#he is never beating them heroine allegations

[theophagie]

Ladies and gentlemen,

Edit lots of people only commented ゼクシィ so I was like OwO what's that and. ah

[scattered-shadows]

As seen on my FF.net Also seen on my Ao3

Following the events of fifth year, a new adventure awaits for Norah Lee. Boys, exams, school events, common room parties, and old foes outside of Hogwarts. Even battling pensieve guardians was easier than this.

Main Pair: OC / Ominis Gaunt Genre: Adventure/Angst/Fluff (it's a little of everything, tbh)

KEEP IN MIND: Characters are aged up (even if the story's got them in sixth year) to make it more appropriate. Time period is leaning towards the modern day so in case you might find anachronisms in the dialogue or references, this is why. This may also be quite a lengthy fic too.

BE WARNED: Social anxiety, mentions of blood and injury, grief, drinking, kissing but nothing more than that, death (this is Hogwarts Legacy, after all)

P.P.S: Panic attacks, friendship troubles for Amit, Leander not beating the K-drama lead allegations part 4, some hints to a spicy thing happening. Norah looking so surprised with Garreth knowing the RoR as if he hasn't been inside before...👀

Masterlist

Chapter 23

The next few days didn't sit well for Amit, who chose to keep himself shut up in the Astronomy Tower. He had been trying to avoid Samantha, Nellie, even Norah. Unsurprisingly, the news of what happened spread like wildfire and Amit could only imagine the things being said about him, about the four of them. While he largely tried to avoid Samantha, he overheard some fellow Ravenclaws whom she told the argument to, or at least had some idea of what happened.

Samantha was dealing with this differently compared to Nellie, who had acknowledged some kind of defeat and never bothered to speak about them again. That much Amit knew.

At least there were the telescopes that currently surrounded him. He needed to focus on completing his star charts, and there were still so many tables he hadn't been able to use yet.

"I mean, I know she's the Hogwarts heroine and all, but isn't she satisfied stringing along Weasley, Sallow, Prewett, and Gaunt? Did she have to steal Thakkar too?"

"Didn't know you fancied Thakkar," One of them giggled.

Amit stopped when he overheard a few students talking a little loudly downstairs. He closed his eyes and took a breath, trying to shut out what they were saying. Yet this time he couldn't.

"Poor Nellie, poor Samantha," He heard another one say.

"The next thing we know, she might come after Abbott next? I wonder if Natty would be okay with that, I saw them snogging near the Restricted Section again."

"I love how we immediately think of Henry Abbott, not his equally gorgeous brother Ethan."

"She should be sent to Azkaban if she did try Ethan. It would be so odd knowing she's friends with Henry."

"I just hope Samantha and Nellie get even with Amit and Norah. The two of them need to be humiliated."

Amit sighed as he focused on completing his star chart. He didn't need to listen to that. He didn't want to listen to that. Did they want him to pick either of them? What the hell did they know about him? Even when he explained everything. How could he change this situation?

There wasn't anything else he could do at this point. The only way out was through. Amit took another deep breath before looking into the telescope again. It was making him think. Why did he end up being friends with Norah? Why did he agree to come with her to the mine? Why was he the only one who could speak Gobbledegook? If he could turn back time, he probably would've considered turning her request down.

Knowing what was now going on, Amit's brows furrowed in concentration as he tried to focus on his assignment. The gusts of wind that entered the Astronomy tower didn't seem to help calm him. It was a good thing, he hoped, that he wasn't hanging out with Norah for the meantime.

"There you are, Mahendra's been looking for you," Andrew suddenly appeared, and to Amit's surprise, Poppy wasn't there. "Something about the upcoming party in the common room."

There, the party. Maybe he could focus on that too. "Oh, right, what does he want me for?" Amit asked.

"I don't know, but he just said to Henry and I, if we ever came across you, to maybe go into Honeydukes or speak with Sirona about some barrels of butterbeer," Andrew shrugged. "Henry tried to look for you in the Room of Requirement, but you weren't there."

"Oh, okay then. I heard we're doing a game like the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff parties," Amit recalled, turning to face him as he sat himself down, Andrew joining him.

Andrew observed his expression. "I know you know that I know about what happened between you and Samantha."

Amit sighed. "Come to admonish me too? I really, truly wasn't ready for a relationship, nor am I currently looking for one. You knew that, Everett knows that, bloody hell a lot of you knew that."

"That, I know too," Andrew agreed. "Love is hard. But she'll get over it eventually, and this will all die down soon. And in time, you might look back and have a laugh over it, how silly we've all been."

The brunette nodded. "I've had to overhear those people down there and what they thought of me, of Samantha, of Nellie, and even Norah. They're blaming Norah for something I did, thinking that she tricked me into telling her that."

"I know," Andrew nodded. "I don't quite like how they're blaming her. Henry's had to tell off a few of our housemates for that, he doesn't believe it either."

"Of course he wouldn't, but maybe... it wasn't something I should've said at the time," Amit looked crestfallen. "...I've put my foot in my mouth this time."

Andrew chuckled. "You do tend to do that, but not on purpose."

The brunette groaned. "I shouldn't be talking, at all."

"For now, maybe," Andrew teased. "It's best to let everything take its course. Samantha will be over it eventually, and she'll move on and so will you, and before you know it, it's as if nothing happened."

"It's a good thing I'll be going home for the Christmas holidays," Amit grumbled.

Andrew hummed. "So am I. Poppy's actually coming with me this year. Her gran's allowed her to come spend Christmas with my family. It'll be a chance for them to get to know her and hopefully like her."

The two of them sat up when they heard the group of girls downstairs talk about wanting to get even on behalf of Samantha and Nellie. Amit could only hope that the Christmas holidays could allow this to die down, more so the Yule Ball.

~

Norah was in Hogsmeade, determined to get back to her plan of observing the peculiar tomb in the Hogsmeade graveyard. She stopped by Professor Fig's mausoleum again so as not to be suspicious. Whenever Sebastian, Ominis, or even Natty, Amit, and Henry passed by, they all told her that they've seen more people go in and never go out. That seemed to confirm her suspicions of possibly an underground network of tunnels and secret passages. She wondered how long had they been digging through the ruins, and if they had been down there long, she wondered if it was connected to the Ashwinder lair in the cellar of the Hog's Head.

After dropping off a fresh bouquet of flowers, Norah casually glanced at the tomb again, seeing someone close the iron-wrought door behind them. She looked around for anyone nearby, while reaching into her bag for an invisibility potion. As soon as she was sure no one was nearby, she cast the disillusionment charm on herself while drinking the potion.

Norah crept up to the gate and used alohomora to open it. She could hear a ruckus coming from further into the tomb as she tried to slip inside without making a sound. Norah continued toward the source of the noise and when she spotted an Ashwinder scout approaching, she quickly petrified them. She did the same to a few poachers that were emerging, invoking her ancient magic on a Poacher executioner, who turned into a chicken.

Her heart was pounding, both in nervousness and anticipation for what she might find out. This could prove to be dangerous once again if she wasn't careful, even when it hasn't really stopped her before.

"What makes you think you can be trusted? You're a child," She heard Harlow saw to someone.

"I can be trusted because I am in the same house as her. You know, the one responsible for ruining your lives."

The voice was familiar, and Norah crept closer, petrifying several poachers that passed by her and dragged their stiffened bodies to one corner where an empty treasure chest once was.

"This is quite unprecedented, even for me. Victor Rookwood would've loved to have you as an informant," Harlow was grinning as he said it. "Alright then. What was your name again? I didn't quite catch that."

"Carrow. Nicholas Carrow."

Norah's eyes widened as she spotted the figure of the Slytherin boy himself. Nicholas Carrow was going to inform them of her every move. She needed to tell people about this.

"Carrow, one of them pureblood wizards," an Ashwinder duellist commented, and everyone was evidently impressed. "Why'd you want to turn against someone from your own house anyway?"

Nicholas smirked. "For the simple reason that she does not belong in Slytherin house, much less in Hogwarts. She's the daughter of squibs, you know. They live in Mayfair, her parents."

"Mayfair, one of them posh types, eh? I heard they're swimming in money, that lot," another Ashwinder said. "Perhaps we should pay them a visit."

Norah looked horrified at the suggestion. "See? If you let me help you, we can take her down, and your business enterprise will return while we're at it," Nicholas grinned. He held out his hand. "Do we have a deal?"

Harlow hummed in his place. "You want something more to this, don't you?"

"No, not really. Just the satisfaction of having...dethroned the Hogwarts heroine. That's what they call her anyway," Nicholas smirked. "I'll be damned if some squib-born is going to succeed in the wizarding world when they've got no place here. Besides, she's already on her way down after an argument between two of our schoolmates happened. They already think she's tricking guys into leaving their partners for her."

Some Ashwinder scouts present laughed out loud. "The bigger they are, the harder they fall..."

"We could visit her parents. Got any idea where in Mayfair?" Another Ashwinder asked.

"As a matter of fact, I do, and I also know when her parents would be home," Nicholas nodded. "But first, do we have a deal?"

Harlow shook his hand. "Deal."

Norah rushed out of the tomb. Taking the disillusionment charm off, she raced toward the Hogsmeade post office. She needed to tell her parents what might happen to them. More importantly, Nicholas Carrow hated her that much to involve her family in what Harlow planned on doing. As she walked inside, she grabbed the nearest quill and a roll of parchment to write what she needed to tell them. It wouldn't be too surprising if someone also tried to intercept her letters at this point. What was important was that they were aware that they may be in danger.

She felt a tightening in her chest, a lump rising in her throat. Norah stepped outside once she paid for the letter to be sent. It felt like she couldn't breathe, and that everything around her was spinning. Norah stumbled to the back entrance of Steepley & Sons, sitting down on the porch as she tried to collect herself.

Breathe. She needed to breathe.

Who could she turn to at this moment?

Norah closed her eyes. It was beginning to get overwhelming, all the sounds she was hearing, and the feeling of spiraling out of control. Flashes of past incidents came to her, worsening the overwhelming feeling she was experiencing. What was happening to her? She kept thinking, trying to ground herself in reality.

"Norah?"

She was rocking back and forth, trying to ground herself with the hopes that the overwhelming feeling would go away.

"Norah? Are you alright?"

Norah looked up, seeing Leander standing in front of her. The tall Gryffindor boy knelt down, gently placing his hands on her shoulders. She wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come out of her mouth. Norah could feel her legs give in as she tried to compose herself and stand up only to fall over but Leander catching her wrists in time.

"Norah, let's take you back to the castle, hmm? Get some rest or water in you," He said. Leander pulled away and turned his back on her. "Climb onto me, I'll carry you back."

She leaned against him, her arms around his neck as Leander stood back up. "Are you sure?" She mumbled, resting her weight fully on his back.

"Yes, I'm sure," Leander assured her, holding her by the backs of her knees as he carried her to the nearest floo flame. "Slytherin dungeons," he said, and the two of them disappeared.

~

A calming draught and a dreamless sleep potion later and Norah was lying down in her bed. At least, she thought it was her bed as when she slowly sat up, she realized where she was. She was in the Room of Requirement, lying on a bed similar to hers in the Slytherin girls' dormitory. Nearby was a table that surprisingly had some sweets from Honeydukes as well as some pasties and cakes from the kitchens.

"Ah, Deek is pleased to see you finally awake," the house-elf beamed upon stepping inside. "Natty Onai told your tall friend to bring you here and since you looked so shaken, Deek allowed them inside, if that's alright."

"Leander," Norah smiled to herself. "I'll thank him later."

"Your friends also left some snacks for you here in case you wake up. You had quite the panic attack, as what your tall friend told me," Deek explained, a look of worry etched on his face. "Something must have troubled you so badly that you needed to be put to sleep."

The mention of it made Norah look down in embarrassment. "How...shameful. I didn't mean to worry anyone."

"Deek doesn't think it's embarrassing," The house-elf shook his head as he approached her. "If Deek may say something, it's that you need to remember what Professor Weasley told you before. Deek thinks you've been carrying a heavy burden for much too long."

Norah sighed. "I know."

Deek summoned the plate of cauldron cakes over to her. "Deek thinks you need to put some strength in you. Deek heard from the other house elves that sixth years will need to tell their heads of houses about their possible career plans after Hogwarts."

She stared at him. "Deek, you've already known this, it's not news to you since you've been here a long time."

The house elf smiled. "Eat some. Let Deek know if you'd like some more, and your friends will be coming back soon."

As soon as Deek left the adjoining room, Norah sat up straight and took one of the cauldron cakes on the plate. Feeling a kind of fullness start to come up, Norah took a few more bites until she finished it, reaching for another one to devour while she composed herself. She looked up when she heard a bit of a commotion coming from the other side which meant that some of those friends of hers had arrived.

But to her surprise, it wasn't just Natty. Garreth and Leander appeared too. Leander looked relieved while Natty and Garreth looked concerned. "What brings the two of you here?" Norah raised a brow at the two boys. She turned to Natty. "And you told them about this room?"

"Leander had you on his back, remember? Garreth made you the calming draught and the dreamless sleep potion since we were making it earlier," Natty explained.

"It felt like a blur all of a sudden," Norah looked down. "I didn't mean to make you all worry."

"Worry? When Sebastian and Ominis hear about this-" Garreth was about to say something, but paused when Natty nudged him. "I mean, are you feeling better now?"

"I suppose so, calmer might be the best way to put it," Norah nodded. "I hope I wasn't too heavy for you, Leander."

Leander raised a brow. "I said I didn't and I didn't. I'm strong enough," there was a hint of pride in his voice as he said it. "I hope it's okay we're here, Garreth and I, I mean."

"You know what? I'm fine with it," Norah nodded. "Just don't go telling everyone else about this? I've already got some kind of target on my back for what happened between Amit and Samantha. On top of that, Carrow's been suspiciously quiet and now I know why."

The mention of the Slytherin boy made them curious. "What's Carrow done this time?" Garreth questioned.

With the two redheads around, Norah suddenly wasn't sure if she should say it. Or say it all, at least. News did travel fast around the school, and now Norah had doubts as to whether nothing could really leave this room. She gave Natty a knowing look, but then turned to Garreth and Leander. "If I tell you, you two have to promise this never, ever, leaves this room," She said.

Garreth looked intrigued. "...Is Carrow going to be in trouble?"

"Maybe, but maybe not, knowing how Black is," The Slytherin girl shrugged. "Still, both of you, have to swear on your last names that this will not leave this room."

Garreth and Leander raised both their hands. "We promise," They said.

Norah turned to Garreth. "Swear on Professor Weasley," She eyed him.

"Alright! I swear on my aunt," Garreth kept nodding.

"Swear on your last name, Prewett!" Norah rounded on the taller male.

"Alright, alright, I swear on my last name!" Leander nodded, still as concerned. "What did you find out about Carrow?"

"I snuck into that Tomb in Hogsmeade," Norah explained. "I saw him talking to Harlow. He was trying to make a deal to tell them of my every move."

Natty, Garreth, and Leander gaped at her, and from the minor commotion that came from the other room where her, Norah could tell it was likely Sebastian and Ominis. Or at the very least, Ominis. As she expected, the blonde had appeared and immediately sensed the sort of tension that came over the room.

"Deek told me you were finally awake, what's happened?" Ominis sounded frazzled.

"Carrow has offered to be an informant for Harlow," Natty replied. "Norah went into the Tomb we've been observing and she saw them talking."

Ominis' expression stiffened, and the blonde immediately approached the bed. Garreth and Leander still looked shocked. "That's not all. In fact, had Carrow tried to duel with me outside Hogwarts, he would've killed me. At least that's the likely event. He offered to tell Harlow not only my every move, but where I live, where my parents live, and perhaps shake them up a bit like what he's done with Archie Bickle, Agabus Philbert, the Rabes, and Otto Dibble."

"What the fuck is that twat on?" Garreth was trying to hold back on his disgust at Norah's explanation.

"He could get expelled for doing something like that," Leander added, looking just as disgusted. "Turning you over to Harlow and the Ashwinders like an animal for slaughter..."

He stopped when he saw the way Norah, Natty, Ominis, and Garreth were looking at him. "I wouldn't be surprised if he really planned it that way. Frankly, he's only making this much fuss now," Norah said. "Then again, I was almost always away in fifth year so he couldn't have had much of a chance to spite me."

"What do you plan to do?" Ominis asked her. "Do you still want to go through with your plan to catch Harlow?"

Norah nodded. "I have to see this through. I can't stop until Harlow and his ilk are in Azkaban for what they've been doing. Again."

"I don't suppose you can have the graphorn run him over or something?" Garreth suggested.

"I will not let his Lordship become an accomplice to murder..." Norah stared at him. "...He's already run over quite a few poachers in fifth year...Besides, Carrow's family would have no trouble in killing his Lordship if they found out."

Ominis couldn't help but smile at the thought. As amused as he was with the thought of running Nicholas Carrow over with a graphorn, he was also amused at how Norah wouldn't allow it to happen again. "I'm afraid Norah's right. Nothing would thrill that family more than to kill something. If they could easily dispatch muggles and muggle-borns and get away with it, they would."

"This is why our family hates being associated with that blood status nonsense," Garreth fumed. "Because we end up getting associated with people like Carrow. No offense, Ominis."

"None taken."

Leander frowned. "Seems like you're in a tight spot there," He said.

"This just means we'll need to change our plans a little bit. The rest of us will have to move a lot quicker while you try and distract them," Natty seemed undeterred. "I will tell Henry, while you tell Sebastian what's going to happen. Perhaps you can find Amit and tell him too?"

Norah shook her head. "Amit told me he can't hang out with us for a while since his argument with Samantha spread to the rest of the school. It's best not to involve him in this anymore."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I don't want to drag him into this if he doesn't want to. Probably best we don't speak for a while."

The rest of them understood. "The Ravenclaw party is this weekend," Garreth suddenly remembered. "I doubt Carrow would be coming to that."

"Maybe I'll head to the other mine by then, where the other triptych piece was," Norah yawned. "...I wonder if there are still loyalists in that...Or if the Ashwinders found it..."

"You're not going to the Ravenclaw party?" Natty asked. "You promised you'd go to every house party."

"You're with Henry, you'll be fine," Norah teased. "And I doubt anyone would go looking for me? What's going to happen at that party anyway?"

The four of them exchanged looks. "A lot. I just brewed a new batch of my fizz-beer! Everyone's going to get absolutely sloshed again!" Garreth said proudly. "And as for party games, I heard they were going to do this little game called, 7 Minutes in Heaven."

The mention of the game made Norah snort. "I know that. Some people in the muggle school I went to before played that at parties. I think after that party, Ravenclaws are going to see people from other houses come out of their own dormitories."

Her explanation seemed to make the rest of their cheeks turn pink. Even Ominis' cheeks were a little flushed. Norah grinned. "...You don't know what happens in that game?" and she burst into laughter.

[xxisxxisxxis]

Gateway Drug | Part Sixty-Seven

Words: 7.3K

Warnings: Explicit language, explicit sexual situations, violence, abuse

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"Vivian, c'mon." Fred pleads, as I grip the headboard of the hotel bed as he tugs at my ankles. 

"I'm not talking to that freaking reporter." I protest.

"Vivian."

"Rolling Stone can suck my clit." I argue back, trying to maintain my grip.

"Vivian, you are acting like a crazy person." 

"I'm pretty sane compared to the other motherfuckers." I wince, my joint in my ankle popping. 

"It's not gonna be that bad, Viv--"

"--He's gonna ask about Vanity."

"So, let him, you and Nikki already know how to handle the Vanity questions." He insists. "We spent an hour going over it yesterday." 

"Fred, I can't."

"Viv, babe, c'mon, now. Please." He begs again. "For me, please." 

I think about it for a moment, before letting go of the head board, gaining a relieved sigh from him. 

"Thank you." He tells me as I pull my heels on and smooth my hair over. 

The nightmare of that freaking Rolling Stone journalist following us around for days, picking and prodding, was everything everybody thought it would be. Possibly the deepest question he asked, about the actual craft of Mötley Crüe's talent, was, "so how is the amount of chicks you guys fuck incorporated into the songs?"

As if they would even answer that honestly being that three of them were married and one of the three had a toddler at home with his wife.

And I was particularly annoyed because me and Nikki had to act like the most in love people in the world to debunk the Vanity bullshit.

I hold my breath the second the question leaves his lips, but nobody can trip up on the inevitable topic that we knew would come up at some point. 

Nikki's clearing his throat to cover the pause after "so, obviously there's buzz going on about the bombshell Vanity dropped on the Arsenio Hall Show" leaves Cal, our reporter's, lips.

"That whole thing was just...bullshit." Nikki tells him, laughing it off, looking at me.

I laugh along, too, although we both know it's the farthest thing from funny. 

"I heard it was a 'misunderstanding' or something like that." Cal adds. 

"It's not really hard to have misunderstandings with her, honestly." Nikki admits, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. 

"So, there was never an engagement?"

"I think she's let Hollywood get straight to her head." Nikki tells him. "I'm not trying to be an ass but that really put us," he motions between himself and I, "in a really fucked position for a couple days because obviously you hear one of your girlfriends say, you know, 'hey, I'm engaged to so-n-so', and you're married to 'so-n-so', and then have that added stigma about guys like your husband not being able to commit because all the girls around and everything…" He trails off. "And, look, I'm not upset that Vivian was thinking there could've been some truth to it, ya know? But even after Viv realized it was all shit, it was all out there and people were--and still probably are--thinking that it's true. So the media is constantly, wherever we go, asking about my 'alleged' engagement and if we're still even married or got divorced a while ago and so on. And I could give a fuck about public scrutiny, myself, because I knew what I was signing up for when I started a band. I took everything into consideration, but she didn't sign up for people calling her 'stupid' and looking at her to do something, when Vanity--who has no idea what the fuck she's saying or how heavy the allegations she's throwing around are--convinces people that she's engaged to me." Nikki goes on. 

"So, Vanity was lying?"

"Vanity was lying." Nikki shrugs. 

"You opened up a little bit earlier about your past struggles with heroin--you didn't accidentally propose to her when--"

"Write this down word for word, and put it as the fucking cover quote if you want to: I, Nikki Sixx, would have to be on a high dose of pure horse tranquilizer in order to be so fucked that I'd willingly propose, or agree to get married, to Vanity." Nikki says matter-of-fact. "And that's married or single." 

I felt horrible. I wasn't happy with Vanity, I was livid with her...but I knew what it felt like to feel crazy as a result of Nikki switching the story. The drugs were already taunting her sanity, and we just fucking added to it by saying something--that so obviously happened--never happened.

We were both so full of shit.

I let out a breath as I we get off the bus when we reach the venue, needing to get away from Cal and Nikki's lies for a couple minutes. 

I catch up to Mick and Emi, who're having a conversation, Emi's girlish giggling has me raising a brow, and I feel someone tap on my shoulder. 

Tansy. 

"Fuck off." I snap at her and she looks like she's going to cry. 

"Vi--"

"--You knew she was fucking him, and then protected them by keeping it from me. Fuck. Off." I clench through my teeth. 

This is enough to get her off my back as we head inside, as Emi let's out more laughter. 

Mick and Emi--who had a husband of 6 months back home--were growing closer and closer, oddly enough. I kind of knew something was up, but of course I never told anyone. I knew Nikki would give them hell for it, especially Mick, since he specifically told him, Tommy and Vince when they hired Donna and Emi, not to sleep with them/have a relationship with any of them because, "you don't shit in your own yard." 

So I kept my mouth shut, but Nikki and the guys eventually caught on to what was happening, anyway, and he and Tommy set loose a wrath on them any chance they felt like it.

I keep my expression neutral as the guys make their way by to go on once Doc tells them it's time. 

I avert my gaze from Nikki when he walks by,  being that Cal isn't even paying attention. 

But Nikki ensures the upkeep of our facade--his hand grasping my jaw, not enough to hurt, but enough to get my attention, as he presses a solid, passionate, knee-weakening kiss on my lips. 

When he's pulling away, he looks like he wasn't quite expecting it to be that good, but he's brushing it off in no time, giving me a smirk and a wink before grabbing his bass from his tech and getting where he needs to be for set, leaving me stunned in my spot. 

Once I snap out of my little trance, I’m going to the bathroom to fix my smudged lipstick.

I let out a heavy breath as I look at myself in the mirror, taking deep breaths. “He cheated on you.” I tell myself. “He lied, he slept with one of your friends, and he cheated on  you.” I repeat, trying to hammer my level head back into place as opposed to letting it run wild with fantasies over stupid little kiss...which is easier said than done.

As I’m stepping out of the bathroom, I’m running smack-dab into Sparkie, and I roll my eyes at his mere presence.

“Sorry.” I mumble, stepping by him, only to hear him walking behind me. 

“So, I’ve been thinking…” He starts and I exhale deeply, ignoring him, until he’s grabbing at my wrist, stopping me. “...I was gonna offer you a belated anniversary present but I guess you aren’t interested.” He states, dead, sunken in eyes cutting at me. 

“I’m not interested. Fuck off.” I hiss.

“You weren’t whistling that note last night.” He echoes and I snap around, shushing him so the people around us won’t hear what else he’s about to say. He just gets this smug smile on his face.

“Oh, right, I forgot people would flip their shit if they knew Saint Vivian was interested in scoring.” He slyly smiles, his decaying teeth making me grimace. How the hell does Tansy kiss him?

“I wasn’t interested in scoring--”

“--Why the hell else would you show up to my room at three in the morning, Viv?” He cuts me short, and I let out a breath. “Unless you wanted to fuck or something…”

“You really are on drugs, huh?” I sarcastically shoot back in reference to him being so insane to think I would actually want to sleep with him. 

“I’ve seen pictures of some cute little tricks you can do.” He says again, his fingers grazing at my cheek.

“Want me to go tell Nikki that?” I ask him--knowing I honestly should because Nikki would probably kill him if Tommy, Vince, or Fred, didn’t beat him to it--and he smiles.

“Sure, why not. It’ll be the perfect conversation starter as to why his precious, purely clean wife was in my hotel room after everybody was passed out.” He whispers, his atrocious breath is purely smoke and alcohol, before he’s rubbing his hand down my stomach, nearly getting between my legs before I force him away from me, controlling my urge to hit him as I turn and walk away. 

There was no way to explain why I went to Sparkie in the middle of the night, without it sounding like I was up to no good--not just because Sparkie is the physical embodiment of “no good”, but because I actually was up to no good.

I wipe more of my tears, dotting cold water from the bathroom sink under my eyes to try to calm the puffiness before grabbing some toilet paper and blowing my nose. 

I can’t fucking sleep, once again.

I dig in my toiletry bag to see if I packed any benadryl to help me sleep...but all I see is my bottle of Nardil.

I roll my jaw and feel frustration fill me before I’m unscrewing the cap and throw the bottle at the mirror, the pills strewing all over the bathroom counter. My hand is swiping against the cold counter, knocking a majority of the pills into the toilet before I’m flushing them.

They’re just a fucking waste of money. I’m realizing now they quit working a while ago, I was just so bombarded with loving Nikki in our perfect little bubble, but now it’s been popped, and I’m crashing down from my codependent high--that was disguised as genuine happiness and the lie that my antidepressant was working--is now gone.

A deep breath leaves my lips and I wipe my tears, again, deciding to just get something to put me to sleep. 

One fucking ambien or quaalude won’t kill me. 

The last place I want to be is pacing in front of Sparkie and Tansy’s room door but here the hell I am. 

I knock on the door, quietly, hoping he isn’t completely smacked out or he won’t come answer.

When the door swings open, he’s in tattered underwear, his bloodshot eyes looking at me, confused.

The bitter smell of burning heroin and coke flows past him into the hallway, cutting at my nose, and I grimace.

“I can’t sleep.” I tell him, quietly. 

“And?”

“I need something to help me sleep.” I explain.

My skin crawls when his eyes snake up my bare legs, his tongue running on the inside of his lips.

“I might have something for you.” He grins. “What’re you willing to give for it, though?”

I’m repulsed by him, but I don’t show my disgust.

“Nikki’s got plenty of money.” I state. “I can pay you back later.” He thinks a moment, before smirking. 

“The satisfaction of giving you your first ‘big girl’ drug is enough.” He says, stepping aside, and I cross my arms and step into the room, seeing Tansy knocked out cold on the bed, her naked body looking like a skeleton.

He’s plopping his suitcase on the bed, opening it, and I feel a sick feeling in my stomach at the sight of insane amounts--in bulk--in coke, heroin--at least two different kinds, judging by what I've seen Nikki with the past few years--and a copious amount of pills. 

I'm eyeing the pills, but when he reaches for a lump of tar, and looks at me deviously, I have to hold back vomit. 

"If you want to hold up the Sixx reputation, I highly recommend this." He says as if it's a fucking joke my husband is strung out. 

My eyes dart from the heroin, to the needles in a ziplock stored in the zipper compartment of the luggage. 

"I just need a pill to help me sleep." I tell him and he holds back laughter before holding his hand up as if telling me to hold on for a second as he goes to Tansy's purse. 

I hear him open a bottle and the rustling of pills, before he's bringing me back a pill and handing it to me.

Seeing it in the light, I realize it's a tylenol. 

"Come back when you're actually fun enough to maybe keep Nikki's eyes from straying." He mocks me and I roll my jaw before throwing the pill across the room and storming out. 

I didn't get any sleep that night.

I shake away at the memory, a single, stray tear rolling down my cheek before I'm quickly swiping it away as "Dancing on Glass" booms from the stage. 

I was so fucking sad. I wish there was a way to describe it that didn't sound so mundane...but that's what it was. Just fucking sadness being suppressed constantly with makeup and a decent smile, knowing I wasn't good enough. I felt like I was living with my mom all over again.

After the show's over, we head back to the hotel with Cal in tow, shooting off questions left and right that have nothing to do with the show itself.

"I gotta go to the bathroom." Nikki mumbles, standing up and I know he's just going to get away from Cal, and decide I'd rather be trapped in a small bathroom with Nikki, than hear another question along the lines of "so what drug is your favorite?" 

As Nikki's shutting the door, I'm getting my foot in, stopping him and he looks at me confused, before reluctantly letting me in. 

We wait in awkward silence before I'm pushing a strand of hair behind my ear. 

"Don't kiss me like that again." I tell him, sternly but politely, looking up at him and he pretends to be infatuated with the sink's water knobs. "Nikki."

"Why not?"

"You know why."

"Oh, right. We hate each other, how stupid of me to forget that." He hisses. 

"I don't hate you." I quietly say, and he lets out a breath. 

"Not yet, at least." He scoffs. 

"Nikki, you fucked up, that doesn't mean I hate you."

"But you're still filing for divorce the second Doc gives you the greenlight, right?" I don't say anything. "That's what I thought." 

He slips past me and leaves me to myself, causing me to close my eyes for a moment, and glance in the mirror before joining everybody else. 

He was right. I didn't hate him, yet.

The next day the guys are due to take the cover photo for their Rollingstone issue with Cal continuing to breathe down everybody's necks. 

"Are you not worried about stomach ulcers?" Cal asks me as I take a sip of Pepsi as we wait for the guys to get dressed for the shoot, and I raise my brows at him. "You have at least three of those a day and it's unhealthy, isn't it?" He adds, trying to sugarcoat it with laughter.

"I drink more water than I do soda...would you rather me be snorting rails of coke or smoking crack or shooting heroin?" I bite and his face falls. "If I want to drink three Pepsi's a day--if I wanna drink 300 Pepsi's a day--I will." Apparently I'm raising my voice, because Doc and Fred are turning their heads in my direction and I can see them slowly making their way to me. 

"Umm…" Cal says nervously as I show no sign of easing up on him. 

"I've earned the right to drink as much fucking Pepsi I want, Cal, sorry it's not as aesthetically pleasing as Jack or vodka, or chain smoking Marlboros, or isn't as romantically tragedized as junk--"

"--Vivian." Doc starts as I continue.

"But I like it, it's not the worst thing I could possibly drink on a daily basis, and if I want to fucking drink it, I will!" 

He looks like a scared weasel, backed into a corner, his eyes wide as he leans away from me slightly. 

I didn't realize how close to him I am right now, I'm practically in his face, bitching him out over a fucking Pepsi. 

"Vivian!" Doc's barking at me.

I'm backing off, with the help of Fred pulling me away from him.

I'm surprised Cal isn't pissing his pants currently, the look on his face says he's heavily considering it. 

"Get him the fuck out of here." I tell Doc, motioning to Cal. 

"Vivia--"

"--No, who the fuck does he think he is?" I argue with Fred when he tries to calm me down.

"What's going on?" Nikki and Tommy ask, coming over here.

"Nothing's going on, alright? Vivian's just--"

"--Vivian's just what?" I snap at Doc. 

"I'm so sorry, she gets neurotic." Doc ignores me as he tries to reassure Cal and I'm slinging my soda out of the bottle, onto him and Cal, as I yell, "oh, I'm fucking neurotic?!" 

"Viv!" Doc scolds me as I throw the bottle down and it breaks. 

"Viv," Tommy starts and I snap around to him. 

"Fucking say it, Tommy. I dare you." I grit out, the look in my eyes telling him, "say anything else, and I'll tell everything about Vanity and Nikki." 

"It was a misunderstanding, alright?" I hear Cal explain to Doc.

"No, no." Fred sighs as he's keeping me from hitting Cal, pulling me away as Cal flinches to get as far from me as possible, looking at me like I'm crazy. 

"Don't leave this out of your fucking article! It might just save the entire damn thing since your fucking journalism sucks more ball-pubes than your wife while you've been out here with your nose up our fucking asses!" I throw at him, and Doc closes his eyes and gives out a deep, disappointed sigh, while Fred's tugging me to the bathroom with Nikki on his heels. 

The second the door is closed, Nikki's snatching me away from Fred, his hand wrapping around my throat--not enough to hurt, but enough to catch my attention--and he pushes me against the wall roughly, seering down at me.

"The fuck is your problem?!" He demands.

"Hey, cut it out!" Fred cuts in, separating us, glaring at Nikki. "Don't fucking grab at her like that, I don't care how fucking pissed you are, Sixx, you got it?" He points at him. "And you," he looks at me now, "I don't know what the fucking hell you are tripping on, or if you're on the rag, or what the hell kind of demon possessed you recently but you're being fucking ridiculous." He snaps at me. 

My eyes are honing in on the rosary around Nikki's neck and I cut my eyes. 

"Is that one of mine?" I ask him and he looks down at it. 

"Maybe."

"For someone who hates God you really don't mind representing him."

"It's called a mockery, Vivian, get over yourself." 

"Give it back." I hold my hand out.

"Fuck off." He replies, going for the bathroom door. 

"I said, 'give it back!'" I scream.

"And I said, 'fuck off!'" He yells back. 

"It's a fucking string of beads with a fucking cross on it!" Fred outbursts louder than either of us and we look at him. "You have like four, Viv, what the fuck does it matter? He's always worn them." He points out next and I huff out a breath. 

I didn't mind when Nikki wore rosaries or crucifixes, I knew he was kind of mocking when he wore them, for the irony of a "devil worshiper" wearing one, but even when we got bad off I didn't mind...in fact as he got worse with his addiction, I hoped the spirituality that they represented would rub off on him and snap him out of his addiction. 

It was stupid and I know better now, but Charlette Kinston was my mother. I did have a small speck of her in me, even when I tried not to.

Later that night--more like the middle of the night--I'm still unable to sleep and end up tossing and turning for hours before getting a bath, hoping the warm water will relax me and calm my racing mind. 

Once I get out and get back into bed, I furrow my brows at the sound of something weird in my room, and I quickly realize what it is. 

The unsettling sound of the door knob twisting and turning throughout the dark hotel room, catches my attention and makes my spine prickle. 

I eye the walkie-talkie on my nightstand, and reach my hand out, turning it on. “2.” I say lowly.

“What, 6 and a half?” Fred’s exhausted voice replies.

“20.” I say, which is code for "where are you?"

“101." He grumbles back, "101" meaning the hotel. "In bed. Like you should be.” He says.

“There’s someone at my door.” I reply.

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know what’s why I’m calling you.” 

“You want me to get outta bed just to come see who’s at your door, when you haven’t even checked?”

“...Good point.”

“Just look and see, and then let me know if I need to come, alright?”

“Got it.”

I get out of bed, hearing the door knob still rustling, and I tiptoe to the door, peeping out the peephole, to see Nikki, drunkenly fumbling with his room key, trying to put it in my door.

“It’s nobody, they’re gone. Goodnight.” I say to Fred.

“G’night, Vivian. Get some fucking sleep, you need it.” He adds and I roll my eyes.

“I would if I could.” I mumble, swinging the door open to face Nikki. He doesn’t say anything to me before stepping in, his bottle of wine sloshing onto the carpet.

“This key doesn’t fucking work.” He says, tossing it across the room. 

“Because it’s my room, not yours. Your key works for your room only...across the hall...where you should be.” I cross my arms as he takes another swig of his drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when some of it trails down his chin. 

“Are you strung out?” I blurt, wanting to know whether I should be ready to fight with Sikki or not.

“No, and I haven’t fucking shot up in a long time.” He points his finger in my face. “Just been chasing the Dragon.”

“I can tell.” I state.

“I’m not high, smartass. I came down an hour ago.” He sits the wine down on my nightstand and I raise my brows. 

There’s a silent pause and I wait awkwardly for him to explain why he’s here, but as soon as I open my mouth to ask him, he’s saying, “you wanna go swimming?” I furrow my brows, confused.

“W-What?” I ask.

“You wanna go swimming?” He repeats, rubbing the back of his neck. “Like hangout or something.”

“Nikki, we’re separated. We don’t ‘hangout or something’ anymore.”

“No, but I’m not thinking straight due to the wine and heroin smoke, and you’re not thinking clearly because you can’t fucking sleep, so let’s just not think straight together--bonding experience--and pretend we’re at least friends.” He vouches, and I raise my brows, thinking about it. 

“The pool’s closed. It’s nearly 4:00am.” I tell him and he scoffs.

“We’re Sixxes, Viv, we can do whatever the hell we want.” He says it as if it’s common sense. “And it’d be nice to practice being around each other without screaming each other’s heads off.”

I give it one last thought, before letting out a sigh.

“Fine.” I relent. 

I was worried his sick plan was to drown me, and finally kill me, but soon after we put swimsuits on, and broke into the pool’s patio, I realized he was genuine about just wanting to “hangout or something” and it made me feel a little better that he missed me as much as I was missing him, even if he played it off smoother than I did at times.

“Is it cold?” I ask him as he wades through the shallow end seamlessly.

“No.” He tells me.

“Are you sure?” I question and he looks at me as I dip my toe in. “Nikki, it’s cold.” “Quit being a pussy and get in the water.” He says. “It’s not that bad, Viv.”

I dip my foot in, up to my ankle, and wrinkle my nose.

“Vivian Estine Sixx, get in the water.” He tries to hold back a laugh, keeping his stern facade. 

“It’s not cold to you because you have more body heat.” I cross my arms. 

“Are you calling me fat?”

“I’m saying you’re thicker than me.” I correct him.

“You can always take your bikini off to get used to the water quicker.” He says and I raise my brows.

“That makes no sense.” I argue.

“No, but it’d sure make me happy.” He grins and I splash him with water. 

I quickly regret it as he’s getting out of the pool, about to come after me. 

“Nikki, stop!” I whisper yell and he catches up and wraps his arms around me before hurling the both of us into the deep end. 

My body is shocked with the cold water, and the second I get my head above water, I’m gasping and shivering.

The second his head pops up beside me, I’m hitting at him.

“Jackass!” I scold him, and he laughs, brushing his wet hair out of his face. “It’s not funny.” I snap, swimming to the shallow and he follows me, still laughing.

“It’s so fun to piss you off.” He chuckles, running his hand over his face to get the drops of water from his eyelashes and I raise my hand to smack at him again but he raises his brows at me. “Fuck it off, Sixx.” He stops me before I even start.

“You started it, Sixx.” I reply, mimicking his voice. 

“What's new…" He says with a small smirk, thinking about something before the corners of his mouth fall slowly. "...I've done a lot of shit." He starts and I look at him. "Shit I'm not proud of. I don't fucking know when to just do something a little bit. I can't have a bump, I've gotta go through an eight ball as fast as possible. I can't have a drink, I gotta drink the place dry. I can't have a serious girlfriend, I've gotta marry her." He says, and I glance at him and he shakes his head. "I can't just have a one-night stand, I gotta have a fucking affair." He finishes and I lick my lips, keeping my tears back. "This might be fucked up, but I've realized I don't feel like I shouldn't have had anything with her." He says in reference to Vanity and I furrow my brows. "I just feel like we shouldn't have gotten married to begin with."

It hurts like a bitch, but I know it's the truth, because I feel the same way. 

"Me too." I admit and he finally looks at me. 

"I wouldn't change it, though. I wouldn't go back and change it." He clarifies and I smile softly, my tears unable to keep at bay. 

"I wouldn't either." I assure him. 

He stares at me for a moment, looking from my eyes to my lips, standing up straight, before leaning down. 

It's a sweet, simple kiss, that only lasts a moment. 

It took me back to our first kiss. It was odd, because when we first kissed we couldn't stand each other very much, like we couldn't at that moment in our marriage, either. I don't know if that nostalgic feeling crossed the wires in our brains to convince us to chase one last high together, but one thing led to another and got out of hand like it always tended to do with anything a Sixx did.

I grin in the mirror at him as he mercilessly pounds into me to the hilt with each thrust, my right knee hiked up on the bathroom counter, my left foot standing on tip-toes as his right hand is around my throat, his left hand holding at my waist.

My original intent was to get a shower and leave the kiss at the pool, like it was: just a kiss. 

But when we came back to his room where I had left my room key when I went with him so he could get his swimsuit on, and now I'm bent over his sink, tears in my eyes from the pleasuring pressure building up in me, the feeling of my wetness running down my legs at Nikki's doing, is something I've missed.

"Do you really fuck yourself or did you tell me that to piss me off?" He asks me, his dark eyes staring at me, causing me to clench down tighter onto him. 

"I really do." I reply as he holds himself against my cervix, causing me to grab at the counter as the delicious pain causes a high pitched groan to leave my throat. 

"Do you pretend I'm fucking you?" He questions next, deliberately slowing his pace, the friction of his skin inside my slick pussy satiating the hunger I've been feeling the past several days.

"Yes." I whimper out, my eyes rolling back for a moment. 

"Who do you imagine playing with your pretty," his left hand snakes between my legs, calloused, rough, fingers rubbing at my slick flesh, and I back back into him, biting my lip, humming, "perfect clit?" He asks me and I let out a ragged breath. 

"You." I confess, my knuckles turning white with how tightly I'm gripping the side of the counter. 

"Whose cock do you imagine stretching your tight, hot, wet pussy out?" He asks next, and I'm almost considering trying to get away from him because I don't think I can handle this much ecstasy at one time.

"You." I say again, his hand holding my throat harder in his grip, making my breathing a little shallower, but it only makes me more turned on, another wave of my juices coating his length as he starts picking his pace back up, making me cover my mouth with my hand to keep from screaming. 

"Whose name do you scream out in your pillow when you come?" He asks finally, a couple more stray tears rolling down my cheeks as my body is overcome with my orgasm, his hand taking my hand from my mouth as I moan out, loudly, "Nikki", causing him to smile proudly at me in the mirror.

Within a couple more minutes he's finishing in me, and stumbling back a little, a dopey, satisfied smile on his face, while we both come down from our sexbuzz and catch our breath, before going another round.

Nikki's said before, "you know you're addicted when you start lying to yourself about how you're not addicted."

I couldn't agree more.

But the real kicker is waking up to your husband the next morning after having sex, and the both of you pretend like you're strangers, not exchanging a single word before you grab your shit and get the hell out of their as fast as possible before anyone else realizes what happened. 

For the first time in his career, Nikki Sixx treated me like a groupie. 

And you know what? 

It was better that way, because it left no room for, "Oh, well, we had sex which means we made up so we're good now." 

We woke up, didn't look each other in the eye, I got off the floor, put my swimsuit back on so I wouldn't be naked, grabbed my key, and left without a word or a second glance.

There was nothing more to say. 

We'd said "goodbye" to our relationship, the same way we had said "hello" to it in 1981: with sex that meant nothing, but meant everything, all at once.

We're back in L.A. a couple days later, and apparently Karen got some help cleaning mine and Nikki's room up where I completely trashed it, because when we get in the house, all of our photos are back up, his awards are nice and neat on the wall, and our room looks untouched. 

The only give away that something happened is the broken mirror on the ceilings, but he doesn't seem to pay them any mind.

I guess he knew I would inevitably break something. 

I keep my lips sealed tightly together as I hear our bedroom door open, initiating Nikki to walk by with a slight, hungover, stumble, as he makes his way to the kitchen, not saying a word to me, not that I expect him to. 

He's coming into the living room a moment later, my bag of gummy worms I bought yesterday, in hand, and I roll my jaw, not wanting to start a fight over fucking candy…

...But go big, or go the fuck home, right?

"Those are mine." I tell him, pretending to be reading the newspaper I was reading earlier, and he looks me directly in the eye, opening the bag, taking one out, and eating it. 

"My money, my groceries." He states, chewing it, and I exhale.

"I'm gonna go take a walk." Karen comments, sighing as she gets up and walks to the back yard, knowing this is going to get ugly. 

"You're right. It is your money." I tell him, not arguing the valid point. "And if you keep splurging on heroin, you won't have any of it left." I add and he death glares me. 

"I'm not on fucking smack." He argues sternly. 

"You only eat sweets when you're trying to cut back smack." I say and he looks away from me. "At least you're trying to cut it, though." I mumble. 

The bag of candy is suddenly colliding with my leg as he throws it at my lap, spitefully, standing up. 

"Nikki, you can hav--"

"--It's yours. You have it." He hisses, going back to our bedroom, slamming the door loud enough to sound almost like a gunshot, causing me to jump in my seat. 

Nikki: 1, Viv: 1

I decide to shower later on, opting for the guest bathroom to avoid having to see Nikki by walking through our bedroom to get to our bathroom. 

I'm only under the running water before I hear the locked door knob twist, before loud banging on the door. 

"Vivian!" He screams on the other side.

"Yes, dear?!" I call back, annoyed. 

"What the fuck happened to my fucking cars and bikes?!" 

I raise my brows, actually forgetting what I did to his precious vehicles until now. 

"Open the fucking door!" He demands and I roll my eyes. 

"Don't you have better things to do?! Like cleaning the fermented wine--that's been rotting in the hot heat of our garage--from the interior of your cars?!" 

I hear the door knob move some more, and I peek out the curtain to see the knob twist completely, the door opening, and I see the little key in his hand.

We both stare at each other for one good second before I'm screaming as he comes for me, but I'm ducking under his arm and trying not to trip and fall on my wet feet as I scurry out of the room. 

"I'm gonna kill you, Sixx!" He threatens and I panic a little.

"What the hell is going on?!" Karen asks us, keeping Nikki back when she steps out of the kitchen to stop him from chasing after me any further. 

"She completely vandalized my fucking cars and my bikes!" He points at me. 

"I didn't touch the Jeep." I argue and he nearly shoves Karen out of the way but she holds her ground.

"I'm about to call Doc if you two don't calm down." She threatens.

"I'm calling the cops and having her ass locked up." Nikki states. 

"Do it." I boldly snap. 

"No, no, no one's calling the cops." She says, letting out a breath. 

"Do you wanna go see what the fuck she did to my fucking stuff?!" He raises his voice at her, motioning in the direction of the garage. 

"Have you stopped to think that's a result of what you've done to her?" Karen questions him and he rolls his jaw. "I know you're not used to having repercussions and consequences to your actions, but it's a simple theory called 'cause and effect'." She states and he cuts his eyes at her, probably thinking she's full of shit. "The 'scorned wife effect.' You cheat, she destroys your belongings." She finishes, giving him a quick, sarcastic smile, before stepping out of his way. "If I hear either one of you screaming, again, I'm calling Doc."

He pushes past me, and I go back to my shower. 

When I get out, Nikki's nowhere to be seen and the Jeep is gone so I assume he got out of the house for a few minutes, and when I leave our room, going to the living room, I stop in my tracks. 

I see her from the corner of my eye, in the foyer, staring at me, and I turn to fully look at her.

She looks like she's been on a binge the past few days, her brown eyes wild and body slightly jittery, her hands gripping tightly to the sneakers I let her borrow a few months ago. 

All I could do was stare at her, just knowing Nikki was going to have to come home and clean up the mess that he made.

“Vanity.” I acknowledge her, but not for long before I’m walking into the kitchen, hearing an oncoming storm approach as thunder rattles in the distance. 

I grab a Pepsi from the fridge, hearing her slowly creep into the kitchen with me, and my eyes slowly find the knife block only an arms length away from me on the kitchen counter.

Sober Vanity wouldn’t think of hurting a fly. Coked out, crazy, reckless Vanity on the other hand…

“Do you have anything to say to me?” She asks me, shakily.

“Was it good, at least?” I reply, leaning against the counter, staring at her. “When you fucked my husband...knowing he was married...was it good?”

Apparently I’m striking a chord, because she’s got angry tears coming to her eyes, her jaw clenching.

“For someone who’s all about Jesus--”

“--He came to me.” She states, shakily, and I keep my face neutral, although I feel my heart tighten in my chest. “During your time apart last year, he saw me in a Vanity 6 video, and within two hours, I was getting a call from my manager telling me Nikki Sixx wanted a date night.”

“Is that what you tell yourself to make you feel better about it?” I ask, raising my brows. “‘He came to me, I didn’t go to him’? Because at the end of the day, he’s married, and you knew he was married, and instead of turning him away, you welcomed him with open arms.” I point out. 

“Have you ever thought perhaps I’m your punishment for not appreciating him?” She asks me, a tear breaking past her lashes.

“Excuse me?”

“God punishes his children when they’re not obedient. You made a promise to God to be the best wife to Nikki you could be, and you broke that promise more than enough times.” She adds.

“So you’re saying God used you--having an affair with my husband--to punish me?” I ask her to clarify. She stays silent, looking at me with pure hatred, and I nod a little, calmly.

My glass bottle is hitting her square in the chest before I can even stop myself, a look of utter shock on her face as Pepsi splashes all over her, her hand holding at the inevitable severely bruised skin bound to form from where it made impact.

Technically, since she wanted to get biblical, I was supposed to stone her to death. Being I didn’t have any rocks, and God frowns upon such things, I opted for a one-time thing that still hurt her but not enough to kill her.

I guess Karen heard the Pepsi bottle shatter on the floor, because she's coming in, with a concerned look on her face...before her skin goes sheet white upon seeing Vanity. 

"W-What's going on?" She asks me.

"Vanity was just leaving." I state, rolling my jaw and Vanity looks at me like she's ready to attack.

"I'm not going anywhere until I talk to him." She hisses. 

I hear the front door open, and I smile at her. 

"Now's your chance." I smugly say, stepping past her, my shoes crackling on the glass as I take my sneakers from her hands, going to our room to put them up, saying, "I suggest you go to your room to avoid getting caught in the crossfire", to Karen as I pass by her. 

When I get in our room, that's when shit hits the fan. 

"You'd have to be on horse tranquilizer before marrying me?!" I hear her scream. "Huh?! You break up with me over the phone and then act like I'm crazy and embarrass me?!"

"You are crazy!" Nikki screams back. 

I hear her shriek, before the sound of skin violently smacking against skin, as Vanity barks out, "if you hate me, hit me! If you just fucking hate me so much!" 

I run in to see her hitting at Nikki while he tries to keep his patience.

"Vanity!" I scold, trying to pull her off of him. 

Her left hand is suddenly coming back in a fist, hitting me square in the eye. 

This does it. 

She's knocked to the floor, and her nose is bleeding, Nikki's fist is clenched and smattered with Vanity's blood, and his eyes have a look in them I haven't seen before. 

Vanity's now screaming and crying, kicking and clawing at him as he tries to grab her wrist to pull her up, so he instead grabs her hair and drags her out of the house.

"Nikki!" I protest, catching up to him when he's already got her down our front steps. 

He let's her go and glares at me, before he stomps back in, slamming the door, locking us both outside. 

Vanity's crying, a stream of blood running down her face, my own nose spilling red, but I can't help but crouch beside her and wipe the blood from her face and angle her head back as she sobs. 

"Just pinch your nose." I mumble, taking her hand, that's raw from slapping Nikki, and pinching it at her nose. 

I had never seen Nikki that angry. He later described his altercation with Vanity, as "hitting her like a man." 

I'm not sure if he actually hit her just because she attacked him, because I attacked him multiple times, and he never hit me--the most he did was push me, or grab my wrists or my throat, and even that wasn't enough to really hurt me, just enough to get my attention. 

I think everything was put into that single episode. 

Every time she made his life harder from the moment she stepped in to it, and even his own self-hate for letting things get the way they did between them, all the anger he had felt for himself and her were packed into that single punch. 

And none of it should have ever fucking happened.

[aion-rsa]

Fear Street Part 3: 1666 Ending Explained

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This article contains Fear Street Part Three: 1666 spoilers.

It never could be as simple as reuniting an ancient skeleton’s hand with its wrist, right? That became obvious last week when the Fear Street trilogy’s ostensible heroine Deena Johnson (Kiana Madeira) attempted to break the curse of Sarah Fier by attaching all missing appendages in the alleged witch’s grave… only to be warped to Shadyside’s early days in 1666.

Now in Fear Street Part Three: 1666, we’ve learned the full unholy breadth of Shadyside’s curse, as well as their sister township Sunnyvale’s good fortune—and it’s dark. Involving a perversion of all that is good(e), the curse that has taken so many beloved characters over the centuries turned out to be more twisted than perhaps anyone expected… but not for Sarah Fier, a victim of superstition and misogynistic zealotry. And in the end, Sarah got the last blood-curdling laugh. Here’s how.

Goode Men, Wicked Slaves

For all those who became suspicious last week of the recurring Goode family, your paranoia has been vindicated: that cop really is the Devil. Or at least he’s in service of the Dark One.

By traveling to 1666, Deena was able to walk around in Sarah Fier’s shoes and get a taste firsthand of what it’s like to be wrongfully accused of witchcraft by a Puritanical community (even if she inaccurately later describes them to be Pilgrims). As it turns out, Sarah was not a witch; she was merely the young woman who’s secret love for Hannah Miller (Olivia Scott Welch) caused a spurned suitor named Solomon Goode (Ashley Zukerman) to take umbrage. And as it so happens, Solomon was the one actually dabbling in the dark arts….

Aye, it was Solomon Goode who spilled his blood on Satan’s stone, beginning the process of offering “one name” and soul for demonic corruption in turn for good fortune for the Family Goode. When Sarah rejects his offer to join his unholy bargain with Black Phillip—and more vexingly takes offense over his severing her hand—Goode accuses Sarah for the black magic that’s bewitched Shadyside: the curse which caused a murderous minister to blind children!

Sarah hangs, but not before offering a curse of her own: She will get back at Goode one day and reverse his damnable curse. In the meantime—and at a cost of more than 300 years of functional blood sacrifices—Goode and his family profit from their deal with Old Nick. From father to son, the mainline of the Goode family tree teaches the dark ways to each successive generation, who every decade or so offers a new name and a new soul. The person selected for damnation then goes on a killing spree, spilling blood that the Devil apparently feeds on. Beelzebub in turn grants the Goode family and their Sunnyvale town ongoing prosperity. Hence why by 1994, Nick Goode (also Zukerman) is a corrupt police sheriff and his brother Matthew Goode is the mayor of Sunnyvale.

Meanwhile, Shadyside persists in squalor until….

Magic Blood?

The most satisfying twist of Fear Street Part Three is that halfway through, it becomes Fear Street: 1994 Part 2! To be honest the accents in the 1666 portion of the film were a little dicey, as was the, uh, lack of Puritanism in a film set amongst Puritans. So best to go back to the era of flannel and overalls!

When Deena returns to the ‘90s, she realizes that Sheriff Goode has offered the soul of her girlfriend Sam Fraser (also Welch) to the Devil so she’d kill Deena and keep the secrets of Sarah Fier’s shallow grave buried. And since they have Sam locked up at Ziggy’s house, that means all the Goode family’s damned minions are soon going to be after them. But our heroes come up with a pretty nifty plan.

Thanks to how they saw Shadyside’s collection of nightmares pursue Sam in Fear Street Part 1, Deena and her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.) deduce that the ghouls will be strictly after Deena’s blood—which low-key makes me wonder how the monsters have such genetic precision to distinguish Deena’s DNA from that of her brother’s. In any event, they team up with adult Ziggy (Gillian Jacobs) and Martin (Darrell Britt-Gibson) by offering the movie-stealing line of the night:

Josh: Wanna help us kill Sheriff Goode?

Martin: Let me get my coat.

The plan for getting it done is also initially pretty solid. They sneak into the Shadyside mall after hours—which just so happens to be built on the site of the Camp Nightwing massacre, which in turn is above where the Goode family’s Satan’s stone is buried beneath the earth—and have Deena cut her hand, dripping blood into a bucket. Then by combining that blood with green paint, they’re able to create cursed blood trails throughout the mall, with each trail leading into a different department store. When four of Deena’s pursuant boogeymen show up, our Scooby gang locks the monsters into their department stores and waits for Sheriff Goode to arrive and inspect the remains of his handiwork. Instead of mangled bodies, he finds his teenage crush Ziggy, now ready to dump blood on his head like Carrie references never went out of style.

It’s an elaborate plan which was built on the idea of unleashing all the ghouls intended to kill Deena on their own master. However, it might’ve just been simpler to shoot him. Oh well. 

This final flourish of course goes horribly wrong but at least we get the fun sequence where the hapless heroes figure out they can delay the monsters by spraying each in Deena’s green blood, allowing for proxy fights between pseudo-Jason Voorhees and pseudo-Ghostface.

All Goode Things Come to an End

The actual resolution to this centuries-long terror turns out to be pretty simple. Deena follows Goode beneath the mall and to the Satan’s stone, as well as the literal unholy beating heart of the Goode family’s power. While she fails at stabbing the much bigger evil copper, she at least succeeds at running a knife through his power’s beating heart. It’s apparently as easy as that to undo the curse. It also allows the vengeful spirit of Sarah Fier to return from the dead and finally stab a Goode boy in the eye, sending him to Hell and Shadyside’s curse with him.

The plot’s mechanics are simple, but the implications are much more interesting. Because who else follows Nick and Deena toward the mouth of Hell but Sam, still possessed and now conveniently free of her restraints. She also attempts to thwart Deena and nearly kills her, yet Deena is able to make simple eye contact with her one great love and break through, shattering Satan’s grip.

It’s intriguing since, technically, we’ve seen Goode’s curse divide lovers before, with Tommy Slater (McCabe Slye) in Fear Street Part Two: 1978 not even hesitating to swing his axe into girlfriend Cindy’s heart. But then Deena and Sam’s love is strongly hinted at as being of a greater emotional purity. After all, Sam is clearly a descendant of Hannah Miller, the young woman whom Sarah Fier loved and saved from the noose by insisting that she alone was the witch of Shadyside, even bewitching poor Hannah into impure thoughts.

Are Deena and Sam the reincarnations of Sarah and Hannah? It’s possible, if even on a spiritual level since Sarah doesn’t appear to have any direct descendants. In any case, unlike so many slasher movies released between the 1970s and ‘90s, a lesbian romance is prominently featured at the center of this story, and is even the one redemptive light in Shadyside’s darkness.

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It also makes a striking juxtaposition next to Nick Goode’s dead body. This man might have been the current beneficiary of his ancestor’s bargain, but he represents something grimmer: the predatory nature of a society’s affluent feeding off the suffering and annual tragedies of their community’s underclasses. Sunnyvale flourished as a home for the wealthy while Shadyside wallowed in blood and trauma.

Kind of cuts deep the longer you think about it.

So… Who Took the Spell Book?

Of course this wouldn’t be an old school horror movie if it didn’t set up a sequel. Fear Street Part Three definitely offers resolution for its current narrative: Nick Goode is dead and exposed in the press as the Sunnyvale serial killer; Josh, meanwhile, may yet have his first girlfriend; and Deena and Sam are together, honoring Sarah Fier, if no one else will.

But beneath the reopened Shadyside Mall, we glimpse the book of black magic that Solomon Goode first used to make his pact, and a pair of hands belonging to an unseen face snatch it. Who stole the book and what are they up to?

Well, it’s worth noting that the Goode family has grown quite a bit in the 300-plus years since Solomon Goode accused Sarah Fier of witchery. Nick Goode appears to be the eldest son in the direct line. He’s the one taught the spells onscreen, and the boy who reads out Thomas Slater’s name—ironically in a bid to wrestle him away from Ziggy. However, just because Nick Goode is the one who damned Tommy and Ryan Torres in the last two Fear Street movies, it does not mean he was working alone.

Despite what Mayor Goode told the press about his brother, he almost certainly knew about his father and forefathers’ good work, as would the rest of the extended family. And here’s the thing…it will be so much harder next time for Deena (or, say, a new generation of millennial Shadysiders in the 2000s) to fight city hall. There’s also the likelihood that there’s more than one curse in that book of spells.

The Fear Street trilogy is over. The Fear Street shared universe may have only just begun. 

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[caraidean]

Captive [Rigelian Raised AU]

Participant(s): Clair, Albein Rudolf II

Words: 5,707

Type: Introductory Cutscene

Summary: Clair finds her ‘diplomatic’ trip to Rigel was an attempt to provoke a war, and her alleged planned arranged courtship with their future emperor was a complete fabrication on her King’s part.

Dame Clair Soutr was not having a good day.

She had never really troubled to learn much of politics, particularly at the kind of level she was now wishing she had learned. Her family may have been important, but they weren’t ‘dealing with Rigel’ important. That should have been her first clue. But not for the first time she found herself cursing her own optimism, blind faith in authority, and the fact that her entire damned family had listened to what the King had said without pausing to think that, perhaps, such a renowned hedonist with such a noted asshole of a vizier wasn’t telling the entire truth.

Clair had found out that the Rigelian guards had expected the Princess and not a nobleman’s son at the border. Then she found out that this wasn’t to be some kind of official courtship, but if Lima - or Desiax, she supposed, the manipulative creep - had their way she was just to be pawned off to the Rigelian prince.

Not even as a wife. A consort. Her! Ye goddess, did nobody have any shame! And her treatment upon arrival hadn’t been much greater either met with derision and glares before being shoved in an empty waiting room and snidely told that she would learn what they would do with her!

Well. She could hardly give Lima or Desaix a piece of her mind, but whoever the Rigelians sent through that damned door she could deal with. A few minutes were wasted trying to pull one of the ornamental swords off the display above the fireplace until she embarrassingly realized they were welded onto the shield, at which point she settled for the candlesticks. Except those were screwed down.

Did nobody in this country read any books? There was always suppose to be something the heroine could arm herself with to fend off fiends! …or perhaps they’d read too many, she supposed. Grumbling she settled with trying to pry one of them off anyway, which was unfortunately the sight that the Rigelians would be met with when they opened the door - Clair growling in frustration, hands wrapped around the heavy cast-iron candlestick and trying to yank it from the coffee table so she could hit them with it.

At least she regained her composure fairly swiftly when she heard the door open. Hands moved to her side, brushing against the light blue of the dress she’d been forced into by the Zofian royals - she supposed the cleavage and slits for her thighs should have been warning signs in hindsight, now that she thought about it - before one moved to toy with her hair in her normal, nervous fashion while she marched straight up to the green-haired man in the center.

His armor and headpiece had the most spikes on it. Knowing this place, that likely meant he was either in charge, or the Prince himself.

“Is this any way to treat a lady?” She said sharply, resisting the urge to slap him for the moment. “I tell you I have had a very trying day - sold off like some common hound to the alleged prince of this nation after being decieved, and then shoved into this room with no food nor drink for the last few hours!”

She felt a guard step up to try and pull her away from the man she now knew had to be the prince from the sheer number of armed guards around her, but she batted him away with an elbow and jabbed a finger into the taller man’s collar in the most actively outraged fashion she could muster. For Clair, that was an awful lot of indignant fury to be on display.

“What do you have to say for yourself?!”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

Albein Alm Rudolf II was, himself, not having quite the best of days. There had been trouble brewing with Zofia (again) due to King Lima IV’s blatant disregard for a fragment of respect, and of course the man tries to smooth things over by sending a daughter off to be married to him. Of all things, using his daughters as bargaining coin! It had been insulting enough to receive such news, more so to learn the convoy was already on its way, especially when his father decided to let the convoy arrive so they could then discuss with whomever they got before sending an answer to such a vulgar gift— but to then find some Zofian noble unrelated to the crown when it reached the border?

An insult to the injury! They should have turned it back around then and there instead of allowing it to cross! And now, she was here, and without knowing if the woman was party to this plot, she was promptly sent to a room while questioning ensued of everyone else involved. Not so gentle questioning.

Were it up to him, they’d send back the carriage with the corpse of one of those responsible inside and a clear message of war. Enough was enough, and Albein would personally bear this insult no longer.

However, it did not take long to find that every manservant who had come from their southern neighbor had been told something different than what King Lima IV’s missive contained; and it all matched, to boot.

It was clearly an insult from the king himself, and these were just lambs to the slaughter to his sickening game. Perhaps Zofia didn’t deserve to burn, but that man and his so called chancellor sure did — as well as everyone else involved. Maybe they ought to kill two birds with one stone and—

…

Finding himself walking to the quarters where that woman was being kept (some ‘Clair’ girl from a noble house with a history of knighthoods, far as he was concerned), he tries to smooth over his temper. Time to find out her own motives to see if punishment should be dealt upon her too; his father had trusted him with this task, and so he would perform to the best of his ability. Nodding to Ezekiel so he’d open the doors to the waiting room, walking in with a small sample of his troops to see…

… What was she doing? His head cants slightly to the left as he notices she had been trying to, funnily enough, edge a candlestick off its base to… do what? Use it as a weapon? Cute, feisty, a little daring — was this actually a Zofian girl? He could almost laugh at her audacity as she marched forward to him, eyes trained upon her with amusement now instead of his previous anger. What was she going to do?

And off she goes, prattling off and… doing all his work for him. The outrage, the actions before he let himself in, how she quite confidently shoved off a guard… hah, if he didn’t know any better, he’d think her Rigelian (well, and the rather obvious Zofian garb she wore… did they know no shame?).

He can’t help it— Albein bursts out laughing at her jab, swatting her hand away with his usual careless confidence, although the motion is quite controlled and gentle, rather than forced. “Well, that tells me everything I’ve come to hear, does it not, gentlemen?” He addresses his men first, who seem baffled at his amusement, but otherwise nod stiffly. “Report to the Emperor at once.” He tells the man at his left, a good man by the family name Meyer, who salutes and leaves the room after being let out by Ezekiel. His last three men remain.

“After all, that was my exact question, little lady.” And with that, his amusement dwindles down, making way for the ire within that he still held, just not directed towards herself. “We are sent a rather insulting missive by your King, have the courtesy to accept his disgusting gift, only to find it’s not even what he’s stated.” Albein steps forward confidently, getting into her space while glaring down, expression turning stiff and serious. “So I do hope you are as un-involved as I think you now, lest this room be the last comfort you’re allowed before your life ends.”

“Start talking.”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

Clair always did take a few moments to catch onto something when it was happening in front of her. It wasn’t that she was stupid, just…preoccupied with herself more than anything else. She was on the verge of launching into another tirade at the prince’s expense - really, who responded to such an obvious plight with laughter? He must have been cruel as well as a pervert, why, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was dressed like this on his commands–

Her brain caught up and her words stopped. For a second her mouth opened and closed aimlessly, eyes widening before narrowing dangerously. “What did you say–”

For a moment, she wasn’t sure where to begin. A not insignificant part of her mind caught on the word ‘disgusting’ and she looked down at herself with a frown, looking up again a moment later as the rest caught up. Not even what he’s stated. Not even what he–

The coach had the royal sigil on the side, not her own family’s.

“Oh, the arrogant, cox-comb, hedge-born, churlish, dew-beating perverted drunken creepy SOT!”

Clair spun away from the prince, still raving as she worked her way through as much of her vocabulary as possible. Her brother and sister-in-law would both have chided her for hearing such things coming from her mouth, but perhaps they’d make an exception had they realized exactly what her ‘royal journey’ had been intended to do.

“Last comfort? Last comfort?!” She redirected her ire moments after plucking an empty fruit bowl off the table and hurling it against the wall, the thin metal clanging audibly as it bounced to the floor. She turned around again, seething as she stepped up to Albein and glared. Then she stopped, stepped back a few paces and tried to subtly rise up on her tip-toes so that the eye contact was at least on a somewhat equal footing.

“I’ll last comfort you, you ass.” Clair regretted running through all her best insult material now, well aware that repeating any of them would look bad. She gave up on the tip toes, storming around the room with a growl. She wished she had something else to throw, anything, as she stared up into his stiff and serious expression. “And for the record I hardly appreciate being labeled as disgusting. If anyone here is coming off badly from the deal that - that pig has made it would be you for accepting it.”

That said, the seriousness of her situation was starting to sink in a little, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of noticing she was scared. “I am a damned noblewoman and will not stand for being labeled and treated like some common street-walking – blast, what’s the word.”

She frowned and shook her head, one hand shaking a little as it moved to play with her hair.

“It hardly matters. But, fine. No. I knew nothing. I was under the impression that Rigel had made the first ouvertures in exploring diplomatic marriages. Not that I was being sold off like, at the risk of repeating myself, a hound.” She huffed. “Once I get my hand on that blasted vizier…”

For lack of anything else, she throttled the air for a few moments to get some of the tension out of her hands before sighing. “My name is Dame Clair Soutr. Not little lady.”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

It’s a little amusing to be able to physically witness as the pieces slide into place upon her expression, more so when her anger turns, a brand new tirade coming with it. She’s like a child throwing a tantrum, and he’s content to watch and listen as more and more insults pour out of her mouth.

And then, her rage takes a turn, back to him, and he can’t help but watch as she grasps the fruit bowl and tosses it like it’d… do anything. The clatter as it hits the wall and falls to the floor is sad, almost, like a little cry amidst a storm. His gaze returns to her, trying for all that she’s worth to look intimidating and… it’s not quite working. In fact, it only serves to turn his scowl into a grin of amusement. Ah, how precious.

But, truly, were all Zofians so self-centered? He is silent as she continues, and finally sings like a canary. This is all he needed, and perhaps she is lucky in being so loose-lipped… and so amusing to watch. He would not have taken kindly to her string of insults otherwise, even if he’s sure he can simply break her in half, should she actually anger him enough. It’d be an example, if anything… Zofian nobility was expandable— a lot of pigs as far as he was concerned.

“Yes, last comfort, Dame Clair Soutr.” He starts off, another step forward, a menacing one at that. He once more intends to invade her personal space, test her mettle and see what she’s worth. “You are fortunate we did not throw you into the dungeon with the rest of your company, and that we saw it fit to listen to testimony, willing or not, before seeing to your side of the tale. Yes, quite lucky indeed.” It’s not a threat, it’s a statement, as he wants her to know exactly where she stands. Perhaps this is not the best of places to be in, quite a boring waiting room with little comfort a Zofian would like, but in comparison to her companions, she was within the lap of luxury. “After all, you’ve come in deceit to further incite Rigel, further insult the crown and our people with this useless little plot. Would you have preferred the original treatment I had in mind? Being strung from your innards is not quite so comfortable.”

Yet he’s not angry, not quite, merely… setting the record. And, well, perhaps to see… would her will break at the knowledge of her brush with death, or would she merely bristle once more as she had been? Perhaps he’d get to hear more creative insults; there was a wealth of new ones already fully ready for future use. “But, I believe you are being quite honest in your word, as is most of your party.” And just like that, the pressure is off, and he takes a step back to simply nod to the men at his right. It is the one furthest back whom retreats to further inform the Emperor of the proceedings, and only once Lorenz is gone that he continues.

“But must you Zofians be so self-centered as you are boorish? Odd as it may be, I was not referring to you as the disgusting one. And, let it be known… this was not a deal.” He pauses. “And you’ve only made it this far out of the Emperor’s wish to see to it all before coming to a choice on what to do with this ‘offering’ your King has decided to lay upon our feet. It is an insult, through and through, that’s what it is; your amusing string of words is, by comparison, music.”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

This conversation seemed dedicated to driving Clair through the emotional ringer. She’d gone from concerned, to angry, to upset, to angrier - and for a brief second, now, terrified. She didn’t flinch at his threats to her, but hearing that everyone else had been captured and placed in the cells–

Her face paled for a moment as he stepped into her personal space, the flush of anger fading from her cheeks. The description of their plight - and, yes, fine, the surprisingly graphic details of what would have been done to her - made her hand shift from her lock of hair to over her heart for a second, eyes flinching and looking aside. But as he stepped back and sneered - sneered, almost, yes. Perhaps that was her own way of reading into the situation, but the body language he was using, the words and dismissive tone both of her and Zofians as a whole, perhaps it wasn’t any wonder that the indignant anger found itself replaced by a very focused, ice-hot rage.

“Let. Them. Go.”

Clair didn’t really process what she was doing as she stepped forward into the space he had just vacated. Her right arm suddenly swung about in a great arc, open palm smacking against the prince’s cheek with an audible, stinging impact that left her own hand throbbing slightly. In an instant guards stepped forwards, pushing her away from the prince and to the ground-

Such a shame for the guards that one of the first things any Pegasus Knight worth their salt learned was how to fall properly. She managed to kick her way out of these godawful shoes as she rolled back to her feet, crouching for a split second, long enough to wonder if she was doing something even remotely sensible. Then, deciding that clearly words were not working here, Clair launched herself forwards. A shoulder impacted against the plate covering his stomach and she felt something crack in her collar, but hands tugged him around the knees and dragged Albein to the floor with her as they crashed down.

In that brief moment of shock, with the guards audibly getting closer and Albein himself starting to react again, Clair ran a quick adjustment of the setting through her head. Her collar was likely cracked from deciding to try and tackle a man in near on full plate, her hand throbbed from a poorly delivered slap - although, goddess, she hoped it at least bruised him as well - and she had no weapon and was drastically outnumbered.

Perhaps she’d just signed her own execution note. At the moment, she was perfectly fine with that if it meant adjusting the prince’s perceptions of Zofians as ‘self-centered’ and ‘boorish’.

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

“You’re in no position to make demands,” Albein begins in a haughty tone, glaring down at the foolish twig of a girl who did not seem to grasp her place, nor the weight of her actions and the sheer insult they bore to Rigel. He, however, does not get to finish, for one moment he’s bearing down on the fool, and the next he’s staring at a mantelpiece to his right, a sting on his cheek.

Normally, he’d have reacted with a punch of his own, with perhaps a headbutt or choking the culprit, but he felt himself a little out of sorts from surprise. Well, she certainly had guts even now, he’d give her that. So he turns, now ready to enact upon his usual violence, when he notes there’s guards in front of him now (Gods, must they act like his nannies? She’s a Zofian noble girl!), girl nowhere in his line of sight, and—

Now he’s staring at the ceiling, an audible crack sounding near his torso, arms gripping at him, and Gods, he hit his back hard on the ground. Still, he’s no longer surprised, and thus his reaction is now far more appropriate of a Rigelian soldier. For this fool of a girl was messing with warriors from birth.

He’s quick to shove her off him and deliver a punch to her torso from his right (a mercy, really, considering his real force was at his left, known for causing ruptures on delicate innards), instead using his left to grasp at her neck and shove her upon the ground despite the throb at the back of his head. Failing that, he’d instead restrain her onto the ground.

And should his hand find itself around her neck, he would squeeze, just enough to make her realize her life was in his hands, but not enough to leave a bruise just yet. It wouldn’t be the first time he crushed a windpipe.

“You are in no position to make demands.” He repeats with a snarl, glaring down upon the foolish fighter, ignoring the brandished weapons at her. And it is mere respect for her fighting spirit that does not make him crush her then and there, amusement at her will to fight odds that she could not possibly surmount.

Perhaps not all Zofians are of the same make, but this is not about that. “Know your place, and know your crime.” Maybe, this time, she would understand what precarious position she was in by having undertaken this journey… knowledge or not. “Perhaps you were not party to its plot, but it is you who is here now under the insignia of the King… and the burden of being the example. We will tolerate his insults to our nation no longer.”

Still, much as he wanted to get back to her in full for her imprudence, he’d rather not fight a woman not in battle armor when he himself finds himself wearing some. It’s not quite right. “… I will have a healer see to your injuries, and then you will wait very patiently for His Imperial Majesty to come to a choice regarding you and your ilk. Do I make myself clear?”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

Clair never swore. In fact, she expected that her brother would be somewhat upset if he found out that she could. That being said, considering the pain she was suddenly in, just a gentle whimper or muttered phrase didn’t seem appropriate.

“Fuc-.” She hissed under her breath, the word cut off when his fist slammed into her chest. Gods be good, how many bones did this lunatic need to crack before he was satisfied? She let out a whimper as his hand closed around her neck, eyes squeezed shut from the pain as she tried to compose herself-

Successfully. When she opened them again she was glaring, tears in the corners of her eyes the only real indication of how much pain she was in. “Think f’r a secon.”

She couldn’t damned talk like this. Right now her mind was racing, unable to decide if she should just shut up and play the meek noble like he clearly expected her to, or if she should say anything. Because with every passing instance she spent with the Prince, she started to realize what Lima and mostly Desaix had been planning.

Screw waiting. Screw sitting around like a delicate flower in one country and a prisoner the next. Maybe it was the pain talking but Clair’s hands moved to grip Albein’s, prying two of the fingers off her throat and gasping for air before she spoke as quickly as possible.

“W-why would the king send anyone if it was just f’r an insult…” Damn, her throat hurt. “…’f he knew you’d kill us? Desaix has to be up to something…”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

“Gods, you really can’t quite listen, can you?” Albein snarls out, yet instead of lashing out again, he releases her throat entirely upon her prompting rather than keep trying to hold her in place with what he considered was a light squeeze.

Still, he remains upon her, and instead moves his left hand to grasp her right shoulder, then his right to hold her left, keeping her in place against the ground. It’s a more optimal solution, he feels, if she wants to keep parroting. Any information he’ll take.

“You make demands as a criminal and prisoner, act like detaining you here is the worst you could have gotten with the sheer insult you and yours’ audacity was to us as a nation, then ask me to think? I’m afraid you’re the last person I’d take advice from when it comes to the brains department.” It’s tempting to break the collarbone, do something, and prove a point, but instead he holds back the idea. Certainly, with a healer along the way, it wouldn’t be like it’d matter (to him), but practicing restraint seemed like the better option. For now.

Besides, she was unarmed and unable to fight — it did not feel right, not even holding her down like this did.

“I suppose the bastard of a Chancellor your King has would definitely not care enough for the lives of the people he’s sent — and neither would King Lima IV himself. But what he’d use your hypothetical death for is irrelevant for me.” The pressure is off, and he stands, but does not expect her to. In fact. “Stay down if you want to keep your head.” The unfurled spears from both guards point to her neck then, and he instead walks back to knock on the door again, requesting a healer from Ezekiel quietly before he continues, as if the pause did not exist.

“Again, it is none of my concern — after all, none of you are dead, nor permanently harmed. Considering the great dishonor this entire ordeal has brought to Rigel, perhaps you can consider yourselves lucky.” But only just, after all… “I am uncertain if I can say the same of your nation. This is not the first of insults — and it came under the guise of an apology for another.”

Perhaps, now, she would understand; what she had been roped into was not a standalone incident, nor the first. It had just not been… of this scale.

“Ah… perhaps you are trice as lucky, for much of what you’ve done would earn you an execution, not just the mission you were unknowingly tasked with. But, well, I happen to like that spark of yours.” With a wave of his hand, the weapons are removed from near her neck, instead pointing to either shoulder… and then off entirely. “You’ve the mettle and bravado of a warrior, perhaps there’s hope for your people yet.”

And with a shy knock, a cleric is allowed inside, who stands and waits to be ordered to heal.

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

“You can’t quite think, either.” Clair mumbled under her breath, although she gasped for air as soon as he let go of her throat. She winced as he gripped her shoulder, whimpering as the pressure on her cracked collarbone made itself known - but there wasn’t anything she could do about that. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off every injury she’d taken in the last few moments throbbed painfully, cracked bones, throbbing wrist, bruised throat…terrified soul.

“Not every noble likes the King, and the commoners don’t either.” She followed the order to stay down, though, part of that being unsure if she could even stand straight properly anyway - and part of it fear that he would finally follow through with his threats. “They like my family, though. And the servants are all commoners. Kill them, and Desaix…”

A cough wracked her body and she shuddered in pain instants after it, the jarring motion making her chest throb as she whimpered again. This was far too much for her, gods forbid, she hadn’t even finished her training. “K-kill us, he gets a scapegoat to get them on his side too. Ugh, I should have seen this when no other nobles came…”

She trailed off, sinking into a silent, almost sulk-like stare as he kept talking. So…was Zofia going to be attacked now, then? Would she be used as an excuse for a war either way? And who the hell did he think he was to talk about ‘sparks’ and ‘bravado of a warrior’?

“I am a warrior.” In training, she added silently onto the end, but one last barb couldn’t help but escape Clair’s lips as the healer arrived. “Give me a lance and the skies, Your Majesty. We’ll-”

Some kind of self-preserving instinct kicked in and she didn’t finish that sentence, instead just glaring at him from the ground as the healer worked. One of these days, she vowed to herself, it’d be her wearing a gauntlet as it smashed into his stupidly perfect face. And she wouldn’t be wearing this poor excuse for a dress, either. Never mind the fact it was clearly meant to be used for seductions, the color clashed with her hair horribly.

Did Desaix have anyone competent working for him?

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

“Kill them and make a statement to denounce the King of his deeds, and they earn no one’s favor as the masses are split between believing a King they don’t like or the foreign nation they sent a carriage with the Royal crest to.” Albein adds to her speculations with a wave of his hand. “Still… if that was their goal, it is all the better.” His expression turns pensive, turning her words in his head as he tries to ignore her barbs and not bristle at them… too much. He had half the mind to have her skewered to the floor, but… no.

She had her uses yet, rather than just as hostage for their demands. … Not that she wouldn’t fulfill that role anyway. The healer steps forward with a wave of his hand, kneeling beside the Zofian and chanting softy under his breath as wounds mended with a cost. Magic had always interested him in this aspect — it was a shame he never quite could get a hold of it.

He wanted to make fun of her, however, for proclaiming herself a warrior, but it is when he mulls on her name again that he realizes he’s heard it before. Yes, there was a… Clive, was it? A renown knight in Zofia, he was impressive enough for words to reach even the capital of Rigel. His lips tug into a smile instead.

“Hmph. ‘Warrior’, huh? Exploits of your brother have been spoken of even in Rigel, but I’ve yet to hear a whisper of your own.” He taunts, playfully almost, before offering a shrug. “But, well, you’re young. Perhaps, once this is over, you will make a name of yourself yet.” Yes, if this was Clive’s sister, she definitely had the blood of warriors running through her veins — the feisty display could simply be a sample of what was to come. The healer retreats once he finishes, offering a bow before coming to stand behind him, as he should. Just in case…

“Now take a seat, I will have the rest of your party brought up shortly, and perhaps better clothes than those disgusting rags. You simply will not survive the night in that.” Albein pauses, then decides to add something else as an afterthought. “Keep your foolish tendencies under control this time, or you may find yourself pinned to the floor with two very handsome spears on your shoulders.”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

“Don’t just dismiss us like that.” Clair bristled in turn when he seemed to reject her words out of hand, The magic let her take a few breaths, trying to control her own emotions over everything else as the pain in her chest finally went away…for the most part.

“If my brother was here the lot of you would never have been able to walk through the door before you were felled.” She said, confidently. Of course her brother’s reputation had spread here - that was something she could use. A moment later his harsher words again caused her to flinch back, even as she stood up.

Then she glanced down at her ‘dress’ and let out a small sigh of relief.

“Oh, good. Thank you. I feel like some painted-up floozy. Once I get my hands on whichever perverted dolt decided to dress me up like this he shan’t be able to walk straight for a month.” She swore vindictively, sitting on the church and feeling her hands slowly tug what passed for her clothes in a desperate attempt to cover up some more skin.

“Yes, yes. You’re going to torture me if I don’t behave.” She said heavily. “I got that part earlier, thank you, you hardly need to repeat the point so frequently.”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

There’s an amusement in his eyes at her indignation, even if he truly felt indifferent at the thought of the demise of Zofians— something he was dimly aware was not ‘kind’, but the concept and execution for him were confusing enough as it was, so he decided not to contemplate it for long. Instead, his amusement grows as she confidently makes claim of her brother’s prowess.

“I’d have loved to see him try.” Albein says in response, eyes brimming with fire and a lust for battle. He’d have wanted it to happen— he’d have wanted to have a legitimate shot at this Sir Clive himself, see if the talk of his prowess had any truth within. It is, unfortunately, nothing short of fantasy, and so he shakes the thought away with a tinge of disappointment. Ah… it truly was a shame. Perhaps facing his sister armed would be satisfaction enough? He’d give it thought, depending on his Father’s judgement.

Speaking of judgement… at the very least, they were in agreement for her clothes; something he had already assumed based on her amusing rants, yet still an encouraging confirmation none the less. He nods to her words, thoughts of violence upon the pervert responsible for her state of dress amusing enough as it was. “I’d be willing to provide the weapon for such demonstration of violence.” He adds. It seems just about everything she says is something he finds… amusing. Almost everything. In any case.

“… But I’ve dawdled long enough. You are aware of your position, and your people will be brought to you. All of you shall be provided with food and drink, as well as proper clothes… and then we shall see what the next day brings.” With a wave, he gestures his men to him, then turns to leave, the two soldiers standing guard until he’s past them and out the door, healer sleeping past him and to the halls. “Ah, yes, sleeping arrangements… it will be done.”

It is the last he says to her before all file out after him and the door is shut… leaving her alone once more.

[bbclesmis]

Lily Collins on overshadowing dad Phil, beating anorexia and starring in the BBC's Les Misérables

As one of the defining voices of the 1980s and a man who remains one of the world’s bestselling artists, it would have been easy for Collins to overshadow his multitalented daughter’s success. Certainly, when I first interviewed Lily five years ago for the romcom Love, Rosie, she was still being defined not just by her famous father, but the Audrey Hepburn-esque looks that had won her modelling contracts as a teenager living in LA.

Since we last saw each other, Lily has redefined herself on her own terms. And when UK audiences are treated to her nuanced, poignant portrayal of Cosette’s desperate mother, Fantine, in the lavish new six-part BBC adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, they won’t see Phil Collins’s daughter but a remarkable British-born talent at the top of her game.

‘I had a few friends in the musical version, and I was so keen to play this part in what’s a very different adaptation,’ says Lily of the role that won Anne Hathaway an Oscar – a role she begged producers to be allowed to audition for, so desperate was she to be involved.

That the director, Tom Shankland, had decided against his being a musical adaptation meant the all-star cast – including Dominic West as Jean Valjean, David Oyelowo as Javert and Olivia Colman as Madame Thénardier – were able to return to Hugo’s original characters, she says. ‘And getting to work through the whole arc of Fantine’s life was incredible. Although in fact the death scene was filmed on day two,’ she adds with a side smile. ‘So it was a case of, “Hi, nice to meet you – I’m about to die”.’

Crushed and betrayed by a pitiless society that demands the most from those to whom it gives the least, Fantine’s character is emblematic of so much. During the six-month shoot in Belgium and northern France, Lily found filming in minus-13C Brussels gruelling (‘I grew up in England, so I should know about cold – but this was something else’), but says it helped put her in the right state of mind.

‘My lips started to go blue and I began to shake. Even in my breaks I wouldn’t keep my jacket on for too long because I had to be at a level of discomfort that I hadn’t experienced before.’ And when a degraded and desperate Fantine is dragged through the snow wearing minimal clothing, ‘I was able to let go and be that vulnerable. It’s those parts that are the most fulfilling: that’s when you can see what you’re made of.’

Lily’s early roles were hardly inconsequential. She starred alongside Sandra Bullock in the Oscar-winning 2009 film The Blind Side, and with Julia Roberts in Mirror Mirror in 2012. But it wasn’t until 2013 with her portrayal of Clary Fray in the film adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s bestselling cult fantasy series The Mortal Instruments that Lily seemed to come into her own.

There was a concerted move towards tragic, multi-layered heroines like heartbroken Cecilia Brady in Amazon Prime’s The Last Tycoon in 2016, and recovering anorexic Ellen in Marti Noxon’s To the Bone the following year, and I wonder whether it was the writing of her startlingly honest 2017 memoir, Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, that marked the start of Lily’s real evolution.

Five years ago a sweet, wholesome and reticent young woman in dungarees and Dr Martens boots had assured me that prudence had ‘always been my natural feeling’. And yet, outing herself as someone real and flawed in her memoir – someone who had suffered from a debilitating eating disorder as well as self-confidence and relationship issues – was anything but prudent. ‘Writing the book helped me let go of things I was holding on to emotionally,’ Lily says. ‘And in order to take on the baggage of the characters that I wanted to play I had to let go of my own.’

That she chose to play a recovering anorexic in To the Bone the same year she’d detailed her own illness in such detail – the diet-pill and laxative addiction, the bingeing and purging that started at the age of 16 and went on into her 20s – could be seen as brave, foolhardy or both. But her parents (Lily’s mum is American socialite Jill Tavelman) didn’t try to stop her, she says. ‘In fact, they were more like, “Wow, you’re writing a book!” And it turned out to be a form of therapy,’ she insists.

‘Luckily, we shot To the Bone in LA, I worked with a nutritionist to prepare for the part responsibly, and my mum was on set with me, so it was a way for me to harness something that had truly controlled my life for such a long time. Being able to turn the tables and really have control was amazing. Finally I could say to myself: “I am living my life and this is not going to be a part of my story from now on.” I’ll be 30 in March and I’m so glad that I dealt with these things in my 20s, because now I can get excited about what’s to come.’

As part of her research she went to an Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous group, and an LA clinic for eating disorders, ‘where they gave me a lot of the factual information to understand the basics of the disorder’. Does she feel her illness is firmly behind her now – or is it important to remain vigilant? ‘Well it’s never going to be erased because it’s part of who you are, but it doesn’t define how I live my life daily any more,’ she says. ‘When I was going through it, I couldn’t imagine there being a day when I didn’t think about it. So really it’s about seeing myself as a priority.’

She’s in no doubt that doing To the Bone and Unfiltered in the same year was worth it in terms of getting the message out there. ‘We’re all flawed,’ she shrugs. ‘Giving a loud voice to a subject that people are often very ashamed of really inspired me to pour myself into characters that have something to say.’

Her accent may be pure La-La Land, but Lily’s got British steel, our madcap sense of humour – and a love of Topshop. And when she lands at Heathrow and drives out into the country towards her father’s Surrey home, ‘That’s when I feel most myself,’ she says. And yet only-child Lily was just five when her mother moved them back to California, where she was from, and away from the very public fallout of her and Collins’s divorce.

It was the musician’s second marital break-up and the press feasted on every acrimonious detail of the split, from the fax her father reportedly sent Tavelman terminating their 10-year marriage (he denied it) to the reported £17 million he was forced to pay out. But although Lily admits in her book that there was ‘anger’ towards her father and a ‘terrible disconnect’ between them in the subsequent period – Collins went on to marry Swiss translator Orianne Cevey, 20 years his junior, in 1999, whom he later divorced and remarried – she is now very close to the 67-year-old and her four half-siblings. Two of them, Simon and Joely (whose mother is Collins’s first wife, Andrea Bertorelli) live in Canada, and two, Nicholas and Matthew (sons of Orianne), in Geneva, but the family all assembled in London for their father’s 60th birthday.

Lily remembers the advice Phil gave her when she started out: ‘For every positive review you read you’ll probably find two negative ones, so if you’re proud of something, don’t let anyone take that away.

‘And it’s true that being proud of the work matters more than anything,’ she says, adding that growing up immersed in the industry allowed her to ‘see the pros and the cons of it all and really understand what happens when you decide you’re going to be in the public eye. Because of that I feel like I already have this armour built in, which I can use at any moment.’

The armour went on when I asked about her ex-boyfriend, actor Jamie Campbell Bower, and an alleged fling with Zac Efron five years ago – and she’s not about to tell me who she’s dating now. But as well as her book, Instagram – on which Lily has almost 12 million followers – has opened her up in other ways. ‘I used to be quite anti social media,’ she says. ‘But after the book I found that this hugely supportive community was forming around the world.’ Anyone who assumed that the gorgeous LA actress whose circle of friends includes the actors Eddie Redmayne, Jaime Winstone and Sam Claflin couldn’t connect with ordinary people, ‘I wanted to prove wrong,’ she says.

Instagram has also proved to be a great platform for Lily to showcase her love of fashion and photography. The Dr Martens are now long gone and today she loves mixing up pieces by Givenchy, Miu Miu and Chanel with vintage brands and high-street finds. ‘In Brussels there were so many amazing vintage shops,’ she says. ‘I found some incredible old adidas and Fila jackets. But I’m constantly changing when it comes to fashion.’

Many of these experiments have been exhaustively covered by the fashion bloggers who dissect paparazzi pictures of Lily out and about in LA, where she lives – ‘which can be frustrating when I’m just going to the gym’, but is an inevitable part of any coverage involving red carpets.

Asked whether she minds the ‘Who are you wearing?’ question that many A-listers have railed against post #AskHerMore, she deliberates for a moment. ‘Well, I like to give credit where credit’s due, and if I’m wearing something a designer has created, they deserve the credit. One hopes there’s going to be more than one question – and if it is just the one, I’d rather be asked what I’m doing there.’

To see how quickly her industry has changed since #MeToo went viral just over a year ago has been fascinating, she says. ‘And I feel very fortunate that the films I’ve been in have always involved very strong independent women – whether it’s Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock,Julianne Moore, Annette Bening or Jennifer Connelly: they all took me under their wing.’

Watching #MeToo filter down into other industries has been one of the most wondrous things about it, she enthuses. ‘But whereas this year has been about trying to level the playing field, I keep hoping that one day we won’t have to start conversations with, “Well, it’s great because she’s a woman…”’

In her next big screen role, Lily will star as Edith Tolkien – the wife and muse of Lord of the Rings creator JRR Tolkien – opposite Nicholas Hoult in Dome Karukoski’s biopic, Tolkien. ‘And what an amazing experience to shoot in Liverpool with someone like Nicholas, and be able to play a character that really inspired a series of stories I grew up loving.’ But prior to that, and also due out next year – she filmed Joe Berlinger’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, in which she plays the long-term girlfriend of mass-murderer Ted Bundy, Elizabeth Kloepfer – with whom she spent time.

‘The preparation to that – and meeting Elizabeth and her daughter – was so unsettling that I kept being woken up by all these images,’ she says. ‘And I had tried not to read the harshest and most visceral information out there because in truth my character didn’t know anything, and the story is from her perspective. But it’s such a fascinating story – and in the end storytelling is what connects us all.’

Les Misérables begins on 30 December at 9pm on BBC One (x)

[mybiglittlesecrets-blog]

Dissecting my Social services files

Pt.1

Disclaimer:

      What I am about to talk about some people may find it triggering (for example, alleged sexual abuse, mistreatment, and domestic relationships.) I have coloured some of the information in these documents, this is due to it mentioning names, addresses, postcodes, telephone numbers, and so on. There is information in these documents that have already been removed, and I have neither seen nor have access to that information.

If you have any opinion, advice don’t hesitate to comment.

The link to the full reports is at:

https://db.tt/D3zQd25m8z

These are the abbreviations:

Mbf M- Mothers boyfriend (M for his first initial)

The child- Is me obviously.

Mother, mum, maternal G’ma etc. are straight forward. So, I don’t need to explain those.

 This seems to be the first report to be filed.

So firstly, at this time I would’ve been 2 years old. I always knew about this relationship my mother having been in a violent relationship. But just to add context at this time my grandmother had just been diagnosed with MS (Multiple sclerosis.)

When I first read this, I had to read it over and over. I was never really made aware of these concerns. They don’t sound bad, but I visited my granny every weekend, the whole weekend since before I was a year old. So, it is a bit strange that she mentioned this to someone. I spoke to my grandmother on the phone about this and when this topic came up, she completely diverted it and tried to talk about how heart breaking it was to take me home. I didn’t even realise she had diverted that conversation until an hour after.

I was deeply concerned about this when I read it, but I did try to see it from another point of view.

Maybe my mother did this because she was in an abusive relationship and maybe she did it because when he was beating her, she knew I couldn’t come out of my room and witness it.

But although I want to believe that theory, I don’t. I’m not the first child she’s tried locking in a room.

My youngest sister used to have a latch on the top of her bedroom door on the outside and my mother would lock her in there when she was “naughty.”

Also, I recently found out that she tried doing that to my two younger brothers (who are currently 3 & 5) but her boyfriend was absolutely enraged with her. I don’t have any communication with my mother by the way so this could be hearsay. 

Lastly these are the last pieces I will be touching on. I personally don’t see why I wasn’t already removed from my mother’s care at this point. Unless she was smoking cannabis (which she wasn’t) then I’d understand. But my mother was a heroin and crack user. Why would they allow a two-year-old in this environment?

I am a mother myself, and if a person ever did so much as speak to me with disrespect, I’d send them packing, not because I’d want to, but because I must do right my child.

There isn’t that much information to critique (so to say) I’m going to do this at small steps because there is like 7-8 years total in files, and a lot of emotional turmoil. There is so much to this story, but I don’t fully remember it due to being so young. Whereas the later documents I can remember so vividly.

If you took your time to read this, then I thank you. If you have an opinion that you would like to share I am grateful to know.

[ihadafeeling]

heroines are proportionate to their villains

Don Jon: Most people eat that shit up. The pretty woman. The pretty man. Love at first sight. The first kiss. The break up. The make up. The expensive wedding. They drive off into the sunset. Everyone knows it’s fake, but they watch it like it’s real fucking life. Barbara: She was the most important thing to him. He gave up everything for her. It was just meant to be. I love movies like that.

You've heard this before: boy meets girl; boy loves the girl before the girl loves the boy; girl is poorer than boy; girl is less powerful than the boy. It's an old story, and old stories accumulate endings with retellings. Sometimes the girl changes the boy by loving him. Sometimes the boy's love for the girl changes him, a subtly different story. At worst, the change is a conversion of a girl's no into a yes, though the means of conversion vary; in my very favorite incarnation, the girl converts a beast into a man by taking the magic out of him.

What I've always loved about Beauty and the Beast is that it is a story about the transformative power of love in conflict. When Beauty faces the beast, she proves her ferocity. When the Beast yields to her needs above his own, he demonstrates his gentleness. Even so: a dark story. The Beast's gentleness comes down to failing to compel Beauty, even when he could — and only when he shows that willingness does Beauty offer her love, at the first point when it could be freely done. Still, 'failure to compel' is not a ringing endorsement of the Beast's kindness, though usually pitched as putting her agency above his own survival. It is a distinctly different fairy tale ending when contrasted with the usual upward class mobility of pauper-to-princess stories, where the prince remains exactly as he was, while the princess-to-be bargains or endures magic to meet him.

This is supposed to be the story of Meteor Garden 2018.

This was made for women, I thought, watching the first twenty minutes of the first episode. The powerful boy-clique at the heart of the show and at the center of its university setting, the F4, include someone with an eidetic memory; a master of the tea ceremony; a piano virtuoso; a business wunderkind who made his first million on the stock market at age 18; and yes, all of them wealthy beyond compare. But they are specifically introduced as trilingual 185 centimeter Bridge enthusiasts who excel in their respective fields of music and business administration and, "though they might look like players, they respect women." Verbatim. Such is their unbeaten skill at Bridge, and so numerous are their challengers, that only those that receive a red Joker card are invited to play them, where each team will place a bet on their victory. These bets vary, the scariest being the allegation that a losing team had to eat a pair of slippers. Expecting powerful men, I anticipated the usual machismo of wealthy brutal playboys who would gain attention because of their dominance over others. I was not expecting cute schoolboys who are showered with attention for ... well, for being just that, really.

To be fair, the most traditionally masculine of four is the main lead. Daoming Si is the aforementioned business wunderkind, the heir apparent to the most powerful conglomerate in China, who incidentally also beat up a mob boss in highschool. (I'm telling this to you now so you are less surprised than I was by some otherwise unexplained karate heroics of his in the show.) The story begins when he steps on Dong Shancai's phone by accident, breaking it, and does nothing to acknowledge it. As Shancai, unlike the F4 or the vast majority of Ming De University students, is not from a well-to-do family but instead a humble restaurant, the loss of a phone represents a significant hardship. Shenanigans ensue. A red Joker appears in Shancai's locker, indicating a challenge to play bridge from the F4. Si orders an incredible amount of take-out from her family and taunts her over its quality, prompting Shancai to admonish him for bullying her and for being an embarrassment among the otherwise polite and respectable elites at Ming De — and angered, Si smears a box over her head to silence her. After cleaning the noodles and sauces from her shirt, Shancai dreams of the F4 boys chanting EAT THE SLIPPERS over and over.

Her response?

To tell Daoming Si she's not interested in playing cards.

Then kick him in the face.

This refusal to surrender, even when desperately outclassed and outgunned, is supposed to be Dong Shancai's strong suit, where she is the 'undying weed' who refuses to give up against stronger foes. We understand, as the story goes on, that the independence of mind that Si finds so attractive in Shancai is also what causes many of their initial romantic troubles. He seems to not account for liking someone who does not like him back. In a particularly brutal scene, Si rushes to the rooftop to confront Shancai for her interest in Lei, something he interprets as playing them both. He strikes the wall next to her head, never fully explains the source of his anger beyond telling her to stop pretending, prevents her from leaving, pushes her against another wall ... and begins to kiss her, smearing the blood from his knuckles along her cheek and her jacket in the process. Bearing all this, Shancai begins to sob, and begs him to stop. "Stop crying. I won't hurt you any more." He smoothes back her hair as she curls back into herself, crying uncontrollably.

There is no apology for this interaction at any point in the show.

This is the scene that made me rescind my judgment that this was a show made about men generally far outside of toxic masculinity, and therefore the kind of show I think of as aimed at women rather than men. The same scene sat uncomfortably with me as the show pulled out the conventional stops to show love in the making, where Si demonstrates care for Shancai's wellbeing at the risk of his own life ... always followed by a scene where he called her his girlfriend (yes, that specific possessive term, never simply dating), a title she would explicitly deny. He would risk some loss, but never actually lost anything — immediately followed by his indignation to find that this hadn't entitled him to Shancai's affections. I thought again and again of that scene, and of how the things that I often took as demonstrations of love did not involve a change in the balance of power.

So why isn't this Beauty and the Beast?

What story is it, and who is it for?

Let me say one thing it is not: it's not a kind of wish fulfillment. I described to a friend how many side-characters fall in love with Shancai, to her general lack of notice and Si's enormous frustration, and that friend was taken aback. 'You're telling me that dude after dude falls in love with this average girl, while this unattainable boy remains solely interested in her?' Indeed. You could read this as a sort of women's fantasy: the totally unremarkable average girl, surrounded by a harem of unwavering admirers, one explicitly a remarkable boy. But the narrative addresses this concern fairly early on. Si has the opportunity to be with a very average girl, and his refusal of this girl demonstrates that his interest in Shancai isn't simply curiosity about how the other half lives, or the novelty of her poverty, but rather his interest in her as someone with a uniquely strong will. Though there are occasional random admirers without deep explanation, in general, Shancai is flattered by potential love interests for being someone who can persevere in the face of adversity. Which is to say that Shancai is not some fill-in-the-blank average girl. She is specific, and it is her specific moral quality that these men admire.

(And it should be noted she is not uniformly beloved. In her break up with the only other real rival love interest, he comments on how ugly she is, a fact commented on in literally every episode by every character except Si and literally unbelievable if you even glance at the actress Shen Yue.)

It is also not Beauty and the Beast, at least, not in my eyes — and I think that unfortunately has to do with some of the changes to gentle the differing presentations of masculinity in the show. It has much of the shape of that story, particularly as the early episodes alternate between Si trapping Shancai into being with him through his power and Si risking his life to show the value he places on hers. That's Beast's locked enchanted castle. That's Beast laying down his life. But the quality that Shancai is supposed to demonstrate, her unwavering, weedy perseverance, grows absent as the show continues. She is never strong armed into dating Si, but she is also unable to communicate her feelings to him, and the scenes in which she is unable to communicate read as her being cowed by him rather than withholding them deliberately. From what I've read of Hana Yori Dango and Meteor Garden 2001, her confrontations with F4, and with Si, are meant to be between someone relatively powerless confronting the powerful who abuse that power. (This is based on reading descriptions rather than actual viewings, so please forgive me if I've misunderstood.) Instead, the F4 are respectful bridge playing nerds. They are not villains. When Si and Shancai confront in the earlier arcs, regarding their romantic status, it does not read as a moral confrontation.

To me, Shancai feels like less than she might be, because her opposition is less.

Si begins Beastly, but goes through the transformation that his half of the fairy tale insists on. Rather than assuming Shancai's interest because of his own, he learns to state his feelings, vulnerably and honestly, and to seek frank discussions about their relationship. He does what he can to assimilate into her world, rather than assuming he can yank her into his.

In contrast, Shancai doesn't seem to be learning much at all, and in that, I find her less like Beauty than I would like. Beauty is supposed to learn that she has something inside her that she didn't know about, something strong, something not simply sweet or lovely. Something that can take on the Beast. She demonstrates this with her first flying kick, but insofar as her quality of perseverance appears in their relationship, it is in her refusal to date Daoming Si just because he says so.

And her refusal to discuss her feelings with him doesn't read as courage, or as a denial of that kind of intimacy because he doesn't deserve it, but as unwillingness to confront him. It's not that I don't get that, but it doesn't make me feel like this is a demonstration of an important moral quality. And insofar as the quality she discovers in herself is the ability to deny consent, well, that sucks for a moral quality, because what a terrible thing to remark on constantly as something that makes Shancai unique.

The only real villain in this show is Si's mother, the formidable Daoming Feng, leader of the Daoming Group, whose actions play out as cartoonishly evil. (One pleasing thing: she is unique in being unsupportive of Shancai. Every other female character who is introduced with the potential to be a rival or obstacle to Shancai appreciates her, even as they may go on to compete with her.) Shancai does talk back to Feng on a few occasions, but breaks up with Si at her first truly villainous act, and fears to confront her for the next 17 episodes. And I fret about this, because if this is supposed to be a love story with a point, the point should be the perseverance Shancai demonstrated in her love -- and it doesn't. She wavers too often.

I suppose consistent fortitude would make terrible television. There would be no surprise! But insofar as this show has involved growth, and therefore change, it has been the male lead's, and that always makes me nervous; when you read a heterosexual romance where the man does all the deeply existentially human things, fighting, changing, learning, growing, in his pursuit of a woman whose main choice is the change of her mind about him, you read a story simply about a man.

That makes me wonder about my question of who this is for. When I remarked earlier that seeing such sweet, soft, non-toxic men made me think that this was aimed for women, I didn't have a way to ground the claim, even as I felt it was true. I have even less of a basis of who the audience is if it reads as I think it does: as the taming of a very traditionally powerful man by his love for a woman, with a story centered on (but not explicit) on how the plot mainly centers on his choice to continue to pursue her. It's women, I know it is, but I don't know why I know that. I worry that it's some of the old existentialist bullshit, that women never fantasize about themselves as doers.

There's five hours left in the drama, and forty-three of it behind me -- enough that Shancai may surprise me, or that I may be deeply mistaken about previous episodes, because I just can't rewatch them all. I worry that that this last arc will involve Shancai holding tightly to Si, even as his mother does everything to destroy her life. That would it Tam Lin's fairy tale instead of Beauty's: a woman rescuing a man from fairies by clutching to him as he changes shape. Liz Lochead put it best:

It seemed earlier, you see, he’d been talking in symbols (like adder-snake, wild savage bear brand of bright iron red-hot from the fire) and as usual the plain unmythical truth was worse. At any rate you were good and brave, you did hang on, hang on tight. And in the end of course everything turned out conventionally right with the old witch banished to her corner lamenting, cursing his soft heart and the fact that she couldn’t keep him, and everyone sending out for booze for the wedding. So we’re all supposed to be happy? But how about you, my fallen fair maiden now the drama’s over, tell me how goes the glamourie? After twelve casks of good claret wine and the twelve and twelve of muskadine, tell me what about you? How do you think Tam Lin will take all the changes you go through?

[lifeonthethinblueline-blog]

Nightmare, X, and the Torture House

In the summer of 2015, I was a rookie cop.  I'd been on the force for about a year, working in the worst part of my city.  There were shootings and stabbings almost nightly, and murders regularly.  Most of it was gang related incidences, people in the game killing people in the game. After a while, I learned all the basic stuff a beat cop is supposed to know.  I began to  feel more comfortable going on violent, in-progress calls.  A shooting here, a murder there, it all became routine.  Make sure the scene is safe, treat victims and have them transported to a hospital if necessary, arrest  the suspect  if probable cause exists or air their description on the radio, and interview witnesses.  If the suspect isn't arrested or detained immediately, put out a warrant if there is probable cause to do so.  I began to lose some of the empathy I had when I was brand new.  You can't dine on grief every night and not become hardened towards it.

Before each shift begins, all of the Officers on a shift have a meeting called "Line-up."  It was in line-up that I first heard about a group calling themselves, "The Lord's Chosen."  I remember my shift Sergeant leaning back in his chair talking about how two identified males, one using the moniker "Nightmare" the other "X," were the leaders in the gang.  They were believed to be abducting people around town, mostly homeless people and tweekers, and torturing them in a basement.  The Sergeant said the people coming forward with the information were very hesitant to speak about The Lord's Chosen, out of fear of being abducted.  The Sergeant informed us we didn't have enough for a search warrant, and definitely not enough to arrest either male.  All we had were suspicions, which are basically worthless.

Even after dealing with murders and the like, I was instantly very interested in the torture allegations.  Torture, to me, seems far FAR more personal and violent than just shooting and killing someone.  Torture, in the way that they appeared to be using it, was a means to dominate a group of people.  To make them act as you want them to act, and to fear acting in any other way.  Torture, in the basement of a suburban home, in America, seemed so grotesque and out of place it didn't seem real.  

A good cop takes his suspicions and tries to firm something up.  In this case, that means looking for the two males and trying to find them engaged in a criminal act.  From that, A good Officer can try to dig into their suspicions about the torture.  

The males were believed to be spending time at the pool of a nearby apartment complex, “Stanford Pines.”  The Pines, as it was commonly known, was one of the most shady places in the city.  Many murders had happened there over the years, and Officers never went to any call there alone.  As of the time of this writing, I have personally been involved in four murder investigations at The Pines.  They would typically change the name of the complex and paint it a different color after every murder.  The place was so run down the owner was forced to sell it after he had too many code violations and it was on the verge of being condemned.  All of the windows to the doors leading to the interior stairways were shattered and heroin needles littered the parking lot.  

I started going to the complex regularly with an Officer I often partnered with.  In a way, he was my mentor.  He had been a cop for nearly twenty years in a large urban city in Texas.  He then went to work at a government contractor in Afghanistan for five years.  When I say government contractor, I'm not talking about Kellogg, Brown, and Root or some construction company, I'm talking about one of the groups that made problems go away.  He was as stone cold as anyone I've ever met, but he also had no ego, and was one of the most knowledgeable Officers I have ever met.  He took me under his wing when we went to the Police Academy together.  We bonded, I think, because I had served six years in the Army Infantry, one of those years in combat, before becoming a cop, and he had served in a combat speciality before becoming a cop.  He taught me right from wrong, and he taught me how to be proactive and catch bad guys in the act instead of just responding to calls.

We began asking people in the complex if they had heard of either male, and could get nowhere.  We looked for cars associated with them and came up dry.  Eventually we got some information that X was known to carry an AK-47 with him everywhere he went, and he had been involved in a string of personal robberies, that is to say he robbed people, not businesses or banks.  Other sources provided us with information on the location of Nightmare's house and the motorcycle he frequently rode.  Try as we might, no one on the department could find a good location for X.  He seemed to move around a lot and never sleep in the same place more than a couple nights in a row.

Then it happened, the first crack in the case. A call came in stating neighbors could hear someone screaming from Nightmare's house.  This fit the profile that someone could be being tortured.  That house was well known to everyone on the shift at that point, and a large number of Officers responded to the scene.  I set up on the back side of the house with another Officer.  We waited there and watched the back door to make sure no one ran out while other Officers made contact at the front door. As we waited, it was aired over the radio Officers were having difficulty getting anyone to the door.  Nightmare had rigged a contraption on the front door where, instead of a typical doorbell, there was a string that could be pulled that would ring a bell in the basement.  After some time, Officers contacted the residents and began to get people out of the house.  

Over the radio, Officers informed us there were five people in the house, one of them a possible cartel member.  The possible cartel member had tattoos all over his person, to include his face, and he did not have any hard identification on his person.  Also inside the house was a female, two other males, and Nightmare. Due to the allegations of screaming coming from the home, a search was conducted to ensure no one inside the home was dying or severely injured.  Once the quick walk through was completed, Officers stated they found no injured persons inside the home.  We had to walk away from it.

I was sorely disappointed.  We all felt strongly that something bad was happening inside the basement of the home, but we didn't have enough to do anything about it.  Officers even had the chance to walk through based on the reported screaming, and still came up empty.  We were back to square one, and no one was happy about it.  

Calls continued to come in from concerned neighbors, and information continued to slowly leak in from people busted for drug possession about the abductions and the torture house.  Information began to suggest Nightmare had a hefty supply of meth coming in, and he used it to control others.  He was come out with lists of people he wanted abducted and brought to him.  Once he had them, he would question them in "the chair."  It was said he would lock them into the chair in some way, then torture them, sometimes for days on end.  Again it was said that anyone that went through that was too scared to talk to the police out of fear it would happen again.

About a week later, the Sergeant leading line-up informed us a warrant had been issued for X. It was just a misdemeanor warrant for Domestic Violence, but it was jailable and would give us access to some information if we were able to get him into custody.  As no one knew where he stayed, the search for X went on for weeks.  We were informed all specialized units dealing with street crimes were searching for him, and all of patrol in my division was certainly looking for him, but we came up empty again and again.  We checked acquaintances, old girlfriends, family members homes and came up dry.  It was beginning to seem like X was a ghost.  

One day I was lucky enough to be put into a two man car with my mentor.  It was a bright day, early in our shift around 4pm when we were sent to a call where a child was running amok and the family thought maybe the police could come and be the parent for a while.  We handled the call, like we always do.  Everyone was calmed down and happy when we left.  We were on a small residential side street near Nightmare's house, pulling away.  I began to type notes into my computer so the next Officer dispatched to that address would know what happened on our call.  I was focused on the computer when my partner said, "We've got to put a stop on that car." 

He began to make a three point turn on the side street.  I saw the vehicle.  It was a small 90s Honda.  As he turned the car my partner said, "He definitely did the felony nod as he passed us.  Something's going on with him."  I saw the Honda begin to speed up and it quickly took a corner.  We began to try to catch up to it. 

When we rounded the corner it was obvious the vehicle was now actively fleeing from us.  He took another turn at a high rate of speed trying to lose us.  I called out on the radio, informing dispatch and all other Officers in our division of the traffic stop.  As we came around that corner I could see the driver was driving recklessly, travelling around 60 mph on a residential street that children frequently play on.  He then rounded another corner, travelling faster than the little Honda could handle, and slammed into the back of a parked truck.  

We pulled up behind the Honda and quickly got out.  In many instances like this one, the person that brings their weapon to bear fastest is the one that lives.  The driver's door of the Honda popped open.  We already had our service pistol's out, pointed at the suspect.  He showed us his hands and got out.  Immediately, I knew the driver of the Honda was X from all the pictures I had seen of him.  He had been known to carry guns in the past, so I held him at gunpoint while my partner put him in handcuffs.  

I also noted a male was in the passenger's seat pretending to be unconscious.  I called for an ambulance and we put X in our police cruiser.  I held the male at gunpoint and gave him commands to exit the vehicle.  He dropped the unconscious act and began to comply.  He was detained in handcuffs.  At that time, many other Officers arrived on scene and the male that had been unconscious earlier, who I will identify here only as Jerry, was placed in a police cruiser.  During a search of Jerry and X, both parties had user amounts of meth in their pockets.  They also both had outstanding warrants.

I began to work the scene with my partner.  As it turned out, the Honda was stolen.  There were items from eight separate burglaries in the backseat of the vehicle, and a stolen gun was recovered under the driver's seat where X had been sitting.  While we were working the scene, Nightmare roared by on his motorcycle.  It was clear he wanted us to know he was there, watching us.   We notified our Gang Unit, and they came out to talk to X.  My partner and I took Jerry back to the substation and interviewed him.  As it turned out, Jerry was on his way to the Chair when when X crashed into the parked truck.  We had just saved him from possibly days of torture.  He was rattled and cried during our interview with him.  He knew a lot, and what he told us broke the case wide open.....

to be continued.

[multiverseforger]

Jester and screwball Spiderman villians

Screwball was self-styled as a performance artist and the world's first live-blogging super-villain. She was an Internet personality and social-media attention monger to such an extent that she commited crimes on camera. Her real name and identity remain as of yet unknown. Her first crimes were filmed by an amateur camera crew, and uploaded on a website.[2]

One of her earliest crimes consisted of robbing an off-track betting parlor for the sake of it, but she was sighted by Spider-Man . He tried to give chase, but eventually fell behind due to Screwball's proficiency in parkour. During this time, corrupt NYPD officers were employing Spider-Tracers to incriminate Spider-Man in numerous deaths; so when Spider-Man tagged Screwball with a Spider-Tracer, she believed she had been marked for death, and turned herself over to the nearest police officers to find protection from the alleged killer.[2]

Screwball's original costumeThe superhero fight bookmaker Bookie paid for Screwball's bail in exchange for her to dress up as Spider-Man and arrange a fight with the Basher so that he could swindle his supervillain clients at the Bar with No Name, who had bet Spider-Man wasn't going to accept Basher's challenge. After Screwball took down the Basher, the real Spider-Man appeared in the scene and chased after Screwball. He webbed her up and unmasked her.[1]

Later on, Screwball started using a camera embedded into her helmet to record her exploits. She was taken down by Spider-Man after stealing ten million dollars from an investment firm. However, she managed to evade him after hurling the stolen property into the air, forcing him to go after it.[4] Since the traffic to Screwball's site went up eighty-five percent any time she and Spider-Man tussled, she hacked into the screens of New York's cab fleet to display a message to challenge Spider-Man to a fight.[5] Spider-Man's took advantage of Screwball's challenge, and lured her to a confrontation between him and Raptor to use her as a distraction. After Screwball served her purpose, Spider-Man knocked her out.[6]

Following the birth of Lily Hollister and Norman Osborn's baby, Doctor Octopus rallied numerous villains to go after the infant. As the child of two people powered by the Goblin Serum, Octavius believed its blood carried the key to cure him of his crippling illness.[7] Screwball was one of the villains that tried to track down the baby. After the Chameleon took off with the child and tricked Spider-Man into thinking it had died, the wall-crawling hero went on a rampage to take down every villain involved in Doctor Octopus' scheme. Screwball was approached in Midtown Manhattan by the Looter to warn her of Spider-Man's actions. Before she could finish brushing him off, Screwball was taken down by Spider-Man from behind.[8]

Screwball was briefly seen being chased by Spider-Girl who had informed Screwball that she was no longer broadcasting her show due to the heroine taking out her cameraman. She was last scene being arrested by the police after Spider-Girl left.[9]

Screwball later joined forces with Jester into pranking Mayor J. Jonah Jameson. Upon uploading the prank on the Internet, both villains were defeated by Spider-Man, whose mind at the time had been taken over

She was later seen in Las Vegas[11] having formed a partnership with Arcade in which she did his bidding and he gave her training, equipment and exclusive streaming rights.[12]

Jonathan Powers was a struggling actor of huge ego who finally got his big break as the leading character in an off-Broadway revival of Cyrano de Bergerac. Panned by critics, jeered by the audience, and disdained by his fellow performers, Powers was fired after one performance. Obsessively, he continued to study the various arts and crafts that he thought would make him a versatile actor: fencing, gymnastics, body building --everything except acting lessons. Still, he was only able to find employment as a stooge on a children's television show taped in New York. Finally getting fed up with having pies thrown in his face, Powers decided that if the public wants laughter at other people's expense, he would give it to them. Contracting the criminal weapons-maker known as the Tinkerer to make him a number of gimmicks, Powers fashioned himself a gaudy harlequin-like disguise and called himself the Jester.

Criminal Career

Committing a wave of crimes based on his toys and gimmicks, and then secretly hired by corrupt politician Richard Raleigh to threaten D.A. candidate Franklin Nelson, the Jester was opposed by Daredevil, who eventually stopped his criminal activities and saw him put behind bars.[2]

The Jester escaped on numerous occasions to plague New York anew. In one of his biggest plots, he began distributing false newscasts claiming that John F. Kennedy was still alive,[3] or that the Vietnam War had never happened to get the public to stop trusting the news media.[4] He also created false commercials and newscasts for Foggy Nelson's reelection campaign as District Attorney which caused him to lose the election.[5] He then went on to frame Daredevil as a murderer,[6] before finally having a fake President Ford denounce the NYPD as criminals. When Daredevil was overcome by an angry mob, he staged a trial to sentence him to death.[7] Daredevil then freed himself and defeated the Jester, restoring order to the city.[8]

Briefly, the Jester, impersonating a famous actor, performed Cyrano on television. This appeared to end his criminal career after fulfilling his dream.[9] He left prison years later and became a stylised performer, process server, and showman.[10]

Superior Spider-Man

Powers eventually backslid, becoming partners with Screwball for a web-show called Jested. After pranking Mayor J. Jonah Jameson and uploading it live on the Internet, both pranksters were targeted by Spider-Man (whose body was being controlled by Doctor Octopus at the time). When Spider-Man came into conflict with Screwball and the Jester, their tactics of bullying and pranks caused him to snap and brutally beat them up within an inch of their lives.[11]

Death & Resurrection

After serving his time in prison for any and all offences, Powers once again abandoned his life of crime. He still ended up in prison once again when an undercover federal agent and a paid informant got him to confess his desire to return to his bad habits. She-Hulk represented Powers in court, but her argument that Powers shouldn't be arrested for thinking about committing a crime rather than actually committing a crime wasn't enough to convince the jury. He was killed by a prison guard during a scuffle started by other two inmates.[12]

Through unrevealed means, the Jester was revived and returned to a life of crime, only to be defeated by Jessica Jones and Spider-Woman.[13]

Powers and Abilities

Power Grid [16]Intelligence4 Strength 2Speed 2Durability 2Energy Projection 3Fighting Skills6 

Abilities

The Jester is an above-average athlete with special skills in gymnastics, swordsmanship, and unarmed combat.[14]

Strength level

The Jester possesses the normal human strength of a man of his age, height, and build who engages in intensive regular exercise.

Paraphernalia

Weapons

The Jester employs a variety of harmless-looking toys and gimmicks modified into deadly weapons or special tools. He has a yo-yo whose weighted knob can be used for striking and whose thin steel cable can be used for strangling. He has a bag of polished ball bearing marbles which he throws onto the ground to make an opponent lose his footing. He has a box of popcorn-like objects which explode on impact and emit a noxious tear-gas. He has a number of 8-inch diameter plastic flying discs rigged to squirt an anaesthetic drug. He has various sized rubber balls containing plastic explosives in their centers. He has an extendable artificial hand on a scissors rigged with a high voltage electrical charge, as well as an artificial hand that can be fired from a small air-cannon.

Besides these weapons, which he carries on his person or in a pouch, he occasionally employs larger and more complicated weapons, such as miniature (2 feet tall) robots outfitted with laser weaponry, diamond drill bits, etc., that can be remotely controlled by a radio-linked micro-processor that responds to spoken commands.

The Jester is constantly expanding and refining his arsenal of deadly toys

[writers-against-drug-cartels]

Just after dawn on June 26, 2020, a dozen armed men crowded in the back of a truck blocking a road in Mexico City’s wealthy Lomas de Chapultepec district. Minutes later, the gunmen fired over 150 rounds at the armored car of the city’s police chief, Omar García Harfuch. Three people died in the attack, including two bodyguards; Chief García Harfuch survived gunshot wounds in the clavicle, shoulder and knee. “Our Nation has to continue confronting cowardly organized crime,” he tweeted from his hospital bed.

The brazen attack has shaken a city easing out of the coronavirus lockdown. Chief García Harfuch blamed the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which the Mexican government has targeted in a joint operation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, freezing thousands of bank accounts linked to the gangsters. Striking near the heart of power could be an attempt to make the Mexican government back off as it reels from the pandemic, which has killed more than 30,000, and a plummeting economy.

There is no shortage of losses to mourn in 2020: loved ones dead from Covid-19, jobs, freedom of movement amid lockdowns. But there are winners: certain tech companies and medical suppliers, and drug cartels. As President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico meets with President Trump this week in Washington, they should be looking at the cross-border issues of drug and gun trafficking.

While restrictions brought by the pandemic have reduced the movement of certain drugs, demand has grown for others. United States Customs and Border Protection has nabbed significantly less cocaine. But seizures of heroin and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, have remained steady, while seizures of crystal meth have increased, which coincides with a spike in overdose deaths in various United States cities.

Americans spent an estimated $150 billion on illegal drugs in 2016, and an iron river of guns flows from the United States. Between 2007 and 2018, more than 150,000 firearms confiscated from criminals in Mexico were traced to U.S. gun shops and factories.

While the cartels leave a trail of mass graves and disappearances, they style themselves as benevolent godfathers. They are now handing out boxes of food and supplies, with labels such as “Gulf Cartel,” to the poor Mexicans struggling to survive the economic meltdown caused by the pandemic.

I traveled to where cartel operatives were handing out food in the ramshackle village of La Loma de Concepcíon in the hills of the Mexico State. Ireneo, a 58-year-old flower farmer, described how his two teenage nieces obtained some of the food bags, known as “narco despensas.” The word came from the gangsters close to nightfall in April and spread rapidly through the village. About 200 residents, many of them teenagers or children, trekked up a dirt path to a clearing and formed in two lines to receive their plastic bags of milk, sugar, soap, rice, beans and other rewards. In some of the bags was a note saying, “Support from La Familia Michoacana, the M Comando,” the name of the drug cartel that dominates the area.

The handouts have helped the family get through the difficult period, said Ireneo, who asked that his last name not be used. “I believe that if someone comes with support, then you have to take what they give, wherever it comes from,” he said as roosters crowed in the background.

Others have no illusions about the cartel charity. “They give now what they take later from honest people,” said Guadencio Jiménez, a 31-year-old farmer in the nearby village of Santiago. “I am against these guys.”

Cartels also dominate a portfolio of crimes in their turfs, including human smuggling and sex trafficking. They engage in kidnapping and extortion, which hamper business and can cause people to flee their homes.

The cartel food relief was boosted by social media and made headlines across the world. But it helps few Mexicans, with the handouts reaching what is probably only a few thousand families. “It’s symbolic,” said Lorenzo Meyer, a political scientist. “It’s taking advantage of the crisis of coronavirus and sensation of emergency to say, ‘We’re here.’”

President López Obrador, who calls himself a leftist, has promised to uplift the poor with generous social programs, handing out fertilizer to farmers and scholarships to students. In April, he criticized the cartels for giving with one hand and killing with the other. “It would help if they thought of the suffering of the mothers of the victims,” he said.

But official aid has been hampered by a policy of avoiding debt despite the severity of the looming recession. While the government struggles to provide aid countrywide, the cartels focus on small communities. There they buy themselves concentrated support so that they can later hide people or merchandise and recruit smugglers and killers.

In another attention-grabbing move, cartel thugs enforced quarantine in some areas. In the city of Iguala, they hung out messages saying: “Stay inside your homes. We don’t want desmadres [partying] outside.” Meanwhile, videos reported to be from Sinaloa State showed gunmen beating alleged quarantine breakers with a bat marked “Covid-19.”

This enforcement follows a history of cartels punishing those they accuse of being antisocial criminals, such as thieves and rapists. They have paraded those they judge as guilty stripped naked with signs confessing their sins and have released videos of them beaten or mutilated.

“They show them on the street as if they were the authority, like a moral and physical authority,” Mr. Meyer said. “They are in dispute with the formal state in exercising acts of authority.”

The cartels rule in an environment of widespread impunity. One study found that nine out of 10 murders in Mexico are never solved, and even in the most high-profile massacre cases, justice is evasive. In such an environment, gangsters win real support with their crude punishments.

The creep of cartels into so many aspects of life in villages, barrios and entire cities across Mexico has been a rising problem for decades, predating the current presidency. But it has become a central challenge for Mr. López Obrador, especially amid the pandemic and recession, complicating his promise for “national regeneration.”

While the president recognizes the problem, he struggles to forge a coherent strategy. He campaigned for ending the war with “hugs not bullets,” but on May 11, he passed a decree authorizing soldiers to stay on the streets to fight crime until 2024. The move is supported by most Mexicans, according to a survey by the newspaper Reforma, but sparked condemnation from civil society groups such as Security Without War, which has called for demilitarizing the Mexican conflict. In the past, the police and soldiers carried out various massacres here in the name of the drug war.

[asctx]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hollywoods-evil-secret-mxsb5f3zl Sunday Times (London, England). (May 22, 2016) ================== Oliver Thring met Elijah Wood to talk about his latest film, but the Lord of the Rings star and former child actor had other ideas. Out poured revelations about convicted paedophiles working openly in Hollywood — and deep relief that he had escaped unscathed ================== Elijah Wood was just eight when he arrived in Hollywood, the blue­-eyed son of Iowa delicatessen owners. He had been modelling in Midwestern shopping centres for four years when his mother brought him to California to launch his career in show business. Long before Peter Jackson cast him as Frodo Baggins, the hobbit protagonist of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Wood was a child star. He took the lead in a remake of the dolphin film Flipper and before that shared top billing with Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son. Now he knows he was lucky to escape childhood unharmed. Allegations that powerful figures in Hollywood have been sheltering child abusers have become impossible to ignore in recent years. During the past decade several convictions have been secured —­­ and far more accusations levelled ­­— against wealthy and important people in the industry. Some of these criminals have left prison, returned to Hollywood and begun working again with children. Sitting in a Los Angeles restaurant to promote his latest film, The Trust, Wood compares revelations of child abuse in Hollywood to those that surfaced in Britain after the death of Jimmy Savile. "You all grew up with Savile —­­ Jesus, it must have been devastating. Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organised. There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind. There is darkness in the underbelly —­­ if you can imagine it, it's probably happened. "What upsets me about these situations is that the victims can't speak as loudly as the people in power," he adds. "That's the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people: they can be squashed, but their lives have been irreparably damaged." Wood says his mother, Debra, protected him: "She was far more concerned with raising me to be a good human than facilitating my career. I never went to parties where that kind of thing was going on. This bizarre industry presents so many paths to temptation. If you don't have some kind of foundation, typically from family, then it will be difficult to deal with." Other child actors did not have his luck. Corey Feldman was perhaps the biggest child star of the 1980s, a hero in such hits as Gremlins, The Goonies, Stand by Me and The Lost Boys. In 2011 Feldman decided to speak out about the abuse he had suffered as a young actor. "The No 1 problem in Hollywood was and is —­­ and always will be —­­ paedophilia," he said, adding that by the time he was 14 he was "surrounded" by molesters. Feldman met another child actor, Corey Haim, on a film set in the mid-­1980s. They became best friends, starring in numerous movies together and sharing their own television show. Describing their first meeting in his memoir, Feldman wrote: "An adult male had convinced Corey that it was perfectly normal for older men and younger boys in the business to have sexual relations ... So they walked off to a secluded area between two trailers ... and Haim allowed himself to be sodomised." Haim asked Feldman: "So I guess we should play around like that too?" He replied: "No, that's not what kids do, man." In 2012 Feldman told a British tabloid: "When I was 14 and 15, things were happening to me. These older men were leching around like vultures. It was basically me lying there pretending I was asleep and them going about their business." Both actors went on to suffer mental health problems, alcoholism and addiction to drugs including crack and heroin. In 2010, aged 38, Haim died of pneumonia, having reportedly entered rehab 15 times. Feldman said a "Hollywood mogul" was to blame for his friend's death, adding: "The people who did this to me are still out there and still working ­­— some of the richest, most powerful people in this business." "PEOPLE look at Corey Feldman and think he's a drug addict, so why should they listen to him?" says Anne Henry, co­founder of the BizParentz Foundation, an organisation established to protect child actors. "But that plays into the predators' hands. They don't want victims to be believed. We estimate that about 75% of the child actors who 'went off the rails' suffered earlier abuse. Drug addiction, alcoholism, suicide attempts, wandering through life without a purpose —­­ they can all be symptoms." In the mid-­2000s Henry was the proud mother of an 11-­year-­old child actor when she spotted shirtless photographs of him trading on eBay for up to $400 each. "My kid wasn't famous," she says. "But pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio when he was 11 were only selling for 10 bucks so I was worried." She realised that a number of eBay users were trading photographs of young boys, who were often semi­-naked and staring up into the camera in positions that mimicked child abuse. Henry says her research led her "to websites where men boasted about following these kids, where they 'screencapped' little boys on the TV every night. We found fetish sites: one still exists that is focused on little boys working in the entertainment industry, full of pictures of them in wet swimsuits. We eventually learnt that our kids' photographs were being used as gateways to child pornography sites." Bob Villard, an agent who managed the young DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, was convicted of selling images of children on eBay. As far back as 1987 Villard had been found in possession of child pornography and in 2005 he was sentenced to eight years in prison for committing a "lewd act" on a 13­-year-­old boy who had asked him for acting lessons. There is no suggestion that DiCaprio or Maguire was ever a victim of abuse. Henry felt ill at what she had discovered. She began educating other parents of child actors —­­ including several famous ones ­­— about what was taking place. And then, she says, the stories of sexual assault began to pour in. In the past 10 years Henry claims she has heard hundreds of episodes of alleged abuse of child actors in Hollywood, ranging from inappropriate comments to sexual violence and rape. "We believe Hollywood is currently sheltering about 100 active abusers," she says at home in Los Angeles. "The tsunami of claims has begun. This problem has been endemic in Hollywood for a long time and it's finally coming to light." WHAT should have brought the issue even greater attention is a documentary called An Open Secret by the Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg. The film, which is not easy to watch, either in practical terms or because of its content, tells the stories of five former child actors who claim to be victims of serious abuse. Some of their attackers have gone to jail. Evan Henzi, 22, tells me by email that "sexual abuse is a huge problem in Hollywood and there is absolutely no support system". He was molested dozens of times over several years from the age of 11 by his agent, a paedophile named Martin Weiss. In home­-movie footage recorded at a birthday party in the Henzi family home, one young boy turns to the camera and says: "I'm getting a massage and it feels great, and I don't care whether or not it looks bad." "It's above the waist," says Weiss, who is touching the boy. "It's not bad." Henzi eventually helped to secure Weiss's conviction after, he writes, "a moment of truth for myself. I secretly recorded an hour-­long conversation in which my abuser admitted he sexually abused me. I decided to beat fear with truth." But Weiss spent just six months in prison. "I was worried that he could try to harm me because he threatened me when I was younger," Henzi once said. Weiss is now rumoured to be working again in the entertainment industry. The most explosive allegations of Hollywood paedophilia surround "pool parties" at a Los Angeles mansion in the late 1990s. These were hosted primarily by one man, Marc Collins-­Rector. He had co­founded Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), a precursor to YouTube and Netflix, which generated its own content —­­ some of it with overtly pederastic tones —­­ for online release. DEN attracted almost $100m of investment from Hollywood giants, including David Geffen and Michael Huffington, as well as Bryan Singer, now one of the most feted directors in Hollywood, and the film maker behind The Usual Suspects and the billion dollar­-grossing X-­Men franchise. Geffen, Huffington and Singer are all alleged to have been at the parties but none is accused of any wrongdoing. At these parties, Collins­-Rector and other men are said to have sexually assaulted at least six teenage boys, according to lawsuits filed in 2000 and 2014. Michael Egan, who was a teenager at the time of the alleged abuse in 1999, sued Singer and two other men, alleging serious sexual abuse. He had to drop this suit after he was found to have been contradicting himself. A federal judge also accused him of lying in court. Singer has denied all claims of child abuse and said the accusations against him were a "sick, twisted shakedown". Another convicted paedophile, Brian Peck, was also a guest at the parties. Singer had given him cameo roles in two of the X­-Men films and asked him to join him for the director's commentary on one of the movies' DVDs. In 2004 Peck was found guilty of abusing a famous young actor on the Nickelodeon network. After prison Peck returned to Hollywood, where he accepted a role as a dialogue coach on the sitcom Anger Management, starring Charlie Sheen. Peck later went on to play, of all things, a sex education teacher in a film. Henry is outraged that Peck still works in Hollywood: "I'm disgusted with the people who continue to hire him. I hope audiences will vote with their wallets. Don't watch these films: make it clear to the studios that you won't have anything to do with organisations that re­-employ convicted predators." And if you were considering seeing An Open Secret, that may not be easy. Matthew Valentinas, its executive producer, has said: "There was major interest at Cannes [in 2014]. They'd say, 'We love it, don't show it to anyone else.' But then someone on the business side would step in and all of a sudden there was no longer interest." The film failed to find a distributor and apparently never will, though online message boards suggest viewers are keen to see it and it can be found on YouTube. To make matters worse, its other executive producer, Gabe Hoffman, apparently fell out with its director and was last year reported to be taking her to court for not "co­operating" in the film's promotion. Valentinas referred me to Hoffman when I asked to speak to him about child abuse in Hollywood; neither Hoffman nor Berg returned my emails. HOLLYWOOD'S reluctance to promote An Open Secret can be contrasted with its enthusiasm for films dealing with child abuse that took place elsewhere. As Henzi says: "In recent years, the movie industry has done a great job bringing these issues to the fore, but when it comes to sex crimes committed by its own, everyone is more hush-­hush." Spotlight, the account of an American newspaper's dogged investigation into child rapists in the Catholic church, won the best picture at the Oscars in March. Berg herself was previously nominated for an Academy Award for her 2006 documentary into a similar scandal, Deliver Us From Evil. Consequently, questions of a cover-­up have surfaced. "I don't believe that the most powerful people in Hollywood are sitting in a darkened room plotting to spread paedophilia," says Henry. "But very bad people are still working here, protected by their friends. Worse, the media and entertainment industries have a cosy relationship in this country —­­ and we've already had one Hollywood actor become president. This is why we've been relying on British media to report this story much more than American media." Hoffman has said An Open Secret "makes it clear that Hollywood is not adequately policing itself". And Wood told me that having seen An Open Secret, he believes the film "only scratches the surface. I feel there was much more to this story than it articulates." Roman Polanski was charged in 1977 with five offences, including rape, drugging and sodomising, against a 13­-year­-old girl. He did a plea bargain and was convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. Fearing a jail sentence, Polanski fled the US and has never returned. He continues to make films in Europe and has received an Oscar while being the subject of an Interpol "red notice" for absconding. "Everyone wants to f*** young girls," he once opined in an interview. The tragedy of that gruesome Hollywood trope, the "casting couch", is its victims: young actors of both sexes forced to grant sexual favours to directors and producers, and damaged as a result. Henry says she and her family have received numerous death threats from "emissaries of people accused of abuse ... We've had to move home twice, increase our security. People have parked outside our house and watched us. We're tired and weary —­­ but with the evidence we have, we could have made 10 films like An Open Secret." Henzi writes in an email: "The thing about Hollywood is that there is not some secret 'illuminati' or top agenda. Just because someone is a famous director or actor does not give them immunity from the law. My dream is to see an established presence in Hollywood advocating against child sexual abuse, rape, sexual harassment and all sex crimes." He may have some time to wait. I ask Wood whether he believes this is still a problem for Hollywood. "From my reading and research," he says, "I've been led down dark paths to realise that these things probably still are happening. If you're innocent, you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed, people with parasitic interests will see you as their prey."

[ask-crimson-cardinal]

Equestria isn’t what it seems. Ask anything. And you will get the entire truth. No questions asked!!

To read a bit more of my backstory, keep reading. 

Hoofington is a seemingly pleasant little town. Located on a pristine beach, just a little ways north from the shining star of Los Pegasus. On the outside, a sweet and simple villa for scholars and aspiring writers, and escapees from the hecticness of the outside world. However, its isolation did not spare it from the influences of the Equestrian aristocracy, albeit that seemed harmless enough, if not more secure. Of course, the reality was much, much darker.

Equestria was a rickety house of cards that managed to rebuild itself pretty quickly when knocked over, but it was a house of flimsy cards, no less. A world of chaos almost completely governed by four goddesses and their families, not to mention the various other atrocities that controlled the world beyond, in addition to the very elusive racial divide between the the four equestrian races and the two other sovereign species, gryphons and dragons. What a mess. But who was to acknowledge it? Meet Crimson Cardinal. A skinny, tall red pegasus with a long and flowing purple mane and tail, a journalist of ill-temperament and an extreme lover of conspiracy, cider, and revolution. A proletariat of cynicism and pride with an extreme hatred for dark magic, corruption and aristocracy. And finally, not much a flyer, but a strong adherent of pegasus pride and a shameless destroyer of alicorn supremacy. Though seemingly sour, Crimson greatly enjoyed his little town and the ponies who inhabit it. His full-time job (journalism being more of a freelance job and anti-fascism being more of a hobby) was a bartender at everyone’s favorite salon downtown, “The Bubbly Mare,” owned by an equally gleeful little stallion, Bubbling Cider. Crimson―a lover of conspiracy and writing is also a great, great lover of alcohol, almost more than pen and paper. In truth, his best rhetoric was born from the bottle. But the townsfolk flocked to his side drunk or sober. The political views of Hoofington were slightly varied, but there was one thing in common―The town was mostly Earth ponies and Pegasi. Farms on the borders of town were hard workin’ folk who prided themselves in tending the soil with their own hooves, criticizing the unicorns for laziness. The pegasi, whose job was to beat clouds into submission and maintain the weather likewise berated the unicorns for using their powers to whip up a storm or chaos anytime they pleased. On the flip side―those small-town earth ponies and pegasi were shunned by the elitist unicorns of the big city, and it was remarkably difficult for a non unicorn to have a profession other than a farmer or cloud-kicker. And it wasn’t just Hoofington that held this belief. This distrust of magic wasn’t seen by those who visited the shining capitals and paragons of Equestria. Canterlot, Ponyville, the Crystal Empire and other big cities that portrayed the unity and magic that the country prided itself on and preached had shiny, posterless walls. But elsewhere, every alleyway in almost every small town, hidden from dignitaries and diplomats, was marked with cynical graffiti alongside the tyrannical Celestia’s infamous “Obey” posters. Now, Crimson himself wasn’t a hater of unicorns per se, or at least that’s what he contended. His roommate and ‘special friend,’ Regal Pen, was one and a rather magically inclined one at that. But did he appeal to the collective distrust of magic in the town? Oh yes he did. …

The day was searing hot, the sun was beating down on the coast and the streets were fairly empty. The dark alleyways, however, were flooding with quietly chattering ponies, but they weren’t there for the shade. They crowded around a soapbox, placed in front of a fresh, untouched, massive propaganda poster, Celestia’s image glaring down at the crowd in ominous shades of dark blue, tan and red, below the stark blue OBEY. There was a hanging uneasiness and tension within the crowd, starting at the poster which they had been specifically instructed not to brutally desecrate by no other than Crimson himself. However, they also knew that the crafty pegasus would not leave it untouched for long. The dark red pony in question stepped over to the soapbox, sitting on his haunches with his chest puffed out. His eyes were dark and sunken as ever, but there was a glimmer of pride and deviance within them too. He opened a prepared sheet of paper and cleared his throat, grasping the ecstatic attention of his listeners. “I would like to start off by thanking everypony for attending this meeting, especially under such short notice, but I declare this a matter of emergency. As you may have noticed, military presence has increased within our borders in the past few months, which is obviously a reason for concern―But it wouldn’t be so problematic if it wasn’t for the plague that they bring with them―Nationalism!!” Crimson gave a quick gesture to the poster behind him, riling murmurs and cries of affirmation from the crowd. “What you see here is the tyranny of the equestrian aristocracy! To many, it is no more than a frail piece of paper. But we, as the enlightened and intelligent ponies we are, know that it is so much more. My moral is that the pen is mightier than the sword, and this extends to a picture that speaks a thousand words. Be it a thousand and one words of celestial corruption and militant authority!” Crimson violently stomped his hoof against the podium, initiating more whinnies and shouts. He waited patiently for the crowd to cease, preparing for an obligatory remark. “Now, my animosity towards Celestia does not necessarily extend to the other princesses, her devout subjects, nor the blindly following, and I obviously harbor no contempt towards those who are simply unaware. However, I can say that the first three are the willing pawns of Celestia’s every bidding! However, I would be remiss if I did not clarify that I revere Princess Luna, and I do not believe she is a pawn nor an ecstatic aide to her sister’s reign. She only does not resist because she is trapped in the guilt that her sister has has bestowed upon her. I also don’t deny Twilight Sparkle as a heroine, a luminary and the paragon of unity and friendship. And Cadence…well, I don’t believe I need to state my opinion on that airheaded sparkling celebrity…On the other hoof, the honorary ‘Princesses’ Twilight and Cadence, and their extended aristocratic families combined represent all that is reprehensible with Celestia’s reign, including her sloth, her gluttony and her incompetence! They are the perfect plastic pawns in Celestia’s games. They are shining public icons, used to preach the alleged solidarity and morality of Equestria! What’s worse, the great and powerful Celestia sends them to solve her problems! What deity would allow the gods of chaos, the dreaded changelings, and abominations from Tartarus itself to wreak havoc on our country, and send her neurotic, monumentally less powerful slave to fix her own faults? And what if these were manifestations of her own magic, as a means of oppression?” The crowd was riled up, shouting and waving their hooves aggressively. And there was still one last note. Crimson took a breath. “In conclusion, I have a little treat for all of you. I’ve instructed you not to desecrate this lovely, lovely poster, but I’m sure you all knew that I would never leave such a thing standing proudly on the walls of our town for very long.” Crimson turned around and tore the poster clean off the wall and held it up. The crowd was practically snapping at it, as if Crimson was holding a slab of meat over a pit of manticores. He hushed the crowd and puffed his chest out. “DISOBEY.” He threw it into the mud. Every pony in the crowd went at it like a feral animal, grabbing each corner and ripping it at the seams, stomping on Celestia’s ominous muzzle into the disgusting brown mud, saturating it and making the frail poster just that much easier to tear apart. Crimson’s usually cold maw curled into a smirk. He shouted with an undertone of malcontented laughter―DISOBEY!! CRUSH IT!! DESTROY IT!! The desecration persisted for several minutes. Crimson caught his breath and stepped off the stand, looking back at the very happy crowd with a sense of pride. The horde eventually dispersed with adrenaline to fuel a day of proletariat’s labor. The poster laid in the mud in literal shreds, but left just barely recognizable to proudly display the desecration of Celestia’s image. Crimson’s younger sister, Emerald Paint was waiting at the end of the alleyway. A bouncy green pegasus who didn’t quite understand Crimson’s near-obsessive immersion in political discord. She was a painter instead of a writer―A painter who secretly wished to paint the revolution with strokes of blood instead of the written word. “Shit, when did you become so inspirational?” “Shut the hell up. It took me two fucking hours to write.” Crimson opened his satchel and grabbed a flask, taking a quick swill of the sweet nectar that fueled his anger and creativity. “Does it look like I give a shit? Anyways, it’s insane how you made destroying that poster seem so important. I mean, it looked like fun…” “Symbolism. One of the greatest literary strategies. It’s kind of like burning an effigy or some books, although it doesn’t quite have the same effect as tearing the thing itself to shreds and leaving it to rot in the mud.” “The fuck you talking about? Why wouldn’t you just destroy the real thing?” Crimson shot a sarcastic glance at his internally violent sister. “I don’t think that’s a very…realistic…solution, Emerald. Besides, I’d much rather have Celestia rot in Tartarus for eternity next to the monsters she created.” “Do you really think this is gonna end peacefully?” Emerald cocked her head. Crimson sighed and averted his eyes. “Well, not exactly…Regardless of how it ends, Celestia and her pawns can’t condemn us for rebelling when she has been slaughtering, imprisoning, and banishing for centuries, if not millennia?” Emerald shrugged. “I don’t know, I don’t feel like it’s worth it. Talking doesn’t get anything done, plus you can’t just beat Celestia!” Crimson huffed and narrowed his eyes, taking another aggressive swill of vodka. “How could you say that?! Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘The pen is mightier than the sword?” “I don’t fucking know. I’m going home, going to work to make MONEY, unlike you.” Emerald said snarkily, flipping her hair and trotted away. “Journalism is a noble and well-paying profession!! And bartending is just to pay the bills!” Crimson growled and flipped his sister off with his wing. He was glad that the rest of the town didn’t share the same ironically bourgeois sentiment. He would show her. … Crimson sat as his desk, continuing on his endeavour to create the perfect combinations of letters that would convince the most stubborn sheep to awaken from their comatose states under the shades of fascism. “That is a great fucking sentence.” Crimson mumbled. Thank Celes- Thank god sheep were too stupid to read and too weak to be of any use to the revolution (He thought with gratuitous disregard of his own hypocrisy). Stamping the last word with his typewriter, Crimson fell back in his seat. The town was on his side, and with the beautiful ink on paper, many others would trot alongside him. But where to go next? Los Pegasus was close, but going into a such a big city with Hoofington’s small population was, well, a really bad idea. Revolutions don’t start overnight. It must be slow, methodical, covert… But it would happen. That was for certain.

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/citing-murder-of-indian-origin-cop-trump-seeks-border-wall-funding/

Citing murder of Indian-origin cop, Trump seeks border wall funding

Washington: President Donald Trump in a rare Oval Office address to the nation on Wednesday demanded funding for his long-promised United States-Mexico border wall to halt ‘a growing humanitarian and security crisis’ due to ‘uncontrolled and illegal’ migration, but refrained from declaring a national emergency over the issue.

Trump’s remarks came amid a partial government shutdown that is days away from becoming the longest in US history.

The President sought to pressure Democrats to agree to his request for $5.7 billion for the wall as a condition of ending the government shutdown. 

He also tried to ramp up support among Republicans who are getting nervous about government workers and others who are feeling the pain of the shutdown.

“This is a humanitarian crisis. A crisis of the heart, and a crisis of the soul,” Trump said in his maiden prime-time address from his Oval Office.

Making a case for building a wall along the Mexico border, Trump invoked the killing of Indian-origin policeman Ronil ‘Ron’ Singh of the Newman Police Department, who was shot and killed during a traffic stop in California on December 26 allegedly by an illegal immigrant.

Trump Tuesday described Corporal Singh, 33, as a national ‘hero’, saying America’s heart broke the day the young officer was ‘savagely murdered’ in cold blood by an ‘illegal alien’.

Trump spoke last week with the family members and law enforcement colleagues of Singh, a native of Fiji who joined the force in July 2011.

“America’s heart broke the day after Christmas when a young police officer in California was savagely murdered in cold blood by an illegal alien (who) just came across the border. The life of an American hero was stolen by someone who had no right to be in our country,” Trump said.

The Californian police have arrested 33-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico identified as Gustavo Perez Arriaga on charges of killing Singh.

Trump said precious lives were cut short repeatedly by those who have violated the borders.

“In California, an air force veteran was raped, murdered, and beaten to death with a hammer by an illegal alien with a long criminal history.

“In Georgia an illegal alien was recently charged with murder for killing, beheading and dismembering his neighbour.

“In Maryland, MS-13 gang members who arrived in the United States as unaccompanied minors were arrested and charged last year after viciously stabbing and beating a 16-year-old,” he said.

Trump said over the last several years, he has met with dozens of families whose loved ones were killed by illegal immigration.

“I’ve held the hands of the weeping mothers and embraced the grief-stricken fathers. So sad. So terrible. I will never forget the pain in their eyes, the tremble in their voices and the sadness gripping there. So how much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job,” he said.

“This is a choice between right and wrong; justice and injustice. This is about whether we fulfil our sacred duty to the American citizens we serve,” Trump said.

Noting that America proudly welcomes millions of lawful immigrants who enrich the American society and contribute to the nation, Trump said all Americans are hurt by uncontrolled, illegal migration.

“It strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages. Among those hardest hits are African-Americans and Hispanic Americans,” he said in an eight-minute address as he sought to build a physical barrier along the southern Mexico border.

Funding for a border wall has been the main sticking point in negotiations with Democrats to reopen parts of the federal government that have been closed for 18 days.

A wall along the US-Mexico border was one of Trump’s signature campaign promises. Trump wants $5.7 billion to build the wall, even though he said repeatedly during his campaign that he would make Mexico pay for the structure.

Democrats are refusing to allocate the money, arguing that a wall would be costly and ineffective.

The standoff triggered a partial government shutdown on December 22, shuttering nine federal departments and several smaller agencies and forcing some 800,000 workers to go on unpaid leave or work without pay. The shutdown will enter its 19th day Wednesday, making it the second-longest in history.

Trump in the past few days had threatened to declare a national emergency over the issues that would have allowed him to start building the wall with military funds without congressional authorisation.

But in Wednesday’s address he stopped short of declaring a national emergency.

Making a strong pitch for the wall, Trump said the federal government remained shut because of Democrats.

The president also said that 90 per cent of heroin sold in the US came from Mexico.

“Last month 20,000 migrant children were illegally brought into the United States, a dramatic increase. These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs. One in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico,” Trump said.

“Women or children are the biggest victims by far of the broken system. This is the tragic reality of illegal immigration on our southern border. This is the cycle of human suffering that I am determined to end,” he said.

“As part of an overall approach to border security law enforcement professionals have requested $5.7 billion for a physical barrier. At the request of Democrats, it will be a steel barrier rather than a concrete wall.

“This barrier is absolutely critical to border security. It’s also what are professionals at the border want and need,”Trump said.

Trump said illegal immigrants and drugs flowing across the southern border posed a serious threat to American safety.

“The border wall would very quickly pay for itself. The cost of illegal drugs exceeds $500 billion a year, vastly more than the $5.7 billion we have requested from Congress,” Trump said.

The opposition Democrats immediately dismissed Trump’s assertion on border security and accused the president of holding the nation hostage to a partial government shutdown for more than a fortnight now.

“Much of what we have heard from President Trump throughout this senseless shutdown has been full of misinformation and even malice. The President has chosen fear,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in the Democratic address to the nation immediately after Trump’s prime time address.

“President Trump has chosen to hold hostage critical services for the health, safety and well-being of the American people and withhold the paychecks of 800,000 innocent workers across the nation — many of them veterans,” she alleged.

Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer said the American democracy doesn’t work the way Trump wants.

“We don’t govern by temper tantrum. No president should pound the table and demand he gets his way or else the government shuts down, hurting millions of Americans who are treated as leverage,” he said.

[kansascityhappenings]

Notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman convicted

NEW YORK — Mexico’s most notorious drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was convicted Tuesday of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation after a three-month trial packed with Hollywood-style tales of grisly killings, political payoffs, cocaine hidden in jalapeno cans, jewel-encrusted guns and a naked escape with his mistress through a tunnel.

Guzman faced a drumbeat of drug-trafficking and conspiracy convictions that could put the 61-year-old escape artist behind bars for decades in a maximum-security U.S. prison selected to thwart another one of the breakouts that embarrassed his native country.

New York jurors whose identities were kept secret reached a verdict after deliberating six days in the expansive case, sorting through what authorities called an “avalanche” of evidence gathered since the late 1980s that Guzman and his murderous Sinaloa drug cartel made billions in profits by smuggling tons of cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana into the U.S.

Evidence showed drugs poured into the U.S. through secret tunnels or hidden in tanker trucks, concealed in the undercarriage of passenger cars and packed in rail cars passing through legitimate points of entry — suggesting that a border wall wouldn’t be much of a worry.

The prosecution’s case against Guzman, a roughly 5½-foot figure whose nickname translates to “Shorty,” included the testimony of several turncoats and other witnesses. Among them were Guzman’s former Sinaloa lieutenants, a computer encryption expert and a Colombian cocaine supplier who underwent extreme plastic surgery to disguise his appearance.

One Sinaloa insider described Mexican workers getting contact highs while packing cocaine into thousands of jalapeno cans — shipments that totaled 25 to 30 tons of cocaine worth $500 million each year. Another testified how Guzman sometimes acted as his own sicario, or hitman, punishing a Sinaloan who dared to work for another cartel by kidnapping him, beating and shooting him and having his men bury the victim while he was still alive, gasping for air.

The defense case lasted just half an hour. Guzman’s lawyers did not deny his crimes as much as argue he was a fall guy for government witnesses who were more evil than he was.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman urged the jury in closing arguments not to believe government witnesses who “lie, steal, cheat, deal drugs and kill people.”

Deliberations were complicated by the trial’s vast scope. Jurors were tasked with making 53 decisions about whether prosecutors have proven different elements of the case.

The trial cast a harsh glare on the corruption that allowed the cartel to flourish. Colombian trafficker Alex Cifuentes caused a stir by testifying that former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto took a $100 million bribe from Guzman. Peña Nieto denied it, but the allegation fit a theme: politicians, army commanders, police and prosecutors, all on the take.

The tension at times was cut by some of the trial’s sideshows, such as the sight of Guzman and his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, showing up in matching burgundy velvet blazers in a gesture of solidarity. Another day, a Chapo-size actor who played the kingpin in the TV series “Narcos: Mexico” came to watch, telling reporters that seeing the defendant flash him a smile was “surreal.”

While the trial was dominated by Guzman’s persona as a near-mythical outlaw who carried a diamond-encrusted handgun and stayed one step ahead of the law, the jury never heard from Guzman himself, except when he told the judge he wouldn’t testify.

But his sing-songy voice filled the courtroom, thanks to recordings of intercepted phone calls. “Amigo!” he said to a cartel distributor in Chicago. “Here at your service.”

One of the trial’s most memorable tales came from girlfriend Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, who testified she was in bed in a safe house with an on-the-run Guzman in 2014 when Mexican marines started breaking down his door. She said Guzman led her to a trap door beneath a bathtub that opened up to a tunnel that allowed them to escape.

Asked what he was wearing, she replied: “He was naked. He took off running. He left us behind.”

The defendant had previously escaped from jail by hiding in a laundry bin in 2001. He then got an escort from crooked police officers into Mexico City before retreating to one of his many mountainside hideaways. In 2014, he pulled off another jail break, escaping through a mile-long lighted tunnel on a motorcycle on rails.

Even when Guzman was recaptured in 2016 before his extradition to the United States, he was plotting another escape, prosecutor Andrea Goldbarg said in closing arguments.

“Why? Because he is guilty and he never wanted to be in a position where he would have to answer for his crimes,” she told the jury. “He wanted to avoid sitting right there. In front of you.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/02/12/notorious-drug-lord-joaquin-el-chapo-guzman-convicted/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/notorious-drug-lord-joaquin-el-chapo-guzman-convicted/

[fundedjustice]

Justice4Leiliana

We lost the innocent Leiliana Rose Wright on March 13, 2016.

When Leili was born in 2012, her mom Jeri was in prison in Texas on burglary charges.  To be there, the State surely ran a background and knew of Jeri's prior child abuse charges.  

In 2007, Wills County, Illinois charged that Jeri beat her oldest daughter with a belt causing such serious injury that Jeri was never allowed to see her first three daughters again without supervision.

Texas gave Jeri custody of Leiliana without blinking and without advising any other parent or guardian of Jeri's history of or propensity for domestic violence.

According to Quezada’s statement, when she returned to Phifer’s home about 9:30 p.m., the two shot up heroin while Leiliana was locked in a closet with her wrists tied behind her back, a closet rod attached to the ligature to keep her from being able to sit. Once out of the closet, Leiliana said she was hungry, but she struggled to swallow her sandwich, so Quezada slapped her on the chest and back of the head, “telling her to swallow her food.” “She then said that Charles put on black gloves and forced the child’s mouth open while he poured Pedialyte into her mouth,” the report states. Soon after, Leiliana said she was going to throw up and ran to the bathroom. When she came out, Quezada told police, Phifer “grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off with one hand.” Quezada said Phifer then shoved Leiliana against a piece of drywall inside the closet, “all the while holding her by the throat with one hand,” and the two left her in there for more than 15 minutes. When she was let out, Leiliana was allowed to take a shower. Quezada went into another room to fetch pajamas when she said she heard Phifer in the bathroom saying, “Get you some of this.” Quezada said she heard the girl fall in the shower. The Tarrant County medical examiner ruled Leiliana’s death a homicide as a result of blunt force trauma to the abdomen and head.

A history with CPS

In her memo, Reynolds, the CPS regional director, wrote that “there is no indication that previous Child Protective Services history was reviewed” by caseworkers who had contacted Leiliana’s mother. The files would have been instantly available to any caseworker or investigator looking at the case. In 2011, a few weeks before she went to prison for a home burglary near Dallas, Quezada became pregnant. She gave birth to Leiliana while serving her sentence, and the girl's paternal grandparents raised her until she was nearly 2. After she was released from prison in 2013, Quezada and her daughter moved in with another boyfriend: Eduardo Soto, whose rap sheet includes a child fondling charge that he pleaded down to child injury and two convictions for tattooing children. Soto is back in jail — accused of molesting a 5-year-old girl at the same Burleson home where he, Quezada, Leiliana and their newborn son were all living in late 2014, when CPS began to investigate again. Within a single week in November 2014, Quezada was arrested on a drug charge, Soto was arrested for fraud, and Leiliana's paternal grandmother sued — ultimately without success — to get custody of the girl. The state separated Quezada from her children after police pulled her over and found meth in her car. But she regained custody in February 2015 after her charge was dropped and she tested clean for drug use, according to her former lawyer. The agency officially closed its investigation in May 2015. A year later, after Leiliana's death, the CPS memos obtained by The News referred to “previous investigations where Mr. Soto was alleged to have sexually abused Leiliana.”

Chaos in Dallas office

Problems in the Dallas CPS office are just one piece of the system-wide crisis in how Texas investigates child abuse and cares for children. There are so few foster homes that kids are sleeping in caseworkers’ offices or being kept in psychiatric facilities longer. A federal judge in Corpus Christi declared the Texas foster care system “broken,” and Gov. Greg Abbott called for changes after high-profile deaths that occurred long before Leiliana’s.

On July 19, 2017, the State of Texas offered Jeri a plea bargain offering her parole after 25 years.  Both defense attorneys on the case indicated that the evidence of physical and sexual abuse was so severe that the State would not have a problem proving their case against either Defendant. Texas again avoided responsibility for Leiliana's death and attempted to forego publicity that would accompany a public trial.

I want to hold Texas accountable for putting my baby girl in the hands of a woman they should have known would hurt her.  

I want to hold CPS and the caseworkers who saw the bruises and left her in the home accountable for their actions so that no other innocent child dies because the person with a duty to protect them turns around and walks away.

I want to hold them accountable by way of a law suit against the State of Texas, which will cost approximately $10,000 for retainer which covers filing fees, court costs, expert fees, records, and other necessary expenses.

Funded Justice

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