock,” Foggy said into his cup, as if covering his smile would work on a blind man’s perception.

“My name is not Mattias.”  A pause.  “And I’m not old.  Take it back.”

“Okay, Matteo.  I believe you.”

That wasn’t taking it back.  That was active disbelief and dismissal.  These were things he could not have; not on his dignity, and certainly not on what little was left of his life.

He had little life left to live, not because he was old, but because he was going to die young, burning out fast and dancing forever.  Probably in the river somewhere, actually, but his poor life choices weren’t the issue here.  The issue here was Foggy’s refusal to withdraw his poor opinions, despite the stellar counterpoints Matt had beautifully presented just now.

It’s whatever, though.  It’s fine.  If his word wasn’t enough for this argument, then he’ll just find someone else to support him.  It can’t be any harder than finding a witness for court.

-

Spidey was doing a wonderful job.  Great work, really.  He didn’t know what was going on, since he came with zero context and bags of ulterior motive, but it sounded like general crime fighting with a hint of reptile.  It also sounded like he was just wrapping up.

He did something that was probably a salute.  He couldn’t keep track, nowadays.  Spidey was constantly trying out different salutes from a list he’d compiled from all four corners of the world wide web.  He was on a quest to find the ones best suited to make him look cool and respectable, he explained when Daredevil asked what all the hand waving was about.  He tried out a different one every week because he was weighing the public’s reactions to them.

The public was confused but charmed by it.  Matt, being part of the public by day, was not immune to this effect.  Apparently nobody was.

“I love you, officer.”

He pumped his chest twice and did the salute of the week again.

“I… sure, you too.”

The officer awkwardly imitated him.  Spidey’s heart beamed with joy.

“Well, I gotta go now.  Take care, ¡adios!”  He saluted again before he left.  The officer’s responding heartbeat indicated surprise.  Spidey had likely literally disappeared again.

“Why are you here?” he whispered, without really whispering at all.  He was awful at it, despite attempts to teach him otherwise.  He’d get the hang of it sooner or later, regardless.

“Just conducting a private survey,” he said, turning around, cane rhythmically tapping against the sidewalk.

“If this is about your costume, you look like if Shadow was designed to imitate Knuckles instead of Sonic.”

Matt had no idea what any of those words meant in that order.  He made no plans to understand or pretend to understand.  There were more important things at hand.

“Spider-Man,” he started.  “What was your first impression of me?”

“Honestly?  Cool but scary.  I thought you were gonna accuse me of murder and I’d be, like, yessir that sounds about right.”

“And now?”

“Uh, can I say something first?”

“Go ahead.”

He paused in thought, carefully chewing on the offered silence that was to fuel his thought process.  That was good.  Thoughtfulness and honesty was important for testimonies.  They were also important in general, but right now, he was looking for a testimony, so whatever.

Spidey’s heart beat steadily.

“I know it’s easier said than done, but you shouldn’t care too much about what other people think.  I mean, obviously it’s important, but I think being able to back yourself up is just as important.  Like, it’s great if other people believe in you, but you gotta do it too.  Self esteem, you know?”

Aww.

Useless for what he came for, but.

Aww.

“That’s great,” he said.  “But not what I’m looking for.”

Spidey sighed something tired.

“Well?” Matt pushed.

“Honestly, you’re a grumpy old man.”

That was worse than useless.  That was actively detrimental to his case.

“Wish you weren’t grumpy, though, but maybe old people are just like that.”

Said the kid who put way too much research into salutes.  And also, he’s not old.  Goodbye.

-

“The fuck are you asking me for?”

The younger the individual, the more valuable their opinion to how old he wasn’t.  If he asked someone older than him, of course they wouldn’t call him old out of bias.  If he asked someone of the same age, he would sacrifice what little was left of his dignity between them.  It had to be one of the wee ones.

“I’m conducting a private survey.”

Wade squinted.  Matt pretended not to notice.

“I’m not asking you.  I’m asking Eleanor.”

“You know everyone’s old to her, right?”

What--

How did he--

Whatever, it’s not important.  His opinion doesn’t matter right now, he’s not a wee one.

“Knock yourself out, dude.”

Eleanor Camacho had too much brutal honesty in her.  It was borderline rude.  His heart was bruised and she didn’t even give a shit.  She had an elaborate, extravagant torture system thinly disguised as a training regimen for her small brigand of action figures.  Little did they know, they were not saviors, but puppets meant to wreak havoc for their small, merciless god.  Anything or anyone who interrupted her was the scum of the earth, and was treated as such.

Of course her opinion was skewed.  She was upset.  People generally don’t say the nicest of truths when they’re upset.

This wasn’t working.  He needed to find someone in a good mood.

-

MILES: hey, did i say something wrong??

MILES: whatever it is i’m sorry

MILES: nevermind, foggy just told me you’re having an aging crisis

MILES: good to know you’re okay though!!

MATT: I am not having an aging crisis and Foggy is a liar. And yes I am perfectly okay thank you for noticing.

MILES: don’t worry dude, you’ll get over it!

MATT: Miles I just said I’m okay.

MILES: i freak out every birthday because growing means more responsibilities, but that’s a crisis that just runs out after i have some cake

MILES: and like, you’re done growing, so that’s it! these are all the responsibilities you have and you already know how to handle them. so i guess my advice is to get some cake

MILES: or something that is not cake, i don’t know what your tastebuds like. maybe you like to eat raw fish i don’t know

MATT: Miles, I appreciate what you are saying, but that is not the problem and you are not helping.

MILES: what’s the problem then?

MILES: is it because foggy said you’re old? because i’m sorry but he’s right

MILES: actually i’m not apologizing for telling the truth. you’re old, man

MATT: I’m going to block you.

MILES: you always say that but you never do it and honestly i don’t think you know how

MILES: you know why that is? it’s because you’re old and that means you’re technologyphobic

MILES: don’t worry, peter is old too but he’s not technologyphobic because he’s a nerd. you can ask him how to block me, i won’t mind! i just hope you can figure out how to unblock me on your own lol

MILES: i won’t judge if you have to ask peter how to unblock me too, you old people gotta stick together

MILES: no response? gone to ask peter how to use the youth gadgets your old man brain cannot comprehend i see

-

MATT: Miles is becoming too bold for his own good.

PETER: did he call you old? That’s okay he calls me old too, it’s like the opposite of making fun of how young he is.

PETER: also i heard about your aging crisis from him and honestly? Good luck dude

That was a private survey.  It was supposed to be private.  He remembered saying it was a private survey. 

PETER: may says that you can defeat feeling old by acknowledging that time passes and figuring out why being old feels like a personal attack to your emotional security

This was the worst.  This was exactly why that survey was private.  He made a silent pact to himself not to ask Miles anything ever again.

MATT: I see where Miles gets his bad influence from.

PETER: don’t blame me when miles gets all his advice from may

PETER: he says mine is faulty and full of holes which i guess is fair but like ouch you know?

MATT: No, I don’t.

MATT: Also, while I have you here, what was your first impression of me?

PETER: i’m not participating in this bye feel better soon

MATT: Peter answer the question

MATT: Peter hey

MATT: PETER

-

He was mourning the ongoing death of his youth and vitality.

“Are…  Are you okay?”

SAM.  SAMUEL.  DEAREST SAMUEL BLINDSPOT CHUNG.  FINALLY, A YOUTH HE CAN TRUST.

He immediately abandoned his mourning activities.

“Sam,” he said, with much urgency, leaning his weight against his palms on the desk.  Sam’s spine straightened to attention.

“Yeah?”

“What was your first impression of me?”

“Uh.  I don’t know, mostly just scared shitless?  But also really, really excited.”  A pause.  “And then mostly respect after that.”

Good, good.  No mention of old age.

“And now?” he continued eagerly.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhh.”  Sam creeped backwards.  “Uhhhhhhh.  You know what?  I’m just gonna.  Go.  Think about my answer.  And then come back later when I have it.”

NO.  SAM.  COME BACK.  UGH.

Matt sunk in his chair again, stuffing his face into his desk to hide his misery from the world.

Foggy came in.  Sam did a little dance with his head bouncing around behind Foggy’s back, trying to discreetly figure out what was going on.  He was failing at both.

The root of the problem leaned on the doorframe.  The man who watered that root was covering his smile with a mug, like it actually hid anything.

“You okay, buddy?”

“Fuck,” Matt bemoaned to the wood.  “I’m old.”

"That's what this is about?" Sam muttered to himself in the background.

“If it makes you feel any better, so am I.”

It didn’t, but it would if Foggy knew how to block people.

-

Thanks for reading <333 

Also, clarification: old age is mattphobic on account of the fact that having crunchy bones makes it hard to break other people’s not-crunchy bones.  Dementia?  Ain’t ever heard of her, that a new baddie or something?

Also also, I think Matty here has communication skills but like, he’s not good at using them when he’s being fueled by spite and selfish deeds or whatever lmao.

Anyways, have a good one !!  (This is also on the ao3 btw, if you wanna go check that out for whatever reason)  

lol (lots of love)!!!!

[kingfugue]

swan kingdom part 4-- EP

The first thing I noticed was the soft nature of my surroundings. My eyes weren’t open yet, but I felt as though a cloud was giving me a gentle hug, and I squirmed around in disbelief. “Oh,” a voice said from my right.

I opened my eyes to find the speaker, who, to my horror, was Mr. Crosswicks, dressed in a smart lavender sweater vest and holding an open book. “Mr. Crosswicks? W-what happened?” I stuttered. “Did I-- am I--”

“Well, after you passed out, I couldn’t just leave your lifeless body on the floor, could I?”

“Ah. Thank you very much, Mr. Crosswicks, I’ll make it up to you somehow.”

“Yes, I’ll make sure of it.” He snapped the book shut and scrutinized my face for a few tense moments before speaking. “When was the last time you ate something?”

How did he know everything I tried to hide? Could he read minds or something? “I’m not sure,” I replied. “How long was I asleep?”

“Approximately fourteen hours.”

“Fourteen--? Oh goodness, I’m so sorry. I really will make it up to you.”

“Answer the question.”

I swallowed, then mumbled, “er… three days ago… I think… or maybe four?”

“Good god. Remind me of your name.”

“Eden… Perelli…”

“You are a fucking idiot, Eden Perelli.” Mr. Crosswicks stood up and walked around the bed to open the door and yell down the hall, “Bellamy, lunch for two, and bring it soon.”

While he relayed orders, I observed the space. A wardrobe faced me on the other side, and to my right, a window let rays of sunlight filter inside. One electric light blazed from the center of the ceiling encased in a glass flower. And the walls-- I recognized the lavender walls at once-- I was still in Mr. Crosswick’s house. My face reddened. This man, a renowned scientist, caught me in his arms and let me sleep in his home. In a bed! I couldn’t recall the last time I slept in a bed.

“Do you take tea or coffee?” he asked me over his shoulder.

“Uh-- I’m not sure.”

He rolled his eyes. “Both, Bellamy, please and thank you. Yes, that’s all.”

“T-thank you.”

Without acknowledging me, Mr. Crosswicks closed the door and went back to his chair next to the bed. “So, you told me last night that you had information about IRs. Some information that you assumed I don’t already possess.”

When he put it like that, I realized how pompous it seemed for me to visit. More blood rushed to my face. “I suppose so,” I said.

“Would you care to share your findings with me?”

I decided to start with a preamble. “I’m a friend of Holland Rusk. She helps run the Rusk Bookshop, just north of here, and she gave me your name.”

“Oh, yes, I recall buying a book from her a few days ago. Rather chatty. Intelligent, for a civilian.”

“That’s her. She told me about your research, which is why I’m here.”

“I’m aware.”

“Mr. Crosswicks, forgive me if I sound ignorant, but how many interactions have you had with IRs?”

He considered this. For how rude he acted, at least he seemed to be taking me seriously now. “I have never met one,” he said. “My parents conducted most of the experiments and they died from radiation poisoning. I have utilized previous research or experimented on light forms of radioactivity-- plants, and the like.”

“You know the mutations vary from subject to subject, right? Some humans become animalistic, some humans can still think and communicate?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well--” I sat up in bed and rearranged my blankets, and realized that I was no longer wearing pants. I yelped and yanked the covers up over my legs. 

“Oh, yes. I treated your leg,” Mr. Crosswicks supplied.

“Y-you did?” I lifted the covers a few inches to check. Sure enough, my left shin was wrapped up in clean white gauze. “Oh! Thank you so much, Mr. Crosswicks! I--”

“Yes, yes,” he replied impatiently, “continue.”

I replaced the blankets. “Right. I’m sorry. Well, I’ve spent the last few years searching for IRs and helping them hide from monster hunters. I like to think I’ve got a good reputation among them.”

Mr. Crosswicks pondered this. “Miss Rusk mentioned you,” he mused.

“Right! You see, when I first moved to New London, a humanoid IR was the first one who showed me any kindness, and I knew that that they had to be misunderstood. So I found an old radiation suit in a dumpster, and I thought, I might as well try to do some good-- pay that kindness forward. I tried to be public about it at first. I rallied in the streets with a few IRs to bring public awareness to the issue, but I was arrested. A year later I escaped from prison and I’ve been on the run ever since. Oh, and if you want to turn me in,” I added quickly, “I won’t fight, Mr. Crosswicks, I understand. I just need you to hear me out before that happens.”

He held up a hand to stop me and I fell silent. “I am less interested in IRs and more interested in you.”

“Er-- me? Why?”

“Yes. You say you have lived with multiple IRs?”

“That’s right. Dozens, probably.”

“When did this begin?”

I counted on my fingers. “About-- ten years ago, is when I started.”

“When did you get the radiation suit?”

“That would be nine years ago.”

“You’ve used this suit ever since?”

“I haven’t had the money to buy a brand new one, so… yes.” His eyes hadn’t left me once and it was starting to make me uncomfortable. “Mr. Crosswicks, I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about,” I continued.

“You don’t? Eden-- may I call you Eden?”

“Yes.”

“Eden, by all rights, you should be dead. I could feel the radiation coming off of you the moment you stepped into my study. As I have explained, I have studied various forms of radiation for years now, and I consider myself something of an expert on the subject. According to my research, the radiation suit you dug out of the trash should not have worked as well as you hoped, and your continued interactions with IRs should have killed you.”

So that’s what he meant last night when he told me that I was dying. He hadn’t predicted that the Rat Catcher was hunting me, he somehow felt the leftover radioactivity from the IRs. “Does that mean… I can’t help you?” I asked, feeling my heart sink.

“That depends. How do you feel about being observed?”

“Observed?”

A knock sounded at the door. The woman, Bellamy, came in, balancing a gargantuan tray in her arms, and setting it down with practiced precision on my lap. Fine china plates bearing piles of steaming sausages, arrays of tiny sandwiches, glazed meats, and salad, were spread out in neat rows in front of me. “Thank you,” I said, wondering what to eat first.

“You’re very welcome, dear,” she replied, casting a shifty glance to Mr. Crosswicks, who didn’t return it, and instead waved her out.

The moment she closed the door behind, he ordered, “eat.”

“Don’t you want some? You said it was for two.”

“Yes. I’m betting you can eat enough for two people, considering how long you’ve gone hungry.”

He wasn’t wrong. Without bothering myself with a fork, I began by sampling all of the sandwiches, which were cut into neat little squares and that I could fit between two fingers. Each one fit perfectly in my mouth. I didn’t recognize most of these flavors, but enjoyed each one all the same. Normally, what I ate came out of other people’s trash cans, so this was a real treat.

Mr. Crosswicks had gone quiet, probably because he knew I couldn’t get a word out while I ate. I glanced over at him. He had taken out a notebook to write in. 

I swallowed the sandwich I was working on and asked, “What are you writing?”

“Notes.”

“Notes about what?”

He used the pen in his hand to point at the plate of sandwiches in front of me. “You reached for the cucumber first. Then the chicken, tomato, and finally, the potato salad. Tomato elicited the most positive reaction.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to this. Was he taking notes on me? “Is this what you meant by ‘observing’?” I said.

“Yes. I’d like to learn how you act, what patterns you exhibit, in a controlled environment-- if you don’t object.”

“Would it help your IR research?”

“Very much, I think. You see, the majority of the population is scared of IRs because of their unavoidable radioactivity, and the belief that living in close proximity with them is fatal. You could prove them wrong. In fact--” Mr. Crosswicks put his pen and paper down so he could lean closer. “If you want to pay me back, you can start by cooperating in experiments.”

“What would I have to do?”

“It’s simple. I want to visit you as regularly as possible, in your natural habitat. At your home.”

My heart skipped a beat. Home. “I’m not sure that would be possible, Mr. Crosswicks,” I replied.

He placed a hand on my arm, as though to comfort me, and again my heart fluttered. “You would only have to act as you normally do,” he coaxed. “I ask you questions, you answer. I need a blood sample, you give it to me. And if you want the IRs to keep visiting, I’ll donate an old radiation suit of mine, so I will know exactly what types of radiation you are experiencing.”

“It isn’t that. I would be fine with all that.”

“Then what on earth is the problem?”

“I-- I--” My hands clenched at the blanket. I could never go back to the warehouse, not while the Rat Catcher continued to hunt me. Considering that I planned that last night would indeed be my last, I hadn’t even contemplated the possibility that I might survive another day. Where was I supposed to go now? Straight back to the warehouse to wait for the Rat Catcher to find me, to sit in anguishing wait for death? 

A tear dripped down my cheek and I rubbed it away and swallowed my cries. “It won’t work, Mr. Crosswicks, I’m sorry,” I whimpered.

“Won’t work?” He placed his notes on the floor. I could tell he had no idea why I was crying or how to stop me. “I’m-- Eden, look at me, it’s alright-- I’m offering you the opportunity of a lifetime. You came to me--”

“I know, I did, and I’m sorry. Thank you for everything but I should go now.”

Out of instinct, he reached his other hand for my face, and then just as awkwardly withdrew it, and put it on his lap. “Would you tell me why?” he inquired gently.

“The sad truth is, if I tell you, you may be in danger,” I replied.

“I’ll be in danger?”

I stared down at the tray of food to avoid his concerned eyes. “Someone wants to kill me, Mr. Crosswicks. They know where I live. They follow me. I’m not sure if they know I’m here, but if I go back home, I’ll die.”

“Why do they want you dead?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, they didn’t say. They hunt IRs for a living, I think. Yesterday, I wanted to keep a promise to a friend that I would find you, so I came here after I escaped. That’s where the cuts on my leg came from. So, you see… I have no home to go back to.”

He paused, and rested his hand on my arm again. Goosebumps rose on my skin. “Why did you come here? Were you looking for a place to hide?”

“No, I swear that isn’t it! I made a promise to my friend that I would share my knowledge of IRs with you. He knew how much I wanted to make a change but was too afraid for so many years. I just thought, if I’m going to die, I should die after I accomplish something.”

“Good god. And here I was thinking you were some starving tramp coming to my door to take advantage of me.”

“I would never!”

Mr. Crosswicks chuckled. “Yes, I believe you.”

He was smiling. Actually smiling. Up until this point, a frown stayed painted on his face, and now a little grin emerged from under the facade. 

It was beautiful.

“I-- I wish I c-could help you,” I stammered.

“Perhaps we could help each other. Go on, eat, you need it.”

I didn’t want to remove my arm from his grasp, so I used my left one to fumble around for the fork and skewer leaves of salad.

“You have no place to live,” Mr. Crosswicks began. “If you go outside, you could very well be killed. I want to observe you on a regular basis in order to advance my IR research. Do you understand where I’m going with this, Eden?”

I frantically chewed my mouthful of salad, swallowed, and replied, “not really.”

“I’m suggesting that you live here for a time.”

“Here? Here, as in-- here, here? Your house?”

“Here here.” He withdrew his hand from me and gestured around the room to prove his point. “I have more than enough space for myself since my parents died. I’ll give you this extra bedroom, a bathroom, everything you could need.”

This was too good to be true. Was I dreaming? I just sat there, stunned, waiting for him to add a “kidding!”.

We stared each other down. “I need your consent before I set this up,” he continued.

“Uh. Are y-you sure?”

“Yes. I don’t care if you’re being hunted, my house is the safest place in New London. You agree to be my test subject?”

I didn’t like the term test subject, but I didn’t know how else to define myself now, so I nodded and answered, “yes, I’ll be your test subject.”

“Perfect! Let me draw up the papers and I’ll be right back. Finish your lunch, I want you to regain your health as soon as possible.” He stood up, abandoning his book and notes, and strode out the door, leaving me in contemplative silence.

Test subject. Me, a test subject? Have I gotten myself into something bad?

No, no, I persuaded myself. You can trust Mr. Crosswicks.

Why? Another voice chimed in. Why should I trust him? I only just met him.

And in that time he’s done more for me than anyone has in years without my asking him to. 

Yes, I was sure of it. I could trust him. I would keep my guard up-- not like I had been during lunch when I poured my heart out-- but I could trust him for now.

[missmentelle]

Post #1000 (FAQ)

When I started this blog a few years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that it would grow as quickly as it did - and I definitely didn’t expect to make it to a thousand posts and beyond! I’m so grateful for each and every one of you who has sent in asks, reblogged and liked my posts, or sent me messages and replies. I really wouldn’t still be going if it wasn’t for you. 

So in honour of post #1000, I thought I would take some time to answer some of the most common questions that I get about me, my blog, and the issues that matter to me!

What should I call you? Miss Mentelle?

You can call me MissMentelle, Miss Mentelle, Miss, Mentelle, Ment, MM, or just M. Really, call me anything you like, none of those are my real name.

What kind of education do you have in mental health? Where did you go to school?

I have a Bachelor of Arts Honors degree in psychology, from a large public research university in Canada. I’ve completed a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology (concentration in forensic psychology) from a fancy private university in the USA. I’m also a certified rape crisis counselor in NY state. 

Have you ever actually worked in mental health in real life?

I sure have. I volunteered at a suicide hotline and a walk-in mental health distress centre as an undergraduate, and then after graduating I spent two years working with homeless and high-risk inner-city youth in a large Canadian city, doing counselling and psych testing. I then both worked and volunteered at a rape crisis centre in NYC. My hands-on experience working with mental health has mostly been made up of extremes - I have personally dealt with or been present for overdoses, gang fights, suicide attempts, sexual assaults, underage prostitution, psychotic breakdowns, and one instance of gun violence. 

Are you a psychologist? 

I am not. I am not qualified to give anyone a diagnosis. I am qualified to administer and score psych tests, but I am not qualified to interpret the results. Becoming a full-fledged licensed psychologist is a major goal of mine. 

Why did you start this blog? 

When I was working with homeless kids, we had a constant, ongoing problem where many of the kids had absorbed extremely unhealthy ideas about relationships that caused many of them to enter or stay in life-ruining relationships. No matter how hard we tried to counter these ideas and teach the kids about healthy relationships, it never seemed to make much difference. I was required to maintain separate “work” social media accounts that the kids could use to communicate with me, because that was the only means of communication that most of them had, and once I started seeing their social media feeds, it became pretty obvious that most of them were getting their information about love, sex and relationships from incredibly damaging posts being shared on social media. I couldn’t compete with that kind of influence as their mental health worker. So I decided to go online myself, and start creating healthier content to teach kids about these things, not as their worker, but as a blogger. It grew from there. 

Why do you always spell words like “centre” and “cheque” so weird?

I’m Canadian. You can pry my British spellings from my cold, dead hands. “Cheque” in particular seems to really bother people, but I promise you, that’s how non-Americans spell it. 

What’s your real name? 

Nice try, person-who-is-clearly-trying-to-steal-my-identity.

Do you do anything other than mental health?

Of course! I’m a writer in real life, and I’ve published stories in several mainstream anthologies. I also do stand-up comedy, write for a major comedy website, and run a true crime podcast. 

Can I send you an ask?

You definitely can!

What can I ask you about?

Pretty much anything that you feel comfortable asking me - I’ve answered questions about depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, personality disorders, romantic relationships, school problems, friendships, family relationships, parenting, pregnancy, sex, sexuality, and pretty much every mental-health-related topic in between. If I don’t know the answer, I will do some research and try to find the answer, or point you toward someone who does know. I also answer personal questions about myself, my schooling and my experiences, as well as general questions about how to break into this field as a career. 

Are you LGBTQ+?

Yes. I am a bi-romantic ace woman. I openly date both women and men, with no strong preference either way. I am not out to my parents, as most of my long-term partners happen to be male, and that’s not a conversation I want to have with them until it’s strictly necessary. I routinely blog about what it’s like to date while bi and ace and closeted, and I’m happy to answer questions on that topic. 

Are you mentally ill yourself?

Sometimes. I have OCD that is mostly mild/dormant, but it occasionally pops up again when I’m stressed, and it can lead to me spending hours in obsessive thought-spirals where I endlessly worry about things I have no control over, instead of doing anything productive. My OCD makes me believe that I will cause bad things to happen if I have “bad” or “wrong” thoughts that I don’t immediately balance out with “good” thoughts, and even though I know that’s completely irrational, my brain doesn’t agree. I also have ADHD, which I’ve learned to manage, and Tourette’s, which was extremely embarrassing for me as a child, but has gotten milder with age. 

What topics do you know the most about? 

My master’s degree is in forensic psychology, and that’s what I know the most about. My specific areas of expertise are conduct disorder, anti-social personality disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and other severe childhood behavioural problems, psychopaths, paraphilias, the relationship between psychology and crime, FASD, and the ongoing suicide crisis among First Nations youth. I almost never get asks on any of these topics.

Can I request a post on a certain topic?

You sure can! I would love to know what my followers are actually interested in learning more about. 

I sent you an ask weeks ago and you still haven’t answered! Do you hate me?

I don’t! I get a lot of asks, and unfortunately, I have a pretty full schedule that doesn’t leave me enough time to answer all of them in a timely fashion. I do answer all asks eventually, but it might take me a while to get to everyone, and I thank you all in advance for your patience. 

What can do to make sure you answer my ask?

I get to everyone eventually, but I do get to some quicker than others. There’s no guaranteed way to ensure a quick answer, but you’ll probably get a faster reply if you’re asking me a question that I don’t see very often. I’m also faster to reply to asks that give me a specific question (”Where can I find resources to learn meditation?”, “What’s the difference between a PhD and a LMHC?”) than I am at replying to more vague asks, or asks that don’t really ask a specific question (”I’m sad”).

What topics do you get the most asks about?

It varies over time, but in general, the most common asks I see are variants of: “I’m trying to set boundaries with my friend but they aren’t listening”, “I’m sad but I’m not sure what to do about it”, “I need to tell my therapist something but I don’t know how”, “I’m not sure if this relationship is healthy”, and “I went through a breakup and I’m having a hard time getting over it”. I’m happy to keep answering these kinds of questions, but I encourage you to read through my archives a little if that’s the sort of issue that you’re facing.

I’m just starting out as an advice or mental health blogger! Will you promote my page?

Probably not. I get several requests like this per day, and I don’t really have time to vet everyone who asks me this to see if I’m comfortable recommending you to my followers. Plus, most of the blogs that send me requests like this are run by people who don’t have any mental health credentials, and unfortunately, I’m just not comfortable endorsing mental health blogs that don’t have some sort of professional education or experience behind them. 

Can I send you a private message?

Of course! You should know, though, that I’m worse at responding to private messages than I am at responding to asks. Unfortunately, many of the people who have sent me private messages in the past have done so with the expectation that I will provide ongoing mental health support for them or that I will talk them through an ongoing crisis, and I unfortunately don’t have to time to do that for everyone who wants it. I’m a little bit wary of private messages for that reason, but I do still read and answer them. 

Why do you write such long posts and answers?

I was that kid in elementary school who asked if “3-5″ pages was a maximum, or if I could write more than that. I have never grown out of being that type of person.

What should I do with my life?

I don’t know. Sometimes I barely know what to do with my own life. I can point you toward resources to help you figure stuff out, but I can’t tell you what to do - you’re the expert on your own life, not me.

How do I get therapy?

This is actually a really hard question for me to answer. It depends on your individual situation, as well as your financial resources, geographic location and insurance situation. Most of the time, I just don’t have enough information to give you an answer. I can tell you about some online resources and telephone hotlines that you can try, but you’re probably going to have to do your own research about how to access long-term professional mental health services in your area. 

Should I break up with my partner? 

I can’t really give you a straight answer to that either - I don’t know either of you, and I can’t make such a huge decision for you, especially when I only have a couple hundred words of backstory on the relationship. I can tell you whether the relationship sounds healthy or not, based on what you’ve told me, and I can tell you some general information about situations that might cause people to break up, but you have to be the one to actually make the decision about whether or not to pull the plug. 

I don’t like my medication, should I stop taking it? 

I’m not a doctor and I can’t answer that. Stopping medication suddenly and without medical supervision can be dangerous - if you are having issues with your medication, you need to speak to a doctor about it as soon as possible. 

I want to be a psychologist! How do I do that? 

I’ve answered this question pretty extensively a couple of times, but the answer boils down to this: get the best GPA you possibly can, get as much research experience as possible, take lots of stats classes, register for the GRE early, do lots of research on graduate programs, and don’t be disappointed if it takes you a few years to get in.  I think that covers most of my Frequently Asked Questions! If you have anything else that you’d like to know, leave it in the replies to this post, or send it in as an ask! Here’s to 1000 more posts!

[creative-type]

The Murder of Arthur Wright XVII

First  Previous AO3 AN: this is it folks, the penultimate chapter. Submit any guesses on whodunit now. In the interest of fairness, I’ve gone back and made some minor additions to some previous chapters. See the AO3 link for more details

Chapter Seventeen: The Final Piece of Evidence

The last time Margot visited the local precinct she had been recovering from her burns. The investigators looking into the botched Drathmakal summoning had insisted on speaking with her as soon as possible, and Margot had seen no reason not to oblige them. It had been an unpleasant experience for all parties involved, in part because the man attempting to conduct the interview could hardly stand to look at her.

Dash’s contact was in another department entirely, his office hidden away in the lower levels of the precinct. They were greeted there by a young man of about twenty-five, who gave Dash a salute as crisp as his freshly-pressed uniform. At the sight of him Dash rolled his eyes before offering a hand, which was enthusiastically shook.

“Gabe, this is Professor Margot from over at Kempeston. She’s been helping me figure out what in the world’s going on with Master Wright.”

“I know the professor,” Gabe said, shaking Margot’s hand in a much more agreeable manner. “Everyone’s talking about how she and Professor Ford fought against that frog. It almost makes me wish I’d gone to Kempeston.”

“You’re a mage?” Margot asked.

“Oh yes. Never had the reserves for the flashy spells, but I get by.” He stood up a little straighter and said proudly, “The prefect called my work exemplary.”

The young officer’s enthusiasm was contagious, and Margot found herself smiling. “The most important magic is the kind that doesn’t tend to get any attention.”

Gabe beamed at her. “Thank you, Professor. I’ve learned a lot working this case. The senior investigator thinks we’ll have the code cracked by the end of the week.” He looked suddenly nervous. “I, er, probably shouldn’t have said that. It’s all very hush-hush at the moment.”

“C’mon, Gabe, you know me better than that. I won’t breathe a word. Orc’s honor.” Dash cocked his head and tried to look past the lanky youth. “Where is everyone else, anyway?”

“At a meeting,” Gabe said, moving to block Dash’s line of vision.

“Without you? What about all that exemplary work you’ve been doing?”

“I would be with them, but I lost privileges when my boss found out that you’d copied Master Wright’s notes—which I remember you distinctly promising not to do. I trusted you.”

Dash grimaced a little, and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Geeze, sorry. I didn’t want to get you in trouble. But this is important. Maybe the most important. Please, Gabe, you got to let me through.”

Gabe shook his head stubbornly. “No can do, Dash. Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, shame on you.”

“I, uh, don’t think that’s how it goes, actually.” Dash rubbed his chin and spared a glance at Margot before snapping his fingers. “I know, how about a trade?”

“Trade?”

“You know, the exchange of goods between two parties?” Dash said, eyebrows raising. “In this case, information. The professor here’s cracked Wright’s code. Think of what the prefect will say when he finds out you’ve saved him a week of work?”

“You did?” Gabe said, eyes bulging as he turned towards Margot. He couldn’t have been more awed if she’d told him she was a Wizard, and for a moment he seemed beyond words. “How?”

“Didn’t you hear, Gabe?” Dash asked lazily. “The professor here helped design some of Wright’s safeguards. She knew his work better than anyone.”

Margot shot him a glare that was studiously ignored.

“Well what is it?” Gabe demanded. “What was the formula for?”

Dash wagged a finger. “Nuh-uh, you show us first. A sign of goodwill, as it were. Then we’ll talk.”

“I can’t let you in. Really,” Gabe said, face crumpling. “I know you’re a good sort, Dash, but you’re not one of us, you know? I can’t tell anyone.”

Margot could see that without intervention the argument would go nowhere. She leaned in closer to Gabe, and asked, “Is that door to your office unlocked?”

“Uh, yeah, but why—“

“How about this,” Margot interrupted smoothly. “You go for a quick bathroom break, and by the time you get back we’ll be gone, with Master Wright’s formula left in exchange. You don’t let us in, and we get the information we need. Everybody wins.”

“I, er, I guess that’d be okay,” Gabe said. “But only if you leave that formula. Take off without it, and we’re done for good.”

“That’s fair,” Dash said. He made a little shooing motion. “Now hurry, before that meeting ends.”

Once he was out of sight Margot and Dash hurried into the room labeled Magical Investigations. It was a cramped space made even smaller by desks piled high with paperwork. Margot’s attention was immediately drawn by a glowing rune at the largest of the workspaces.

“They do recreations there,” Dash said. “You know, of crime scenes and things like that. Dunno how to activate it, though.”

“I really need to give you lessons one of these days,” Margot said. She wasn’t familiar with the rune, but it seemed like luck was finally on their side, and she could see the smear of where a greasy finger had activated the spell. Calling on her magic, she traced over the mark.

“You really do know how to do everything, don’t you?” Dash said, an enormous grin spreading across his face.

“One of us has to know what we’re doing,” Margot said. The run glowed an acidic greet, and with a flash of light a simulacrum of a notebook sprang into existence.

“They created Master Wright’s spellbook?” Dash said.

“The original probably wasn’t in any condition to study in depth,” Margot said. She flicked a wrist over the illusion, and the book fell open. She recognized the untidy scrawl written on the pages.

Reaching into her bag, Margot pulled out the copies Dash had made for comparison. Unlike the copies, the recreation’s formula was completely intact—likely the result of the investigator’s efforts to pick apart Master Wright’s research.

“The problem with recreations is that it’s partly guesswork,” Dash mused. “You take the information you got and try to reverse engineer the most likely scenario based on the facts. Look here, Prof.”

He pointed a meaty finger at the pages that came before the fateful formula—or at least what was left of them. It looked like someone had grabbed a handful of paper and ripped it out of the notebook, leaving jagged perforations as evidence behind.

“Do you think Master Wright did that?” Margot asked.

“Don’t know, but we should probably skedaddle. Gabe’s one of my best contacts, I’d hate to lose him.”

Margot broke off the rune and together they hurried out of the office. They had just closed the door behind them when Gabe ran around the corner, red-faced and nearly in a panic. At the sight of them he nearly melted into a puddle of relief.

“Oh thank goodness you’re here.”

Anything else he might have said was cut off as a tall, scarecrow of a man came into view, trailed by a trio of men wearing the blue band that marked them as mages on the sleeve of their uniforms. This newcomer, at least, Margot recognized from her interview after the Drath attack as Mattathias Mathers, the head of Magical Investigations.

“Well hello there, Investigator,” Dash said. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

Mathers hardly deigned to spare him a glance before turning his attention to Margot. “Good morning, Professor. I didn’t think I would be seeing you again so soon. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Mathers was a soft-spoken man, but he gave Margot the impression of hiding a heavy hand beneath a velvet glove. He had not asked any questions after the Drathmakal summoning, but to this day he was the one person from the investigation that Margot remembered most.

“I was just wondering how your investigation on the Wright case was coming along,” Margot said.

“Ah, yes. Of course. I hear you were present during the explosion and the one to find Master Wright dead. I am sorry you had to experience that so soon after your recovery.”

“But you’re not sorry she had to experience it at all?” Dash asked, eyebrows raising.

“Mr. Cain, I told you the last time you came scurrying in here like an unwanted beetle that I have nothing to say to you, and none of my investigators have anything to say to you,” Mathers said. “I would be greatly obliged if you would take the initiative to remove yourself from my presence. Permanently.”

“Now Investigator, the professor isn’t the only one who was there during that explosion,” Dash said. “The public demands answers, and so do I. What caused that explosion?”

The craggy lines in Mather’s face deepened, and Margot would not have been surprised if he used his magic to make the temperature plummet twenty degrees. Gabe cringed and looked like he wished the ground would swallow him whole, and trio of senior investigators looked uneasy.

“Follow me,” Mathers said tersely. He turned sharply on one heel, the tails of his uniform shirt billowing behind him as he swept back the way he had come. Dash and Margot had to hurry to keep up with him as he took an unmarked stairway to the basement of the precinct.

This time Margot was not imagining it when the air grew cool and dry, and she felt the faintest breeze where magic was used to keep the air from growing stale. Mathers did not stop, and from the basement found another stairway that led even deeper underground.

A bored officer guarding the door sprung to attention at the sight of him, only for Mathers to wave him off. “This will be a quick visit.”

With a long, spindly finger Maters painted an intricate sigil over the door that caused it to melt away into nothingness. A snap caused mage light to spring into existence, revealing a corridor lined from floor to ceiling with metal shelves, each filled with boxes upon boxes.

“Welcome to my job,” Mathers said dourly. Tenting his fingers in front of him, he began strolling down the passage. After a few steps he indicated toward a box.

“That’s Jean Brodeur. She was a mother of two killed on her way home from work, likely a botched robbery. Whoever did the deed had enough magical expertise to cleanse the area of evidence. Her mother comes every week begging me to reopen the case. Her husband doesn’t any more, and I can’t tell you which is worse.”

A few more steps, Mathers’ face a serene mask of contemplation. He indicated to another box. “Like Master Wright, Rhen Petrov died in a magical experiment gone wrong, but unlike Master Wright he was neither famous nor his work terribly important enough to warrant serious scrutiny. I don’t have the resources to pinpoint the exact cause of death, and so the case remains unsolved. I'm told there wasn’t enough of him left to bury.”

They came to the end of the corridor and Mathers plucked a box from its shelf, carefully wiping away the dust that had gathered on the nameplate.

“We don’t know who this man was, except he was a wanderer viciously murdered in a way too gruesome to repeat in mixed company. I swore I would find his killer, and I never have.”

Mathers replaced the box tenderly before rising to back to his imposing height. He looked down the length of his hooked nose at Margot and Dash, a cold fury burning in his black eyes.

“I will find the answer to the death of Master Arthur Wright, but it will be in my way and in my time. The more resources wasted on this nonsensical accident are resources my people could spend investigating cases that truly matter. Now please, get out of my sight and let me work.”

Both Dash and Margot were more than happy to oblige him, and they were escorted out of the precinct before Margot had a chance to tell poor Gabe that Master Wright had been attempting to Teleport ten kilograms of perfectly spherical graphite a distance of twenty-five meters.

“Well that was a waste of time.”

Dash grunted as he leaned against the park bench. He had adopted what Margot privately dubbed his thinking pose, with his head rolled back and his eyes closed. Margot chose to stand and would have preferred to pace, but settled for manipulating a globe of water in her hands.

“Someone ripped out those pages,” Dash said.

“Abigail said that Master Wright protected his notebook against tampering,” Margot said. “That means it was probably Master Wright himself, and it’s impossible to know why without seeing those pages.”

Dash hummed his agreement, and with his eyes still closed found a jerky stick. “Keep talking, Prof. It helps me think.”

“Abigail said that either the formula or the ring itself had to be tampered with for it to explode, and if I had to guess I’d say that it was probably the formula. Those rings had more failsafes than I could count. The one I helped with was just the extra cherry on top.”

“But Wright kept that notebook with him,” Dash murmured. “Who could get their hands on it?”

“His son probably had the best chance. They did share a room during the mage's conference,” Margot said. “His wife wasn’t even there, and I don’t think Desdemona would know how to tamper with it in a way that Master Wright wouldn’t recognize.”

“But Wright junior had everything to gain from his father’s success, financially speaking,” Dash said.

“A crime of passion?” Margot guessed.

“Tampering requires a bit of forethought and the nerve to follow through with a plan. Hard to pull off in the spur of the moment.”

Margot spun water between her fingers. She hated even to think it, but there was one possibility they hadn’t yet addressed. “Abigail knew.”

“Tobe says her work checks out,” Dash said.

Margot bit her lip. “I know she says that she’s lost her magic, but what if that isn’t true? It would take seconds to Teleport to and from the mage’s conference without being missed. It would take some serious firepower, but Abigail knows the mechanics of Teleportation better than anyone who isn’t her father.”

Dash cracked an eyelid. “Do you really think that, Prof?”

“I don’t want to believe it,” Margot said. “But I can’t see how else it could be done.”

She let the globe of water settle in her palm, the events of the mage’s conference replaying in her mind over and again as she tried to come up with something that would put this case to rest once and for all. She remembered Master Wright’s curt dismissal, him reading the equation from his notebook to activate the rings, even the lump of graphite that would be used in the experiment—no bigger than the water she held now.

Was it Abigail? Of the Wright siblings she held the least vitriol towards her father, though his actions had affected her most of all. Was it possible she had been working together with Desdemona all along? Desdemona alone admitted she wanted revenge for what Master Wright had done to her sister. Was it possible she had bullied Abigail into tampering with his equation?

Or perhaps it was Felix, fed up after years of being looked down upon for not pursuing his Mastery. He was, after all, the one member of the family who spent the most time with Master Wright in the present day.

Margot would be the first to admit that she didn’t see how Adeline could have played a part in her husband’s demise, but she couldn’t rule out the possibility that the Wright matriarch had arranged for someone to do her dirty work for her. The marriage was an unhappy one, and they had quarreled before Master Wright left for the conference.

Something didn’t sit right, a niggling suspicion that Margot couldn’t quite place. Something about the facts didn’t line up, but the more Margot tried to grasp for it the farther it seemed to slip from her grasp.

Margot supposed that part of her problem was that she was having a difficult time distancing herself from the facts of the case. Magic should be used to help people, and in his selfishness Master Wright had hurt the people closest to him in a terrible way, never acknowledging his mistakes or taking action to correct them.

It wasn’t right. None of it was.

Disgusted, Margot threw down her globe of water, and then froze as the pieces of the disparaging puzzle came together with an almost audible click.

“Dash?”

“Yeah, Prof?”

“I think I know what happened.”

Slowly Dash raised his head. “That’s funny, because I was about ready to say the same thing.”

[amargarone772]

Expert Interview: Discussing France’s Political History and Current Events with Professor Elizabeth Carter

https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/expert/carter-elizabeth

  The following interview is an interview conducted with Professor Elizabeth Carter, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire. Carter has been a member of the UNH faculty since 2015, and has received her PhD in political science at the University of California Berkeley as well as her M.P.A from the University of Washington. Her postdoctoral research was done at the Max Planck Institute of the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany. Carter’s areas of focus are European politics, political economy, and food politics.

         Carter provides insight on France’s history and the Front National Party. She also examines the current refugee crisis, the political system under President Macron, and the yellow vest movement that has been taking over France since last November. Carter discusses the media’s role in Macron’s presidential election, and compares the current day issues of France to those of other European nations and the United States. Carter’s educational background and personal affiliation with France provide her with the ideal qualities to discuss these critical topics.

         We also discussed the Front National Party under Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose goal was to protect French identity and defend the fundamental values of our civilization (Betz, 2003, p. 196). In the past, immigrants coming to France were able to assimilate easier because they mainly came from other European nations (Betz, 2003, p. 197). However, most new immigrants came from African, Middle East, and Asians regions and had cultural backgrounds that the Front National claimed would threaten the French culture (Betz, 2003, p. 197).

 Interviewer: Ali Margarone, senior Communication student at the University of New Hampshire

Interviewee: Professor Elizabeth Carter, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire

 Interview Transcript:

Refugee Crisis

A: What are your opinions on the current refugee crisis?

PC: When I think about the refugee crisis, I first think about Germany and Chancellor Merkel’s response. There is the Syrian refugee crisis that relate to the German history. Angela Merkel is the Chancellor and the leader of the center-right party, the Christian Democrats. She took a pretty contested stance in her party, which was to welcome the refugees with quite open arms. The rhetoric that was said, not by Merkel directly, was other people took in German refugees at our darkest hour, now we can do this and step in to help others. At that time, she was in a Grand Coalition with the Socialist government that would be to the little bit to the left, so she may have been a bit more influenced in some ways by that party. Overall, Germany had a really exceptional stance on integrating migrants. So I think the question is, what is the effect of that in France?

A: Do you mean how is France being affected by what Germany is doing?

PC: Yes. Because it’s not like France is a peaceful place that had good immigrant relations and then there was the refugee crisis in about 2013. 

A: In regards to the refugee crisis, do you know exactly what French President Macron’s stances are?

PC: I almost want to say centrist, because I was following the situation that was going on in Calais with the camps being taken apart. He tends to be an ally with Chancellor Merkel, and I think he wants to be the pragmatic centrist. But he also wants people in France to be happy. France has a ton of immigrants, but the thing you hear people talking about in Germany is the Syrians; in France, it’s not. There definitely have been Syrian refugees in France, but again I think its like pressing on the already sensitive spot of the many Muslim immigrants. There’s still an influx of refugees from Tanzania, Algeria, and Sub-Saharan French former colonies. You walk around Paris, and there’s boulevards full of tents, at least 10 sleeping bags on one block. I’ve been going to France for 20 years, and this is something I’ve never seen before. They do often seem to be refugees who have come to France because they think they can get a better life. France has a really strong identity that’s tied to being French and having French values, language, being Catholic but secular. They aren’t open to people, especially Muslim immigrants, who they feel won’t take on the French culture.

 A: Some research I’ve done showed that it’s the way you look that greatly affects the way in which you are treated. The French tend to be more accepting of other European refugees rather than those from Africa or the Middle East. Do you think this is true?

PC: I noticed that much more in Germany, who only considered Germans to be those with German blood. France’s take on nationality is that you are French if you are born on French soil; anyone can be French, as its about liberty, equality, and brotherhood. You have to speak French and adopt the liberal values of the French Revolution and the French state today. France’s issue with the hijab was interpreted as Muslim women rejecting French culture. However, when I taught in public school in France, I noticed my students would wear bandanas on their heads to get around the law that banned the hijabs. It was their way of protesting they would not allow France to push this law on them. Even though France has this identity of liberty and equality, they fall short of their ideals. In France, there is no hyphenated identity. If someone referred to themselves as Algerian-French, it’d be considered a threat because it weakens your French-ness. As a result, there are no statistics collected on what the ethnic backgrounds of people in France are because they don’t ask.

When it comes to being hired in France, you put your photo on your application. If your name is Mohamed, you will not be hired. While not everyone discriminates and is racist, I have a friend in France who does sales that claims he won’t hire anyone with the name Mohamed because he knows other people are racist and would no longer buy from his company if they saw this. While the issue of discrimination is so prominent, they can’t even diagnose the issue because they have no idea how many people of color or of a certain religion there are in a certain school because they don’t have that data.

History of the Front National Party

A: How do you think France’s history has led up to what is going on now?

PC: That’s everything. So if we want to talk about it, we have to talk about Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front National Party. The party has now changed names, but we will call it the Front National because that is what the party had been called for decades. Understanding Jean-Marie Le Pen involves understanding his really complicated and long history.

A: This is because he was very racist and said a lot of things about the Holocaust that he claimed didn’t exist and didn’t allow France to take responsibility for it or didn’t think that they should.

PC: Yes, they both he and his daughter Marine Le Pen said some crazy things, and she would argue that her father is crazier. She’s seen as relatively more moderate, but the important thing to keep in mind about Jean-Marie Le Pen is where he came from ideologically, which was a movement called the Poujadist movement that came out of the Algerian War. Algeria is a majority Muslim country in Northern Africa which used to be a part of France. The French considered it to be a French state. The Algerians decided in the 1950s to fight back during Charles de Gaulle’s presidency in France. There was a lot of guerilla tactics and some would even consider terrorist actions because they had limited resources for other ways of fighting. When the Algerians won the war, Jean-Marie Le Pen and other Poujadist members saw Charles de Gaulle as a traitor, that he had stabbed France in the back, that he had let go a part of France. This is when the Front National started. It was more nationalistic than the de Gaulle Party, which was a center-right party. In the beginning, it was pro-European Union, but of course, that changed. It was interesting because the Front National wanted and considered Algeria to be a part of France that was lost, but at the same time, they were very anti-Muslim. This anti-Muslim component and this tension around French relations with the Muslim and Arab world, especially with the Algerians, have always been the cornerstone of the Front National.

If you go to France today and ask people about what’s going on with the far-right movements, you will meet people who are critical of them, especially those in academia. But I’ve been shocked by how many people identify as Fascist, who are blatantly anti-Muslim and even those trying to be liberal will say the problem is we have too many immigrants here. It’s Algerian immigrants and those from other former French colonies in Sub-Saharan and Northern Africa. There is also a huge amount of anti-Semitism in France which continues to be a massive issue that’s been reported on more recently in the press. So this is why the Front National has always been nationalist and anti-immigrant that’s been seen well before the recent crisis. I think at first Jean-Marie Le Pen was seen as kind of a crazy, out-there guy, and then people were really shocked when he made it to the second round of presidential vote in 2002. Jean-Marie Le Pen did make it to the second round in 2002 but then lost to Jacques Chirac by 85% to 15.

A: So is this when the Front National gained my attention worldwide?

PC: Yes. While people in France always knew about this movement, his advancement to the second round really put the Front National on the map globally. Although his daughter Marine has been able to situate herself definitely as a populist, but maybe less provocatively and offensive.

A: Well wasn’t that one of her goals?

 PC: Yes, and she’s distanced herself. She kicked her father out of the party.

The Yellow Vest Movement

A: What are your thoughts on the yellow vest movement?

PC: I actually was in France when the gilets Jaunes movement started.

A: Oh wow, so did you see it all happen?

PC: No, the day there were the big riots I went to the London for a day and I came back and met my friend at the train station and he told me you know parts of the city are burning and I thought it was a joke.

A: Yeah, I had friends who were there for spring break and they saw all the riots going on too so it’s definitely still prominent. 

PC: The thing with France is whenever the government tries to make a change there’s a mass protest. And this can even be when it comes to trying to change the benefits for the railway workers. The railways will stop. Or whoever the threatened group is will go on strike and then the government will be forced to rescind what they are trying to do. France has a really unique historical structure. France is a historically centralized country, kind of uniquely centralized. There is a lot of power at the presidency and a lot of power in Paris, and people will say the consequence of that is you don’t have very strong intermediary organizations. So in a country like Germany, if you’re trying to make reform, intermediary organizations like employer groups and unions will get together to try and work these out in cooperation with the state. In France, they don’t have those groups. They have weak unions and a strong state, and you would think that the French Unions are strong because they could have so much protest, but actually when unions are weak its because they can’t actually have a voice at the table, and when they don’t get their voice at the table their only weapon is to strike. Striking is a last resort.

The gilets jaunes started because of the proposed gas tax and there is a French culture of striking as a way to try to pressure the government. And it seems they were quite successful; Macron said okay I’m going to postpone this tax, but it was kind of like a snowball got pushed down the hill and people protesting on this movement often go because the scope of this protest has increased because people have been upset about other things for some time. 

A: Do you feel the movement is different from how it started?

PC: It is, as it has become much more extreme. In a way, it’s a parallel to Brexit too, which is another thing that started off one way and then morphed into a different kind of movement with different people and different interests in it. I think a lot of people are protesting economic inequality and security more broadly. In France, they usually have really protected workers and strong benefits. And how they have tried to adapt to a changing economy is basically by having more precarious or temporary employment. So a lot of young people today are temps, along with huge levels of unemployment. They no longer have things to count on that older generations once had.

People are sick of this, and who are they blaming? They’re blaming their government, they’re blaming the European Union, they’re blaming globalization. Why are they blaming the European Union? Because European leaders have had a habit of everything time there’s an unpopular change they need to make, they blame it on the EU. There’s been a lot of “I don’t want to do this, but we need to do this for Europe.” And then the net consequence of this is to build up resentment towards the European project. That’s why the Front National that used to be pro-Europe, now take Europe as a scapegoat. They claim that instead of increasing French independence and sovereignty that it’s a threat to it.

MEDIA

A: What’s your opinion on the role of the media in France, in particular to the most recent presidential election?

 PC: As far as the role of media in presidential elections, I think one think worth mentioning is Macron created his own party ‘En Marche!’. He had very little political background. How the French elections are structured in time has changed now so that parliament and the president are just a few weeks apart. It used to be staggered by years, and so it would be kind of like what we have in the U.S., it would always be a president that would be of one party, and then the parliament would be of the other because it would be a protest vote and they never get anything done. So, they’ve coordinated these. The president is election first, so Macron was elected with this new party, and then had like six weeks to get together this ticket of new potential parliamentarians and he was very successful with that and they were able to get a number of seats.

A: So do you feel that the media helped him?

PC: I don’t know the details of that but what we can say is that the media is different and nothing has ever happened before like with what happened with Macron in France. So, is that a correlation or a causation? I’m not going to go there and make that judgment, but someone could make a case that it is more than just correlation.  

He has positioned himself as a new type of president, but the ways of protest aren’t different. They haven’t worn yellow vests before, but they taking the streets and they’re looting and rioting and they’re doing things that they’ve done quite regularly since the French revolution. But you have a new type of president and an old type of political movement, and they don’t seem to be too persuaded by the actions he’s taking. He’s spent over a hundred hours talking to people, and it sounds to me he is trying to come up with innovative solutions. The thing happening in France is that in every election, people are voting for someone very different. Like okay, we’ll vote for a socialist, we’ll vote for the center-right guy, we’ll vote for the new party. They’re trying to vote for anyone who they think can break their stalemate because they have some kind of institutionalized sick stalemate. And when it comes to kind of their economic sclerosis – that’s a word that’s used to call European political economy in general when there wasn’t any, it was called a Eurosclerosis, which would be a sclerotic economies of Europe after the 1970s – when there was no growth. So I think people are seeing that France has suffered from no growth and keep electing a different type of president thinking he would be able to fix it, but he isn’t able to fix it. They reject the president, then try something else. I think what nobody knows is that when you have institutionalized problems, you can’t just change one office and think everything was going to reform. Most French presidents, with the exception of Hollande, have been trying to move France closer to the market. And the French are trying to, they want to keep what’s considered a uniquely French model in a globalized economy, which is Anglo-Saxon. And the question is can they do it, and Macron thinks that they need to move towards the Anglo-Saxon variant, which means more ‘précarité,’ more precariousness, more people being fired, etc. 

Comparing the U.S. and Trump to France

A: Do you think the discrimination and racism Trump tries to ignite within the United States compares at all to what is going on in France?

PC: What’s going on in France right now is different from Trump. It was actually really weird for me to hear Trump use all this anti-immigrant rhetoric because almost everyone here is an immigrant unless you’re Native American. Most of his wives were immigrants, and we don’t have an immigration influx. What Trump is doing is borrowing rhetoric from Europe; Trump tried something and it worked. I actually spoke with someone who was a former member of the Trump administration who claimed Trump isn’t even anti-immigrant. Steven Miller, far-right senior advisor for policy of Trump, is anti-immigrant and has a rhetoric that worked. Trump saw how effective Miller was with his demographic. Trump doesn’t really care about immigration, but he realizes that it is helping him with his base. What he is doing is very similar to what is being done in Europe, the only difference is we don’t have same issues as them. It isn’t people in San Diego on the border supporting Trump, its those in the heartland who are losing their jobs and looking for someone to blame.  

Citations:

“Xenophobia, Identity Politics and Exclusionary Populism in Western Europe.” Socialist Register 2003: Fighting Identities: Race, Religion and Ethno-Nationalism, by Hertz-Georg Betz, Merlin Press, 2003.

https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/expert/carter-elizabeth

[my-own-digital-community-blog]

Why are there no laws in place to stop trolling?

Mark Griffiths states that trolling is “the act of intentionally provoking and or antagonising users in an online environment that creates an often desirable predictable outcome for the troll”.  Due to their own low-self esteem, trolls communicate via online platforms rather than face-to-face because it allows them to conceal their true identity and act in a different manner than they would in real life. This makes it extremely had for victims to distinguish trolls and do something about it when trolls are posting and interacting with the community anonymously.

So what is the government and the community doing to stop trolling? 

The government has created websites such as the Office of Children’s esafety Commissioner to help control children's use online and ensure their safety. But the problem is that these websites have been created for parents and teachers, rather than the children themselves. Yes, parents and teachers have a big influence on the development of a child's life, but a child is also influenced by peer pressure and may not feel comfortable with confronting the issue of bullying themselves. What’s even more of a concern is that parents and adults don’t even know that these websites exist. This leads to the ultimate question: how are these strategies going to influence the termination of trolling when they are ineffective in reaching their target audience? 

In addition to these websites, the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act was created in 2015 to help regulate social media content and ensure the safety of all users. But how effective has this safety act been? Currently, in 2019 can we say that customers feel safe online? Alternatively Alex talks about the issue of cyber bullying in his ‘ted talk’ and there has seen very little change since. The online community is growing rapidly and changing every year, this Act should be adjusted and altered annually to keep up with the constant changes happening around the globe.

We will only be able to stop trolling when the government recognises the significant problem it is and creates laws that directly impact the whole of the virtual and physical society. Dana bold states that “teens behaviours haven’t necessarily changed, it is just that social media has made the dynamics of bullying visible to more people”. People should be utilising social media as a means to raise awareness of bullying and help the youth overcome this. If I was a community moderator I would conduct research into the behaviour of teenagers and aim to learn about the particular ways they engage with social media. I would create prevention tactics that speak directly to them as the demographic that cyber bullying is effecting the most. 

Social norms and national laws need to be changed to deal with cyber bullying and trolling due to their power within the public sphere.  Everyone is entitled to voice their own opinions online but when it comes to trolling, society needs to understand how to respond to it and over power its dominance on the internet.

[hekate1308]

Making Headlines

More of my Destiel siren!Cas AU. Enjoy!

“I think this would be an excellent idea“ she explains with more patience than she actually feels. “Many people are wondering what exactly draws others towards the monsters and their life style. A piece on the suburban community they founded would draw a lot of interest.”

“If you think so, Bela” her boss replies, clearly bored out of his mind.

She all but storms out of his office. She knows a good story when she sees one, and this one could be excellent.

She only found out about the community per accident – literally. Her car happened to blow a tire not far away from Dean Winchester’s shop, and she quickly made her way there as soon as she saw the sign.

While she was aware that there were several supernatural creatures living nearby – a few rumours had made his way to her desk in the past few years – she was still not prepared for what she found.

As it turned out, she stumbled into the owner’s lunch hour, which he shared with his husband.

The husband who was very  -

Very –

She snapped out of it just as the siren got up. “I’m so sorry. I thought we’d locked the door.”

“It’s no problem” she assured him. “It’s just – one of my tires just blew and –“

“Oh, that’s fixed soon enough” the human (at least she thought so) answered as he stood up. “Excuse me for a moment, sunshine.”

As he kissed his husband, Bela knew she’d found a good story.

Ever since that day, she’s been hooked. Even with monsters being recognized citizens, very few reporters have ever bothered to talk about them. But why shouldn’t they? More importantly, why shouldn’t she?

Her research has shown her that Castiel Winchester gives talks at schools, so they definitely want to be seen and spoken to.

And so she resolutely makes her way to the suburbs one afternoon.

It’s high time the public learns monsters aren’t dangerous, anyway.

She should know. She’s encountered human monsters. Give her a supernatural entity any day.

Soon after she’s found the right street, a red-haired woman accosts her. “Looking for something, dearie?”

Bela knows a warning when she hears one. “Yes” she says simply, “I’m a reporter with the Kansas Magazine, and I’d like to conduct an interview with Dean Winchester and his husband.”

Her eyes narrow. “Why?”

“Inter-species relationships. Always interesting” she says smoothly.

“And what do you hope to achieve?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “To reach more readers, mostly. And quite frankly, I have seen the world of humans – how bad can monsters be?”

“Ah” she says, and Bela has the feeling that she knows more than she’s comfortable with. “Then you do indeed wish to speak to Dean and Cas. The house over there – next to my son’s” she says with pride.

Bela looks at her and wonders what she is, exactly. She’s read up on all the different characteristics of monsters, of course, but there are many who look just like humans.

She seems to realize what she’s thinking, since she suddenly leans towards her, bops her nose and says “Abracadabra”.

Before she understand what’s happening, she’s hovering about two feet high in the air.

“Just a demonstration. Remember what I can do.”

She winks at her, brings her back down to earth and leaves.

If Bela was scared easily, she’d leave now, but she’s never been that.

She rings the bell.

It’s Castiel who opens. He frowns. “Miss Talbot, is everything alright with your –“

“My car is functioning perfectly, thank you” she says. “May I come in? I have an offer I am rather sure you cannot refuse.”

He frowns but steps aside.

Mission accomplished.

Or so she thinks.

She’s only come so far as to explain that she’s planning to write an article about the monster community when the demon shows up.

“Hello, boys. Heard you had a visitor.”

His eyes are blood red and he grins somewhat maniacally as he waves at her. She takes a deep breath and forces herself to stay calm. She has met enough evil from humans; one demon isn’t enough to scare her.

“Bela Talbot” she introduces herself. He raises an eyebrow.

“An actually respectable reporter? And one who’s seeking for attention at the same time? Of course you found your way here.”

“Crowley” Dean says.

“What? I am just pointing out to this young lady that I don’t like to see my family being used...”

“Family?” she asks, baffled. Being neighbours with a demon is one thing, but family?

Dean sighs, then explains, “To keep it short, Crowley was dying, we had to perform a ritual so he wouldn’t, and now we’re all officially one big happy family according to demon tradition. You sure you still want to hang around?”

She nods. She needs a big story, and she won’t flee now that she’s found one simply because monsters seem to have original interpretations when it comes to certain words. Like family.

Family never meant anything good to her anyway.

“Alright, then. What would this deal of yours entail?” Crowley asks, sitting down as if he belongs there (and he probably does, considering the story with the ritual, she realizes). “I’m somewhat of an expert when it comes to deals, you know.”

“He really is. You could say it’s kind of what demons do” Dean says.

She tells them.

Castiel – or Cas, as Dean calls him – seems cautious. “Yes, I go to schools and tell children about us, hoping to do away with some of the prejudices that still haunt us, but are you sure an article would be the right thing?”

“If it is well researched and impeccably written yes, and it will be” she says matter-of-factly.

“And of course it would be when you are writing it?” Dean asks. There’s something in his eyes she doesn’t like, something that looks a little too much like understanding, and she’s never wanted that.

“Naturally.”

“Okay, but I’ll speak to our lawyer first.”

“You have your own –“

“My brother. He’s the best” Dean says proudly.

She nods. “That’s only fair.”

“Good, then. We’ll be in touch.”

“And in case you are planning anything” Crowley loudly announces, “I’ll be in touch. And you don’t want that.”

“Crowley –“

“It’s quite alright” she hastens to say, “I know when I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

But she has an in.

Now all she has to do is get the story.

Getting the story doesn’t prove as easy as she thought it would.

Sam Winchester, when she meets him for lunch, is polite but clearly sceptical; as a matter of fact, he has printed out several of her old articles. “It seems to me that you are rather fond of a... dramatic style of storytelling, and we don’t want that. We want people to see that monsters have feelings too, that they are people.”

“Drama always sells. But in this case, it wouldn’t be necessary. People are going to read anything as long as it’s got monsters in the title.”

“So you are interested in a faithful portrayal?”

“Oh yes, I...” she trails off when she sees several women in long dresses and coats enter the restaurant.

Sam turns around. “Oh, those are selkies. Never go anywhere without their coats.”

“I have been here more than once, and I’ve never seen a single monster.”

“Oh, that’s me” Sam says matter-of-factly. “Didn’t Dean tell you what might happen if you stick around for too long?”

“No?”

“Just as you can get used to magic, the magic can get used to you. One day you’re living your normal life, the next a hobgoblin is going through your sock drawer.”

She stares at him. He shrugs. “Like I said, one gets used to it.”

“And how will I know when it happens?”

“Trust me, the signs are obvious.”

She does her piece anyway, after a few negotiations, Cas being especially adamant that they are represented exactly as they are.

Within days, she runs into a very specific problem.

Humans, Bela knows and mostly despises. Humans are annoying at best and cruel at worst – she’s known that since she was a child.

But monsters?

True, it undoubtedly also has to do with them wanting to look their best in her article, but –

They aren all so nice to her.

Even Crowley eventually greets her friendly, because, as he says, he appreciates “anyone who tries to make a quick buck”.

Dean and Cas are always ready to answer any questions, and they are so smitten with one another it’s not even funny. She believes the siren when he explains he hasn’t felt hunger in years; he’ll never feel it again if Dean has any say in the matter, that much is obvious.

Sam stays over so often he’s beginning to wonder why he has his own apartment in the first place.

Crowley zaps in at all times of the day and indeed has the carte blanche when it comes to Dean and Cas’ house; she soon learns to respect, even to like him, although he is a demon.

Soon enough, she learns that he came close to death a while ago because he chose to live amongst humans and monsters instead of his own kind, and when she asks him why, he sighs. “Is it really that difficult to understand why I’d rather be here? Because it seems to me it should be obvious.”

And that’s the frustrating thing.

With Charlie and Gilda dragging her off to “girls night” which in their case means dealing with a pixie nest in their garden, Rowena showing her the best herbs against her “monthly plague pain” as she calls it, Dean and Cas being the very openly beloved leaders of their little community but still always making time for her...

She’s starting to like the all a great deal.

And Bela Talbot doesn’t like others. She doesn’t. She hasn’t since she was a girl, and fro a very good reason.

Just like Sam predicted, magic starts creeping into her everyday life. First it’s just little things; monsters frequenting her usual restaurants, the plant she keeps on her desk in her office blooming for the very first time, a few bird flying by her window every morning and singing.

Then it gets worse. She bumps into hobgoblins and pixies, one even shows up at her work place, and she realizes she has to make a decision.

Live this normal life she’s fought so hard for, even though it hasn’t brought her much happiness, or join those most people still think of as freaks?

The article is almost done anyway.

The article is a success; within two weeks she has received job offers from other, larger news agencies and her editor is fighting to keep her.

She decides to become a freelancer. She’s thought about it from time to time, and this has finally given her enough of a reputation to do it. True, she’ll have to travel and work a lot, but it’s what she’s always wanted.

She invites Dean and Cas to dinner to celebrate.

“Have to say, it was a good article. And brought even more clients into my shop” Dean says.

“I am glad to hear it.” And to her surprise, she actually is.

Dean chuckles. “Bet you’re happy your life’s going to go back to normal.”

“It can be somewhat... shocking to suddenly find oneself closely linked to the supernatural” Cas supplies.

Right, she suddenly realizes with a sinking heart. This could well be the last time she sees any of them.

She’s still pondering that when Dean says, “You’re gonna travel a lot, right? So you’ll probably put your things in storage somewhere.”

“Likely, yes.”

“Just saying – but if you ever want a home base again, you might want to check the real estate around our place. Good prizes, and the neighbours are supposed to be pretty nice.”

She knows what this would mean, of course.

A lifetime of monsters. Real monsters.

Who have been far kinder to her than humans ever were.

She nods. “I’ll think about it.”

[zukalations]

Time to soar! #3 - Ashizawa Jin interview with Nanami Hiroki (April 2017)

Ashizawa Jin is an illustrator/columnist who has been conducting interviews for GRAPH since the 1960s (yes, you read that right). His interview column gets a new title every year but has been fairly consistent format-wise in recent years. I’m giving him his own tag in the Staff category since he is one of the few interview conductors to be credited by name in the publications.

Time to soar! #3 - Ashizawa Jin interview with Nanami Hiroki

Perhaps I'm the only one who feels the stage light up when Nanami Hiroki enters. With Blazing Wind - Strategist Takenaka Hanbei, she achieved her first solo lead, exhibiting both gallant brilliance and subtle sweetness in a total display of her appeal. She is now soaring to new heights.

Hanbei is a military commander, and in this production, you were the leader - did you make any new realizations through the combination of these two things? Did you feel pressured? I didn't really feel 'scared' - I just had fun, mostly (laughs). If I was focusing and giving my best, everyone else would help and support me...I really felt that kind of atmosphere. Hanbei isn't the type of protagonist to keep pushing ahead without relying on anyone. He had a deep sense of connection with everyone around him, and would always do his duty, and I was also able to feel safe and stand naturally in the middle of everyone. Whether in rehearsals or on stage, everyone looked out for me so much, and of course, Marin-san (Yuuma Rin), who played Hideyoshi, was a big support. Therefore I was able to perform without feeling too much of a burden.

Did you feel nervous on opening day? I didn't, actually. The most nervous I've ever felt up until now was my first day as Scarlett (Gone with the Wind, switch role with Asaka Manato). I always use that as a point of comparison, so I'll think to myself 'am I more nervous than back then?' and then I'm like 'I'm doing better than I was then' (laughs). In Blazing Wind, every one of us constructed things clearly, and a main theme of the story is the value of life. Ever since the rehearsals started I'd felt certain that this would really resonate with the audience. Therefore, while I couldn't say I was perfectly comfortable, I certainly felt I was able to get through the opening performance without being too shaken.

You looked so cool in the poster photoshoot. How did it feel to see yourself all over? For the poster, Director Suzuki was very particiular, so during the photoshoot it was all settled, 'do this there, now do that' so I was just following directions. But he was really into it (laughs), so I understood the image he was going for more and more. The fans seemed to like it as well, which made me happy, and when I would see the posters up around town I'd be like 'Hey, that's me!' (laughs) Basically I was just like 'I'm so happy!' and was really glad about it (laughs)

You said you were very nervous on opening day, but what was it like to play Scarlett? Well, first off, it's a female role (laughs), and over the years, so many different people have played her. Also, since it was a switch role, rehearsal time was limited, so I was like 'is this gonna be okay?' and had a lot of concerns about it. While I'd rehearsed alone, obviously it takes a whole cast to make a show, so I had a lot of strong worries - what if I cause trouble for everyone, or worse, what do I do if I cause a problem for Rika-san (Ouki Kaname), who played Rhett Butler.

What do you to do help when you're struggling with a role? Do you try things like moving away from the character? I never leave the character. It takes me some time to solidify the image I have for a role. Therefore, for example, if there's someone with a similar feel to my character I'll research them and try to move how I think they would move. There's a limit to my own imagination, so I take things like that and mix them in with my own style. However, when all that's said and done, I think what's most important is to perform in a way that makes things easier for the rest of the cast. If I think about how to make the lead performer, or my partner, look better, that helps me bring my character to life. It's not about performing for 'me, me, me' alone, buut if I think about how I can make my partner look better, it makes me look better as well. That's the fun of acting, isn't it?

I first noticed you in Valentino (Theatre Drama City, Nippon Seinenkan Hall), where you played Rudolf Valentino's wife, Natasha. I wonder why that could have been, even though you are an otokoyaku... I still don't really get why it was me, but I think since it was so abrupt, everyone must have been like 'who the heck is that!?' At the time, it wasn't as if I had any objection to female roles, but since I was 173cm, I never dreamed of being cast as Oozora Yuuhi-san's wife, so I was really shocked. At first I didn't have any idea how to do a female role. I've never been girly in the first place, and I wore jeans all through highschool, so it was a bit embarrassing to come into the rehearsal room wearing a leotard and skirt (laughs). Director Koike watched me act and gave me a variety of one-on-one advice, so I'm really grateful for that.

A lot of your roles that left an impression on me are female roles. Even though I thought more otokoyaku roles should be coming to mind... Well, I think that doing female roles back then let me think a lot more about what it is to be an otokoyaku. Sometimes, after I'd put together a really subtle dramatic performance, I would be told that if I didn't make it a little bigger, it wouldn't come across to the audience... I thought that even though this was what I liked, going along with just what I liked was no good - but I thought 'since there are fans who like this way of doing things then that's alright'. The power of the fans is really strong to me. Of course I'll follow the directors' instructions and desires, but that sometimes means performing while thinking that wasn't really what I wanted to do, so I'd like to be able to combine these things more.

You have a stubborn side, don't you. I'm reeeally stubborn, I think (laughs). I feel like if I don't think 'Gosh, I'm so cool!' then the audience won't think that either. Therefore I'm always trying to emphasize my coolness, and when I think 'yeah, this is it!' and the audience also likes it that makes me really happy.

You transferred from Cosmos Troupe to Star Troupe in April of 2015, and it seemed that the otokoyaku 'Nanami Hiroki' became much more intense then. The atmosphere of Cosmos Troupe was really different to Star Troupe. When my transfer was decided, I was full of anxiety about it - will I be any benefit to Star Troupe? I'm not the most clever type, so will this go okay? But once I came in, it was such a different world, and a lot of different people had an impact on me. When I aced with Kurenai-san for the first time in Catch Me If You Can (Akasaka ACT Theatre, Theatre Drama City), I really realized how different the acting styles were between different troupes. I do feel that rather than being somewhere I feel totally comfortable, it's better to encounter challenges. I was also blessed by who I had around me: my classmate Ichijo, Kurenai-san from a year above, and also Toki (Irisu)-san and Hokushou (Kairi)-san, so it was an environment where I could feel safe and grow. Therefore, while it's been about 2 years now, I feel like it's really helped me come into my own. Everyone's been really good to me, and the junior actresses are looking up to me, so I'm really grateful for that.

What do you find most difficult about expressing a man's feelings? Hmmm... Obviously, in Takarazuka, we're not men but otokoyaku, so that incorporates a lot of things that real men wouldn't do. For example, actual men would hardly ever bring you flowers on your birthday. Especially Japanese men. Maybe foreign men are different (laughs). So an otokoyaku creates the image of a woman's ideal. I think it's because we're not like real men, but the sort of characters from the world of shojo manga or TV dramas who'd never exist in reality, that Takarazuka is so good. If you want to see actual men you can go to any other theatre, but you can't see otokoyaku anywhere but Takarazuka. I think Takarazuka is a theatre where you go to fall in love. It's a totally unique theatre where you can encounter a dream world and fall in love (laughs). Therefore, I think that being realistic is totally the wrong way to go. I feel like it's since they come to fall in love with men who would never exist in the real world that people will see the shows over and over. Since I want to make the audience happy, I'm also always thinking about how I can be more wonderful as an otokoyaku.

It seems that you will be able to use your experiences playing Hanbei in your role of Robespierre in The Scarlet Pimpernel. I've also been thinking that. While I picture him as presiding over the Reign of Terror, and he's certainly a villain, he's also someone who was true to his own convictions. It's a question of how far to take it, as if I take that too far he won't seem like a villain any more... Since he was a real person, I think it's really vital that I use my limited appearances onstage to really get across to the audience what the situation was in France at that time, as well as Robespierre's emotions. I really want to keep growing as an otokoyaku, so I've been getting a lot of instruction from Director Koike, and I want to enjoy myself while still working hard to become a more splendid stage performer.

[haikujitsu]

THE SHADE IN SHANNON'S HOUSE. WHAT THE FUCK. Does being on the thermos for so Iong affect VIad's mind? WiII Shannon ever find out about the shade? Do Shannon and Danny stiII hang out afterwards? Does Shannon ask for ghost stories from Danny? WiII Danny's Doctor continue studying paranaturaI stuff after Danny? What was your favorite SOAD scene to write? which scene was the hardest? What wiII Danny go on to study, how often does he get to see Shannon and the gang?

Hokay, where to start…

Favorite Scene to Write

Oh, gosh. This is hard because it’s such a flippin’ long story and I wrote it over such a long span of time. I think… hmmm.

I really loved writing the Jack and Danny reunion near the end. Jack was one of those characters I didn’t like much initially, but he grew on me as the years passed and now honestly he’s one of my favorites. Being able to bring Danny home and letting them hug it out just felt so satisfying and cathartic.

I also enjoyed writing Mrs. Foley because she’s so wholesome and such a good influence on literally everyone. The Spectra cameo was also neat since she’s one of my favorite ghosts and bringing her into a psychological drama seemed fitting. Also that action scene where Maddie steals a ghost bike and rides it home? Super fun to write.

Hardest Scene to Write

Easily Maddie and Danny’s confrontation at Shannon’s (which in the end was split over Ch. 59/60). It needed to be a balance of getting it all out in the open, acknowledging the truly devastating nature of what Maddie had done, and yet allowing room for empathy and understanding and forgiveness.

It’s incredibly hard to make that choice to face your own pain and accept someone’s repentence– and incredibly powerful to see it happen. I did my best to bring the characters to a point where they were capable of that reunion. I spent weeks reworking and tearing up and reassembling the dialogue to make it feel real and hit alll those notes of anger and grief and loss and love in a way that felt sincere. It didn’t ring true for everyone, but I did what I could.

Vlad

Yes, it seriously affects Vlad’s psychological health, not to mention brain function. More on this in another ask!

Shannon

Being able to fly upwards of 100 mph makes it surprisingly easy to maintain a friendship across state lines. Danny’s a little shy about visiting at first, but Shannon is so matter of fact about it that they end up having monster movie and spaghetti nights once or twice a month.

Shannon mostly leaves the ghost topic alone because she senses that Danny wants to get away from ghost talk– but when he brings it up she always settles in for a crazy story. Once you leave the borders of Amity Park even the existence of ghosts feels more and more unbelievable… but Danny sitting at the table (or sometimes floating above it) is a constant reminder of the strangeness of the world.

He has to learn to be careful about the superpowers though, since there’s invariably someone staying in one of Shannon’s spare rooms. In a year or so she decides to become an official foster mom and the kids she takes in get a lot younger (grade school and teens). Danny develops a reputation as someone who doesn’t care how dark your problems get; he can also make bullies mysteriously lose interest and is pretty good at video games too. Danny finds out he likes being the big brother for a change.

Shannon’s place becomes a sort of safety zone for Danny. When he has a bad day, when he needs a break from ghost hunting, when he has a problem that he can’t talk out with his friends, when his parents cross a line and he needs some space. Shannon starts keeping Todd’s room reserved for his visits, which, depending on the reason, can last for a few days.

The Shade

Recap for those who don’t remember: There’s a shade (powerless proto-ghost with minimal self-awareness, only visible to humans with spectral abilities) that haunts Shannon’s house, and it’s heavily implied that this is Shannon’s long-lost younger brother, Todd. Danny, Gabe and Harley are aware of its presence but Shannon is not.

Shannon still hopes that her brother is alive, so at first Danny doesn’t tell her. But sooner or later it gets to him– maybe talking with Jazz and realizing how heart-wrenching that uncertainty is, maybe Shannon reminiscing about Todd, maybe just visiting and seeing the shade drifting around in perpetual purgatory.

He tells her. That’s a whole heart-wrenching conversation as you can imagine, but in the end Shannon believes him and accepts that Todd is dead. That’s not enough for Danny, who can see the shade literally inches from Shannon even as they talk about him. Danny wants to reunite them somehow.

So he goes to his parents. Which, by the bye, is a huge step because Danny’s still super uncomfortable with them in their role as ghost hunters/scientists. Maddie and Jack realize that and they handle this as delicately as they know how. Which is…not very delicately, but they try.

They know that if they just present raw ectoplasm to the shade that it would manifest in a seeable, sentient form. But it’s dangerous because the sentience and visibility that ectoplasm provides comes at a price– it typically enhances aggression, self-fascination and obsessiveness to the point where the ghost becomes a simplified charicature of his former self.

If Todd were to become a ghost like Ember or Technus, he might not even remember Shannon at all and would very likely be a threat to humans.

Danny, as usual, turns out to be the key. Because the ectoplasm used in creating the portal was so carefully purified, he escaped the worst of the ectoplasmic side effects. The Fentons theorize that if they create a controlled environment where they can slowly introduce purified and denatured ectoplasm, they can give the shade a physical form and encourage sentience without causing insanity and aggression.

With Shannon’s permission they rig up the living room with equipment and are able to trap Todd’s shade and try out their theory. He manifests successfully. Whether they can only sustain it for a few minutes or it’s a lasting solution, I don’t know. But at the very least they see each other, and Shannon can say goodbye.

Dr. Wagner

I feel like ectoscience is one of those things where, once you’re aware of it, you can’t just… stop being involved. It’s too niche, too bizarre, and too interesting.

Especially since Dr. Wagner is now one of three medical professionals (four if we’re counting Dr. Kerza) aware of the existence of ghost/human hybrids, period. He’s one of the few people informed enough to competently treat Danny, Valerie, and anyone else like them.

So yes, getting involved with Danny forever changes Dr. Wagner’s life. After his residency is up, he moves to Amity Park and gets a job under Dr. Stein–that’s Danny’s original doctor from his first hospital stay post-PoT; he was brought into the loop about the halfa thing at Dr. Wagner’s insistence.

The two doctors trade off patching Danny up on the occasions where he needs serious medical attention, and in the meantime work together to create legitimate scientific studies pertaining to ectoplasm and its interactions with human physiology. As the epicenter of ectocontaminated injuries, Amity Park General Hospital is the ideal place to conduct this research.

Most of the existing data has been collected by either the GIW (which rarely publicizes its findings) or scientists in non-medical fields with varying levels of scientific integrity, so this turns out to be an excellent way for a young, hardworking doctor to make a name for himself.

He also dates a certain redheaded psychology grad student for a while, but nothing comes of it… except a very awkward few months of ecto-charged glares from his primary patient.

Danny’s Studies

Danny does eke his way into community college with the help of some online classes and Jazz’s tutoring. No one can figure out why his new campus has a sudden spike in ghost activity, though the Fentons make a public statement with some handwavey ‘spectral wave pattern fluctuations’ explanation.

I’m honestly not sure what he’d end up majoring in… I do feel that he’d change majors at least once before he settled into something he liked. His academic performance is directly linked to the level of ghost crisis in Amity Park–though he’s gotten much better at sharing responsibility with Valerie and his parents.

He’d probably go in with an interest in Engineering, Applied Science, and Astrophysics despite his bad math grades–which, let’s be honest, are probably a direct result of his ghost hunting and not a lack of intelligence. I think he’d surprise himself by doing really well in Sociology and Anthropology-related courses. Nothing like being thrown into a bizarre xenoculture made of a mishmash of human history to prepare you for higher education, ey?

[backstorywithdanalewis]

Back Story with Dana Lewis on Wuhan and Pandemic origins

Speaker 1: (00:00) Dr. Fauci. Do you still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab and Wu Han Senator Rand with all due respect, you are entirely, entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wu Han Institute. Do they fight Dr. Barrack We do not fund your barracks gain of function research. Dr. Barrett does not doing gain of function research, and if it is it's according to the guidelines and it is being conducted in North Carolina. Speaker 2: (00:46) Hi everyone. And welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis, that was Dr. Anthony Fauci and Republican Senator ran poll squaring off over the origins of coronavirus. Paul accusing the national institutes of health of funding, risky Chinese research into bat coronaviruses in Wu Han. The research is called gain of function, which turbocharges viruses to spread to humans. The idea being that scientists can then anticipate the next pandemic outbreak in a laboratory it's risky science because there have been numerous lab escapes of the viruses on this backstory was COVID 19 created in the [inaudible] Dana Lewis / Host : (01:34) Lab. Did it escape? Did the Chinese cover it up? All right. Joining me now all the way from Taiwan is Dr. Stephen Quay. Hi, Steven. Dr. Steven Quay: (01:50) Hi, Dana. How are you doing great. Dana Lewis / Host : (01:51) Before we launch into the theories of the origins of COVID-19, let's just establish who you are, because it's important, right? Because we're talking about science. So you are part of the Paris group, which as I understand is a couple of dozen, just over a couple of dozen scientists with, um, some of them are mathematicians. They're not scientists, there's a lot of different disciplines in there, but that group was formed because, and what is its raise on Detra? Dr. Steven Quay: (02:21) It's mainly a curiosity around the origin. Um, everybody has, you know, pretty busy day jobs of, of one form or another, but we've committed to meeting once a month, uh, by zoom, um, for about four hours. And we usually have someone in the group where we have a group, someone outside the group present, uh, some scientific aspect of it. Uh, and then we have discussions. I mean, we've, we've put out two letters, uh, publicly to, um, support the who into, into support investigations, further investigations. And that occupies some of our time, uh, the logistics of getting those letters done on the sword. But, uh, and Dana Lewis / Host : (02:55) You are a doctor of what and what is really your specialty and your Dr. Steven Quay: (02:58) Strength. So, uh, I have an MD PhD, PhDs in chemistry, uh, taught at Stanford medical school for about 10 years. Yeah, it's a, it's pretty good school down there in the mid peninsula of California. Uh, my, uh, uh, residency was at the mass general at Harvard and I was in a Nobel prize winners laboratory at MIT. So during the day I was learning to be a doctor and at night I was doing photochemistry across the river at MIT. You're not a geologist. I know I haven't, I've invented a treatment for, uh, for a particular, uh, influenza, uh, using sir. And a, so I have 87 patents and I've invented, uh, seven drugs that are FDA approved, including the gadolinium that's used for MRI contrast. So, uh, about 80 million people have used that drug. So, uh, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm a really nerdy scientist. This is probably the core of Steve cuase. Uh, back in the day, 20, 30 years ago, I would take, take home an inch of before the internet, an inch of scientific papers that I xeroxed. And that was my sitting on the patio with a drink on Sunday afternoon. Uh, this is the way I spent my weekends. So fast-forward, I now do it on the internet. Dana Lewis / Host : (04:08) Let's talk about the origins of COVID-19 because you were also, I understand a signatory to this letter, um, from again about 26 scientists. I don't know if they're the same as the Paris group. I know some of them overlap, um, which essentially essentially says to the, who look, your investigation was flawed from the beginning, the, the membership, uh, that Chinese demanded in terms of the scientists that were on that panel essentially gave the Chinese government a veto and your findings. You tell me how you want to put it diplomatically, uh, just don't hold water. And we need to start Dr. Steven Quay: (04:48) Again. Uh, yes, that's essentially what the letter says. And, um, you know, there was a second letter that actually tried to offer a blueprint of, if you are going to start again, th these are the people you need. This is, these are the skill set of the people you involve. These are the steps you should take, et cetera, et cetera. So tried to lay it out pretty clear. Um, so with any sort of impetus, they have, they have the tools they need to do it right. A second time, Dana Lewis / Host : (05:13) The lineup on the theories, there, there is one that says maybe it was in bats and then it jumped to another host, and then it became, um, you know, it was then transmitted to humans and, and, uh, was able to replicate in humans and grow the other is a lab escape. Dr. Steven Quay: (05:32) Yeah. So, um, I've written a basing analysis of what, uh, of those two theories. Uh, I uploaded it on Zanotta. I think in the end of January, it's been viewed 140,000 times. So just for perspective, I written about 360 publications, scientific publications on various fields in that, uh, this one is one or two orders of magnitude, better than anything else I've ever written. The Bayesean Dana Lewis / Host : (05:58) Is kind of, um, of statistical math formulations on what are the odds, right. And, and I understand that you think through your Basie and calculations, um, that a lab origin was 99.8% possibility. Dr. Steven Quay: (06:18) Yes. Uh, in the legal standard is called beyond a reasonable doubt. So, um, basically it is a three-step process. You, you establish a prior probability based on whatever, you can get your hands on, you do an experiment and you see which way it leans. You drop it into base equation, which is a very simple bit of math. My eighth grade daughter does it routinely. And then you get a new unit to get a new outcome. So 26 pieces of evidence were run. My starting hypothesis was 98% probability. It came from nature. But as you said, I ended up, uh, greater than 99% from the laboratory. Okay. So let's Dana Lewis / Host : (06:53) Kind of walk through this a little bit. Um, first of all, in terms of hosts, if you go back after an outbreak of a pandemic, you generally find patient zero, and then you, uh, or patient number one or whatever it's called. And then you go back and you find the animal hosts. Um, in SARS 2003, there was an, an immediate host. So that was a, that was Dr. Steven Quay: (07:16) A cat. Yeah, it's called the civic cat. It was found four months after the first year patient. Dana Lewis / Host : (07:23) Then in 2013 with mirrors a camel, Dr. Steven Quay: (07:28) It took 10 months, but you're exactly right. It was the Campbell's SARS. We're more than a year into this 16 months, eight 80,000 samples of various animals around China. I mean, one of the biases is that you, you absolutely know China has to be motivated to find it in nature, right? I mean, I think that's an intrinsic either bias or preference, but so after testing 80,000 animals and not finding a single case of it, um, to me, that's one of the most screaming pieces of evidence that came out of the, who study that really needs to be addressed. Dana Lewis / Host : (08:02) Chinese would say they just never came from China that you need to go look in Thailand and Thailand or somewhere Dr. Steven Quay: (08:06) Else. One of the, one of the problems with any of this theory is the, the, the virus keeps a clock or a calendar or a diary. However you want to describe it, but basically you can use mutational analysis and phylogenetics to say which virus came before, which virus and therefore put them in chronologic order. Um, that is one of the important things I do in the Basie and analysis is the, the genetic patient zero. I don't believe it's patient. I don't believe it is the actual patient zero cause it's December 20th, thereabouts, but what's from a PLA hospital, every patient and every specimen from the seafood market is downstream from that. Uh, every, every Dana Lewis / Host : (08:46) Patient close to the Wuhan Institute of virology, by the Dr. Steven Quay: (08:51) Way. Yes. I mean, I, I actually did a separate investigation where, which concludes what I call the line to COVID conduit, which is, is basically looking at which hospitals where the December patients wind with the assumption that they went to the nearest hospital for where they live kind of, and then which, which of the nine subway lines they were near, all hospitals were along line too. And that is a, like a 180,000 probability, Dana Lewis / Host : (09:19) Right? Why is it important? Where does line to run to and Dr. Steven Quay: (09:21) From, I have some very unique features. So it's the closest station to the one in sort of neurology. So, uh, if, if a, if a, an asymptomatic worker came out and took the subway and they would go downstairs, it carries 1 million people a day in normal times, you know, obviously back then before that. So that's, so if you imagine it's a back and forth for people from the suburbs going to work as a half a million people, and that's probably coincidentally, but nonetheless, the number of people have infections. They said they had an in, in Ruan was 500,000. It also has the wet market as its closest, uh, is it's close to subway station. And in fact, the who said they had a map of the infections inside the wet market and they're they're asymmetric. So the west entrance has more infections than the east entrance. Dr. Steven Quay: (10:09) And it's the west end entrance that is closest to the line to subway. Now it gets really cool for amplification because the next station from the, from the, from the wet market is the station where the high-speed rail goes. So from that station, you can go to any corner in China that the high-speed rail services in a matter of hours, if you continue to the end of line to your, at the international airport. So you can literally go from the oneness neurology downstairs, never go outside again and come out doors in London or Paris or Dubai or Houston, um, being entirely indoors. So, uh, I'm, I'm really looking for someone to help me with an analysis show, how much amplification that subway connection probably had, because it's independent of whether it came from the market or the lab. It satisfies both of those, but carrying a half a million people a year and having those two major conduits inside of China and into the world, it probably is part of the reason this thing spreads so aggressively, where do you Dana Lewis / Host : (11:12) Think COVID-19 began? Some people trace it back to, uh, a bat cave, um, where several minors became sick. Uh, I think three of them died and those samples were later taken to the Wu Han lab, uh, where they were doing work on them, trying to understand the bad viruses. And if an indeed it came from a bad at all, it came from a cave. Dr. Steven Quay: (11:37) Yeah. Yeah. So, so we know that that again, after 16 months and literally thousands of animal testings looking for closest relatives, um, the closest relative is inside the came from inside. The one is a virology, a bad call, a bad virus called ROTG 13. It was collected in 2013. Uh, in those in they'll say minds with the miners were sick. Um, there were, uh, there were literally hundreds of samples collected and there, there are eight really critical ones that we would love to have the sequences for because we've seen phylogenetic tree. So Dr. She has, you know, done done presentations and she's, she's teased us with these other seven that are very, very close to our 13, but no one in the world knows outside of the one Institute knows what their sequences are. Uh, I think a lot of us suspect that probably a closer relative in the actual precursor to the gain of function research that led to SARS cov two is one of those other seven. My take is RTG is too far. Uh, you've got to come up with 1100 changes to get from RTG to deciders Coby to, I can do about 600 with kind of two quick things in the lab, but the other, the other 500 are, are too difficult. We know Dana Lewis / Host : (12:52) That that lab at one point was doing gain of function, which is essentially a scientific, uh, scientific term where you scientists and it's very controversial. It was banned in the United States at one point where scientists work with viruses and they try to strengthen them and try and determine when they may through mutations, jumped to humans and thereby head off the next pandemic. And then, you know, there's been a lot of denials by the Chinese that they were doing gain a function. And yet it, it was published at one point that the, the bat lady, the woman who ran the lab essentially was indeed doing gain a function, but did that lead to COVID-19? So you, do you want to, you want to try and string some of that together for me? Dr. Steven Quay: (13:34) Well, there's, uh, look a doctor, she, Dr. Barrack have worked together. Uh, they are either they're one and two, and you can, you can pick, which is which it depends on the day and in the year probably, but they're the number one and two coronavirus, uh, scientists in the world, uh, doing synthetic biology, which is gaining function, which is basically taking them apart, putting them back, back together, mixing, mixing pieces from different species of viruses, Dana Lewis / Host : (14:00) A backbone or element Dr. Steven Quay: (14:02) Well, well, with, with, with, they're always, they're always a bad virus backbone. So, so this Corona virus, no matter where it ends up, started at some point in time in bats and whether the intermediate host is a, is a camel or a civet or, or something else, uh, in this case, we think it's probably a humanized mice. Um, but nonetheless, and, and then, and then it jumps to humans, but what's Dana Lewis / Host : (14:24) A humanized mice mouse. Dr. Steven Quay: (14:27) Yeah. It's a little, it's a little scary, but so you take, you take a mouse embryo and you put human genes into the embryo. Um, so that when it's born, it's a, it's a mouse, but it has human lungs, respiratory system. So if you want to test what will happen precisely in humans, uh, it's, it's a great model for that. Now, Dr. Barrick developed that model and he, his mice physically went from North Carolina to, to the one Institute that's documented again and in publications where she, she thanks him for his mice. It just sounds Dana Lewis / Host : (15:00) Like dark arts, quite frankly, but I'm not a scientist, Dr. Steven Quay: (15:04) You know, it's well, it's, it's, it is. Um, and by the way, Dana Lewis / Host : (15:08) I mean, I'm not, I'm not altogether naive either because I've talked to, I, you know, I, I was based in Russia covering biological, chemical, uh, warfare, the dismantling of the former Soviet union's, um, incredible programs and, uh, an assistant secretary of defense, not a Republican or Democrat in that case under the Obama administration told me that, um, the gain of function research is highly controversial and should be banned and was banned. And, uh, it's high, high risk, you know, again, a dark art in, in, uh, in essence. Dr. Steven Quay: (15:44) Well, it absolutely is, again, in my basing analysis, I talked about the fact that it's, it's absolutely published for 30 years. There has been on average 0.9. So that rounds to one, one laboratory acquired infection per year in Asia. So, uh, these are, these are Cyrus, COVID one, uh, you know, other viruses one a year. So, um, you know, you're just playing Russian roulette with, uh, the 7 billion people on the planet. Dana Lewis / Host : (16:08) There is no good explanation. Uh, I'm reading this, this, this was written by Nicholas Wade, who I interviewed about a week ago. There is no explanation of why a natural epidemic should break out and Wu Han and nowhere else, there is no good explanation of how the virus acquired. And I'm hoping you can explain this it's furin cleavage site, which no other SARS related beta Corona virus possesses. What does that mean? Dr. Steven Quay: (16:37) Yeah. So it's one of my five facts that I, that I talk about that are not in dispute. So there, there are five facts about this event that every person, every scientist agrees to, but they, and they all lead to the conclusion that came from a laboratory. So one of them is, is this unusual fear in sight? Okay. So the spike protein is how the virus gets into cells. It's basically like a key and the lock that the cell has is called [inaudible]. So it's a protein on the surface of your lung cells and the spike protein binds to it. And then a second step has to happen where the other part of the spike protein makes a hole in your membrane and injects the RNA, and then it takes over the cell and then it makes a million of its own copies. So in order for this, so th this, this, the spike protein is one big protein. Dr. Steven Quay: (17:26) So in order to do that physical process of injecting the RNA, it has to actually physically move and, and the, and the, and the, the, the binding part, you got the binding parts of the ACE two, and you've got the other Proctor. This part has to physically move like a hundred nanometers, which is a huge distance on a molecular level to get the, to get, to let the RNA go into the cell. So the spike protein has to be clipped. So most spike, most beta coronaviruses clip it at a place called [inaudible] one, there's only a couple enzymes that will clip it there, which means there were only a couple kinds of cells that it can go into. So we've known since 1992, 11 different laboratories have done a new doctor, Dr. Barrick and doctor. She had the willingness to dos since 1992, 11 labs have put fear in, in coronaviruses and 11, 11 times it does one thing. It makes it either more, in fact, more transmissible or more lethal or all of the above. Uh, and the reason is it, it gives a new way of activating that spike protein with, uh, with an enzyme called furin, which is our enzyme. So basically the, the virus is very economical. It doesn't bother having an enzyme to activate itself. It knows with this, with this new, pure insight, uh, that we'll be able to get into a cell. Dana Lewis / Host : (18:39) You've never found fear in cleavage sites in natural occurring, uh, proteins, or what do you want to Dr. Steven Quay: (18:46) Call it? So, so look at the virus. Kingdom is very big. So influenza uses them all the time, all the time. Um, certain other viruses use them all the time, beta coronaviruses and never seem to use them. So, so we've, we have over 2000 sequences of beta Krone viruses from nature. And the number of Ference sites is zero. It was one is, so I was going to be too. So there's no natural fear on site, in any beta coronavirus. That's just, I mean, look at zero out of 2000, you asked a statistician what the incidence in the population is, and it's, it's, you know, under a 10th of a percent, Dana Lewis / Host : (19:22) It tells you, it tells you what about COVID-19 that fear in Cleveland site? Dr. Steven Quay: (19:28) So it has, it has it, but, Dana Lewis / Host : (19:31) And it tells you what about the fact that it has it Dr. Steven Quay: (19:34) Okay. So if there's, it doesn't, it tells you it was lab created well, yeah, so basically, yes, it's never been found in nature in that class of viruses and in, in, in 11 virus, in Landon laboratory, since 1992, it's purposely been put in, uh, including coronaviruses to make them more effective. So that's one layer of the, of the fear site, which makes it special. I call it the, the immaculate immaculate cleavage site, because it literally has to be if it came from nature, um, the next level is the genetic level. So the, the, the fear inside is four amino acids in a row. Now I worked with golden Cron at MIT. You've got the Nobel prize for the genetic code. So there's three basis in the code for every amino acid. So it's, it's redundant. So, so your genetic blueprint that makes proteins has three nucleotides, one amino acid, three one three one three one. Dr. Steven Quay: (20:30) So there's six different three letter words for one of the amino acids in the Ference. I call our genie there's six different words for the same amino acid. It's redundant humans, like a particular letter word CGG bad. Coronaviruses hate CGG out of the 64. So if there's four nucleotides and three letters in a coat on, you know, that's, that's, you know, that that is 64 different possible codes. So the least popular code on for Corona viruses is CGG they hate it. They absolutely hate it. And yet here it is, here are two of them together. Now I've looked at 580,000 Cotons in beta coronaviruses with the help of a computer. And there are not, there is not a single example of, of the, of the two together. CGG CGG next to each other, Dana Lewis / Host : (21:28) Back to Nicholas Wade last line, where he says the natural emergence theory battles of bristling array of implausibilities. Dr. Steven Quay: (21:38) Yeah. So, so I've been, uh, you know, I've been working with Nicholas for about six months weekly, uh, with, uh, with, uh, you know, some of the science behind, behind some of his writing. So, yes. Um, so that, that's a very that's, that's absolutely weird. Now, why, why would the flip side of that is, is there a, is there a laboratory reason why you'd put CGG CGG in, because if you think about it, if you've got six possibilities for the first Argentine six for the second that's 36 combinations, right? Dana Lewis / Host : (22:10) I mean, why would you, why, why as a scientist, would you put Dr. Steven Quay: (22:14) It in? Yes, exactly. Why is a scientist? Would you put it in? So we know that nature is never going to put it in in 580,000 code ons. It's never appeared there before. So nature hates it. Why in the heck would a scientist do it? If there's 36 possibilities, it's very simple. There's a, there, there, there is an old technique where if you, if you inserted something genetically and you want it to follow it in your experiments, you would put in what's called a restriction site. So you'd put in a set of amino acids that gets clipped by a, by an enzyme. You can buy off the shelf. And then when you run a gel, if the protein isn't, if it's still in there and intact, the protein runs very high on a gelatin. And then if it's been cut accidentally or it's been lost or something, you don't see it. So it's, it's a very common laboratory technique. The one in suits that they've been doing it for years, where you, you, you know, when you do an assertion, you purposely put in one of the restriction sites, so you can follow it in the laboratory. Uh, that's the only one of the 36 that has a restriction site like that. So a lot of motivation for putting that in there. Dana Lewis / Host : (23:23) Well, the allegations have been that, um, the us national Institute of health provided funding for gain of function, experiments, and move on. And then you had this very telling, uh, Senate intelligence committee investigation last week, where a representative, um, Republican Senator, sorry, ran poll then, you know, gets in this, w what looks almost like a court examination with Dr. Fowchee, um, who was the head of the national Institute of health, um, were you in front of this group kind of categorically say that COVID-19 could not have occurred through serial passage in a laboratory Fowchee? I do not have accounting of what the Chinese may have done. I'm fully in favor of further investigation of what went on in China. However, I'll repeat again, the NIH and the NIH aid category, categorically had not fund funded gain of function research to be conducted in the Wu Han Institute of neurology. Does that ring hollow? Dr. Steven Quay: (24:23) Um, I think it does. I mean, it may be, you know, in a really lawyerly court, like way, you know, there's a technicality. So what we have is we have the grants that EcoHealth was funded, and we have the subcontracts to, to sort of Realogy inside those grants. So we know exactly what was expected of the WIB inside the grant that EcoHealth got from NAA ID, which is funky cheese, uh, Dr. [inaudible], uh, work it's clearly, it's clearly a gain of function research. Now, the money didn't go from, from an NIH to Han and went from NIH to eco health, to Wu Han, if that really is what he's relying on, it's, it's disappointing, but, um, I don't have another explanation. Now, he actually also said during that interview that there was no gain of function research being done. And I think on the face of it, the document, the not on the face of the documents that are available to the public, uh, you don't have to even do a foil request. Dr. Steven Quay: (25:22) You can just go online in the NIH. You can see, uh, they're describing Ghana function research in the five-year grant that was funded the fund of the one Institute. They don't call it, gain a function. We don't call it, gain a function, but to describe, but what they describe is gain of function. So the gain of function is a very broad definition of just increasing the, the, the transmissibility lethality, uh, or infectivity of a, of a, of a virus in human, in human population, uh, and using humanized mice and, and improving in purposely causing testing to test for spillover potential is exactly that the, the, I mean, it's, again, I will try to pretend to be interested in what they were doing. So the idea was, can I deal with how close to SARS cov one, so we know Colby wants spilled over, and then we know that there are these virus that are 60% similar in 70% and 80% of the 9%. Literally what they were saying is what percent doesn't have to be like SARS Coby one. So we know it spills over, and then we can use that number to go out in nature and say, well, here's a virus that's 85. So it's not likely here's one that's 92. So it's likely giving them the benefit of the doubt. That's probably what they were trying to do. But, um, we know we know what the outcome is. Dana Lewis / Host : (26:36) Steven, just a couple of quick questions as well, before I let you go. The, um, the data that was online, some of it from the Wu had labs, some of it that you required a password. I understand all of this appears in September, it's taken down in September. So October, November, you know, some three months before the official outbreak, although a lot of people think that they already had cases well into November. Um, what, what do you make of that? And how important is that data Dr. Steven Quay: (27:10) Critically important? I mean, uh, 3:00 AM, September 19th, the server that was available for the world for most of it. And it also did have a password protected carbon, but, you know, Steve quake could have gotten on it the day before, but it's taken offline. Uh, now they, they slept up and they said, well, it's taken offline because of hackers around the COVID infection. And then they realized, oh my gosh, this was in September. So I'm not sure. They're still saying that's a pretty big slip up. Well, it's, it's, it's out there. I mean, that's, that's how it is with cameras anyway, but, um, it's not available to this day. So I asked Peter dash Jackie in a, in a public forum here, uh, maybe two months ago, uh, where if, uh, if he would provide access to those files, uh, and he literally said, it's, it's on the record there that, um, he knows what's in them. He's looked at them and there's nothing there of interest. Uh, and that I, then that that's the basis for not providing them Dana Lewis / Host : (28:05) And show him, show him to the world, because right now that lab is under look. I mean, I, I think you, you tell me if this is an overstatement, but it seems to me that there is a consensus amongst the scientific community. Now that at the very least there are huge gaping, uh, gaps in the China, Chinese official story on that lab. So if you want your lab, if you really want to support your, your suggestion to the world, that it didn't originate in the lab, then make all the data available. That's the best thing that they could do right now to the who or Dr. Steven Quay: (28:38) Whoever agreed, uh, whether they would do that or not as is a political question. Dana Lewis / Host : (28:45) Right. Okay. So we we've, but that, that it does still exist. We think, Dr. Steven Quay: (28:50) Oh, I hope so. I hope so. Are we ever going to get to the bottom of this? Well, see, it's an interesting question because, um, with my analysis, all of my evidence is circumstantial, but I remind people that, you know, uh, there are many sort of murder trials in which all of the evidence is circumstantial. And yet we quite routinely can determine, uh, the guilt of, of someone with a proper process and adjudication and, and, and, and getting to beyond a reasonable doubt. So despite it being circumstantial, I believe it's, it's strong enough at this point in time to conclude, uh, again, beyond a reasonable doubt that it came from the laboratory that the, the key thing to remember with, with, uh, these coronavirus pandemics is there's three components. There's the intermediate is there's the host, the animal hosts, the humans and the virus. This is the only one in which it's a singularity that is, there seems to be only one animal because we can't find any in nature. So there's, there's one animal. Um, all the, all the human cases go back through one patient at the PLA hospital in muon. So when president Trump got it, you can follow the mutations to his virus back to the PLO hospitals. So there's a single area there. Um, and, and the, and the, and the sequences inside the virus. Uh, so, and I'm sorry, the, the patient there's absolutely no patients before December who had any hint of this, of this, uh, infection. So it is a true singularity, Dana Lewis / Host : (30:17) One animal, one patient, one virus, one animal, because normally it takes a virus time to become more and more transmissible. There should be a trail of patience. Dr. Steven Quay: (30:27) Oh yeah, exactly. And again, they, so in my basing analysis, I looked at, at, at stored specimens, uh, in Taiwan, in China, I had about 2000 of them in the public record. None of which had SARS COVID two. So the, who has actually updated that. So they, there are 10,000 specimens, um, in that they reported on their, in their report with zero, uh, serial conversion before the first date. So nobody out of 10,000 in an archive specimens had had SARS COVID two, what is the MERS or SARS Coby, one history they're one to 4%. So that means a hundred to 400 samples should have seen. It should be. There should be evidence of Cyrus. Kogi two in a hundred to 400 specimens out of two, out of a 10,000, there was zero. Dana Lewis / Host : (31:10) The reason why we just spent 30 minutes talking about this and why you're spending part of your career studying this and why so many other scientists are looking at it is because in order to understand the next pandemic, you have to, you need to trace back the origins of this one. Can I ask you something that occurs to me? And you can tell me whether it's ridiculous or not, but in trying to fight this pandemic and come to terms with what COVID-19 is, is it important that we understand it was created in the lab? Does it make it a very different pandemic and a very different fight? Dr. Steven Quay: (31:45) Uh, he has one, it seems to me it has one, um, one aspect of the design of a virus that escapes that causes a pandemic, uh, that I think is, is interesting and worth talking about. So the downside is that it is clearly pre adapted for humans. So when SARS Colby one first jumped into humans, it had only 17% of all the, the, the, the ch the mutation changes that needed to cause that initial epidemic 17%, uh, this one has 99.6% at the get-go. So the downside is it was very pre adapted. So it spread very quickly, very widely. And that was the first wave of it. There actually is an upside to that, which is, it has very little genetic runway, very little movement to improve. So in the spike protein, there are only five, uh, five positions that it could mutate at to get better at, uh, from, from it's from the initial case, it turns out what we called the UK strain that the British strain that was, you know, started in the fall and spread. That was one of the five. So, and now Dana Lewis / Host : (32:55) About the very end, that's Dr. Steven Quay: (32:57) Another one. So it's, so it's used up two of the five possible improvements, uh, in the spike protein in terms of binding. So, um, that's somehow to me, encouraging that, this thing, uh, that we've seen the worst of it, and these variants are not going to be able to, um, to have much impact. Uh, I did another analysis and theirs looked like there's, there's eight, uh, epitopes. So the, the human immune system sees eight separate things on the spike protein when it sees this virus. So it makes eight different kinds of antibodies. And at this point in time, the Indian strain has only gotten rid of two of those eight. So we still have 75% of the epitopes are the same. Uh, you know, when I was teaching at Stanford, 75 was a C, but in, but in immunology, that's a pass fail, and that's a strong pass. You probably have to get well below 50% to do have an issue Dana Lewis / Host : (33:49) There, roadmap on where we will be in a year or three from now, with this virus. Dr. Steven Quay: (33:55) No, I said a year ago now, unfortunately, 7 billion people have to either get the virus and get the vaccine. Um, and I'm afraid I haven't changed that tune yet. We're years away from that. That is unfortunately, that's the analysis, Steven, Dana Lewis / Host : (34:11) Last word to you. And I thank you for your time on, on all of this, just wrapping it together. Dr. Steven Quay: (34:17) Well, you know, I think that, uh, my belief is that as a gain of function research project, uh, my belief is that there is a way forward for gain of function research to be done on a different structure. Uh, I'm going to be pro proposing that publicly in the next few months, uh, when I put together a consortium around how that should be conducted. Um, but I think absent that we're just going to do this again with another virus in, uh, in another decade or another few years, Dana Lewis / Host : (34:45) Or just ban gain a functional together. Dr. Steven Quay: (34:48) We could, that, that would be the easiest. Uh, I'm willing to, to find a middle road if that, if that is, uh, is possible, Dana Lewis / Host : (34:57) Steven CUI from Taiwan, Steven, great to talk to you, thank you so much for taking all that science and trying to make it as digestible as possible. And I appreciate Dr. Steven Quay: (35:05) Very much thank you, Dana, for focusing on this. It's an important issue. Speaker 2: (35:14) So why was there a scientific split on using the term gain of function in the [inaudible] lab? Why do we hear Dr. Fowchee say there was no gain of function? Well, I'm no scientist, but Dr. Richard E. Bright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers university and a biosafety expert contested Dr. Anthony [inaudible] testimony before the committee saying that felt she's claim made during the exchange with ran poll that the national institutes of health has not ever, and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wu Han Institute of neurology is demonstrably false. According to Ebrary, at least some of the NIH funded research conducted in Wu Han equivocally qualifies as gain of function e-brake was quoted as saying he bride claims that the work being conducted at the Wu Han Institute using us funds a pit of Mises gain of function research, and is the exact kind of research that led the Obama administration to conclude that gain of function was too dangerous to continue domestically. Speaker 2: (36:28) And it was in fact banned in the U S in 2014, following a series of lab accidents. And after a petition signed by 300 scientists, demanded a moratorium on gain of function. The ban was later lifted after a review by a secret government panel in gain of function, experiments were allowed to go forward. The Obama administration's ban was lifted in 2017 under then president Trump. That's our backstory and the origins of COVID-19 subscribed to our newsletter. If you like Dana Lewis dot [inaudible] dot com, and please share this podcast so that others can listen. I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you again soon.