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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 1 year ago

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1968 [Chapter 6: Athena, Goddess Of Wisdom]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.2k

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Here at the midway point in our journey—like Dante stumbling upon the gates of the Inferno—would it be the right moment to review what’s at stake? Let’s begin.

It’s the end of August. The delegates of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago officially vote to name Aemond the party’s presidential candidate. His ascension is aided by 10,000 antiwar demonstrators who flood into the city and threaten to set it ablaze if Hubert Humphrey is chosen instead. At the end—in his death rattle—Humphrey begs to be Aemond’s running mate, one last humiliation he cannot resist. Humphrey is denied. Eugene McCarthy, dignity intact, boards a commercial flight to his home state of Minnesota without looking back.

Aemond selects U.S. Ambassador to France, Sargent Shriver, to be his vice president. Shriver is a Kennedy by marriage—his wife, JFK’s younger sister Eunice, just founded the Special Olympics—and has previously headed the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Peace Corps, and the Chicago Board of Education. He also served as the architect of the president’s “War on Poverty” before distancing himself from the imploding Johnson administration. Shriver is not a concession to fence-sitting moderates or Southern Dixiecrats, but an embodiment of Aemond’s commitment to unapologetic progressivism. Richard Nixon spends the weekend campaigning in his native California, a gold vein of votes like the mines settlers rushed to in 1848. George Wallace announces that he will run as an Independent. Racists everywhere rejoice.

Phase III of the Tet Offensive is underway in Vietnam; 700 American soldiers have been killed this month alone. Riots break out in military prisons where the U.S. Army is keeping their deserters. The North Vietnamese refuse to allow Pope Paul VI to visit Hanoi on a peace mission. President Johnson calls both Aemond and Nixon to personally inform them of this latest evidence of the communists’ unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. Daeron and John McCain remain in Hỏa Lò Prison. The draft swallows men like the titan Cronus devoured his own children.

In Eastern Europe, the Russians are crushing pro-democracy protests in the largest military operation since World War II as half a million troops roll into Czechoslovakia. In Caswell County, North Carolina, the last remaining segregated school district in the nation is ordered by a federal judge to integrate after years of stalling. On the Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific, France becomes the fifth nation to successfully explode a hydrogen bomb. In Mexico City, 300,000 students gather to protest the authoritarian regime of President Diaz Ordaz. In Guatemala, American ambassador John Gordon Mein is murdered by a Marxist guerilla organization called the Rebel Armed Forces. In Columbus, Ohio, nine guards are held hostage during a prison riot; after 30 hours, they’re rescued by a SWAT team.

The latest issue of Life magazine brings worldwide attention to catastrophic industrial pollution in the Great Lakes. The first successful multiorgan transplant is carried out at Houston Methodist Hospital. The Beatles release Hey Jude, the best-selling single of 1968 in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada. NASA’s Apollo lunar landing program plans to launch a crewed shuttle next year, just in time to fulfill John F. Kennedy’s 1962 promise to put a man on the moon “before the end of the decade.” If this is successful, the United States will win the Space Race and prove the superiority of capitalism. If it fails, the martyred astronauts will join all the other ghosts of this apocalyptic age, an epoch born under bad stars.

The night sky glows with the ancient debris of the Aurigid meteor shower. From down here on Earth, Jupiter is a radiant white gleam, visible with the naked eye and admired since humans were making cave paintings and Stonehenge. But Io is a mystery. With a telescope, she becomes a dust mote entrapped by Jupiter’s gravity; to the casual observer, she doesn’t exist at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

What was it like, that very first time? It’s strange to remember. You’re both different people now.

It’s May, 1966. You and Aemond are engaged, due to be married in three short weeks, and if you get pregnant then it’s no harm, no foul. In reality, it will end up taking you over a year to conceive, but no one knows that yet; you are living in the liminal space between what you imagine your life will be and the cold blade of the truth. Aemond has brought you to Asteria for the weekend, an increasingly common occurrence. The Targaryens—minus one, that holdout prodigal son, always glowering from behind swigs of rum and clouds of smoke—have already begun to treat you like a member of the family. The flock of Alopekis yap excitedly and lick your shins. Eudoxia learns your favorite snacks so she can have them ready when you arrive.

One night Aemond takes your hand and leads you to Helaena’s garden, darkness turned to twilight in the artificial luminance of the main house. You can hear distant voices, chatter and laughter, and the Beatles’ Rubber Soul spinning on the record player in the living room like a black hole, gravity that not even light can escape when it is wrenched over the event horizon.

You’re giggling as Aemond pulls you along, faster and faster, weaving through pathways lined with roses and sunflowers and butterfly bushes. Your high heels sink into soft, fertile earth; the air in your lungs is cool and infinite. “Where are we going?”

And Aemond grins back at you as he replies: “To Olympus.”

In the circle of hedges guarded by thirteen gods of stone, Aemond unzips your modest pink sundress and slips your heels off your feet, kneeling like he’s proposing to you again. When you are bare and secretless, he draws you down onto the grass and opens you, claims you, fills you to the brim as the crystalline water of the fountain patters and Zeus hurls his lightning bolts, an eternal storm, unending war. It’s intense in a way it never was with your first boyfriend, a sweet polite boy who talked about feminist theory and followed his enlightened conscience all the way to Vietnam. This isn’t just a pleasant way to pass a Friday night, something to look forward to between differential equations textbooks and calculus proofs. With Aemond it’s a ritual; it’s something so overpowering it almost scares you.

“Aphrodite,” Aemond murmurs against your throat, and when you try to get on top he stops you, pins you to the ground, thrusts hard and deep, and you try not to moan too loudly as you surrender, his weight on you like a prophesy. This is how he wants you. This is where you belong.

Has someone ever stitched you to their side, pushing the needle through your skin again and again as the fabric latticework takes shape, until their blood spills into your veins and your antibodies can no longer tell the difference? He makes you think you’ve forgotten who you were before. He makes you want to believe in things the world taught you were myths.

But that was over two years ago. Now Aemond is not your spellbinding almost-stranger of a fiancé—shrouded in just the right amount of mystery—but your husband, the father of your dead child, the presidential candidate. You miss when he was a mirage. You miss what it felt like to get high on the idea of him, each taste a hit, each touch a rush of toxins to the bloodstream.

Seven weeks after your emergency c-section, you are healing. Your belly no longer aches, your bleeding stops, you can rejoin the living in this last gasp of summer. Ludwika takes you shopping and you pick out new swimsuits; you’ve gone up a size since the baby, and it shows no signs of vanishing. In the fitting room, Ludwika chain-smokes Camel cigarettes and claps when you show her each outfit, ordering you to spin around, telling you that there’s nothing like Oleg Cassini back in Poland. You plan to buy three swimsuits. Ludwika insists you get five. She pays with Otto’s American Express.

That afternoon at home in your blue bedroom, you get changed to join the rest of the family down by the pool, your first swim since Ari was born. You choose Ludwika’s favorite: a dreamy turquoise two-piece with flowing transparent fabric that drapes your midsection. You can still see the dark vertical line of where the doctors stitched you closed. Now you and Aemond match; he got his scar on the floor of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, you earned yours at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. There are gold chains on your wrist and looped around your neck. Warm sunlight and ocean wind pours in through the open windows.

Aemond appears in the doorway and you turn to show him, proud of how you’ve pulled yourself together, how this past year hasn’t put you in an asylum. His right eye catches on your scar and stays there for a long time. Then at last he says: “You don’t have something else to wear?”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Labor Day, and Asteria has been descended upon by guests invited to celebrate Aemond’s nomination. The dining room table is overflowing with champagne, Agiorgitiko wine, platters of mini spanakopitas, lamb gyros, pita bread with hummus and tzatziki, feta cheese and cured meats, grilled octopus, baklava, and kourabiethes. Eudoxia is rushing around sweeping up crumbs and shooing tipsy visitors away from antique vases shipped here from Greece. Aemond’s celebrity endorsers include Sammy Davis Jr., Sonny and Cher, Andy Williams, Bobby Darin, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Claudine Longet, and a number of politicians; but the most notable attendee is President Lyndon Baines Johnson, shadowed by Secret Service agents. He won’t be making any surprise appearances on the campaign trail for Aemond—in the present political climate, he would be more of a liability than an asset—but he has travelled to Long Beach Island tonight to offer his well-wishes. From the record player thrums Jimi Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower.

When you finish getting ready and arrive downstairs, you spot Aegon: slouching in a velvet chair over a century old, hair shagging in his eyes, sipping something out of a chipped mug he clasps with both hands, flirting with a bubbly early-twenties campaign staffer. Aegon smiles and waves when he sees you. You wave back. And you think: When did he become the person I look for when I walk into a room?

Now Aemond is beside you in a blue suit—beaming, confident, his glass eye in place, a hand resting on your waist—and Aegon isn’t smiling anymore. He takes a gulp of what is almost certainly straight rum from his mug and returns his attention to the campaign staffer, his lady of the hour. You picture him undressing her on his shag carpet and feel disorienting, violent envy like a bullet.

Viserys is already fast asleep upstairs, but the rest of the family is out en masse to charm the invitees and pose for photographs. Alicent, Helaena, and Mimi—trying very hard to act sober, blinking too often—are chit-chatting with the other political wives. Otto is complaining about something to Criston; Criston is pretending to listen as he stares at Alicent. Ludwika is smoking her Camels and talking to several young journalists who are ogling her, enraptured. Fosco and Sargent Shriver are entertaining a group of guests with a boisterous, lighthearted debate on the merits of Italian versus French cuisine, though they agree that both are superior to Greek. The nannies have brought the eight children to be paraded around before bedtime. All Cosmo wants to do is clutch your hand and “help” you navigate around the living room, warning you not to step on the small, weaving Alopekis. When Mimi attempts to steal her youngest son away, he ignores her, and as she begins to make a scene you rebuke her with a harsh glare. Mimi retreats meekly. She has never argued with you, not once in over two years. You speak for Aemond, and Aemond is a god.

As the children are herded off to their beds by the nannies, Bobby Kennedy—presently serving as a New York senator despite residing primarily on his family’s compound in Massachusetts—approaches to congratulate Aemond. His wife Ethel is a tiny, nasally, scrappy but not terribly bright woman, five months pregnant with her eleventh child, and you have to get away from her like a hand pulled from a hot stove.

“You know, I was considering running,” Bobby says to Aemond, chuckling, good-natured. “But when I saw you get in the race, I thought better of it! Maybe I’ll give it a go in ’76, huh?”

“Hey, kid, what a tough year you’ve had,” Ethel tells you, patting your forearm. You can’t tear your eyes from her small belly. She has ten living children already. I couldn’t keep one. What kind of sense does that make? “We’re real sorry for your trouble, aren’t we, Bobby?”

Now he is nodding somberly. “We are. We sure are. We’ve been praying for you both.”

Aemond is thanking them, sounding touched but entirely collected. You manage some hurried response and then excuse yourself. Your hands are shaking as you cross the room, not really seeing it. You walk right into Lady Bird Johnson. She takes pity on you; she seems to perceive how rattled you are. “Oh Lyndon, look, it’s just who we were hoping to speak to! The next first lady of the United States. And how beautiful you are, just radiant. How do you keep your hair so perfect? That glamorous updo. You never have a single strand out of place.” Lady Bird lays a palm tenderly on your bare shoulder. She has an unusual, angular face, but a wise sort of compassion that only comes from suffering. Her husband is an unrepentant serial cheater. “I’ll make you a list of everything you need to know about the White House. All the quirks of the property, and the hidden gems too!”

“You’re so kind. We’ll see what happens in November…”

“Good evening, ma’am,” President Johnson says, smiling warmly. He’s an ugly man, but there’s something hypnotic that lives inside him and shines through his eyes like the blaze of a lighthouse. He pulls you in through the dark, through the storm; he promises you answers to questions you haven’t thought of yet. LBJ is 6’4 and known for bullying his political adversaries with the so-called “Johnson Treatment”; he leans in and makes rapid-fire demands until they forget he’s not allowed to hit them. “I have to tell you frankly, I don’t envy anyone who inherits that den of rattlesnakes in Washington D.C.”

“Lyndon, don’t frighten her,” Lady Bird scolds fondly.

“Everyone thinks they know what to do about Vietnam,” LBJ plods onwards. “But it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t clusterfuck. If you keep fighting, they call you a murderer. But if you pull the troops out and South Vietnam falls to the communists, every single man lost was for nothing, and you think the families will stand for that? Their kid in a body bag, or his legs blown off, or his brain scrambled? There’s no easy answer. It’s a goddamn bitch of a quagmire.”

Lady Bird offers you a sympathetic smirk. Sorry about all this unpleasantness, she means. When he gets himself worked up, I can’t stop him. But you find yourself feeling sorry for President Johnson. It will be difficult for him to learn how to fade into disgraced obscurity after once being so omnipotent, so beloved. Reinvention hurts like hell: fevers raging, bones mending, healing flesh that itches so ferociously you want to claw it off.

LBJ gives Lady Bird a look, quick but meaningful. She acquiesces. This has happened a thousand times before. “It was so nice talking to you, dear,” she tells you, then crosses the living room to pay her respects to Alicent.

The president steps closer, looming, towering. The Johnson Treatment?? you think, but no; he isn’t trying to intimidate you. He’s just curious.

“Do you know what Aemond’s plan is for ‘Nam?” LBJ asks, eyes urgent, voice low. “I’m sure he has one. He’s sworn to end the draft as soon as he gets into office, but how is he going to make sure the South Vietnamese can fend off the North themselves? We’re trying to train the bastards, but if we left they’d fold in months. It would be the first war the U.S. ever lost. Does he understand that?”

“He doesn’t really discuss it with me.” That’s true; you know his policies, but only because they are a constant subject of conversation within the family, something you all breathe like oxygen.

“We can’t let Nixon win,” LBJ continues. “It’s mass suicide to leave the country in his hands. The man can’t hold his liquor anymore, getting robbed by Kennedy in ’60 broke something in him. He gets sloshed and shoves his aids around, makes up conspiracies in his head. He’s a paranoid little prick. He’ll surveille the American people. He’ll launch a nuke at Moscow.”

You honestly don’t know what he expects you to say. “I’ll pass the message along to Aemond.”

“People love you, Mrs. Targaryen.” LBJ watching you closely. “Believe it or not, they used to love me too. But I still remember how to play the game. You’re the only reason Aemond is leading the polls in Florida. You can get him other states too. Jack needed Jackie. Aemond needs you. And you’ve had tragedies, and that’s a damn shame. But don’t you miss an opportunity. You take every disappointment, every fucked up cruelty of life and find a way to make it work for you. You pin it to your chest like a goddamn medal. Every single scar makes you look more mortal to those people going to the ballot box in November. You want them to be able to see themselves in you. It helps the mansions and the millions go down smoother.”

“President Johnson!” Aegon says as he saunters over, huge mocking grin. He thumps a closed fist against the Texan’s broad chest; the Secret Service agents standing ten feet away observe this sternly. “How thoughtful of you to be here, taking time out of your busy schedule, squeezing us in between war crimes.”

“The mayor of Trenton,” LBJ jabs.

“The butcher of Saigon.”

Now the president is no longer amused. “You’ve never accomplished anything in your whole damn life, son. Your obituary will be the size of a postage stamp. I’m looking forward to reading it someday soon.” He leaves, rejoining Lady Bird at the opposite end of the room.

You frown at Aegon, disapproving. You’re dressed in a sparkling, royal blue gown that Aemond chose. “That was unnecessary.”

Aegon is wearing an ill-fitting green shirt—half the buttons undone—khaki pants, and tan moccasins. “I just did you a favor.”

“What happened to your new girlfriend? Shouldn’t she be getting railed in your basement right now? Did she have a prior commitment? Did she have a spelling test to study for? Those can be tricky, such complex words. Juvenile. Inappropriate. Infidelity.”

“You know what he brags about?” Aegon says, meaning LBJ. “That he’s fucked more women by accident than John F. Kennedy ever did on purpose.”

“That sounds…logistically challenging.”

“He’s a lech. He’s a freak. He tells everyone on Capitol Hill how big his cock is. He takes it out and swings it around during meetings.”

“And that’s all far less than admirable, but he’s not going to do something like that around me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s not an idiot,” you say impatiently. “He was perfectly civil. And I was getting interesting advice.”

Aegon rolls his eyes, exasperated. “Yeah, okay, I’m sorry I crashed your cute little pep talk with Lyndon Johnson, the most hated man on the planet.”

“I guess you can’t stop Aemond from touching me, so you have to terrorize LBJ instead.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Aegon hisses, and his venom stuns you. And now you’re both trapped: you loosed the arrow, he proved you hit the mark. He’s flushing a deep, mortified red. Your guts are twisting with remorse.

“Aegon, wait, I didn’t mean—”

He whirls and storms off, shoving his way through the crowd. People glare at him as they clutch their glasses and plates, sighing in that What else do you expect from the worthless son? sort of way. You’re still gaping blankly at the place where Aegon stood when Aemond finds you, snakes a hand around the back of your neck, and whispers through the painstakingly-arranged wisps of hair that fall around your ear: “Follow me.”

It’s not a question. It’s a command. You trail him through the living room, into the foyer, and through the front door, not knowing what he wants. Outside the moon is a sliver; the light from the main house makes the stars hard to see. “Aemond, you’ll never believe the conversation I just had with LBJ. He really unloaded, I think the stress is driving him insane. I have to tell you what he said about—”

“Later.” And this is jarring; Aemond doesn’t put anything before strategy. He grabs your hand as he turns into Helaena’s garden, and only then do you understand what he wants. Instinctively, your legs lock up and your feet stop moving. Aemond tugs you onward. He wants it to be like the very first time. He intends to start over with you, the dawning of a new age in the dead of night.

Hidden in the circle of hedges, he takes your face roughly in his hands and kisses you, drinks you down like a vampire, consumes you like wildfire. But your skull echoes with panic. I don’t want him touching me. I don’t want another child with him. “Aemond…”

He doesn’t hear you, or acts like he doesn’t, or mistakes it for a murmur of desire, or chooses to believe it is. He has you down on the grass under the vengeful gaze of Zeus, the fountain splashing, the sounds of the house a low foreign drone. He yanks off your panties, but he doesn’t want you naked like he always did before. He pushes the hem of your shimmering cobalt gown up to your hips and unbuckles his trousers. And you realize as he’s touching you, as he’s easing himself into you: He doesn’t want to have to look at my scar.

You can’t ignore him, you can’t pretend it’s not happening. He’s too big for that. It’s a biting fullness that demands to be felt. So you kiss him back, and knot your fingers in his short hair like you used to, and try to remember the things you always said to him before. And when Aemond is too absorbed to notice, you look away from him, from the statue of Zeus, and peer up into the stone face of Athena instead: the goddess who never married and who knows the answer to every question.

“I love you,” Aemond says when it’s over, marveling at the slopes of your face in the dim ethereal light. “Everything will be right again soon. Everything will be perfect.”

You conjure up a smile and nod like you believe him.

“What did LBJ say?”

“Can I tell you later tonight? After the party, maybe? I just need a few minutes.”

“Of course.” And now Aemond pretends to be patient. He buckles his belt and returns to the main house, his blood coursing with the possibilities only you can make real, his skin damp with your sweat.

For a while—ten minutes, twenty minutes—you lie there on the cool grass wondering what it was like for all those mortals and nymphs, being pinned down by Zeus and then having Hera try to kill them afterwards, raising ill-fated reviled bastards they couldn’t help but love. What is heaven if the realm of the immortals is so cruel? Why does the god of justice seem so immune to it?

When at last you rise and walk back towards the house, you find Mimi at the edge of the garden. She’s on her knees and retching into a rose bush; she’s cut her face on the thorns, but she hasn’t noticed yet. She’s groaning; she seems lost.

You reach for her, gripping her bony shoulders. “Mimi, here, let’s get you upstairs…”

“No,” she blubbers, tears streaming down her scratched cheeks. “Just go away. Leave me.”

“Mimi—”

“No!” she roars, a mournful hemorrhage as she slaps your hands until you release her.

“You don’t have to be this way,” you tell her, distraught. “You can give up drinking. We’ll help you, me and Fosco and Ludwika. You can start over. You can be healthy and present again, you can live a real life.”

Mimi stares up at you, her grey eyes glassy and bloodshot but with a vicious, piercing honesty. “My husband hates me. My kids don’t know I exist. What the hell do I have to be sober for?”

You weren’t expecting this. You don’t know what to say. “We can help make the world better.”

“The world would be better without me in it.”

Then Mimi curls up on the grass under the rose bush, and stays there until you return with Fosco to drag her upstairs to her empty bed.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next afternoon, you’re lying on a lounge chair by the pool. Tomorrow the family will leave Asteria and embark upon a vigorous campaign schedule that will continue, with very few breaks, until Election Day on Tuesday, November 5th. The children are splashing and shrieking in the pool with Fosco, but you aren’t looking at them. You’re staring across the sun-drenched emerald lawn at the Atlantic Ocean. You’re envisioning all the bones and splinters of sunken ships that must litter the silt of the abyss; you’re thinking that it’s a graveyard with no headstones, no memory. Your swimsuit is a red one-piece. Your eyes are shielded by large black Ray Bans aviator sunglasses. Your gaze flicks up to the cloudless blue sky, where all the stars and planets are invisible.

Jupiter has nearly a hundred moons; the largest four were discovered by Galileo in 1610. Europa is a smooth white cosmic marble with a crust of ice, beautiful, immaculate. Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system and the only satellite with its own magnetic field, is rumored to have a vast underground saltwater ocean that may contain life. Callisto is dark and indomitable, riddled with impact craters; because of her dynamic atmosphere and location beyond Jupiter’s radiation belts, she is considered the best location for possible future crewed missions to the Jovian system. But Io is a wasteland. She has no water and no oxygen. Her only children are 400 active volcanoes, sulfur plumes and lava flows, mountains of silicate rock higher than Mount Everest, cataclysmic earthquakes as her crust slips around on a mantle of magma. Her daily radiation levels are 36 times the lethal limit for humans. If Hades had a home in our corner of the galaxy, it would be Io. She glows ruby and gold with barren apocalyptic fury. You can feel yourself turning poisonous like she is. You can feel your skin splitting open as the lava spills out.

Aegon trots out of the house—red swim trunks, cheap red plastic sunglasses, no shirt, a beach towel slung around his neck, flip flops—and kicks your chair. “Get up. We’re going sailing.”

“I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Great, because I’m not asking you to talk. I’m telling you to get in my boat.”

You don’t reply. You don’t think you can without your voice cracking. Aegon crouches down beside your chair and pushes your sunglasses up into your Brigitte Bardot-inspired hair so he can see your face. Your eyes are pink, wet, desperately sad. Deep troubled grooves appear in his forehead as he studies you. Gently, wordlessly, he pats your cheek twice and lowers your sunglasses back over your eyes. Then he stands up again and offers you his hand.

“Let’s go,” Aegon says, softly this time. You take his hand and follow him down to the boathouse.

Five vessels are currently kept there. Aegon’s sailboat is a 25-foot Wianno Senior sloop, just roomy enough for a few passengers. He’s had it since long before you married into the Targaryen family. It is white with hand-painted gold accents; the name Sunfyre adorns the stern. He unmoors the boat, pushes it out into the open water, and raises the sails.

You glide eastbound over the glittering crests of waves, slowly at first, then faster as the sails catch the wind. Aegon has one hand on the rudder, the other grasping the ropes. And the farther you get from shore, the smaller Asteria seems, and the Targaryen family, and the presidential election, and the United States itself. Now all that exists is this boat: you, Aegon, the squawking gulls, the school of mackerel, the ocean. The sun beats down; the breeze rips strands of your hair free. The battery-powered record player is blasting White Room by Cream. When you are far enough from land that no journalists would be able to get a photo, Aegon takes two joints and his Zippo out of the pocket of his swim trunks. He puts both joints between his lips, lights them, and passes you one. Then he stretches out beside you on the deck, gazing up at the September sky.

You ask as your muscles unravel and your thoughts turn light and easy to share: “Why did you bring me out here?”

“So you can drown yourself,” Aegon says, and you both laugh. “Nah. I used to go sailing all the time when I was a teenager. It always made me feel better. It was the only place where I could really be alone.”

You consider the math. “Wow. You haven’t been a teenager since before I was in kindergarten.”

“It’s weird to think about. You don’t seem that young.”

“Thanks, I guess. You don’t seem that old.”

“Maybe we’re meeting in the middle.” He inhales deeply and then exhales in a rush of smoke. “What do you think, should I get an earring?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It might shock Otto so bad it kills him.”

“I’ll get two.” And then Aegon says: “It’s not cool for you to mock me.”

You are dismayed; you didn’t mean to hurt him. “I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were. You were mocking me. You mocked me about the receipt under my ashtray, and then you mocked me again last night. I’m up for a lot of things, but I can’t handle that. Okay?”

“Okay.” You turn your head so you can see him: shaggy blonde hair, stubble, perpetual sunburn, the softness of his belly and his chest, flesh you long to vanish into like rain through parched earth. “Aegon?”

He looks over at you. “Io?”

“I don’t want Aemond to touch me either.”

He’s surprised; not by what you feel, but because you’ve said it aloud, a treason like Prometheus giving mankind the gift of fire. “What are we gonna do about it?”

If you were the goddess of wisdom, maybe you’d know.

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dumbass-tumbler-cryptid · 2 months ago

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Quaritch wins Au Part 2

Part 1

Quaritch and Spider are nearly always together when Spider is young. Spider does his school work in his dads office while he’s working. And while Quaritch’s work day is never truly done he always finds ways to teach his son military skills. He’ll take his son to watch soldiers running obstacle courses. Spider always wants to “play” too. So when the soldiers are done Quaritch lets Spider run the course. It always makes him so proud. His kid is absolutely fearless, running, army crawling, climbing and swinging without an ounce of doubt in himself.

Whenever Quaritch has a spare half hour or so he’ll take Spider to the gun range. He makes sure to drill safety into his son’s head. Then they just practice field stripping the weapons. Spider loves it. To him it’s like putting together a puzzle. Spider is only six when Quaritch lets him shoot a gun for the first time. Quaritch wraps his arms around Spider from behind, helping him aim and keep his hands steady. Spider shoots. While it’s not a bully’s eye it’s close. It makes Quaritch giddy. His son is going to be such a good soldier.

While Quaritch tries to shield his son from the violence of war he can’t stop Spider from asking a million questions. “Why are you fighting the natives?”

“Well because they attack us.”

“Why do they attack us?”

“Because they don’t want to share their resources with us.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re cruel savages. When we first came here we tried to share with them. We gave them medicine and education. They tried to kill us.”

“Why do we stay here then if they’re so mean?”

“Well because we need the resources Pandora has.”

“Why?”

“Because Earth is dying.”

“Why?”

“It’s very sick. And Pandora has the medicine it needs to get better.”

“So if we don’t get it, Earth will die!”

“That’s right. We’re just humble refugees wanting to take a little bit of abundant resources back to our home. And the greedy, cruel Na’vi refuse to help us.” Spider is both horrified and angry that anyone could be so callous to people in need.

Quaritch doesn’t really sit his son down to have indoctrination sessions but he also never misses an opportunity to impress upon Spider how bad the enemy is. He did some of his best work when he finally got asked the big question. The one he knew he’d be asked eventually. His answer was well planned when six year old Spider walked up to him, tugged on the hem of his shirt to get his attention and asked, “Papa, why don’t I have a mama?”

Quaritch, completely unfazed, squats to be on Spider’s level. He places his hand on his son's shoulders, looking directly into his eyes. “She was murdered by the Na’vi.”

Spider doesn’t quite understand. “What’s murdered?”

“It’s when a person, like your mama, is killed by another person.”

“What’s killed?”

This question does surprise Quaritch. In all his mental rehearsals he never expected having to explain death. “Well y’a know when you see a soldier and you can talk to them and play and they’re just….there. And then one day they’re not,” Spider nods, “that’s because they were killed. They died. They’re not alive anymore like you and me. You can never see them again because they’re just…gone.”

“But where do they go? Can’t we visit them?”

Quaritch’s heart twists. They are veering way out of his comfort zone. “No, we can't visit them. They didn’t go to some other place. They died. And when you die you just stop existing.”

Spider still doesn’t fully understand but he gets that he’ll never see his mama. He starts tearing up. “But why? Why would they kill her?”

“Because she was trying to build a better future for you.” Quaritch expected this line to be inspirational. That Spider would light up with a drive to avenge his mother’s death. Instead he starts bawling.

“But I don’t want that! I want my mama! All the other kids have a mama! I want my mama!” Quaritch’s eyes go wide in panic. He’s got no clue how to fix this with words so instead of trying he scoops Spider up, holds him close and paces their apartment, bouncing Spider with each step to get him to calm down. It takes a long time for Spider to stop crying. When he does he refuses to be put back down. Quaritch tries but it makes Spider whimper in protest and cling to him tighter. Quaritch sighs in defeat, resigning himself to holding Spider until he decides he’s ready to be put down. Spider nestles his wet cheek onto his father’s shoulder. “I hate them,” he says so weakly Quaritch almost didn’t hear him. “I hate them.”

Quaritch smiles wickedly. He cups the back of Spider’s head, places a kiss on his forehead, then rests his cheek on his son’s hair.

Father and son spend almost all their time together until Spider starts to get older and more independent. Then his dad starts taking on more field work. It’s all in his avatar so his human body is still on base. But he’ll be in the pod all day leaving Spider on his own. When his dad first started using his avatar more Spider felt abandoned. He was already the odd one out on base but at least he’d always had his dad. Now he felt like he didn’t even have that anymore. And sure he thought of his dad’s squad and his old nannies as his aunts and uncles but they were also too busy for him. Most of his old nannies ended up having kids of their own, even the ones that thought they couldn’t. Lita was busy taking care of the younger kids and his dad’s squad were obviously all with him on field missions. So Spider had to find ways to entertain himself when not in school.

At first he’d go to the labs because that was where his dad was. He’d sit there and wait until his dad woke up, not knowing what else to do with himself. Quaritch always felt guilty when he’d wake up and see his son sitting there. His boy would light up like a puppy excited its master was home. “Can’t y’a find somethin’ productive to do instead of just sittin’ there all day?”

Spider shrugs. He’s only twelve. He’d love to go outside. Spider may hate the Na’vi but he loves the nature of Pandora. But he’s forbidden from going out without his dad. Quaritch even put Spider’s picture by every airlock with a note that says do not let out without an adult. So he’s trapped. There’s plenty of things he’d like to do. He would love to help the elders with gardening or learn some kind of craft from them. But they always seem too preoccupied with their grandkids. Spider doesn’t want to burden them. He would run around on the base's obstacle courses. But without his dad there the drill sergeant just yells at him to get down and leave.

Eventually the scientists take pity on him. Marine biologist Ian Garvin is the first to share his work with Spider. He wasn’t expecting the commander's son to be so interested but Spider is a ball of enthusiasm and rapid fire questions. Ian huffs an amazed laugh, stunned but happy to talk all day about the subject he loves. Other scientists follow suit and soon Spider spends his days bouncing from scientist to scientist learning everything he can. They’re all convinced Spider’s knowledge of Pandora will rival the late great Dr. Augustine’s by the time he’s eighteen. He already fluently speaks Na’vi and can rattle off facts about plants and animals as easily as talking about the weather.

After months of this the scientist run out of things to teach Spider. They’ll run to him to share new findings but other than that they’ve got nothing. So out of sheer boredom Spider starts to get up to trouble. He climbs on everything. He’s stolen golf carts and gone on joy rides. He pulls pranks. Graffitis on walls. The list goes on. Quaritch is instantly exhausted every time he comes out of the pod because he’s now used to immediately being told of his son’s wild exploits.

“Why do y’a have to do this silly shit,” Quaritch asks, pacing their living room. Fourteen year old Spider is sitting on the couch, his eyes down cast. “You're gonna lead this place one day. Don’t y’a get that? Y’a need to start actin’ like a respectable young man. Not some little punk ass.” Spider doesn’t respond. He hates it whenever his dad brings up his future plans for him. As if Spider doesn’t even get a choice. Quaritch sighs, “you're grounded until further notice…”

“What! How’s that fair…”

“Life isn’t fair, kid. Freedom is a privilege….”

“I thought it was a right…” Spider mumbles under his breath.

Quaritch’s anger spikes, “not in my house! And if you got somethin’ to say you say it with your whole chest like a man!”

“Fine! You're a piece of shit that abandoned me to go play soldier in your new younger body! What was wrong with how you were doing things before!” With that Spider runs to his room. Quaritch is left stunned. They don’t speak for the rest of the night. Right after their argument Quaritch reprograms the lock on their front door to only open with a passcode, trapping Spider inside unless there’s an emergency. Then it would automatically open. He doesn’t tell Spider that though. Knowing his kid he’d probably start a fire in their kitchen to escape. Then he messages Spider’s teacher, telling him to come to their apartment instead of having Spider meet him in their designated conference room. In the morning he leaves while Spider is asleep.

He tells his squad all about the fight the next day. They’re in their avatars, scoping out an outpost that could possibly become the sight of the new Bridgehead city. “See this is why I just let my baby mamas handle everything,” says Lyle.

“Yeah well my baby mama is dead.”

“And the boss isn’t a deadbeat like you,” says Prager. Lyle is completely unapologetic.

“I just don’t get it. Shouldn’t he be happy? What teenager wouldn’t want to run around all day without their dad breathin’ down their neck.”

“He’s still only fourteen,” says Z.

“Yeah. Kid hasn’t even hit his growth spurt yet,” says Fike.

“Yeah. Just because he can be more independent doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you around. You're his dad. And you went from being with him twenty four seven to barely seeing him. Of course he feels abandoned,” says Ja.

Quaritch bristles, “I don’t barely see him.”

“Okay so you see him for twenty minutes before you leave and twenty minutes before you both go to bed.” Quaritch grimaces. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t even see his son as often as that.

He sighs. “Alright I get it. I’ll make things right.”

Spider is surprised when his dad comes home early enough to cook dinner. Typically Spider has to either go to the mess hall or make himself a simple meal like mac and cheese or plain rice. “Did something happen?”

Quaritch shakes his head as he plates their meal. “No. Nothing happened. I just thought we could have a talk.”

“Oh.” Spider collapses into his chair at the dinner table.

“Look, I get that it might’a been jarin’ to go from you being by my side every day to well…not. So I’m gonna make an effort to at least show up for dinner every night.” It’s a nice gesture but for Spider it’s not enough. Quaritch sighs at his silence. “And I was thinkin’ we could take a vacation.”

That perks Spider up. “A vacation?” They’d never gone on a vacation.

“Well a working vacation. I’ve gotta make my yearly inspections of all our bases. When you were little I had my squad do it. They’d go in with a camera and I’d watch everything from my office. Past couple years I’ve gone in my avatar. But this year I was thinking we could go together. Like a road trip.”

Spider is a little disappointed that his dad will still be working but his excitement over seeing more of Pandora completely eclipses that. They leave a few weeks later. The plan is to start with the furthest base and work their way back. Spider has his bag packed and ready two days before they leave. Quaritch goes through that bag while Spider is asleep, tossing out any clothes he deems unsightly and replacing them with something more basic or militaristic. While the main objective is to have a nice time with his son, Quaritch’s second objective is to start showing off his boy to the masses. Get Spider in their mind so when he starts to work his way through the ranks they’ll be cheering for him to reach the top.

Their first base is by the ocean. Ian works there when he’s not at Hell’s Gate. Spider is happy to see him but can tell that he looks tired, sad and unhealthy. “Are you okay? You look sick.”

Ian smiles sadly, “I’m fine. How are you?” They catch up but Spider just can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.

His dad inspects the base, noting any changes to security the staff need to make. Then they go to the beach. Spider is instantly in love. He’s seen beaches on t.v from old movies and shows. Dad told him Earth beaches didn’t look like that anymore though. But Pandora’s beaches were perfect. The warm sand felt nice under his bare feet. The ocean breeze cool and the water refreshing. At one point a creature with a long neck swims up to Spider. It’s so friendly and excited to see him. He remembers from Ian’s teachings that it’s called an ilu. He pets it. It happily swims circles around him. And then his dad returns. He had been using a bush for a bathroom but now he’s back, screaming at the ilu to get away. He pulls his guns. Spider goes to shield the defenseless creature. “Dad don’t! It’s harmless! It’s like…oh what are those extinct ocean animals….a dolphin! It’s like a dolphin!”

“I don’t care if it’s harmless or not. Get away from it!”

Spider pets the ilu’s nose one last time then tells it in Na’vi, “I had fun. But you’ll be safer if you go.” The ilu wisely swims away with a chirp goodbye.

When he returns to shore his dad scruffs him. “If I’ve told y’a once I’ve told y’a a million times. Don’t mess with the wildlife!”

“But I knew it was safe…”

Dad gives him a rough shake, “don’t you talk back to me! That thing could’a bit your fingers off! Or took a chunk outta your face! Or worse!”

Spider hangs his head. The rest of their beach day is cancelled. When they return to base there’s a big commotion going on. A man by the name of Scoresby approaches them with a grin. “You boys are gonna wanna see this.” They’re led to a massive docking station where a dead sea creature is being pulled in. Quaritch gasps in amazement over the sheer size of the thing. Spider is horrified. He spots Ian and runs over to him. “What is this?”

“It’s a tulkun,” he says evenly. Like he’s trying not to get emotional.

“What’s a tulkun?” Ian explains. Spider’s disgust over the death of such a creature only grows. “Why kill it? It’s not hurting anybody.” Ian then explains amrita and why the R.D.A wants it. Spider goes pale. “That’s it! That’s all we take!”

“Miles!” He looks over to see his dad, pissed as usual, “get your ass over here.” Spider runs to comply, waving goodbye to Ian. When he reaches his dad the man wraps an arm around him but it lacks any warmth. “What were y’a doin, bothering that science guy.”

“Ian? He’s my friend.”

Dad raises an eyebrow, “your friend?”

“Yeah. He’d be in the labs while I waited for you to wake up. I’d ask him questions about his work.” Dad nods but clearly disapproves.

That night after he puts his son to bed, Quaritch finds Ian drunk off his ass in the mess hall. There’s plenty of others celebrating their catch of the day. But Ian is clearly not celebrating. Quaritch marches up to him, slamming Ian against a wall in one swoop. “Stay away from my kid! I don’t need you or any other science puke fillin’ his head with any of your tree huggin’ bullshit!”

They leave the next day. Spider looks for Ian to say goodbye but just can’t find him anywhere.

Their next few stops are less eventful. They go hunting at one stop. Quaritch is so proud when Spider nails a hexapede right between the eyes. He affectionately smooths his hand down the back of Spider’s short hair, the boy himself vibrating with excitement. They have a semi truck to haul it back. As Quaritch drives back to base, Spider starts babbling about all the things they can do with it, “we can skin it and tan the leather. And humans can eat the meat too! We can cook it and have a big feast with everyone….”

Quaritch chuckles, “or we could just mount it.”

All of Spider’s enthusiasm dies, “you wanna just waste it?”

Quaritch’s spirts dampen too, “I mean do y’a really want to dress and eat like the natives?”

“No. But we can use it. It’s kinda dumb to just cut off its head for decoration and toss the rest.” Quaritch doesn’t respond, an awkward silence falling between them. But later they skin and butcher the hexapede. Quaritch makes sure the meat is made into juicy steaks, meat sticks and jerky. Things that to him seem quintessentially American. The leather is crafted with care making fine shoes, knife sheaths and battery bags. They are leagues nicer than the crude slop the natives craft. Spider is thrilled with all the things they create from the hexapede and excitedly shares them with anyone he can.

At one base out in the plains they go stargazing. They're not outside. This base has a massive glass dome on the right hand side of the building. Their greenhouse is in there, filled with both Earth crops for their consumption and Pandoran flora for botanists and chemists to study. Spider is in awe. Of course he’s seen the bioluminescent foliage at night before but only through windows. Being among them is mesmerizing. Father and son lay side by side on a blanket, staring up at the infinite cosmos. “Y’a see that star,” Quaritch says pointing up.

“Yeah. Is that Earth?”

Quaritch smiles warmly, “you're so smart.”

At one base they have a peaceful movie night. Quaritch is surprised when Spider snuggles into his side and rests his head on his shoulder. He always did that when he was little but Quaritch figured as a teenager that Spider would want nothing to do with such childish displays of affection. It’s a nice reminder to Quaritch that Spider is still his little boy.

At another base Spider challenges the soldiers to a relay race. Everyone has a ton of fun. Quaritch is impressed by his son’s natural ability to win over others. Even when everyone loses to him they still have smiles on their faces because of the charismatic teen.

And then they start nearing the end of their trip. Quaritch knew before heading to the western front that a massive battle had just taken place. But Spider didn’t. Na’vi bodies are everywhere, mangled from gun fire, dead eyes still open, their mouths forever open in their last battle cry. It’s hard for Spider to know how to feel about it. Of course he thinks they deserve it for attacking his people. But seeing the carnage of war up close is horrifying. As they’re walking down the path a bulldozer drives by sweeping up some bodies in its plow, rolling over others. Spider hears the bones crunching like a thousand snapping twigs, sees the skin break apart like a water balloon popping, spraying blood and viscera all over the concrete. He throws up on the spot, not even having enough time to rip his mask off. And when he starts he can’t stop. Quaritch rushes him inside.

Once in the airlock Quaritch takes Spider’s mask off, the vomit spilling everywhere. Spider is still puking as those nightmarish sights and sounds reverberate in his head. Somebody rushes in with a waste bin and a rag, informing Quaritch that medical is on its way. He thanks them then turns his attention to his son. “Why didn’t y’a tell me you weren’t feelin’ good,” he says gently, cleaning Spider’s face with one hand, rubbing his back with the other. “Y’a seemed fine when we landed. Did y’a eat somethin’ that’s messin’ with y’a? Or where y’a just hidin’ the fact that you were sick?” Spider shakes his head, unable to say a word. When medical comes he’s taken away on a gurney to the hospital wing.

Spider’s vision is blurry and he’s incredibly disoriented as his dad lifts him into a hospital bed. A nurse puts an I.v into his arm. He still throws up a few times until the anti nausea meds injected into his I.v kick in. A doctor comes in and runs some tests then leaves. Quaritch asks a nurse for a bucket of water so he can wash the vomit that’s drying in Spider's hair. Spider leans into the touch as his dad massages his aching head. His dad gives him affectionate scratches and carefully pours cool water over his feverish skin. Spider is a rag doll as Quaritch towel dries his hair. He whimpers miserably when his dad is done, wanting only comfort. “Papa…”

Quaritch’s eyes go wide. His son stopped calling him that childish name when he was ten. He must be feeling pretty miserable to revert back to that now. “What is it, tiger?” Spider moans, weakly reaching for him. Quaritch gets the message. He moves to sit on the bed with his son. Spider slumps into his side. Quaritch tucks him under his chin and starts to stroke his fluffy little curls. Spider melts trying to force his mind blank. But it’s no use. He can’t help but think, good guys don’t steam roll over bodies.

He’s different when they come back. Despondent. Quaritch has no idea what to do with him. He makes sure that he and Spider have breakfast and dinner together every day. Tries to get his son to talk to him. To engage with him in any way that he can think of. But it doesn’t seem to help. Because Spider is guilt ridden from his doubts. He looks around at all their weaponry, their massive airships, and mechsuits and thinks how could the Na’vi ever stand up to this with bows and arrows? He hears about the advancements his dad is making in gaining territory and thinks, it doesn’t seem fair to be taking their land. He remembers seeing the dead talkun, killed only so some rich prick could be young forever and wonders, what else are we destroying for no reason.

He tries to ignore his thoughts for months but it only makes him more miserable. So he has to try and reassure himself that what they’re doing is right. First he asks, “Dad, how did Earth get sick?”

Internally Quaritch cringes but he doesn’t let it show. “That’s hard to explain.”

“Can you try?”

“Well….it started getting sick a long time ago. Almost two hundred years before I was born…..”

“It’s been sick for that long? And no one did anything?”

Quaritch is clearly uncomfortable, “well some people tried. But it wasn’t enough.”

“Well what did they try and why wasn’t it enough?”

“What does it matter? Earth is dying, we’re trying to fix it. End of story. Why are y’a even askin’ me all this anyway?”

Spider shrugs. “I just wanted to know.”

“Well now you’ve been told.” Don’t ask me again is a clear message from his tone.

So Spider goes about finding the information himself. He asks his teacher, “why is Earth dying?” But his dad got to him first, making sure he doesn’t say a word about Earth to Spider. He searches through Hell’s Gates’ database but with his login he gets nothing. Quaritch child locked everything for him. Frustrated, he goes to the scientist. But Ian told them about his encounter with Quaritch.

“We’re not supposed to talk to you anymore.”

Spider dies a little inside. “But why! Did my dad say something to you?” They don’t speak but the looks on their faces says it all.

After a month of hunting for answers and being thwarted at every turn he flies into a rage as soon as he sees his dad for dinner. “Why are you trying to hide what happened to Earth from me! What are you afraid of me knowing!”

“You watch your mouth young man! You do not yell at me. You are my son! This is my house! My base! And my operation!”

“I don’t care! Why are you hiding things from me!”

Quaritch’s face is red with fury, “you best get in your room right now and be thankful I don’t whip your ass for disrespecting me!”

“Do it! I’m not gonna respect someone who hides things from me and lies to me like a bitch!” Spider runs off to his room while Quaritch is restraining himself from taking off his belt and bending his son over his knee.

Needless to say, Spider is grounded for the foreseeable future. Stuck at home by himself all day, Spider gets an idea. Search his dad’s office. Sure he’s been in there plenty of time but while his dad was working. He’s never had a desire to look through his things before. He first searches the bookcase but finds nothing. Then he goes to the computer. Of course it’s not logged in. Spider ransaks every drawer of the desk until he finds in the bottom drawer at the very back a long forgotten journal. Judging by the yellowed pages and dust the thing has been here as long as his dad. He opens it. He never expected his dad to be the type to keep a journal and from the lack of entries he didn’t keep it for long. The first is from the day he left Earth. He writes about how terrible things have gotten. Apocalyptic natural disasters that make areas of land completely unlivable. Mass migration caused by those disasters leading to overcrowded cities. Hate groups and gangs forming because there’s not enough resources to go around. To Spider it sounds horrific. He gets why his dad might not want to talk about these things. His dad goes on to write about his hopes of saving Earth. That Pandora will hold the key to their survival.

There’s an entree from right after his dad got his scars then only two more after that. The only other thing scribbled into the margins is his dad’s login information. This can’t work, Spider thinks as he types it in. It’s over thirty years old. But surprise, surprise it does work. Spider rushes to learn all he can. And he is disgusted. From the database he pulls tons of videos on what killed Earth. Climate change, caused mainly by corporations that cared more about their bottom line then protecting the planet for future generations. They stripped the Earth of all its resources until it was a hollow husk teetering on the edge of death, leaving billions of innocent people to die along with it. But not the rich. After stealing all that they could for generations they were now coming here. His dad had been laying the groundwork for that. Spider finds plans for their next big construction project. Bridgehead city. It’ll be a functional military base out of necessity but mostly it’ll be a playground for the one percent. Restaurants, shopping, spas, a movie theater, a fucking zoo. It’s all so needlessly over the top.

Where will this leave us, Spider thinks. He still believes everyone in Hell’s Gate is a hardworking person, just trying to survive. That won’t change when the rich get there but the hierarchy will. They’ll all be subjects to them. Menial workers whose lives depend on serving the wealthy. And what about dad? He always thought his dad was the one running the show. Now he sees how wrong that is. His dad is basically an attack dog. Would they send him back to Earth once he got too old to fight?

I don’t want to be a part of this, the thought plays on a loop in his head. He needs to get out. To run while he still can. But I can’t leave them. He loves his dad. He loves his community. He can’t just leave them to become subjugated by the ruling class. It’s not us. It’s the R.D.A. Capitalistic corporations would always ruin everything. It needed to be stopped. But how? He couldn’t wait until took over for his dad. That was decades away plus he’d have to commit unspeakable violence to work his way up to that position. There had to be some other way to take down the R.D.A

Meanwhile Quaritch is trying to get advice from his squad. “I just don’t understand him. Why is he so obsessed with Earth all of a sudden?”

Mansk shrugs, “kid just wants to know where he came from.”

That gives Quaritch pause. “I guess that's fair. But the boy’s soft. He can’t handle learnin’ what happened.”

Lyle waves him off, “so he’ll cry and want cuddles from his daddy which you’ll give him because you baby him too much.”

Quaritch bristles, “I don’t baby him!”

“Sure you do. You course corrected too hard when he was little and you were still figuring things out. Now look at him. A spoiled brat who can get away with calling you a bitch without so much as a smack upside the head….”

“Yeah because you shouldn’t hit your kids,” Z says, “you don’t baby him. You're just being a dad. Lyle wouldn’t know anything about that.” The reassurance is nice but Quaritch can’t help dwelling on Lyle’s words. Maybe he had gotten too soft for his son. Maybe he did coddle him a little too much. Maybe some changes needed to be made.

When he gets home Spider is in his room, pointedly avoiding him. “Miles.” Spider cringes. His dad must really still be pissed at him. “Miles. You better be decent in there ‘cause I’m comin’ in.” Spider curls up on his bed, facing the wall with a pillow wrapped around his ears. Quaritch sighs. “Miles. Sit up. I wanna talk with you.”

“You mean talk at me? Or do you actually plan on listening to me.”

Quaritch growls a little. “Let’s just have a conversation. About Earth.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Quaritch throws his arms up in frustration. “Y’a bother every last person on base for a month to tell y’a about Earth and now after one fight you don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

Spider shrugs. “Not with you.”

The words sting. Letting his anger cover the wound, Quaritch stomps over to the bed and sits. “Look, people were destroying Earth long before I was ever born. They polluted the water, the air, the soil. They drove animals to extinction. And even though plenty of people sounded the alarm they kept right on doin’ what they were doin’. Because humans are greedy selfish beings. I wanted to spare y’a from that fact. But if you're so desperate to know…”

Spider flings himself upright, “not everyone is that bad! How could one person ever do enough to save Earth when a corporation can come in and level an entire forest in a few days, or throw their waste into the water system or burn chemicals into the air….”

Quaritch raises an eyebrow, “who told y’a about all that?”

Spider’s furry dies, realizing he just outed himself. “No one. But…it’s what we’re doing here….”

Quaritch’s anger starts to bubble up, “because we have to….”

“But do we! Did the talkun have to die! Do we have to keep destroying the land! Pandora is our second chance and we’re gonna end up killing it like Earth!”

Quaritch springs from his seat, “y’a see this is why I didn’t wanna talk about this with you! You got a bleedin’ heart! It puts these crazy ideas in your head…”

“Oh what, cause it’d be such a bad idea to actually learn our lesson and not kill the only other habitable planet in the galaxy!”

Quaritch’s fingers flex like he’s stopping himself from wrapping them around Spider’s throat. He moves to leave but then turns back, wagging a finger at him, “I’m sick and tired of whatever teenage rebellion bull shit you're goin’ through! So either stop this nonsense right here right now or we’re gonna start makin’ some changes around here that you are not gonna like!” With that he leaves, slamming the door behind him.

Spider wisely decides to stop vocalizing his opinions. He holds them close and tries to formulate his plans for his own future. Be his father’s respectful little Miles Jr. Things go back to normal for about a year. Spider keeps his head down, goes to school, talks to his dad, helps around the base where he can. And then at age fifteen he finally gets his chance.

His dad had been working on the beginnings of Bridgehead for months. And now reinforcements were coming to enact their “final solution.” Spider knows that if they succeed then there’s no going back. Pandora will be destroyed forever.

Spider isn’t aware of the specifics of the fighting going on as the Na’vi fight to try and stop the latest ship orbiting the planet from landing. A few days into the fighting his dad asks him for help translating with some high value prisoners. Despite wanting to protect Pandora from the R.D.A Spider still has a distaste for the Na’vi. They’ve slaughtered his people after all. It’s hard to get past that. Since the Na’vi are so much bigger than humans, Spider has a hard time figuring out how old these prisoners are. But then he notices it. Five fingers. These are Na’vi Avatar hybreeds. Which meant they were most likely Sully’s kids, no older than him. Spider is horrified. Since when do we take children as prisoners?

“Hi,” he says to them in Na’vi, “I’m Spider. What’re your names?”

One of them raises an eyebrow, “who the hell taught your dumb ass how to speak the language of the people.”

Spider stops himself from laughing. He jabs a thumb in his dad’s direction, “this dumb ass.” They all giggle.

“Miles! What the hell are you saying?”

“Well, he made sure I learned at least.” The Sully kids are laughing at Quaritch. Spider is grinning ear to ear. It’s so nice getting to talk to people his own age.

Quaritch growls, “boy I don’t know what y’a think you’re doin’ but you better stop right now or else. Now ask them what their father is planning.”

The littlest among them sticks their tongue out. “As if we’d tell you moron,” the mouthy one yells in Na’vi.

Spider looks up at his dad, “Eh, he’s a jarhead. What do you expect?” The Na’vi kids laugh again. Quaritch is fuming.

The third child excitedly runs to the bars of their cell, “my name’s Kiri. This is my brother Lo’ak and sister Tuk.”

Spider feels some of his mirth drain out of him. He didn’t expect them to actually give him their names. Now he knows them. Can humanize them. He doesn’t like it.

“Miles! What are they saying!”

Kiri looks between them, “is he your dad.”

Spider sighs, “yeah.”

“What you couldn’t tell,” says Lo’ak, “they’re the same kind of ugly.”

“Oh ‘cause you're so good looking? You look like something a direhorse shit out and ran over.” The girls howl with laughter. Lo’ak sulks.

Quaritch grabs Spider by the arm, “alright we’re done.”

“Wait, dad….”

Quaritch stops, spinning Spider to face him, “oh what so you can keep dickin’ around with your new little friends? I think not. So either ask them what I told y’a or you're out.”

“We speak English, dickhead,” Lo’ak says in Na’vi. Spider grins

His dad shakes him, “what did he just say!”

Spider smirks, “they speak English.”

“Tell your dad to go fuck himself!”

“He said to go fuck yourself.” The hit comes faster than he can register. He’s stunned, his head still slumped on his chest from his father’s smack upside the head.

Quaritch’s grip tightens on both of his arms, getting nearly nose to nose, his voice dangerously low, “do you think this is a game? Do you think you can talk to me like that? This is a military operation and you were brought here to do a military job. That means right now I’m not your father. I’m your commanding officer. And you sure as shit are about to get the biggest punishment of your life for this behavior! Now get out of my sight!” His dad flings him out the door. Spider is left shell shocked. He’d been yelled at by his dad plenty of times but this was different. He didn’t even know if he could look at his dad after this.

Quaritch tries to interrogate the Sully kids but it’s no use. They just heckle him. He leaves, red faced from fury. He goes about his day after that, reviewing battle footage, strategizing and so on. And then it finally sinks in, I hit my son. Guilt crashes over him like a tidal wave. His words reverberate in his head, right now I’m not your father. He’s always supposed to be Spider’s father. How could he let his anger get the better of him like that. To say that to his boy. To hit him.

He feels so terrible about what he did that he needs to grab a few drinks at the bar before he can head home. He sways slightly on his feet as he walks through the door. “Miles,” he calls in a sing-song voice, “Miles. Where are y’a son? Look I’m sorry for earlier. I shouldn’t have hit y’a and I shouldn’t have said what I said.” His reply is crushing silence. “Miles? Y’a here?” Quaritch goes to his son’s room only to find it empty. He’s not here. With a defeated sigh Quaritch collapses onto the living room couch and falls asleep.

Meanwhile Spider is back down in their prison cells to talk with the Sully kids. “How’s your head,” Kiri asks.

Spider is surprised by the caring question but he plays it off with a shrug, “it’s fine. Dad didn’t hit me that hard.”

“Does your dad hit you often?”

“What? No! He’s never hit me before!”

Lo’ak snorts a laugh, “I don’t believe that.”

Spider feels his anger start to mount, “my dad is a good person….”

That makes Lo’ak howl with laughter, “your dad is a genocidal monster.”

“That’s not true! He’s just trying to save his dying planet. It’s the R.D.A! They want to strip Pandora of all its resources until it’s just as dead as Earth!”

Lo’ak scoffs, “what are you even doing here sky boy? Because you're doing a real shit job of trying to be good cop.”

Spider bristles, “I am not a sky person. I was born on Pandora. It is just as much my home as yours.”

Lo’ak rolls his eyes. Kiri however is moved, “you want to protect Pandora.”

“Yeah. Yeah I do.”

“You're on the wrong side for that,” says Lo’ak.

Spider takes a deep breath before admitting, “I know. I believe in the goodness of my people. In my dad and all the soldiers your side has fought against. I want to protect them. To help build a better future for all of us. That can’t happen under the R.D.A. So I want to take them down.”

Kiri grins, “and how do you plan to do that?”

After a conversation with the Sully kids, Spider heads home, anxiety tearing up his insides. When he quietly slips inside he’s surprised to find his dad snoring on the couch. He approaches, just taking him in. His breath smells of whiskey. And he looks old. He’s always been old to Spider but this is different. Now he looks absolutely haggard. Spider sighs sadly, holding this moment for a while. Finally he makes himself move, draping a blanket over his dad before going to his room.

When Quaritch wakes he rubs at his bleary eyes, clutching his blanket close. It’s three in the morning but that’s fine by him. He can get a jump on work for the day. Maybe even get home early to spend some time with his son. He quickly gets himself ready. Before leaving he sneaks into Spider’s room. He smiles lovingly at his peacefully sleeping boy. He smooths his messy hair from his face then carefully kisses his temple. Gently he traces circles on Spider’s cheek. A bad feeling is brewing in his gut but he attributes it to his hangover. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I’m gonna make it up to you. I promise.”

Spider wakes up a few hours later. By this point his dad is in his avatar out on the battlefield. He wants to take his time going about his morning. Savor the last few hours in his home. But he knows he can’t. He has to move fast.

He goes into his dad’s office, a flash drive in hand. As quickly as he can he downloads every scrap of info on his computer. Then he leaves. It’s incredibly hard forcing himself out the door. All he has with him is his backpack stuffed with a few sets of clothes, his toothbrush and a picture of him and his dad.

As luck would have it a massive battle starts up right outside the base, drawing away every soldier. Must be Sully coming to save his kids. Spider needed to move fast to reduce the number of casualties. “You don’t have to go with us,” Lo’ak says as they move through the halls, Spider being careful to avoid the cameras, “you can show us the door, give us that flash drive and stay with your people.”

“I could. But I won’t.” Despite his words, Spider still has to steal his nerves when they get to the airlock. The Sully kids rush out but Spider hesitates in the doorway. Lo’ak is already rushing off with Tuk. Kiri turns back for Spider. She takes his hand. “I know this is hard for you. Giving up everything.” Spider nods, tears pricking his eyes. Kiri squeezes his hand, “it’s not forever. You're going to come back here. And hopefully when you do Na’vi and humans can live together in peace.”

Spider silently agrees. He looks back at his home one last time. Bye dad. Together with Kiri he rushes off into the forest.

Quaritch is shocked when the battle just ends, the Na’vi quickly retreating. He takes his time helping with clean up, assessing their losses. It’s late when he finally drags his exhausted body home. “Miles. I hope y’a picked up dinner for both of us in the mess hall ‘cause I feel about ready to drop. That was a mighty hard fight today. I’ve got no idea why Sully retreated but I’ll take it.” Everything is quiet. Too quiet. “Miles?” He finds his son isn’t there. Where does that boy keep going? He goes to his office to look over the security cameras to search for Spider. He scans them all for nearly two hours, his worry building the longer he looks. He decides to go back to the morning. He sees Spider leave their apartment. Follows him down the halls until he disappears from the camera's view. His breath stops when he sees flashes of blue ducking around corners, the Na’vi kids failing to duck enough to avoid the cameras. He briefly sees Spider at an airlock before the camera line is cut.

Quaritch’s hands start to shake. He’s so shocked he can’t think. He’s going through the stages of grief all at once and it’s overwhelming. He doesn’t even register slipping out of his chair, sinking to his knees on the floor. He’s gone. His heart feels like it’s being ripped out. He ran away. He can’t breathe. He betrayed me.

#spider socorro #miles spider socorro #miles quaritch #colonel miles quaritch #avatar fanfiction #my fanfic #Quaritch wins au

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soon-palestine · 11 months ago

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Tim Walz is a regular speaker at the Minnesota Israel lobby where he said anyone who refuses to recognize the genocidal Israeli rape-torture entity is an "anti-Semite", just recently said he fully stands behind Israel's rape and genocide of Palestinians, and wants the Zionist lobby to write the curriculum on Israel and Palestine to erase Palestinians from existence. He literally wants to indoctrinate and brainwash children in school into Zionism and anti-Palestinian genocidal racism. He said that explicitly. He wants to teach kids to hate Palestinians and support their genocide. That is fucking insane. This guy is a fucking deranged freak. And they're memeing him into an epic based radical.

Tim Walz is a fanatical deranged fully owned Israel lobby plaything, exactly like Kamala Harris, and Shapiro, and all the other Democrats. There is no difference in policy that is going happen with these fucking freaks in charge. They're identical to Genocide Joe. Anyone who says otherwise with bullshit coconut memes is lying to you.

They are liars, intentionally lying to you, and pretending like there will be any difference. There will be no difference. Both will keep supporting the genocide of Palestinians because they're owned by the Israel lobby like John Mearsheimer just recently reiterated. As he says, without the US, Israel is nothing. It is beset with crises and on the verge of collapse, but the US keeps bailing it out with endless weapons, funding, and their own military moving in to protect this rape-torture death-cult masquerading as a society.

They will allow Israel to do whatever it wants, because it is Israel Uber Alles for these genocidal Zionist scum.

The only thing that has a possibility of changing it is when Palestinians, Arab and Muslim Americans and all those who oppose the genocide in states like Michigan say explicitly that they will not vote for Genocidal Zionist Queen Kamala Harris and Tim Walz unless they right now, at this very moment, make a policy change. Not bullshit abstract rhetoric and promises, right now. Now.

Don't buy the bullshit about "well she's just VP now, she has no power but she and Walz get in they will suddenly become epic and based and stop the genocide, just vote for them!" She is the head of the Democratic Party as the nominee she can force Genocide Joe to take a position if she wants to rescue her Presidential campaign and announce her own explicit policy of stopping funding, arms and diplomatic and military protection to the Israeli rape-cult. If she chooses not to, it means she is fine with losing and sticking with the Israel lobby.

I want you to reflect on just how unbelievably deranged the Tim Walz position of "we need to change the curriculum to brainwash our children into supporting Zionist genocide of evil Palestinian sub-human barbarians" is. His main selling point is "I was a high school teacher!", and he's endorsing pushing genocidal propaganda onto children to get them to support genocide. Holy shit. This by itself is disqualifying. Just change the context. Imagine he said: "All these people who oppose the Russian war on Ukraine, they're all brainwashed by TikTok and Twitter. We need to change the curriculum and you, the Russia lobby in the US, will have to change it for us, so we can brainwash our kids into supporting the war on Ukraine." Or even more absurd because it's difficult to even imagine it: Say he said it about Israel. Reverse the order: "All these people supporting the genocide of Palestinians are doing it based on propaganda from the Israel lobby and Zionists. We need to change the curriculum in schools to ensure that our children will learn the true history of the Nakba and the genocide and rape and massacre of Palestinians by Zionists and oppose it." He would not only not be VP, he would not be a dog-catcher in Minnesota, even though this is actually true. This curriculum would actually be based in actual history and not deranged Zionist propaganda. But he said it about Palestinians. He said he wants the genocidal Zionist Israel lobby in his state and every other state and country on earth to determine the curriculum of what children are forced to learn. Because his policy is not state-limited, he's expressing a universal view there about what he believes is best to teach all children everywhere. Tim Walz wants every US state and country on earth to let genocidal Zionists write their high school curriculum such that the rape and genocide of Palestinians is made justifiable by Israeli propaganda about how pristine Saintly white European Zionist Jews came to an empty desert land and made it bloom and then those fake Arabs made up their Palestinian identity to kill them because they're by their nature evil sub-human monsters. That's the Israeli Zionist narrative that Tim Walz wants every child on earth to be brainwashed into so that TikTok and Twitter posts of Israel beheading, maiming, massacring and raping Palestinian babies, children, boys, girls, women and men will be acceptable to them. They'll see it and go: "They deserve it, my high school teacher taught me they're evil barbarian terrorists." Tim Walz wants to dehumanize Palestinians through mass universal brainwashing of children so that their rape and genocide is made justifiable to them. This is utter madness. This guy is a fucking deranged and depraved monstrous freak. Holy shit.

#palestine #gaza #free palestine #kamala harris #tim walz #us elections

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sillygoofyqueer · 2 months ago

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Plz i beg not humbly this time more mad scientist wei wuxian i am in love with this au

I actually only respect people who humble themselves in my temples because I have no respect for those who know that they cannot do more than beg for me to look upon them and deign to hand them what they desire. However, I didn't post yesterday because I spent the whole day celebrating my bestie booboo bear's eve of birth (happy birthday @parkercore-69 you're a massive loser) so you get a free pass. Wei Wuxian is back in the Wens' grasp, Wen Qing is scolding him for being a fucking dumbass and Wen Chao is in trouble. His stupid incompetence led to Wei Wuxian - their greatest weapon against the other clans, their ingenious little puppet to make dance - being trapped with a fucking Lan for an extended period of time ("how long?" shhhssshhhhh), and almost died in the process! Luckily, he doesn't seem like he's had any mindblowing realisations that could imply that their conditioning has been fucked up by Lan Whatshisface, but Wen Chao is still in a lot of trouble because of it. Wang Lingjiao is in trouble as well for injuring the scientist, and. Uh. Let's just say that Wen Ruohan is a lot less lenient with his son's mistress (a servant) than his son. It is very safe to say that she is not going to Lotus Pier any time soon. Or at all. She's- she's dead.

Wen Chao is obviously not pleased that his favourite mistress is dead, and so his opinion on Wei Wuxian starts to change. After all, she wouldn't be dead if Wei Wuxian hadn't been injured by her, and he wouldn't have been injured by her if he hadn't jumped in front of the branding iron meant for that Jin girl of all people. So, it's Wei Wuxian's fault, and therefore he sucks. PLUS, he completely stole Wen Chao's kill and he can't even claim that he killed it because everyone loves Wei Wuxian and is so impressed by what he managed to accomplish totally by himself and not at all with help from anyone. This all coalesces in the decision that Wei Wuxian actually sucks and he hates him and he's praying for an experiment to kill him or something. Wei Wuxian does not care about this a singular bit even when he gets out of Wen Qing's grasp (even though he is NOT ready).

There is a big elephant in the room, however, and that is what the fuck do they do with the Nie heir that passed out before the excursion. They've been keeping the guy in his guest quarters at the wherever it was they held the indoctrination but like. What the fuck do they do with him. Wen Chao and Wen Xu are obviously like "oh em gee just kill him," Wen Xu mainly because he wants to be able to parade the dead body around to Nie Mingjue because I almost just wrote 'lovers to enemies' and I really have to question myself when these things happen so we're going to move along rather swiftly. Of course, instead of doing something so simple, Wen Ruohan is like "well our scientist is always in need of...volunteers." So Wen Zhuliu - who I've decided has been taken away from Wen Chao as a punishment; "you almost kill our scientist, you get your bodyguard taken away!" - goes and grabs Nie Huaisang to go into the experimenting room with only Wei Wuxian because Xue Yang is mocking Wen Chao.

Nie Huaisang knows that anyone who goes into Wei Wuxian's experimenting rooms do not come back out, so he is like really freaking out. He's expecting blood and organs and dead bodies and vessels of resentful energy, and there is all that and more, but there's also just Wei Wuxian who looks half delirious with fever and too focused on learning the dizi to look over at him when he's shoved into the room. Nie Huaisang is standing stock still and trying not to be looked at but also he can't just sit by and listen to these first attempts at flute playing with his delicate hearing that urges him to school the man who is probably going to kill him. He hesitantly tells the madman that he's holding the flute wrong for starters, and the next thing he knows he's teaching his executor the beginner's guide to learning such an instrument.

Wei Wuxian has been told that Nie Huaisang volunteered for this experimenting but it's very blatantly obvious from everything he knows about this man (and that's very little all things considered) that he did not volunteer for this. This, paired with what Lan Wangji was telling him in The Cave, is beginning to make him feel very suspicious (and a little disillusioned) of what the Wen have been teaching him through the years. Like, Nie Huaisang is definitely not a burly masculine man who forgets that women exist but he seems to be completely chill and comfortable within himself despite this. He's got the nice robes, the fans, the hair - he's treated well. He has not volunteered himself to be experimented upon. If he hasn't volunteered, then how many of the others hadn't volunteered? How much innocent blood rests upon his hands?

It's this strange lapse in assurance of his place in life mixed with the aggressive fever that in all honesty he should be in bed dealing with that leads him to turn to Nie Huaisang and be like "my doctor told Wen-zongzhu that I shouldn't be out of bed because I am extremely weak and delirious. It would sure be a shame if while my back is turned you happened to grab a blunt object and knock me out, then go through the next door to my other room and escape through the secret passage behind my bed that Xue Yang doesn't think I know about." Then he just gives the other boy a very expectant look as he grabs a thick book from a nearby pile and places it on the desk next to him before slowly turning around and continuing to try and play his dizi. Nie Huaisang is like "what the fuck is going on" but also does not question it and takes his chance to do as Wei Wuxian instructed to get out.

Wen Zhuliu is of course the one who finds Wei Wuxian because it goes strangely silent inside his rooms and the man, who is standing guard, gets suspicious and goes in to check on the situation. Wen Ruohan is fucking furious when he's told about what happened, but also Wen Qing did warn him...that doesn't mean he can't take some action, just in case this wasn't an accident. He's suspicious of the boy, who could just be acting delirious (he really isn't. He's watching the moon dance as we speak). So, he's like "well, you are ill and we should have listened to Wen Qing, but you did still let Nie Huaisang get away, and then talk about to me when I talked to you about it" (Wei Wuxian asked why this was a big deal if Nie Huaisang was a willing volunteer). It's safe to say that Wei Wuxian's back does meet a whip. Wen Qing is like "you shouldn't be doing this to him when he's got such a fever!!" and Wen Ruohan is obviously like "I don't care" and does it anyway.

Wei Ying is getting increasingly suspicious and worried about the implications of this.

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lonestardust · 2 months ago

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Do you see racist things? If you ever feel like speaking out I would love a chance to make sure I'm not accidentally doing or agreeing with anything harmful.

i really appreciate your kindness anon and i know your intentions are good but if you want, bear with me this long answer because this is exactly my issue; people not realizing there is a wrong foundation dominating these kinds of online spaces we're on. people falling for anything as long as it has a nice sounding veneer that softens the fallacy of it. and this is not (just) about fandom. people need to start treating political education and being principled as a fundamental duty we're fully accountable for and not just something we just want to make sure we're not getting wrong.

it's a labour that requires sacrifice of time and effort on daily basis. it's our responsibility to study, to understand the structures of oppression, to be able to point out all the contradictory positions people take and especially from lazy audience who just endorse anything by clicking a 'share' button.

Don't wait for someone to speak out or wait until someone tells you what has been harming them for too long. Acts that perpetuate oppression don't happen inside our bodies and it's only me who can tell that my stomach is hurting, the symptoms and patterns of harmful positions and acts are out there all the time they just fly under the radar for those who don't do the work to see them as a systematic behaviour, in the wider scope, that's how the privileged, the protected and the politically illiterate/indoctrinated maintain the status quo; by leaving everything on the back of the struggling people to fix, without reaching the stage of maturity of being finally capable of understanding and combating those tools of imperialism on their own (choice of words, language, ideologies, actions, online behaviour etc), people are just too lazy to lead with correct principles that's my issue. liberalism just never graduates from that school, it retreats back to individualism right after telling you its willing to care about the collective in an actual effective way. and during that period it just keeps on inflicting piles of harm for us, the principled, to undo and label as ideological hazard.

I'm just so tired.. I've seen so much betrayal and sustained so many moral injuries from so called communities on here (lgbt circles, fandoms, people with their nice sounding liberal zionist shit and harmful normalization positions on the Palestinian struggle and the current ongoing Genocide etc etc) that pinpointing individual incidents feels in vain.

the term 'community' has been reduced to some depoliticised liberal abstraction where individuals conflate indulging in sexual consumerism and fun activities with collective work. and it points to a larger contradiction where selfish pursuits are masked as liberating and empowering (people who say shit like joy is resistance from the comfort of their couch. i see you), at the expense of emergency mobilisation, investing labour in political education and cultivating real connections based off shared values and struggles. especially now... just the levels of self gratification on here.. the people who treat politics/people's lives as an secondary backdrop to their blogs to show off moral integrity between their usual content. the romanticising of colonial violence or the total negligence of it, the reduction of the global south struggles to english ready made appealing content. all the selective celebrity culture garbage, etc.

I don't speak out here because for most people, politics is about appearing radical online from time to time and not about being able to defend a position with conviction and sacrifice a lot for it.

and because academics, western degree holders, big blogs (often run by a white person), the english-speaking diaspora voices, are more preferred, promoted and listened to

because articulation in english, layered with academic jargon, is constantly mistaken for sound politics.

I don't speak here because myopic victim narratives are centered over structural critique.

because identity wins over principled politics - every single time.

and I'm not interesting in pandering in front of a people here who selfishly give all their time to hobbies and self indulgence and cause harm by endorsing and agreeing on things they think they comprehend from the moral perspective. they don't listen let alone put labour into being responsible individuals. idk that's why i said before i feel like a hypocrite for being here in the first place. I have my other online circles where i find the sound political ground i seek so here I just try to stick to fandom content and nothing more, i just can't help sometimes the way i get angry at the things i see, but again, that's on me for choosing a space where performativity dominates, I'm responsible for that I'm very aware.

Apologies for the long reply Xx

#asks

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months ago

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In response to this edict from the Trump administration giving every school district only 10 days to respond, one brave district superintendent wrote this. (Name was withheld for obvious reasons..)

Still Not Signing: A Superintendent's Response to the Department of Education's Anti-DEI Ultimatum

The federal government gave us ten days to sign away our values. Here’s our answer.

April 8, 2025

To Whom It May (Unfortunately) Concern at the U.S. Department of Education:

Thank you for your April 3 memorandum, which I read several times — not because it was legally persuasive, but because I kept checking to see if it was satire. Alas, it appears you are serious.

You’ve asked me, as superintendent of a public school district, to sign a "certification" declaring that we are not violating federal civil rights law — by, apparently, acknowledging that civil rights issues still exist. You cite Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, then proceed to argue that offering targeted support to historically marginalized students is somehow discriminatory.

That’s not just legally incoherent — it’s a philosophical Möbius strip of bad faith.

Let me see if I understand your logic:

If we acknowledge racial disparities, that’s racism.

If we help English learners catch up, that’s favoritism.

If we give a disabled child a reading aide, we’re denying someone else the chance to struggle equally.

And if we train teachers to understand bias, we’re indoctrinating them — but if we train them to ignore it, we’re “restoring neutrality”?

How convenient that your sudden concern for “equal treatment” seems to apply only when it’s used to silence conversations about race, identity, or inequality.

Let’s talk about our English learners. Would you like us to stop offering translation services during parent-teacher conferences? Should we cancel bilingual support staff to avoid the appearance of “special treatment”? Or would you prefer we just teach all content in English and hope for the best, since acknowledging linguistic barriers now counts as discrimination?

And while we’re at it — what’s your official stance on IEPs? Because last I checked, individualized education plans intentionally give students with disabilities extra support. Should we start removing accommodations to avoid offending the able-bodied majority? Maybe cancel occupational therapy altogether so no one feels left out?

If a student with a learning disability receives extended time on a test, should we now give everyone extended time, even if they don’t need it? Just to keep the playing field sufficiently flat and unthinking?

Your letter paints equity as a threat. But equity is not the threat. It’s the antidote to decades of failure. Equity is what ensures all students have a fair shot. Equity is what makes it possible for a child with a speech impediment to present at the science fair. It’s what helps the nonverbal kindergartner use an AAC device. It’s what gets the newcomer from Ukraine the ESL support she needs without being left behind.

And let’s not skip past the most insulting part of your directive — the ten-day deadline. A national directive sent to thousands of districts with the subtlety of a ransom note, demanding signatures within a week and a half or else you’ll cut funding that supports... wait for it... low-income students, disabled students, and English learners.

Brilliant. Just brilliant. A moral victory for bullies and bureaucrats everywhere.

So no, we will not be signing your “certification.”

We are not interested in joining your theater of compliance.

We are not interested in gutting equity programs that serve actual children in exchange for your political approval.

We are not interested in abandoning our legal, ethical, and educational responsibilities to satisfy your fear of facts.

We are interested in teaching the truth.

We are interested in honoring our students’ identities.

We are interested in building a school system where no child is invisible, and no teacher is punished for caring too much.

And yes — we are prepared to fight this. In the courts. In the press. In the community. In Congress, if need be.

Because this district will not be remembered as the one that folded under pressure.

We will be remembered as the one that stood its ground — not for politics, but for kids.

Sincerely,

District Superintendent

Still Teaching. Still Caring. Still Not Signing.

#NPR #resist #still not signing #no kings #hands off

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nthewriter · 4 months ago

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(This gif cracks me up)

Being Simon's long lost biological child

part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 (you are here)

"You're heartless." Johnny spat, venom in his voice, arms crossed over his chest as he leant against the doorway. "I thought you were better than that, honestly."

Simon stayed quiet, sitting on their bed. He kept his eyes downcast to his hands. There was a storm of turmoil inside of him. In a way, he blamed himself for what had happened to his child. The indoctrination during high school, the fact that they viewed Makarov as a martyr, and how could he forget the way they glared at him, spitting, "You will never be my father. Makarov is more my father than you!". That shit hurt.

His hands were wet. Without realising, tears had been rolling down his cheeks. He tried to make it stop, but he couldn't. Simon felt the bed dip under the way of Johnny as the other man gathered him in his arms, a reassuring kiss on his forehead.

"It's okay -"

"No, it's not, Johnny!" Simon cried out in anguish. "It's all my fault, I should have- I should have stayed more, I should have recognised the child as my own, Elsie talked to me about it and I said no because I am a dumb fucking man who only cares about himself."

"That's not true, Simon." Johnny tried to comfort him.

But Simon just whimpered and then broke free from the embrace. Truthfully, he had always felt regret toward his relationship with Elsie and his child.

Moving toward his closet, he opened it, reaching for a hidden box. It was an old shoe box worn over, but Simon had put tape all over it. He wasn't huge on keeping things, but he had taken care of this shoebox as if it were the most preciois thing in the world. Johnny didn't say anything, just threw it a curious glance.

"So her name was Elsie." He finally whispered.

"Elsie MacMillan." Simon nodded as he brought the box over to Johnny, and he opened it.

Johnny's eyes widened at the sight. There were some pictures, one of a younger Simon holding a baby. Another one of a woman with the same hair and eye colour as Simon's kid, giving the child a bath with a huge smile on her face. There were also some mementoes.

"She wanted to be a lawyer. She said I didn't have to stick around, but I felt bad at first." Simon told him as he showed him her picture. "She was a student when she had (Y/N), so I tried to help. I really tried. But I thought fatherhood wasn't for me."

Johnny nodded absently, looking through the pictures. The woman was Scottish, as he had guessed with her name. He couldn't but smirk. So Simon had a type after all.

"It wasn’t romantic." He coughed when he saw Soap's smirk. "We weren't a couple or anything."

"But you tried. That's all that matters." Johnny told him. "But you also fucked up."

"How... how do I fix this?"

"Sarah said the therapy was going well, that they were seeing cracks into the ideology the Konni gave them. Maybe you two should spend time together. A child-dad moment. That won't fix everything, but that is a good start."

"Where would I be without you, Johnny?" Simon chuckled before nuzzling his companion's neck, planting a kiss there.

"Dead in a coffin."

"Uh. True." Simon's eyes wandered to the other pictures. There was one where Elsie had her diploma, holding the child with a huge smile on her face. "She was so young. She didn't deserve that."

“It's a pretty picture.” Johnny spoke again in a murmur. “There's still some places on the wall you know? We could hang those next to our wedding's pictures and the vacation ones.” He offered. “It would do the kid some good. You can't erase that part of your life Simon. Elsie needs to be remembered in some way or another.”

Simon let Johnny gather some pictures from the box before walking to a chest of drawers, pulling out frames and starting his work delicately with the pictures. He knew his husband was right: he couldn't run from his past.

#cod #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #johnny soap mactavish #cod x reader #ghoap #platonic #x gender neutral reader #cod platonic #cod x you #ghost x soap #soap x ghost #simon riley x john mactavish

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audhdnight · 2 years ago

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OH MY FUCKING GOD

Seriously this has opened my eyes to something that I honestly feel like I already suspected because there is SUCH an emphasis on “teaching them while they’re young” and not turning them out into the world until they are “past the point of no return” like this is why Christian fundamentalists hate college so much, because at that age people are still capable of reversing the damage (at least, a hell of a lot easier then they are at say, fifty). The prefrontal cortex doesn’t finish developing until around 25, so if an indoctrinated teenager goes to college at 18 and begins to see reality, they are much more likely to leave the church than someone who is sheltered from the world until they’re 30.

(Side rant: This is also why it’s so frustrating to talk to Christian adults who seem to be genuinely incapable of thinking logically. It explains a phenomenon that I noticed a long time ago: when speaking to relatives, I attempted to show them that they didn’t actually agree with, let’s say for the sake of the example, capitalism. I would bring up all their complaints with our current system and demonstrate how each one is a facet of capitalism. I was able to get them to agree to each individual point, but when I tried to put them all together as a whole, the person (usually my grandpa) would revert back to “okay the system is flawed but it still works” even though we just spent an hour discussing how it doesn’t work, actually. They are incapable of putting multiple pieces together and viewing them as one whole.)

I remember so clearly growing up the sermons on Proverbs 22:6 (Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it) and the pastors stirring up panic about public school and colleges stealing our children’s faith and poisoning their minds. I remember how afterwards all the parents exclaimed how their children would never go to college, that this is why they homeschooled, that this was yet another reason why young men should go straight into the work force and young women should immediately get married and become baby making machines. I vividly remember the panic over statistics of how many people leave the faith in college and how it was so much higher than the numbers of essentially any other group.

Fundamentalists worst fear is reality. They do not want their children to have any exposure to any rhetoric besides their own, unless it is presented disingenuously by apologetics teachers. Everything is filtered and twisted and watered down to keep us “safe” from reality.

This is literally how cults operate. Fundamental Christian evangelicalism IS A CULT

This is also why they target vulnerable groups, because like the OP mentions, people who have damage to their prefrontal cortex are much more likely to fall for indoctrination. This is why you see Christian “outreach groups” in homeless shelters and rehabilitation programs and hospitals. This is targeted and it is malicious. Even the “good Christians” who really do want to actually help people are upholding this system that actively harms vulnerable groups.

#religious trauma #brain damage #tw religion #religious deconstruction #tw christianity #exvangelical

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guitarhappyman · 3 months ago

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So I get into it with a friend on another platform who keeps spewing the same propaganda as if anyone who voted for Trump lost their minds and rely on him like God to make our lives better. He also accused me of being willing to sidestep democracy to get the things I want.

I may have lost a friend, because my correction was as follows:

“You folks and your propaganda are nauseating. You think it’s about making my life better? It’s all about me?

You know what I wanted out of Trump?

The same damn thing I wanted out of Obama, Biden, Bush, Big Bush and and Clinton.

Those those things are the following

- Transparency

- A secure border

- Honesty

- Common sense leadership

- Doing exactly what you campaigned on

- A strong military

- An end to political indoctrination in our schools

- Respect for personal freedom

- And someone who would think about America first before giving everything to the world while his own people suffer.

Not one of them came through. Each one of them failed. Most didn’t even try. They just faked it well enough that you are still pining for their pipe dream. But guess who did come through? As flawed as he is as a person, it was freaking Trump. A man I was never a fan of personally but respect because he does the hell what he says he’s going to do or tries.

That’s what I voted for. Not some polished fake politician who pretends to be an angel but is doing the devils work as we are distracted by their platitudes and symbolic gestures that get us absolutely no where.

No one is side stepping democracy, genius. By the way, we don’t live in a democracy. We live in a constitutional republic.

But let’s go with your twisted idea of democracy.

Was it democracy when Biden coerced Big Tech into silencing millions of Americans for their opinions and thoughts?

Was it democracy when that old man lied to you and told you he didn’t know about his sons dealings and that the laptop didn’t exist? Because for many that may have changed their vote in the 2020 election if they knew then candidate Biden was compromised.

Was it democracy when he got 51 intelligence agents who we are supposed to trust, to go along with the lie and call it Russian disinformation?

Was it democracy to force people to choose between feeding their damn family and a damn shot in the arm that is causing damage to a lot of people?

Was it democracy when Biden flew in hundreds of thousands of migrants in the middle of the night without telling us and also opened the borders? Did we the American people have a say in that? No the heck we didn’t.

Was it democracy when if we question elections or vaccines that we get silenced and are forced to self sensor just to survive?

It that’s your democracy? You can keep that crap bro, respectfully.

Trump is no God or saint but it’s a damn shame it took a flawed man to do right by the American people. He’s showing you how corrupt your government truly is and I’m here for it. No regrets whatsoever.”

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wheelscomedyandmore · 4 months ago

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I may have lost a friend, because my correction was as follows:

“You folks and your propaganda are nauseating. You think it’s about making my life better? It’s all about me?

You know what I wanted out of Trump?

The same damn thing I wanted out of Obama, Biden, Bush, Big Bush and and Clinton.

Those those things are the following

- Transparency

- A secure border

- Honesty

- Common sense leadership

- Doing exactly what you campaigned on

- A strong military

- An end to political indoctrination in our schools

- Respect for personal freedom

- And someone who would think about America first before giving everything to the world while his own people suffer.

No one is side stepping democracy, genius. By the way, we don’t live in a democracy. We live in a constitutional republic.

But let’s go with your twisted idea of democracy.

Was it democracy when Biden coerced Big Tech into silencing millions of Americans for their opinions and thoughts?

Was it democracy when he got 51 intelligence agents who we are supposed to trust, to go along with the lie and call it Russian disinformation?

Was it democracy to force people to choose between feeding their damn family and a damn shot in the arm that is causing damage to a lot of people?

Was it democracy when if we question elections or vaccines that we get silenced and are forced to self sensor just to survive?

It that’s your democracy? You can keep that crap bro, respectfully.

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anonallalong · 2 months ago

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Domestic?!? Life

Saturday school teacher (Marjorie) x Gideon Gemstone

Short blurb/ one shot??

Set around a year after lessons still to learn fic And in show time between 2&3

Gideon gets fully indoctrinated into the churches behind the scenes…but with everything going for him will it do more damage than good?

It had been around a year since Gideon decided to really stay home to rejoin the church, and if he was completely honest, it was the best decision he ever made. He had his family back. Being with his mama, playing video games with his brothers, and working to rebound with his father. He was helping the church get more online coverage, helping record sermons, and doing some light stunt work here and there.Family vacations, church lunch, but most of all, his Marjorie… God bless that beautiful Thursday. After their first date, she really was the one everything was better when she was there and the way she meshed with the family…. She was destined for him. Hell Even sitting in this not-so-official emergency church meeting, he couldn’t help but feel like he was in the right place. Looking around the room as everyone settled in, his father to the left of him with all of his loyal followers. goons? disciples? close by. Martin was seated on the other side of Gideon with Eli at the center of the table a few nondescript men scattered around. Not really sure what the meaning was for Gideon had agreed to come when Jesse drove by this morning, saying he should come see his old man in action and now here they were. Eli Standing to address them.

“All right, men, you all know why we’re here. We can’t have any more close calls after that big-shot reporter came to town and that clown show with the Lissons. We can’t have a close like that again. Small scandals nd minor beef that’s what we handle. It’s time to tighten up and close ranks… Jesse, what’s the news?”

“Well, Daddy, we can confirm. Thanks to my perfect leadership and planning skills. The lessons are taken care of.” Jesse confirmed with the subtlety of a 3-year-old who had just defied their parents.

Eli gave a curt nod of approval. “Good, good… Well, Martin said he”

“Yeah, that they won’t get us. We took care of them, Daddy Boy. Well, they… they are out of our lives for good on account that we did kill them. No one messes with the Gemstones. Wanna try? We will send you straight to the king.”

He let out a light chuckle, and his crew began nodding and giving Jesse thumbs-ups. Eli placed his head in his hands and just sighed. But Gideon, he began to bounce his leg and look around the road nervously. He didn’t fully know what they had done. Of course he had heard his dad say they had to take care of things after what happened at Zions Landing. And he wanted the family to be safe. He wasn’t so innocent before and this time it was to protect the family so naturally they had to take action into their own hands, but this is his first time seeing this side of everything from the churches point of view. He dealt with that motorcycle gang but he didn’t really know how serious it all was.

“Jesus, Jesse, please, it isn’t something to repeat. We did what we needed to do. That was pure self-defense. Now, quit. It's bad enough you got us tangled up with them in the first place if you had just listened to me.” Shaking his head as he tried to relax, he turned to Martin. “How’s the cleanup going? Anything to report?”

“Very good, sir. The cover-up went smoothly. The Lissons had many scandals, and we were able to link them to Thaniel Block. However, we are seeing a bit of action from a few other skeletons in their closet. We have a team on it.”

The men continued to share and set up plans to keep the behind-the-scenes running as smoothly as they needed so the church wasn’t affected. Gideon looked around a bit puzzled at how calmly everyone was, with being the newest addition to the group, he was the most uneasy as well. Cringing hearing all the things that had happened just in the past year, his grandfather getting shot someone shooting at his parents Car, the reporter it was almost to much. He was convinced his scheme was the first time something like this happened but it clearly wasn’t and it wasn’t going to be the last. Conversation continuing over the next two hour with thorough reports, so many stupid ideas (most of them coming from his father and friends) finally a solution, a little bit of actual church talk, and then the meeting was over. Jesse watched Gideon, and on the way back he could tell his son was uneasy the way he was fidgeting. He could practically smell the overthinking on him. He didn’t mean for him to affect it like this. He figured seeing what happened on the beach and knowing about the motorcycle gang, he should be lit and fully, especially with how serious his relationship with getting.

“Damn, boy, you’re about to rub those seats raw. I just got them refinished.”

“Sorry, Pop. That was a lot to handle. I didn’t know how deep this all was. God.”

“We are an empire, son, warriors of the Lord. People will always try to get us; everyone eventually plots against the king.”

“Yeah, but who else could want to mess with us? You all took care of everything like that was the last of what you had to do.”

“From those two fuckfaces, hell yeah, we blew those fuckers straight to the sky. They are done, though, but all those skeletons Martin was talking about. I don’t know shit about that. Not yet i got my men on it”

Gideon nervously scratched the back of his neck, playing with his hands

“what what do you mean like how long dose this play out ya know”

he says mind wandering to the life he had picture for himself, knowing he’ll have to make subtle adjustments

“A little inside info Son, at the meeting, your granddaddy likes to downplay it, but I saw at least 10 new guards on each property, and it looks like we’re getting a new security system, but you have to calm the fuck down. We’re always fine. We are God‘s number one family! Have you ever seen this shit before? No, but it’s been happening. Your whole life, shit like this happens. Every few months scandal here crook there. Your old man got that shit in the bag. The only reason we’re including you this time is because you got that girl, and if you’re going to be working with the church, you should know everything.”

Right, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Sure

Despite the end of the Gideon‘s mind was still racing, he knew his father said was probably right, but he just couldn’t relax I mean he had just started getting comfortable again and if this was happening behind the scenes, then was everything that he thought he was building a lie? Was this just what came with a territory. He needed to get home and be with Marjorie (who may or may not be secretly living there with him) she would make him feel better…..he knew he should have listened to her when she asked him to stay home with her and do housework.. smiling as they turned into the driveway of granddaddy, old war place, he practically jumped out of the car and ran to the front door. Jesse watched him and shook his head slightly and then drove off.

“Baby, I’m home ……”

Gideon exclaimed as he entered the house, but there was no reply. He couldn’t hear any music playing in the background, no light talking or even movement. He knew it was irrational, but he began to panic. I mean, she always had something playing. was always moving around the house. Where was she? The longer she didn’t respond the more he panicked . What if that meeting wasn’t really a meeting at all what if that meeting was the people plotting against them? Getting them all out of the house and then kidnapping everyone who was left? Walking into the kitchen, eyes widen a he saw a couple towels with red stains all over them, and noticed that a knife was missing from the stand. He couldn’t control anymore. He began frantically racing through everyone in the house, calling for her….upstairs, downstairs, in the garage. he slammed into the wall about 10 times and tripped on the same carpet as he raced around finally running into the backyard almost crashing into a fountain as he continued his search.

“GIDEON, BE CAREFUL……i love that fountain.”

Marjorie exclaimed from her spot in the hammock tied up between two shady trees. He turned to the sound of her voice and almost fell to the floor. Finally relaxing, knowing she was safe

“Baby, what happened?… Why are you panicking?” she asked, concerned.

“Why didn’t you answer me?” He panted out

“Oh, I’m sorry, my love, were you calling me?” She asked, looking over to her phone.

“No I was screaming your name running through the house” he says still coming down from the panicked situation

“Uhh, well, I wasn’t expecting you to do that, so I had my headphones on,” she says, with a crooked smile and one eyebrow raised. “So, baby, why were you running through the house screaming for me?”

“I thought someone had killed you or something,” he says, still slightly panicked. “At the meeting, they were saying all the stuff. I came home I couldn’t hear you, and this is when you usually have your annoyingly loud music on or do the dishes. So when the house was quiet, I panicked, and then I saw that rag with all the red stains on it, and there was a knife missing.”

“O amado,” she says, sitting up as she does a little hop out of the hammock, walking over to him and grabbing his hands. “I was cutting my fruit, and I had extra cherries, and you know I’m basically a caveman when I eat cherries. It looked like I had just eaten someone, and that was when I was using the towels; that’s all that was.” While talking, she had moved her hands to cup his face, trying to search for something in his eyes to let her know what had caused him such stress.

“Okay, okay, yeah, it’s good, it’s fine. That was dumb of me anyway. I mean, how would someone get on the compound to kill you anyway? You know”

Giving him a small smile she walked him over to a spot they could sit together. She knew how much being home and working with the church was helping him, but a part of her was always resentful of the fact that everyone would come home and seem a bit more frazzled than others. She knew there was stuff going on there had to be with the size of everything. Not to mention those random people that would show up and leave but not before a few accidents happen. She knew that he would always protect her and she didn’t really mind as long as he was safe

“Come here.”

Marjorie pulled him down onto their patio couch. He laid on top of her, resting on her chest, as she wrapped her arm around him, one hand cradling his head and the other holding his hand.

“Baby, you protect me all the time. I’m not scared to be with you because I don’t know if anything happened, you could handle it, and even try to come for you. I’d shoot them in the face.”

They lay there for a while. Gideon eventually told her the cliff notes of the meeting, not fully wanting to overwhelm her explaining how there was a dangerous side to this. Of course she already knew but it wasn’t appropriate to tell him, not now when he was worried about if it was all going to be worth it or if they should just run. She assured him that they were in the right place. And this is where they were going to stay. He knew you were right; you always were. This life is crazy and. Gonna be easy. But at least they were together.

“Ya know what”

Gideon gave a hum of acknowledgment wanting to hear what she said, but not wanting to move from his spot, on her chest

“It’s kinda sexy…..like I don’t know I feel like I’m dating a mob guy”

“Baby we are supposed to be a church family I-………wait sexy” he sits up and looks at her with a puzzle look all his face she’s such a gentle person. He forgets how much she actually likes action.

“I don’t know i just…… sometimes a girl likes adventure or the bad boy preachers son” she’s giggling, traces her fingers up his arm eventually grabbing his hand

“Well then let me tell you something baby picture this, me alone vs like 100 guys on motorcycles……. So what happened was…..”

The rest of the evening is spent out on the patio him telling her stories. Earning kisses and beautiful laughs as rewards for all this heroic duty’s. They sat there happy and safe in that moment. Getting decided that if anything would happen again it’d make for a hell of a story he could tell his angel.

#the righteous gemstones #gideon gemstone x reader #gideon gemstone #x reader #jesse gemstone #eli gemstone #romance #female reader

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