#i could think of reasons for hours i think i have explained my manifesto well enough for now

[queeraak]

i must confess that fall is the worst season in my opinion and i don't know why people like it. everything bad about the world is represented in october - november

[thetaoofzoe]

Fic: Ethan Hunt Must Die 1/1

Pairing: August Walker x YOU

Word Count: 10,420

Summary: You are a medic and a member of what’s left of  The Apostles. And it’s not rumour anymore. August Walker is definitely not dead. All you want to do is help him with his cause, kill those responsible for his grave injuries (and foiling his manifesto) and make Ethan Hunt pay. Falling in love with August Walker is just a given ;)

Rating: Mature to Explicit some Violence, sex and fluff and yearning and impetuous kisses, explosions and delicious August Walker.  And, this story is not as serious as it may appear, so have fun reading.

Note: If you have been around you’ve seen the original iteration of this story, but maybe not in its entirety. It was originally broken up into 10 parts as A Month of August Walker Challenge. Now, in all of its revamped glory is the complete story all in one place.  

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Your contact was a pleasant woman. She’d collected you from the tiny airport in Kashmir and on the way to your destination, she’d offered to buy snack food for you from a nearby shop.

‘The cabin is fully stocked,’ she reasoned pointing to the squat building by the side of the road, ‘but in case you want a Coke or something.’

You did want a Coke in fact and you took her up on the offer. Along with a few cans of cola you grabbed other items – chocolate bars, fishing tackle, and feminine hygiene products. You didn’t know how long you were going to be out there in the middle of nowhere, and you didn’t want to use up the precious bog roll when your cycle eventually came.

The woman was leaning against the side of the battered truck and smoking a cigarette when you stepped out of the shop. Eyeing your purchases, she nodded with approval.

‘Good idea,’ she said, making a vague gesture towards you with her cigarette. ‘We didn’t think about a woman’s needs during such a long excursion. Next time. There are all sorts of painkillers in the stocks though… just so you are aware.’

She put a gloved hand on her lower belly and laughed a little.

‘I know how it can get.’

You smiled, grateful to be sharing this moment with her, woman to woman, and thanked her before getting back into the truck.

‘Is there gonna be a next time?’ you asked, sweeping the seatbelt across your chest and clicking it into place.

She didn’t look at you as she started the truck and set off down the road.

‘I hope this is the last, ‘ she said finally and as it seemed like such a struggle for her to come up with an answer that she seemed satisfied with, you didn’t continue to press the matter.

Settling into the seat, you unwrapped a chocolate bar, and with three large bites, had it stuffed into your mouth. The salty chocolate and nougat were glorious and you moulded the sweet wad into the roof of your mouth so that you could savour it with slow licks.  You folded the plastic-coated wrapper into a small square and tucked it in your jacket pocket.

The woman drove along the rough frosty mountain roads as if you two were being chased. She didn’t seem at all phased with how the truck bounced and jumped dangerously close to the edge of the cliff, as if one wrong turn of the wheel wouldn’t send the two of you plunging down into the river below.

That imagery triggered sudden rage in you.

Goddamn you, Ethan Hunt, you thought.

You wanted just two minutes alone with Hunt to make him regret having ever laid eyes on August Walker. Hunt deserved nothing but a long slow torturous death.

Ever since the incident, The Apostles had been split on what to do regarding  August Walker. Should he be left out there and forgotten? Or should his remains be recovered and given a proper burial?

The thought that there was nothing left to recover prevailed until reports that August had survived the fall started trickling in. With this new knowledge, it was impossible to prevent the uprising that voted to scour the mountains to find him. This time, your only mission was to man the cabin in the event one of the search teams found him.

‘Not far to the cabin. Ayami is apart of the search team. You know her, yes?’ asked the woman.

‘Yes. I know her.’

‘Good, Ayami planned all of this, coordinated us, and was able to pinpoint a location not far from this cabin.’

Not enough planning for a menstrual cycle, you thought, petulantly.

‘It will work out,’ she continued and nodded. ‘He will be found.’

‘This is the third time someone has,’ you made inverted commas in the air with your fingers, ‘pinpointed his location, only to run into IMF lies. We are wasting precious time. August is alive and we need to find him.’

The woman drove on in silence for a moment.

‘I agree with you, yes. I agree. But what do you suggest that we do? If not this.’

You relented and sighed. You had no idea what to do other than this.

‘If I could snap my fingers…’

You clicked your fingers and she chuckled, clicking hers as well.

‘He would be safe with us,’ she finished for you.

A half hour later, she slowed and finally stopped the truck and pointed through the windscreen at what looked like a stack of fallen trees.

‘Unfortunately, my friend,’ she said. ‘There is a way to drive up to the cabin. However, it is many, many kilometres that way and petrol for me is hard to come by right. It’s easier to drop you here and you take the trail. It’s only a few hours hike.’

You grabbed your rucksack from the foot well, reached over and one-arm hugged the woman and then got out. She did a wide circle turn around and pulled the truck up to where you stood.

‘Good luck, my friend. And take care.’

‘Take care,’ you said. ‘See you soon.’

She gave you a two-fingered salute and drove away.

**

It was cold that far up in the mountains and the beginning of the trail looked desolate. Securing your rucksack on your back, you began your long trek, and the cabin was a welcome sight after hours of navigating the rocky hard terrain.  Inside was small and utilitarian, but it was more than enough for you. You didn’t bother to take off your boots before falling onto the cot and into a deep exhausted sleep.

In the morning, you took stock of your surroundings. The cabin was pretty well-appointed with a wood stove, a table with two chairs, an amazingly comfortable cot and stacks and stacks of supplies. The gold-painted metal ammo closet in the back was comforting to see and you were going to familarise yourself with its contents later. But first, breakfast.

You got up to make coffee and noticed a medium-sized cardboard box sitting on the small dining table by the stove. There was a note.

‘Your name was given to me at the last moment. Here are some things you may need.’

And it was signed, ‘Ayami’.

You slit open the box with your pocket knife and laughed when you saw the contents. Ayami had packaged not only tampons and pads but several different styles of menstrual cups for you and you felt guilty for earlier, being such a brat about the supplies you needed.

‘You planned everything, Ayami,’ you said aloud to the empty room. ‘Thank you.’

You lit the fire in the stove and put a pot on to boil some water. A noise outside pricked your ears. It sounded like the heavy motor of an ATV and out of the noise you picked out the sounds of other engines drawing closer.

Shit! you thought, rushing to the ammo closet at the back of the cabin.

Flinging open the doors, you dragged out a single barrel shotgun, loaded it, and scrambled back to the front cabin door. Peering out through the narrow window you watched as several four-wheelers and one battered Land Rover raced towards the cabin. In a cloud of kicked up dirt and dust, the Rover drove straight up to the door and to your absolute surprise, the passenger door popped open and Ayami jumped out.

You opened the cabin door and came out.

‘Good!’ she shouted over the noise of the engines. ‘You’re here. Get the first aid boxes ready, now!’

You were a medic and understood the urgency in her tone. You ran back to the cabin and were piling bandages, antiseptics, and other items on the table when three men carried in a limp body between them. Ayami strode across the room and captured you in a hug.

‘I am happy to see you,’ she gasped breathlessly and grabbed your hands. ‘We found him!’

With heart crashing against your ribs, you looked to the man being stretched on the cot as Ayami continued.

Oh God… they found him.

‘Somehow some wanderers discovered him months ago and took him in.’

She trailed off and shook her head. She still seemed to be in shock.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ you told her and squeezed her hands. ‘We’re looking after him now. Radio in for helicopter transport. It may take a few days to get someone out here.’

You cleaned your hands and went to assess the situation. August was alive and badly burned, but gladly not beyond your repair. Ayami came back into the cabin after making the call and joined you at the bed.

‘You planned all of this, Ayami,’ you said. ‘You made this happen. What’re our next step?’

Ayami put her hand on your shoulder and smiled viciously.

‘To make Ethan Hunt pay.’

**

You were wrong.

It didn’t take a few days for the helicopter to arrive. It took two weeks. Although the cabin was well stocked and had nearly everything you needed to tend to August’s wounds, it wasn’t enough.

Ayami wanted to leave and take August the long way through the mountains. They had the power to transport him over land and it was fucking stupid to leave him at the cabin to succumb to something that could be fixed. His body was fighting a raging infection and frankly, he was losing. You explained to her your reasons for why it would be tough on August to try to drive with him through such hard terrain.  He was in a fragile state and jostling him all around in an unstable car could exacerbate any internal injuries. A chopper ride would be better.

Ayami understood that, however…

‘We’ve got plenty of antibiotics,’ she said reasonably. ‘Why can’t we give him some?’

‘Because we don’t know what he has. He could have a bacterial or viral infection and just picking something to give him might do more harm than good. I don’t want to take that risk.’

It wasn’t as if you didn’t want to pump him full of all of the pills you had, just to scattershot the infection, but incorrectly dosing him, in his weakened state,   might kill him. August Walker was alive and you were going to keep him that way.

So you did your best. With Ayami’s help, you kept him clean and dry and in order to manage his temperature, iced. August, however, foiled your attempts to tend to him effectively. He was delirious and unaware of  what was happening to him. More than once you had to extract yourself from his vice-like grip as he held onto you and growled guttural threats of violence to your person. All you could do was try to soothe him and mop his brow and use the aspirin to dull his obvious pain.

**

During the wait for air transport, you stayed up some nights with August. Sometimes you just sat at his bedside and read by the light of your headlamp. Sometimes you just watched him, held his hand and stroked his hair when nightmares haunted his sleep.

He would heal pretty well, you observed, and, without too much lasting damage to his face. He was fortunate that the hot oil missed his eye, although it ruined his ear. But you knew that too could be reconstructed.

‘We’re gonna get you back on your feet, August,’ you murmured on those nights when he was at his most fitful. ‘And we’re gonna get those people who did this to you.’

Even though you weren’t sure he could even hear you speaking, you continued to encourage and comfort him.  It was the least you could do.

**

‘You met John Lark before?’ Ayami asked over breakfast one morning, using August’s real name for the first time.

‘When he was going by John Lark?’ you asked for clarification and she nodded. ‘No. Not then. He had already assumed the new identity and was in the CIA when I turned up.’

‘He was not always like this,’ she said a bit cryptically.

‘How was he?’

Interest sparked in you.

She shook her head.

‘Just different. Maybe he’ll tell you someday.’

Ayami smiled at you and you turned, alerted by the soft groan coming from the bed.

‘Oh God, he’s waking up again,’ she chuckled and then asked you, ‘Top or bottom.’

You laughed inspite of yourself and gave the choice a moment’s thought. ‘Top’ meant that you got to administer medication, clean up his face and check his bandages, while ‘bottom’ meant that you would have to wrestle with his strong flailing arms and risk getting punched in the face. Ayami looked at you expectantly and you grimaced.

‘I had top last time, so…’

She smiled and got up, patting your arm in passing. ‘Then you get top this time.’

‘Ayami, c’mon,’ you protested rising from the chair. ‘I don’t want to be unfair.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ she said lifting her arms and flexing her biceps. ‘But, I need my workout.’

**

Ayami needed to stay in Kashmir to tie up some loose ends. So, you said your farewells and parted company when the chopper transport finally arrived.

You, on the other hand, were headed to New Delhi where another contact would meet and relieve you of your August-sitting duties.

Exhausted and battered, it was just after midnight when you finally arrived at the airport.  Out through the cloudy bubble heli-window, you saw the second contact rush to the settling helicopter. You unlatched an dragged open the side door.

‘Hello!’ he shouted over the roar of the blades overhead. ‘It’s Janus. You can come with me!’

‘Where am I going?’ you shouted back, not moving from where you were sitting next to August’s prone body.

He was still blissfully unconscious and sleeping quietly.

‘There is a safehouse here. You can rest. We will transport Walker to the small plane over there and continue on to London.’

You shook your head and were able to speak normally when the blades finally shuddered to a stop.

‘I’ll go on,’ you told Janus. ‘I’ll go on, it’s ok. I’ll stay with him.’

Janus looked puzzled.

‘No, you are to go to the safe house. I am to continue on.’

You had come this far. You weren’t going to leave August, so you again declined the offer of a trade.

‘Now. Come on. I’m not going to quibble with you,’ you said, kicking open the other door so that the two men accompanying Janus could wrangle the stretcher out of the chopper.

You watched them carry August off and jumping out of the heli, you turned to Janus.

‘Be well, my friend. But I’ve got it.’

Janus shrugged a little and nodded, seeing that you weren’t going to be swayed.

‘Is it really him?’ he asked and you could hear relief seeping into his voice.

You put your arms around him in a farewell hug.

‘It is,’ you said. ‘You have Ayami to thank for that. Make sure that you do.’

You ran after the two men carrying the stretcher. The men secured the stretcher inside and turned to help you into the back of the plane. You pulled closed the small plane’s door and made sure that August was securely strapped in. It was going to be another long ride to the final safe house.

**

It was raining in London, and as the small plane approached, the cool precipitation rinsed away grey foggy clouds to reveal the golden city. Through your headset, you listened to the pilot talk to air traffic control and learned that you were headed to Blackbushe Airport.

‘How far is the safe house from the airport?’ you asked the pilot.

‘Not far. Maybe 20 kilometers. Not far.’  

You were so ready to put your feet on land that you closed your eyes and envisioned a soft bed, a hot meal, and an even hotter bath. Glancing down at the still sleeping man on the stretcher at your feet, you felt a rise of tender feelings in your heart. Not only had your team recovered August Walker, alive, but you had a personal hand in his convalescence.  Reaching down, you touched his face. He felt hot, but not as feverish as before and you were relieved. Elevated fevers for sustained periods of time were dangerous and although he wasn’t out of the woods yet, he was better. You brushed a curl of brown hair off of his forehead and smoothed the edge of your thumb across his eyebrow. Yes, he was going to heal well and regain his strength to be able to fight another day.

Blackbushe Airport was small but efficient and there was a black, solid paneled van waiting for you. You helped the men with the stretcher and once August had been secured, you pulled yourself into the offered front passenger seat.  The driver nodded to acknowledge your presence and you put on your seatbelt as the van drove off.

Someone tapping on the window jarred you from the nap you didn’t realise you had fallen into. With a wet grunt, you sat up, reflexively swiped the back of your hand across your mouth, and dried the drool which had pooled in the corner. Hand still to your mouth, you shifted to look through the window. It was the driver and he made a gesture for you to get out.

You nodded to show that you understood and he moved off. Behind you in the cargo part of the van, you could hear men talking and then sounds of strain when they lifted the stretcher. Even unconscious, August wasn’t for the weak or fainthearted. You chuckled at your own analogy, unclipped the seatbelt and opened the door. Your legs wobbled when your feet hit the ground and you pressed back against the closed door until you felt that you could walk without collapsing. It took a while for your legs to finally firm and when they did you followed the men into the medium sized country manor house.

Inside smelt of cedar and pine. Your footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor as you walked into the charming front room and looked up at all of the old portraits and paintings and decorative weapons. Twin staircases, one on each side of the front room,  dog-legged up to the next level.  You approached a tall round table with a large vase of fresh flowers and walked around it. You peeked into dark rooms and soon found yourself in an equally as charming country kitchen. There was a man in there wearing a black jumper and blue jeans, drinking from a white mug.

‘Ah!’ he said when he saw you. ‘Come in, come in. Coffee?’

Aware that you looked particularly filthy and bedraggled, compared to his crispness, you cleaned your hands on your cargo trousers and stepped into the room.

‘Yes, please.’

The man obliged, saying, ‘It’s only instant, I’m afraid.’

Instant was fine and you didn’t protest when he handed you a cup.

‘And it’s terrible,’ he added with a laugh. ‘I’ve only just arrived and haven’t had a chance to flush out all of the pipes. Everything happened so fast.’

You nodded and drank the metallic tasting coffee without complaint.

‘Ayami, then. Right?’

You knew what he was asking. Ayami was the conductor of this orchestra and she deserved all of the credit.

‘Yes.’

‘Fuck… she’s a legend.’

Finishing the cup without much tasting it, you handed it back to him.

‘I’d like to clean up and make sure that he’s… that August is ok for the night.’

He took the cup and was nodding as he put both yours and his into the sink.

‘Sure, sure. I can do that. There is a room ready for the both of you. Come on, I’ll show you.’

You followed him up the stairs and down a quiet, thickly carpeted hallway which was also lined with gaily painted portraits. Upon reaching the room at the end, he stepped aside to let you go in first.

There was a trio of men in there, that you recognised as the medical team and the room had been set up like a well-stocked hospital room. The lemon yellow wallpaper with its sunflower print was a pleasant contrast to the medical equipment and other paraphernalia. The men greeted you and they all shared a happy look. You knew why and yes, you shared it too. You said nothing as you watched them undress and bathe August, glad that he could finally receive more focused treatment.

‘And my room?’ you asked.

August didn’t need you now and you had to look after yourself. Mr instant coffee led you back down the hall and showed you your bedroom and amenities. When he left you, you threw your rucksack on the floor by the bed, stripped out of your filthy clothes, and immediately ran a bath. When you finally emerged, refreshed, and clean down to your toes, you found a sandwich and cola waiting on the table next to the bed. You devoured it in a few bites but drank the cola slowly as you unpacked your rucksack. All the way at the bottom,  and rolled around a pair of thick socks was a clean shirt and sweatpants which you quickly pulled on. You sat on the edge of the bed and finished the cola.

Flopping onto your side and closing your eyes, you intended to rest for only a moment. However, sleep had other ideas.

**

Sunlight streamed in through the windows behind you and you woke suddenly then rolled over. On the wall at the head of the bed, a pleasant-looking woman smiled down at you from a pastoral painting and you were groggy enough to smile back. Rubbing your face you sat up, yawned, and swung your legs over the edge of the bed, staying there a moment to contemplate the night before. You hadn’t slept that well in a very long time and you were grateful to have finally got some rest. That old bed was a godsend.

After washing and dressing in clean clothes, you stood in the corridor outside your room door and looked down the hallway to where August slept.  His door was closed. The scent of coffee wafting up the stairs alerted you that someone else was awake and you wondered if it was Mr Instant coffee down there still flushing out the pipes and drinking metallic tasting coffee. You decided to leave him to it and you walked to August’s room.

You tapped on the door but there was no answer, so you turned the doorknob and let yourself in.  August was still asleep. The IV drip bag was half empty and the bandages on his face were bright and clean. He looked much better in the warm morning light and you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling. You smoothed down the patch of  IV tape on the back of his hand and August startled a yelp out of you when he moved.

His eyes were open and you found yourself under the clear scrutiny of the infamous August Walker. Before your inglorious meeting at the cabin, you had never been this close to him. The two of you never spoke nor had you even been in the same room.

His eyes moved all over your face as if hunting for something and you stood still letting him complete his inspection. When recognition finally bloomed in his eyes, he relaxed.

You ventured to put your hand over his.

‘Do you remember me?’ you asked.

‘I remember,’ he answered, voice raspy from disuse.

August fell silent and it seemed to take effort for him to speak.

‘I… remember you read to me.’

Your heart skipped with elation.

‘Yes.’

Breathing out a breath, August closed his eyes.

‘Thank you.’

‘We’ll make him pay, August,’ you said when he was quiet. ‘All of them.’

It didn’t matter that he had succumbed to sleep again and probably didn’t hear you. Ethan Hunt was going to pay.

**

It was fortunate Mr. Instant Coffee, as you dubbed him, was around to cook and clean because you weren’t about to look after Walker and do the domestic duties as well.

As the weeks drifted by and August grew stronger, you turned your interest away from him and to revenge.

Retribution, you liked to say to yourself. It was a much better word and to pull it off, you needed a team.

Ayami, of course, was on board. She was always up for some violence and you loved her for it. She knew exactly who you needed and how to contact them. And, if you were going to go through with it, all the way, you needed a solid plan. Every piece had to be in place for the whole machine to move forward. No stone could remain unturned.

You spent a lot of time in that country kitchen with plans and schematics and blueprints spread out in front of you on the table. The first order of business was to find the persons responsible; Benji, Ilsa, Luther and Hunt.

Find them, and observe.

‘That’s it,’ you’d told Ayami. ‘Find them and observe. Record their patterns, their travel, their habits, their pubs, markets, clothing stores, everything.’

You made sure to have rotating team members on each target so that said target would not recognise any reoccurring faces and become suspicious. IMF was a clever, skittish bunch and the way to lure them into the trap was to be patient and deliberate.

Early one morning, about three months into your stay at the safe house, a heavy thumping down the stairs distracted you from your research.

You got up, refilled your coffee and then poured a second fresh cup. Returning to the table you put the second cup in the space across from where you had been sitting. For two weeks now, August had been testing his newly found strength and had insisted on getting up and moving around own his own. He’d recently been cut out of his arm cast and was able to navigate his way on crutches. And on mornings after breakfast when he could get himself out of bed, he usually banged down the stairs and hobbled into the kitchen.

After a few days of this, you started preparing a cup of coffee for him. Whether he was looking for coffee or not, you always put out a second cup when you heard him coming down. And August was actually polite and thankful for the gesture. It surprised you. You expected him to be this gruff and grumpy take charge team leader who didn’t have time for underlings. When, in fact, August Walker was a very pleasant man.

‘Morning,’ you heard him say from the kitchen’s doorway.

‘Morning,’ you replied, nodding to the coffee cup.

He took up his regular place across from you, and leaned the crutches against the bench seat.

You looked at him finally. The bandages were all off of his face now (except for the one remaining to protect his damaged ear) and the swelling had gone down.

What was at first considered full-thickness burns were actually only partial-thickness and he could heal without skin grafts.

He looked, you decided, pretty normal. Handsome, in fact and you wanted to reach out to touch him.

He saw you examining him and he made an aborted attempt to touch his face.

‘No, it ahh… it’s good. You look much better. Really,’ you said quickly.

He picked up the coffee and drank slowly.

‘Does it still hurt?’

‘No,’ he said into the cup and changed the subject. ‘What have we got?’

Right back to business, you thought. Of course. None of this ‘feelings’ stuff for him.

‘The only one we got consistent eyes on is Luther. I guess they’re not using him these days, so he’s staying put. He’s in the States and looks to have a vacation home in Florida. If he has a third place, we don’t know about it yet.’

August listened and nodded and you swore you could see a little smile starting to play across his mouth. Not wanting it to disappear, you showed him photos of Ilsa.

‘I think, she thinks she’s clever. At first she was darting around, doing the whole ‘spy’ thing. It was cute. Now, not so much. I’d like to take her… if you agree.’

August looked up at you and that little smile was still there. In fact he looked particularly pleased with you.

‘Don’t worry. Hunt’s for last. We’re saving him for you.’

August held your gaze and you felt a thrill race through you.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I want you to do whatever you want to do. I trust you.’

You brightened considerably and resisted the urge to clap your hands with delight. Having August Walker’s trust had made the day golden.

**

A few days later, the thumping down the stairs distracted you from your work. Smiling a little, you got up and poured a fresh cup of coffee and sat it on the table across from you. Then as an afterthought, you got up again and plated a few chocolate Hobnobs that Mr. Instant Coffee had bought with the weekly grocery. You had barely put the plate down before August appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Seeing the mid-morning snacks waiting for him, he smiled a little and now down to one crutch from two, he hobbled into the kitchen and sat down in his usual spot across from you.

‘Look at you, speedster,’ you teased.

August’s brows rose with pleasure, but he smothered his growing smile by lifting his cup and drinking the coffee.

‘I prefer your coffee to the other one,’ said August, raising his eyes to meet yours.

You hesitated to meet his gaze, and when you did, the praise in his face melted you.

August quickly looked away and down at the plans on the table between the two of you.

‘So, tell me.’

He gestured with the cup to the papers.

You grinned, feeling pleased with your progress.

‘Ilsa. I finally got a bead on her. And I will be travelling to her location today.’

‘Today?’ he asked, sounding surprised and your brows drew together a little.

‘Too soon? I mean.. do you want to come?’

August shook his head and suddenly looked concerned.

‘I don’t want you rushing into something.’

Ah, was that it?

You reached out to tap the back of his hand with your index finger.

‘Whilst I thoroughly enjoy your concern, there’s no need for it. Do you umm, want a trophy? An eyeball? A finger?’

August was clearly surprised, and your offer startled a laugh out of him.

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No, I don’t want any of that. But ah… I appreciate your vigour.’

You smiled at him.

‘You sure?’

He laughed a little, again, and asked, ‘And your flight?’

‘Coupla hours,’ you replied checking your wristwatch.

‘And your plan?’

‘Delicious,’ you promised.

And it was.

**

Los Angeles was hot and sweltering and you were not prepared for the weather. But you didn’t let that deter you, for you had a mission to accomplish.

You found the target sitting at a table beneath a colourful umbrella at a crowded outdoor cafe.

Carrying several bags emblazoned with names of high-end shops you stopped by her table, made a show of looking into the cafe and then down at the chair across from her.

She looked up at you and you tried a smile.

‘Hi, I am sooo sorry, but do you mind if I just sit here. I am dying in this heat!’

As you were actually dying in the western heat, you knew that you came across sincerely. She took a moment to consider you. Judging you harmless, she nodded to the chair and you collapsed onto it gratefully.

‘Oh, thank you, honey. That’s so good of you. I thought I was going to get all of my shopping over and done with before noon, but you know how it is. Just one more shop, one more try on…. maybe they got those shoes in the back in your size, right? Am I right?

You giggled easily and she nodded, then glanced into the cafe.

‘I gotta wear these gloves to that my hands don’t tan,’ you said watching her. ‘There’s nothing worse than having your arms one colour and your hands 5 shades darker.’

Ignoring you, she raised her hand hoping to alert the waiter standing inside.

He eased up to the table.

‘Yes ma’am.’

‘I ordered my…’

‘Yes, I know ma’am. We are working on it right now, please give us some time. The broiler is currently holding on by a thread. May I offer you a cold drink? On the house?’

You looked at her and she sighed.

‘Sure, go on. You want one?’

Her attention was on you.

You shrugged.

‘Sure! I’ll have what she’s having.’

The two of you chatted amiably for a little while and the waiter returned with your drinks. You immediately sipped at the fizzy fruit drink and put your glass down next to hers.

Several minutes later someone inside shouted, ‘Janie Fellows?’

The woman across from you stirred and then stood up.

‘Finally,’ she said and went inside to pick up her order.

You watched her go and quickly, unobtrusively, dumped the contents of your travel perfume bottle into her glass.

Ilsa returned with a plate brimming with meat and salad and set it on her placemat.

‘Looks good,’ you said admiring the dish. ‘I might get one, but I do need to get on, I think.’

‘You can stay as long as you like,’ she assured you and began her meal.

You sat and chatted whilst she ate and finished her drink.

You were in the middle of a long drawn out story about your imaginary husband when she stopped devouring the rare steak.

Ilsa dropped her fork and you turned towards her.

‘Something wrong?’ you asked, faux concern in your voice as you let your natural accent slip. ‘You’ve gone quite pale… Janie.’

Ilsa’s wide eyes shot up to your face and she spat out her chewed mouthful.

‘I probably overdosed you,’ you said quietly. ‘I mean, you were ten pounds heavier the last time I checked. But you and your hot yoga classes have done wonders. I might take it up myself.’

Eyes bulging as the poison squeezed closed her throat, Ilsa gurgled and staggered upright. The chair screeched on the concrete, fell away and you got up.

‘August Walker says, hello,’ you snarled at her. Then changing your attitude to something more helpless you shouted, ‘Oh My God! I think she’s having a seizure, help, help!’

A crowd began to form allowing you to slip away, but not before giving the thumbs up to Mr. Instant Coffee who had posed as your waiter who had perfectly distracted the mark enough for you to poison her drink.

**

‘Went well, I take it?’ August asked when you bustled into the kitchen the next morning.

There was coffee waiting for you at your usual spot.

You threw your arms round his neck and gave him a hearty kiss in greeting.

‘Better than you could ever imagine!’ you crowed and left him in stunned silence.

**

Distracted by the noise coming from the upper floor, you looked up from the laptop. The thumping down the stairs had been sounding a little less clumsy lately, now that August had finally regained control over his healing limbs. You were glad for it, because it meant that the infamous August Walker was out of the woods and on the mend.

You got up, poured a fresh cup of coffee, and was just setting it down when August came into the kitchen.

‘Morning!’ you called brightly, like the little homemaker you fancied yourself to be.

Well, you fancied yourself to be the kind of homemaker who didn’t keep house, but made coffee and assassination plans. You turned the cup so that the handle faced August when he straddled the bench and sat down across from you.

‘Thank you,’ he said picking up the cup and drinking deeply.

Smiling fondly, you considered him a moment and looked at the fresh bandage on his ear.

‘It’s ear day soon, isn’t it?’

Ear day, as you called it, was literally when August got his new outer ear to replace the one that had been damaged.  Contacts in one of the world’s leading biotech labs had been cultivating new skin and cartilage from his own cells and were ready for transplantation.  August had been putting off the surgery, ever since the fire of killing off the IMF team had been lit. He wanted a clear conscience before proceeding with any additional cosmetic surgery.

August lifted his gaze, but not directly to you. He looked at a spot on the table which was still littered with papers and blueprints and your laptops and a muscle bunched in his jaw, alerting you that he was uncomfortable with this line of discussion. You were never one to back down from a subject you wanted to pursue, so you pressed him gently.

‘I think… well, I think it’s gonna be fine. The surgery will be fine. You’ll have a brand spanking new appendage and everything’s gonna be fine.’

You watched his eyes sweep the length of the table, in an obvious attempt to avoid looking at you.

‘You suffered no hearing loss, on that side, the skin is mending itself nicely and the doctors even said that there was no follicle damage. Those curls will be coming back in no time.’

He scoffed.

‘I don’t care about that.’

‘Yes you do,’ you said with a tiny grin. ‘Yes you do, you care. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t look like this.’

You waved an appraising hand in his direction.

‘August Walker, meet August Walker. He cares about his looks.’

‘I’m not vain,’ August scowled, putting the cup down and finally looking you in the face

You softened your teasing just a little.

‘I didn’t say you were vain. There’s nothing wrong with a man who looks after his appearance. It’s… sexy.’

That stopped him and a spark of pleasure brightened his face.

You continued to lay it on thick.

‘Come now, a good looking guy like you? And you don’t know it? I find that hard to believe.’

He snorted quietly.

‘Do you ever think something that you don’t say?’ he asked, lifting a dark brow.

You leaned in on your elbows.

‘There are loads of things that I think, that I don’t say. That doesn’t mean that I won’t say them eventually.’

August’s lips lengthened into an inquisitive smile.

‘Like?’

‘Like?’ you repeated and decided to come clean. ‘I just said that you were sexy.’

You made an airy, dismissive gesture.

‘That’s not a new thought.’

You felt a chill manifest as a soft, insistent tingling that skittered all along your skin. Everything you’d hidden about your feelings for him was almost all the way out and you couldn’t stop yourself.

‘It’s not new that I’d do anything for the manifesto to be realised,’ you continued.

When August put down the cup, you reached out and clasped both hands over his.

‘That I’d do anything for you, August.’

The passion in your own voice stunned you. Surely, you had once again overstepped his boundaries.

First, it was kissing him without asking,  and now this, though August didn’t seem bothered by your audacity. He turned his hands up to enclose yours.

‘And I reward loyalty,’ he answered, voice low and full of promise.  

You drew in a long breath through loosely pursed lips, which August seemed to appreciate for his eyes lowered to your wet mouth. His own lips parted in response and you wondered if you climbed across that table and onto his lap, would it have been considered outlandish.

You didn’t think about any of that, as you stood up onto the wooden bench. With his handsome face brimming with delight, August held onto your hands and steadied you as you scrabbled across the table and landed astride his muscular thighs with a satisfied ‘ooof!’

He grimaced from the sudden pressure slamming down on his still tender leg and you were immediately contrite.

‘I’m sorry,’ you murmured, sliding your arms around his neck and curling your fingers into his shaggy curls. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll not play so rough next time.’

‘I like it rough,’ said August, running his hands over your hips to grip you close.

And then you kissed him, softly, fully, feeling his lips come apart beneath yours. Breathing him in, your thoughts ran wild.

I could get used to this. I could indulge in this all day. I could–

Then, ever a man of ill timing, Mr. Instant Coffee bustled into the kitchen, and it took him a moment to realise what he was interrupting.

‘Oh, shite, ok… uhh so that’s happening. Ok, great, but ah, you two… we need to get a move on. The car leaves in ten.’

And then he was gone, leaving you staring at the recently vacated kitchen doorway with your arms dangling over August’s shoulders. Reluctantly, you backed off of August’s lap and smiling, you cupped his cheek, pressed your thumb against the dimple in his chin and walked off to grab your travel bag.

It was back to the States again, the keys of Florida where Luther Stickell was vacationing on a secluded houseboat.

**

Stickell was not hard to find. His boat was moored in one of the farthest berths and was lit up like Christmas. He was having a party.

So much for keeping a low profile, you thought as you stepped off of the elegant cabin cruiser that had been rented for your mission. Your craft was berthed far enough away from his that no one in Stickell’s party could see August in his scuba gear, stepping off the low deck and into the dark water.

Standing on a nearby wooden piling, a pair of seagulls watched you suspiciously, the way birds do, and you lifted a finger to your lips, shushing them.

Holding a pair of strappy heels in your hand, you walked down the slatted dock between yachts and other smaller boats.  You purposefully wore a skimpy sequined dress, in the hopes of talking your way into the party. There were casually dressed men standing on the dock and smoking and they stopped talking as you approached. They didn’t look like bodyguards, but just like regular blokes. Easy to manipulate.

‘Hullo!’ you called happily, flapping your hand at them in greeting, affecting tipsiness. ‘I couldn’t help coming over. I just came from another get-together, but I’m not done partying yet. Ya’ll mind if I… ’

You made a walking motion with your index and middle fingers towards the boat. One of the men smiled and swaggered towards you. He held out a hand which you took and he led you to the edge of the boat, then helped you down the stairs.

Too easy.

There were people milling about on the port deck and some people playing cards inside, but not a lot was going on. It appeared to be at the tail end of the party, where people were trying to drink the last of the booze and eat the last of the food before they were forced to go home. You spotted Luther at the card table. He was laughing around a huge cigar clamped between his front teeth and then he threw the cards down on the table with a triumphant cry. The men sitting there erupted in jeers and hoots as he raked in the pile of money from the centre of the table.

Scanning the area you then went down the stairs to the toilet and stood in the dark narrow corridor thinking about August swimming around beneath your feet as he planted bomb charges against the boat’s hull.

The thought of him down there was strangely arousing.

August was stronger now, strong enough to cause mayhem with his own hands, and it was all you wanted for him. You crouched by the toilet and dug about in your handbag, pulling out one of Ayami’s personal creations – something she’d called her ‘cherry bang bang’. You drew out a black device that was flat on the bottom and round on the top. It looked harmless enough, almost like a little cake, but you knew the massive power packed into that sweetly named bomb. She had given you and August a personal demonstration of the destructive power of her little sweets. You placed a kiss on its glossy surface and adhered it to the underside of the toilet bowl.

‘You are a gem, Ayami,’ you chuckled and pushed upright.

You made your way back to the upper level and moving about unnoticed you planted more cherry bang bangs, even adhering one to each of the fishing chairs bolted to the port side deck.  

A chill settled over the harbour. The guests soon drifted inside and eventually left the party altogether.

You walked back to the rented cabin cruiser to find August waiting for you. His hair was curly and damp and there were pressure marks from the dive mask across his brow. You went up on tiptoes to kiss him. August caught you about the waist and wrapped you up in his arms, lifting you to deepen the kiss. Trapped like that against his big, hot body,  your heart throbbed excitedly. If he could elicit such wonders from your body with just a kiss and an embrace, you couldn’t imagine what other magic he could work.

‘Ready?’ he asked, bending to put you back on your feet.

You nodded and tossing your shoes aside, went to sprawl on one of the long creme coloured couches. August started the engine and guided the cruiser out of the berth. When you were a safe distance away, he reached for your hand and helped you up to the top deck.

You could see the lights of Stickell’s boat twinkling in the distance.  And after about twenty more minutes, once everyone was finally gone, Luther shut off the boat lights.  You and August got up from your deck chairs. You held up the binoculars and adjusted them until the houseboat came into sharp focus. All you could see now was the red glow of Luther’s cigar as the man sat out in one of the fishing chairs and enjoyed the rest of his evening.

August put one arm about your waist, big hand splaying across your stomach, and held up the detonator with the other.

‘Two down,’ you said and he depressed the button.

The explosion was brilliant.

Through the binoculars, you watched the boat burn and sink, but August was more interested in kissing the back of your neck and exposed shoulders to pay attention.

‘Mmmm,’ you purred slyly, leaning your head back against his shoulder. ‘Did you like that? Was it good for you?’

‘So good,’ he answered giving you one last kiss before releasing you.

You opened your mouth to say something but the distant sounds of sirens broke the silence.

Time to go, you thought and the both of you disappeared into the night.

**

You didn’t want to go back to the safehouse right away. As nice as the country house was, being cooped up between those four floral walls drove you crazy. August paid for a few nights at the Shangri-la hotel in London so that you could shower in temperatures above lukewarm, and sleep in a broad bed beneath washing detergent scented sheets.

And when August made love to you on those soft sheets,  your earlier conjecture regarding his sexual prowess, did not prepare you for the bliss you experienced with him buried deep inside you.

It was nearly nine in the morning, a few days after your expedition to the Keys, and propped up with a pillow under your armpit, you lay on your side across the hotel bed, a bowl of spag bol, and your open laptop on the white duvet in front of you. You were half under the thick covers and half out of it because the room was warm, but not uncomfortably so. August emerged from the adjoining bathroom, wearing one of the luxurious bathrobes and towelling dry his hair.

He tossed the towel across the footrest by the chair and stretched out on the bed behind you, looking over your shoulder to read the Miami Herald’s bold headline. He slid his hand beneath your tee-shirt and caressed the skin between your shoulder blades. How he figured out that you liked that, still remained a quandary, but you were glad that you didn’t have to ask for it.

‘Oh, dear,’ you said feigning distress. ‘Did you hear about the accident that happened in Florida? Tsk… such a shame.’

‘Is he dead?’ asked August, as he nuzzled your shoulder.

‘Yes, sir,’ you teased, reaching back to playfully push him off. ‘You are not paying attention.’

‘I am. I’m paying attention to what’s important.’

The implication of his statement drifted right over your head as you were too focused on proving him wrong.

He kissed your neck again and grunted when you jabbed him with an elbow.

‘Well, if you were paying attention to what was important, you’d know that…’

‘That Dunn is here in London,’ August finished for you and continued to lazily caress your back.

That shut you right up. How did he know?

‘Of course, you knew,’ you chuckled.

‘I suggest,’ said August, changing the subject and lifting his head to take your earlobe between his lips. ‘We take one more day here and then find him.’

As he spoke, August slid his hands beneath you, turned you away from the laptop and pulled you atop him. You wriggled with delight, and grasping the robe’s belt, you pulled the knot free and let it fall open.

‘Just one day?’ you asked, sliding down the length of his body to ease his cock into your mouth.

‘Anything!’ he gasped, the heat of your mouth robbing him of coherent through. ‘Whatever you want.’

You wanted at least two extra weeks after the mission.

**

When you woke hours later, August was gone. There was a note left for you on the nightstand and in his neat print he’d written, ‘Supply Run.’

You stretched under the duvet and tapped the stiff cardstock against your lower lip.

Supply Run either mean food, or guns and knowing August, it was probably the latter. You were just raiding the over-stocked minibar refrigerator when he returned to the hotel room, carrying a long black duffel which he dropped onto the chaise at the end of the bed.

‘Guns,’ you said aloud, looking up from the chilled box of chocolate.

‘What?’ he asked, shrugging out of his jacket.

You smiled and shook your head and switched on BBC World Service.

Unzipping the duffel, August asked, ‘what do you know about Sage Software?’

‘Nothing,’ you answered truthfully. ‘Who are they?’

‘They supply small business software. Dunn is working with them and hacking them.’

Taking the chocolates to the bed, you opened your laptop and searched the business. With a laugh, you rolled over onto your back and looked up at August with interest. He was smiling slightly back at you.

‘Well, what do you know?’ you said with amusement. ‘Sage is located in the Shard, which is… ’

August nodded to you and his grin widened.

‘Right downstairs,’ he finished.

‘Did you plan this? Getting a room here because he was downstairs?’ you giggled, when he leaned over to kiss you.

‘Of course. Leave nothing to chance, Princess.’

Well, that nickname was new, you thought, delighted.

‘What’s the plan, then?’

August stretched out on his back next to you and folded his hands on his belly.

‘He’s got an office on the 13th and is there most nights.’

‘Most nights,’ you repeated and waited for him to finish his thought.

‘Tonight.’

**

Dunn was surprisingly easy to pick off. You had expected for him to have cameras and monitors and other high tech stuff to alert him to the presence of anyone who came unannounced to his office. And, you were surprised that /he/ was surprised when August quietly opened the thin office door and let himself in.

You stayed in the corridor and watched the scene unfold through the narrow decorative glass panel next to the door.

Dunn obviously recognised and remembered August,  because he bolted out of his swivel chair and threw himself against the wall behind him.

‘I thought you were dead!’ you heard him shout before the silenced round splattered him across the frog poster that announced ‘work hard, play hard, live hard’.

You clapped lightly as August exited the office.

‘Well done, baby,’ you praised him. ‘But come on. I heard the lift bell. It would be stupid of us to get caught.’

All the little piggies had gone to slaughter. All except one.

**

Ethan Hunt was not a stupid man.

In fact, he was quite the opposite. He was cunning and clever and suspicious which were characteristics that helped him to remain one of the top Mi6 agents.

He also had a golden streak of very good luck and August Walker was just about to ruin that man’s whole career.

‘He went squirrely, ’ said Ayami who was pawing through a tin of broken Danish butter cookies from where she sat perched on the kitchen counter-top.

Two weeks after you returned from the Dunn business,  Ayami just turned up at the country safe-house. Much to your delight, you’d found her one morning sitting at the kitchen table having a bagel and cream tea. And you knew why she was there. Things were winding up to the big payoff and the team needed to be as consolidated as possible.

‘What does that mean?’ you asked her but it was Mr. Instant Coffee who answered.

‘Means that he knew what’s good for him and went underground.’

‘Because all of his peeps were getting murdered,’ Ayami finished cheerfully and you half expected her and Instant Coffee to slap hands in a celebratory high-five.

August sat silently in his usual place, thoughtfully turning the small white coffee cup in a circle on the table.

‘Last time he was seen?’ he asked finally.

‘Park hotel, Berlin,’ Instant Coffee read from the reports supplied by the ‘boots on the ground’ team. ‘Been there for about a week, but he hasn’t really stayed one place for more than that. We should have moved earlier.’

‘No,’ said August, not looking at him, but at the cup. ‘No, we want to give him enough rope to hang himself. Let him get complacent.’

‘Do we have time to let him get complacent?’ Instant Coffee said. ‘I mean, the longer we wait, the more time he’ll have to burrow in like a fucking tick.’

You looked at Instant Coffee for a moment. He did have a point.

‘Okay,’ August replied easily. ‘You’re right.’

At that moment, your respect for August Walker increased ten-fold. That he was able to take in the opinion of the other members of his team was unbearably sexy. He may have earned a little leg over for later that night.

‘I’m going alone,’ August announced finally, drawing the sharp attention of everyone in the room.

You reined your own reaction because an emotional response in that instant would have been inappropriate. You knew exactly why August wanted to hunt down Ethan alone. Hunt had not only gravely wounded August’s body but also his pride. His revenge was personal.

‘That’s probably not a good idea,’ said Instant Coffee, obviously feeling confident that he had scored a few brownie points a few moments earlier.

August scowled and looked to you. Meeting his gaze,  you nodded once.

‘August should face Hunt alone,’ you said to the room and then to him, added, ‘but I don’t think you should go alone.’

There was so much gratefulness in his eyes that you felt embarrassed and looked away. You didn’t want August to see the answering distress in your eyes. If the fight on the cliff side had been fair, and luck hadn’t been on Hunt’s side, August wouldn’t have lost. Tossing August over the edge was poor sportsmanship. You were afraid that Hunt would employ other clever tricks and defeat August for the second time. And now that August wanted to take on the IMF leader alone ensured that he would be left vulnerable to losing the upper hand.

You didn’t want to lose him again, but you remained silent. This was ultimately August’s decision and he had made his choice.

**

The two of you didn’t speak much on the trip to Berlin. There wasn’t much to say. You didn’t dare express to him your fears, because that would only serve to distract him with your possibly misplaced doubt. And distraction was the last thing August needed.

When he pulled up to a local hotel to drop you off, you stayed in the car, sitting quietly for a moment, unsure what to do or say. Sighing, you turned to him and reached to cup his cheek.

‘See you soon,’ you encouraged him. ‘Bring me a trophy.’

August nodded and you got out of the car.

Come back to me, you thought watching the car disappear in the afternoon traffic.

Your room faced the Berliner Fernsehturm and you could hear music from the festival going on in the square below. You took a long hot shower and stretched on the surprisingly comfortable bed. It wasn’t the Shangri-la, but it was charming and it wasn’t long before you fell asleep.

The room door thunking shut as if a heavy weight collapsed against it awoke you hours later. With a gasp, you shot upright and reached for your weapon. You couldn’t remember where the light switch was, so when you scrambled up from the bed, you backed up to the table under the window and jerked open the curtains to let in the artificial outdoor light.

The scent of sulphur and petrol filled the room and as your eyes slowly adjusted to the differences in the light you could just make out the bulky form sitting on the floor against the door. You knew that form as the impression of it was etched on your own flesh.

You put your weapon aside and padded barefoot across the hardwood floor, grabbing a towel and wetting it as you passed the small bathroom alcove. You crouched before the shadowed figure and put your hand beneath his chin. You lifted his face to the light and it was clear that Hunt had given August a run for his money.

You gently cleaned the dried blood from his mouth and chin, carefully working it out of his moustache and scruff.

You wanted to say something reassuring, something positive, but you were too overwhelmed with relief.

‘Well,’ you murmured, stroking his face. ‘I hate to see the other guy.’

August was silent and you hoped you hadn’t over stepped the line.

He then held up a small package wrapped neatly in butcher’s paper and tied with white twine. You took it from him, pulled the string and the paper unfolded  to reveal your trophy. Holding it up to the light, it took a moment for you to recognise the carefully extracted evidence of Hunt’s death and you smiled.

‘Come on, you big brute,’ you said fondly, attempting to pull him up from the floor.

When August didn’t budge, you stopped straining against his weight and gasped with exertion.

‘You’re gonna have to help me here, babe!’

Groaning miserably, August managed to get his feet beneath him using the door and you to heave himself from the floor. You struggled to get him out of his clothes  and under the soft yellow light above the sink you examined him. Big swollen bruises bloomed across his chest and back accompanied by several shallow scrapes and slashes. You wasted no time washing him up, patching his wounds, and getting him into bed.

Lying on his belly, August was still asleep when you woke the next morning. You went to the minibar refrigerator, withdrew your trophy and admired it in the morning sunlight. Your mobile beeped.

It was a message from Ayami.

‘Tell your boyfriend to be a little less conspicuous next time, ok?’ she’d written.

Curious, and glancing at August’s sleeping form, you rang her.

‘What’s that mean?’ you asked when she answered.

‘I mean that August didn’t need to leave that fucker’s burning corpse in the warehouse. He damn near burned down the place.’

‘He was obviously sending them a message,’ you answered, smiling gleefully, proud of your little murder puppy.

‘I can understand that,’ she shot back sounding uncharacteristically irritable. ‘But that also earned us more attention than we wanted.’

You sobered.

‘Is this something that needs to be taken care of?’

‘It’s already handled,’ she answered and some of her good humour crept back into her voice.

You sighed and relaxed, wrapping an arm about your midsection.

‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ you said after a moment with no conviction in your voice and she laughed incredulously.

‘When are you coming back?’ she asked, changing the subject.

‘I dunno. Depends on what August wants.’

‘Ok, you two lovebirds hash it out and I’ll see you… whenever.’

‘Thanks, Ayami. I love you!’

‘Get something from the Wall museum for me, ok?’

You disconnected the call and tossed aside the mobile.

Feeling a warm sense of well-being, you re-wrapped your trophy and stored it in the refrigerator again. Climbing into bed next to August, you lifted his arm, crawled beneath it, and curled your body against him.

August had exacted his revenge and you felt satisfied for him. But you weren’t sure what was going to happen now. The mission that had consumed so much of your year was over. You felt un-moored and a little panicked, but when August tightened his arm round you, your hamster wheel of thoughts scattered.

There was time to worry later, now in the heat of August’s embrace was peace and with a small smile still on your lips, you put your head against him and slept.

-end

[ecoamerica]

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[edourado]

Off script

I did it. I worte something in the middle of the night and finished it just now.  This is me stretching my writing muscles. It’s unrevised and more than a little bit on the “trash” department, but I wrote it, so I thought I’d share it. 

It’s Kastle. Obviously. 

I have to go. I’ll review it when I come back from the vet with my dog. 

Thanks. Bye. Hope you like it. It’s trash.

-------

She had been very matter of factly. Way more than he anticipated, and he had anticipated it. 

He, on the other hand, had been ridiculous. Completely and undeniably ridiculous, unable to act according to his own resolutions. 

Frank had, for lack of a better word, rehearsed it. Their first meeting since their last one, that one where he just vomited words on her face, spoke without thinking, acted on momentary emotions, letting his confusion, his trauma, his stubbornness and pig headedness do the talking, resulting in distance, estrangement and, most definitely, deep, profound hurt. 

It had been their first meeting since that day, but not their first contact. Surprisingly, at the same time their strange relationship agonized, hers with Madani flourished, a friendship that was both startling and predictable. 

Friendship and professional collaboration, more often than not. And it had spilled on him, this time. 

(If ever she had children, Madani would make a very overbearing mother, Frank was willing to bet. She won him over by sheer persistence, and he was known as a stubborn man himself. Not delicately or diplomatically at all, she strongarmed him into consulting on her cases, forced a “job” both on him and her agency, cornered and bullied him into working for her, only to leave him wondering how the hell he had gotten there.)

And there he was, because of two women’s partnership, sitting on a bench in Battery park, watching as the wind made long strands of Karen’s hair twirl around her face, eventually catching on her lip, only to be pulled out by a finger while she talked, looking at a bunch of papers, explaining things to him that he should be listening, he should be paying attention, but he had just missed her so much, so much more than he even knew, it was like a punch to the stomach. 

“He was in Jersey on the 7th, by my accounts, but then he was tagged on a social media post, attending a party in Dubai three days later. That time window could be important, because Alec was-”

He heard none of it. He should, Madani was chasing this guy all around the country, and now he was going international for less than kosher reasons, and it was his job to predict his movements and place him somewhere she could catch him, and Karen had all this information - when did she not? - but right now he couldn’t even remember said guy’s name, much less why he should care where he was. 

Because she looked amazing. She sounded amazing and even smelled amazing, like something fresh and coffee and paper. 

She had looked at him so strangely, a simple “hi Frank” to make him turn around when she got to his bench, a polite “you look well” after sitting down, a “no, thanks” when he asked if she wanted some coffee from the place across the street. Karen hadn’t dwelled on their previous meeting, hadn’t asked questions about what he had been up to, didn’t really give him a chance to look too deep into her eyes, focusing on the file she had for him, notes for him to pass to Madani when she came back from Moscow, because he would see her first. 

And Frank had predicted this. He wasn’t a complete moron, and his last words to her still sounded clear as day in his mind, even if he was all banged and drugged up on the occasion. He knew she would not be warm and inviting, knew she would be hurt still, even wondered if she hadn’t followed his advice on Matt Murdock, or someone else. It stung like a bitch to think about that, but he had considered it, to prepare for this ten minute lunch break meeting, he had spent almost six nights running through different scenarios in his mind, to prepare himself. 

All in vain. All of those scenarios and rehearsed routes of conversation down the drain the moment he had seen her, heels and skirt and flowy blouse, a collapsing bun on the base of her neck, the wind, the collar of her coat and her own movements pulling and pushing strands loose. 

“He does have a daughter, though, but she is not as nearly as careful as he is. Loves flaunting the rich life on Instagram, she films everything, and I got to see that her driver was the same guy that was in Jersey with-”

Curtis had been very vocal about how stupid Frank had been when he narrated the hospital room events to him, and he didn’t even know Karen. 

“I don’t know her”, he had said over beers and an ignored game on TV. “I don’t need to know her, Frank, I just need to not be an idiot. Which you are, by the way, let’s make that clear.”

If he knew her, Frank was pretty sure Curt would smack him upside the head. If he could see her right then, ticking off items from her list, her pen poised on her hand as she went, sitting there with that file on her legs, looking at Frank from time to time to see if he followed - which he definitely didn’t - the crease on her brow when she focused on an item, the sheer blue of her eyes, the curve of her neck before the collar of her coat folded over skin, those stray hair locks lifting and falling with the breeze. 

Frank realized he was sitting turned towards her when his knee touched the back of the bench. Suddenly, he realized he had an elbow where his back was supposed to be, and his hand was supporting his face while he looked - stared - at her.

He was staring, full on staring, and found himself quite unable to stop. 

“The problem is”, she went on. “I can’t find any record of him planning to go to Dubai. I don’t even know how he got there. His name is in no manifesto I can find, and his plane is still parked here.”

Frank had forgotten how good he felt whenever he heard her voice. He had come to expect the soothing sensation that washed over him when they spoke, even the funny feeling that would run through his skin whenever he knew he was gonna see her. But it had been a while, now, and it shocked him a little bit, that feeling. It made him want to close his eyes and get closer to her, maybe touch his nose to that spot under her ear, over that birthmark, to investigate further on the delicate scent of her shampoo. Or, maybe, rest his head on her legs, to enjoy the sound of her voice without worrying about keeping himself sitting straight. 

He had been far from her for many months, and suddenly he wanted to extinguish that distance, nullify it, get as close to her as he could. He found it quite a strong urge, and discovered himself both uncappable and unwilling to resist it.  

“I don’t know how long he’ll be away”, she said as he leaned closer. “But he couldn't be very long, I doubt he’d delegate that much responsibility here, there’s too much going o-”

Contradicting everything he had told himself he would say or do, Frank saw his hand, lifting and reaching for her face, in no hurry, at the same time she lifted her own hand to move another lock of hair away from her eyes.

Karen looked at him when she saw his hand, a question in her eyes, and sucked in a surprised breath just before he caught her cheek and leaned forward, noses bumping before his mouth touched hers.

Not exactly a shock. Not an electric current like he had felt when he kissed Maria for the first time, or that buzz that had happened when he kissed her cheek that one time by the waterfront. Strangely, his mouth over Karen’s felt familiar, soothing, like he had done it a million times, even if he knew very well he hadn’t, was painfully aware of every single time he did not kiss her. 

She tensed against him, and her lips parted in surprise, which had been very, very pleasant - a friction against his own lips, rearranging slightly, opening up even if involuntarily - and he was about to pull back when he noticed she didn’t. 

With absolutely no notion of time, he waited a second or maybe an hour, before he moved his mouth against hers, trying a bit, tasting a bit, enjoying a lot, instantly addicted to the peculiar feeling of kissing her. 

His hand moved on her face, and the tip of his fingers found strands of hair. The edge of his teeth found the delicate skin of her lower lip, and he nibbled on it lightly before leaning further towards her, opening his mouth and creasing his brow in pleasure when she opened up further to him, tumbling her head back a degree or two, her small sigh threatening to dismantle him there where he sat. 

Her hand found his wrist when the tip of his tongue touched hers, and there it was, that jolt, exposed live wires touching, and he tightened his grip on her face at the same time she wrenched her mouth away from his, her forehead touching his while she exhaled sharply. 

“Jesus Christ”, she whispered. “Frank, what the hell?”

“I’m an idiot” were the words that came out of his mouth, both hands on her face now, sitting sideways on that very public bench, fulfilling his fantasy of touching his nose to the patch of skin under her ear, kissing the spot his lips touched, noticing her hand on his wrist was not pulling it away, noticing her posture had slumped a bit, she relaxed against the bench. “Fuck, I’m an idiot”.

“You’re… You’re aggravating, that’s what you are”, she said, her tone suggesting a reprimand, frustration, her movements indicating surrender, head tossing back to stretch her neck under his mouth, the hand not holding his against her face pulling on the fabric of his own coat. Pulling it towards her. 

Frank smiled. 

“Right back at ya.”

It was maybe not the best place to do this. A park in the middle of the day, with parents walking their children around, people on lunch breaks - just like Karen was - coming and going to and from all directions, perhaps it was not a good idea to just close his eyes and lose track of his surroundings like this, lose himself in her mouth and focus on nothing but her kisses, how her lips pressed against his and how her mouth opened willingly, how her tongue made a sort of shiver run laps around his spine. 

She made him mellow, he realized. Not just now, she always made him want to let go of everything he was holding, from deep embedded hate and guns to the sheer notion of reality and time around him, and that’s why he pushed her away at the same time he refused to let go of her, resulting in her hurt and confusion, the definition of those “mixed signals” people loved to talk about. 

Fucking great, Frank. Good job. 

“Oh God, ok, ok, wait wait wait”, she said, extricating herself from him one more time when the file she had on top of her legs tumbled to the floor. “I have- I have to go back, to the… To the office, I’m late already, what the hell, Frank?”

He picked up the file from the floor, gathering a page that had fallen from it and batting park dust from it.     

“I’m sorry”, he breathed, not really sorry at all for today, sorry for all those other times she reached for him so hard, only to have her hand and hopes swatted away. “I’m”, he let out a sigh, looking in her eyes, huge on him, lips parted and then not, her breathing a tad heavy, cheeks flushed. 

Curt was right. He was an idiot. 

.:.

She agreed to talk to him. 

He didn’t know what they would talk about, but that’s what they agreed on. To talk later that same day, because she had to go back to work, so they had gotten up from that bench and she had smoothed a hand down her clothes, gathering herself. 

Karen started saying something about a place she new near her apartment, where they could get a coffee and talk, more private than a park, but a curl of her hair had come to rest on her collarbone, twisting elegantly on a large curl, and Frank had found himself, again, taking a step forward and interrupting her, mouth over hers, pressing not so gently, and she let out a sort of hesitant chuckle when she pushed him away this time, closing her eyes and lifting her hand to her lips, shaking her head and then looking at him again. 

Now that he had started it, it was hard to stop. 

She said she would text him the address of the cafe, and looked at him with a sort of amused expectation before she walked away.

True to her word, she did text him the name and address of a small cafe, and it looked cozy when he walked by it on his way to her place. 

Not that he planned on climbing the fire escape and sitting there for an hour before she got off work. Frank had not planned to go there, he just found himself walking, his legs taking him there by their own accord, the memory of her teeth against his lip and her tongue against his dictating where he was going, making him walk straight by the place she told him to go, around the block and up the metal ladder. 

He sat there for what felt like forever, a cold breeze nipping his face, until he heard the familiar noise of her heels against pavement, her gait like an alarm clock, and he opened the window at the same time she opened the door downstairs. 

He was ready to apologise, again, for the scare he would give her when she opened her front door to find him standing in the dark in the middle of her living room, but she just looked straight at him and shook her head, closing the door behind her again. 

“I knew it”, she said, to which he smiled in spite of himself, legs on autopilot again, taking one two three steps towards the door while she stood there taking her coat off. “Jesus, what has gotten into yo-” she started to ask before he interrupted her for the third time that day, both hands on her face, taking full advantage of the privacy of her dark apartment, opening his mouth immediately to her kisses, delighted by the arms that sneaked their way up his chest and around his neck, hands on his face and down his back, gripping the fabric of his shirt, she kissed him so fully, without any guard, and he loved her for it. 

He loved her for kissing him like this, he loved her for being so stubborn, loved her for standing up to him, standing with him, for pointing that gun at him that one time, for sitting with him in the hospital, for crying for his family, for fighting for him when she didn’t even know who the hell he was. 

Frank loved her so much and he had known it for so long, but the realization hit like a brick to the forehead nonetheless.

“You are an idiot”, she said right after kicking her shoes off and helping him off his coat. 

“Yeah”, he agreed, pulling on the string on her collarbone, undoing the knot that kept her top together. “I know.”  

[gyll-yee-haw]

Chapter 1

Professor!Jake x Reader

Series information

Series masterlist

---

I would write you a poem, my love.

(For you - Passenger)

---

You drove home feeling like the most stupid person who has ever lived.

You felt like a child who didn’t know teachers had a life when they weren’t in class.

Like he only existed in your daydreams when you couldn’t see him.

Like he waited all week to come alive to you every Tuesday.

Since when did Mr. Gyllenhaal has children? He never mentioned them.

He’s not married. You paid too much attention to his hands to miss a detail like a fucking golden ring.

This is not the 19th century, though. Maybe he just had a girlfriend. Maybe he was divorced. 

It didn’t matter to you. It wasn’t about what you saw, but the realization that he loves or already loved someone else that killed you. And you were so angry at yourself for feeling like that. You had loved other men before him. And he was probably... 10 years older than you? Maybe less, maybe more. But it was pretty obvious he had his own life. 

He was nothing but a teacher you were supposed to forget in a few months.

Maybe that was it. You would prepare yourself to lose him as the semester ended, but you weren’t ready to do it now.

When you entered your apartment, you didn’t feel like doing anything. All you really had to do was wake up from that stupid fairytale.

---

When you heard your alarm and opened your eyes, you wished that any kind of miracle had happened and it wasn’t Tuesday. Maybe you slept for 24 hours straight and it was Wednesday already. But you checked your phone and it said it was Tuesday.

Then you thought about skipping class. Only for a day, it wouldn’t hurt...

But what would happen the next Tuesday? And then the next one?

Sooner or later you would have to see him again. So it would be better to just end this quickly.

---

You got to college early to find a seat in the back. If you looked as terrible as you felt, you didn’t want Mr. Gyllenhaal to notice. 

You sat there in silence, opening your book at a random page, so you would look busy and no one would talk to you.

“Hey.” Wes interrupted your inner drama after a few minutes. “I almost didn’t find you when I arrived, why are you sitting here?”

“Headache.” You lied. You knew Wes already thought your crush was ridiculous, if he knew all the pain you were going through at that moment, he would probably want to punch you. And you knew you deserved it.

“Well...” He sighed and took a seat beside you when he heard the bell ring. “It’s gonna pass real soon. There he comes.”

When you looked at the door and saw Mr. Gyllenhaal walking in, your heart started to hurt again. So you decided to look at your book, at the floor, at anything but him for the next couple hours.

But you couldn’t help it... you started to pay attention to his clothes, to his bag, checked his left hand again, anything that could give you a clue about his personal life.

And your head started to wonder way too far. You wondered if he ever had his heart broken. How many women had the privilege to be touched by him? What did they look like? Was he a good father? Something inside you told you he was a great father. 

---

When the bell rang, you felt relieved. Now you would have an entire week to heal. To forget about him completely.

“Are you feeling better?” Wes asked, grabbing his stuff to leave.

“Yeah.” You lied again. 

The class was getting empty really fast, or you were grabbing your stuff really slow, cause silence soon filled the room. You thought there was only Wes and you left, when you heard Mr. Gyllenhaal’s voice say:

“Hey, Y/N. Can I speak to you for a second?”

A shiver ran down your spine. You looked at Wes and he was just as confused as you.

“See you later, then?” He shrugged as he started to walk towards the door, while you mentally begged him to stay. If this all happened last week, you would be beyond excited. But right now, you just wanted to run.

When you realized it was only you and the professor left in class, you grabbed your bag and approached him, looking at the floor.

“Are you okay?" He asked, sounding really worried. “You didn’t seem to be able to focus today.”

“I’m sorry, professor.” You gave him a weak smile. “I’m just tired. But I’m fine.”

“Really?” He insisted. “You sat pretty far from me, but I could see that your book was on the wrong page.”

“I didn’t sleep well.” You felt the shame deep in your stomach.

Shame for both the way you acted in class and the way you acted the day before. Shame to be standing in front of him at that very moment wanting to cry like a woman who had just been cheated on.

He didn’t believe your words. He didn’t fully understand why he felt like he knew you that well, but he simply did. So he thought for a second before saying:

“Come with me.”

You weren’t sure why, but you followed him outside. If he was going to give you a “disappointment speech” or ask you to try harder next time, he would simply do it right there, so what was he going to do?

He led you to the garden near the building's entrance and looked around when he stopped.

“You’re not gonna tell anyone, will you?” He asked laughing a little.

You had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He didn’t know what was going on inside your head at that moment. You just wanted to push him away screaming YOU. YOU. YOU. YOU ARE MY PROBLEM. But you just shook your head.

He opened his bag and started looking for something. When you saw a pair of scissors in his hand, you swore you couldn’t get any more confused. He used them to cut a rose from the garden.

“Come closer, let me show you something.” He smiled and you approached slowly. “Give me you hand, but be careful.”

You offered him your hand and he gently placed the rose on your palm. Your eyes met his as he did that and you melted, wondering if he ever showed up at someone’s house bringing them flowers.

“Today I was telling the class about the challenges of teaching Botany.” He told you. “Did you hear that part?”

“I-” You tried to remember, but you really didn’t hear a word he said that day. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so.”

“It’s fine, I’ll tell you now, then.” His smile never left his face, and he was talking to you the sweetest way he could. “We grow up listening to music and reading poetry and if there’s something artists like to talk about is flowers, right? Maybe that’s why we don’t pay attention to other structures that are just as beautiful... well, at least for me.”

You chuckled and it warmed his heart. He knew there was something bothering you that day and he was glad he could get your mind out of it for a minute.

“And it also makes people call those structures by the wrong name.” He continued. “For example, we only think roses have thorns because society believes ‘prickles’ isn’t a poetic word.”

“So... today’s class was a manifesto against social conventions? Sounds interesting.” You joked. He really made the atmosphere a little lighter. “Let’s be real, there aren’t too many pretty words that rhyme with prickles.”

“Okay, the poets are forgiven.” He laughed. “But my students don’t have to rhyme during the tests.”

“Good point, sir.” you shrugged.

“Please, just call me Jake.” He asked.

“Jake.” You nodded. It sounded silly, but it was some kind of new intimacy for you not having to treat him with formalities, even though you knew he never liked them anyway.

There was a moment of awkward silence and you tried your best to keep your eyes on the flower, because you could feel that his were on your face.

“So...” He cleared his throat. “Like I was saying...”

He proceeded to explain the difference between thorns and prickles. You really tried to pay attention this time, but your mind drifted away and focused on the way his hand softly brushed yours as he tried to show you the things he was talking about, using the rose in your hand. You also couldn’t stop wondering why he was doing all this. He had just said all of that in front of 50 students, but he realized that one of them wasn’t listening, so he decided to do it all again. It would be so much easier to not fall in love if he wasn’t so good to you.

“I mean...” He interrupted your thoughts. “I couldn’t give you all the details I mentioned in class earlier, cause I don’t want you to lose your entire break, but I hope it helped.”

“Mr. Gyl... Jake.” You were still not used to this new intimacy. Or at least, what you wanted to believe was intimacy. “I honestly don’t have words to thank you. But you know you didn’t have to do this.”

“Can I be honest with you? About the reason why I did this?” He sighed. Your heart started to beat faster, even though you tried to keep your expectations low. “I know many people are in my class exclusively for the credits. So, I don’t really care if they learn something or not, it’s their choice. But I know you’re different. I enjoy reading your essays. You’re very creative and perceptive. You know... there’s like... a group of 5 or 6 students that I would love to work on a project on my lab with. And I can’t have the number one of them missing a single detail.”

His number one. If only he knew how badly he was hurting you by saying nice things. You had to hold back the tears and decided to hide your emotions behind a joke:

“So... what am I supposed to not tell anyone? That you stole a flower from the garden or that you have a ‘number one’?”

“I guess we have two secrets now.” He laughed. “See you next week, Y/N?”

You nodded and handed him the rose.

“Keep it.” He smiled. “I can’t keep any evidence of my crimes.”

With that, he put his scissors back in his bag and walked away after giving you one last smile.

You looked at the rose and felt a single tear rolling down your cheek. It was so unfair to be special to someone for the “wrong” reasons. You knew the reasons you wanted to be special to him for were the actual wrong ones. But you would let him torture you with his own reasons forever.

---

Taglist! (Pls let me know if I forgot someone, I'm not a very organized person... or if you still want to be added!)

@lady-evans @shay-vaughn  @sogothiamdead  @paosesposts @baby-haz  @billyspotato @gyllenhaalstories ​ @lexie-wayland @gaymysterio

[princess-of-riviaa]

Inflicting Misery Chapter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Pairing: August Walker x Reader

Summary: After the world of the CIA hears of August Walker’s death and betrayal, you track him down to hear the truth for yourself.

Author’s Note: The previous chapters took place before the events in Mission Impossible: Fallout. This chapter picks up after the events of the movie.

Warning(s): Mission Impossible Fallout spoilers, overstimulation, oral (f receiving), fingering, choking

Word Count: 3,716

You double check to make sure your gun is locked as you step inside the safehouse. It’s quiet--eerily so. Your instincts tell you that someone’s here, that you’re not alone, and the silence tells you that the other person is aware of your presence and doing their best to not make a sound. You move through each room slowly, your gun raised and ready to shoot. The kitchen is empty, as well as the living room and dining room.

You make your way upstairs, but as soon as you round the corner of the hallway, a hand comes up behind you to wrap around your mouth. The attacker’s other hand grabs onto your gun and tosses it down the hall before you can fire. From the size of the body behind you, you know it’s a man. And he’s easily twice your size. You elbow him in stomach as hard as you can but his stomach is hard. He’d expected the blow and easily deflected it. His hand is still tight around your mouth, so you bite down on his fingers and his grip loosens enough for you to escape his hold and turn on him. Your fists are raised before you even take a good look at him--and then you freeze.

The attacker is August. Very alive August. Very hurt August.

For a second, you’re relieved. You’ve been recovering from your accident for six weeks now, but you still lose your breath too quickly. You didn’t have the strength to fight someone off much longer. But your relief quickly turns to something worse.

His face is so scarred and burned that you can’t even speak, can’t blink, can’t fucking breathe because the sight of him in so much pain makes you sick to your stomach and angry as hell. Ethan Hunt did this, you know it. Your boss had briefly mentioned Hunt’s name in the debriefing this morning, before announcing that August had fallen off a cliff and failed to survive the fall--the latter clearly being a lie. He just holds your gaze, daring you to look away. There’s anger in his eyes. You’ve known him long enough to know the anger isn’t aimed at you, but at whoever did this to him, at the world for letting this happen, at himself for god knows what.

You feel yourself begin to dissociate, watching your hand reach out to him rather than feeling yourself do it. He flinches back when he realizes you’re trying to touch his face. You freeze. The coldness in his eyes is replaced by a fear you’ve never seen in him before. You give him your most assuring look as you slowly inch your hand towards him again. This time, he doesn’t move. His entire body is tensed like he’s afraid to even breathe. But he lets you touch him. He lets your fingers brush over the marred skin, the layers upon layers of burned flesh. There’s just smooth skin where the curls on the left side of his head used to be. You’ll miss running your fingers through those curls.

But he’s alive. It could have been his entire body that burned. But it was just his face--and not even all of it. He’s alive, and he’s breathing, and he’s safe.

You pull him against you. When your arms wrap around him--squeezing hard enough that if he were any smaller it would hurt--you don’t think you can ever let go of him again. He hesitates. For an everlasting second, he hesitates. His body is tense under your touch and you don’t know if he’s going to push you away or say something to hurt you. His arms hang limp at his sides. But finally, finally, he hugs you back and you bury your face in his chest. Your senses are overwhelmed with August: the mint/pinecone smell of him, strongest when your nose is buried in his chest hair; the feeling of his thick muscles relaxing against your body and his arms encircling you, pulling you tight against him until every part of you is touching some part of him; the sight of that navy shirt that’s three shades deeper than his eyes and the spots where he’d clearly tried to clean blood out but had stained the material just a shade off from the rest of the shirt; the taste of your heart in your mouth, beating so fast with such immense relief that he’s alive and beside you again; and the sound of him whimpering faintly, barely audible to your ears. His chest rises and falls unsteadily and you know he’s crying as he buries his face into the top of your head. You feel the teardrops fall onto your hair and soak them, but you don’t pull away.

You’ve worked with August long enough to have gone on several missions together. Most of them were successful, but a rare few weren’t. And you know that when he has hard days or suffers tough losses--like the one he’s suffering now--the thing he needs the most isn’t someone to talk him through it. He needs someone to be there for him, to hold him and stand beside him until he’s cried all of his tears out. That’s not how you deal with your pain, but if that’s how he deals with his demons then you’ll be right there next to him, fighting those demons alongside him.

So you stand there in his safehouse, buried beneath this man’s huge ass arms, looking like a child compared to him, and you let him cry. You let him scream out all the anger and pain and embarrassment and regret that he’s kept bottled up until just now. You stand there, and you fight his demons alongside him.

He calms down several minutes later. You pull away just enough to look him in the eye.

“Tell me what the hell happened,” you say, and the tone of your voice tells him that there’s no way he’s getting out of explaining what the hell is going on.

So he tells you. He talks for what must be a good hour, explaining everything: Sloane sending him on a mission to work beside Ethan Hunt and ensure he doesn’t do anything destructive; having a falling out with Hunt and his team and them turning his back on him; ending it all on the edge of a cliff as he faced off with Hunt, before Hunt pushed him over the edge.

“That’s a beautiful story,” you tell him bitterly. “Beautifully fictitious. Are you actually lying to me right now? After everything? Look around, August. I’m the only one you have left, the only one who knows you’re still alive. Either you tell me the truth or I walk out that front door and never come back.”

He clenches his jaw. “You’re going to walk out either way. Once you know the truth...”

The look you give him makes him shut up.

“Hunt and his men discovered I’m John Lark,” August admits, watching your face as his words register in your mind.

You’ve heard the name. Everyone in your division is familiar with the terrorist who dreams of annihilating half of the world’s population and starting a new world order. August Walker is John Lark.

You raise an eyebrow. “Is that the big reveal? The big secret you’ve been hiding?”

“You’re not surprised,” he realizes. “You knew?”

“You had me edit that stupid manifesto all those years ago, remember?” you recall. “I’ve known about this whole John Lark deal before anyone else did.”

He frowns. “Why didn’t you go to anyone about it?”

“You swore me to confidentiality,” you remember. “If I check that stupid paper for grammatical errors, you’d track down my abusive father and kill him for me. Which you did. So I couldn’t tell anyone. And I knew the story would come out eventually. No one can hide in the shadows forever, not even you, August.”

“You knew who I was this entire time,” August says, still disbelieving.

“You’re August Walker,” you say, “a dangerous man with as much bloodlust as every other person in the CIA. You’ve got the right idea that the world sucks, just crazy stupid ideas as to how to go about fixing it. You’re the first and only person who saw potential in me when I first started as an agent, and you’re the reason I work under Sloane now. You’re the only friend I’ve had in the last six years. So yeah, I know who you are.”

He raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “Friend? Really?”

You shrug.

“I’m not your friend,” he disagrees.

“Well then what--” you begin, but he shuts you up with a kiss. It surprises you to breathlessness.

His hands are suddenly on your hips, your tiny frame swallowed up by his large hands, and he walks you backwards until your back collides with the wall. The kiss deepens as your bodies press tightly together. August crowds every inch of your body and it’s so overwhelming and hot that you find yourself moaning into his mouth. As your mouth parts, he takes the opportunity to tug on your bottom lip before licking his tongue inside your mouth. You reach out for him. Your hands reach for his hair, but he holds your wrists against the wall over your head, keeping you trapped against him.

“You really like pinning me up to walls,” you let out, trying to make a lighthearted joke, but the breathless way you say it has an effect on him.

His erection presses into your stomach as he moves his mouth to your neck. He nips at your ear just enough to make it hurt before whispering, “I really like hearing you moan my name, baby girl.”

“Fuck,” you sigh. The deep baritone of his voice on top of his filthy admissions sets your body on fire. Your hips grind up against him, needing him to touch you. “August, please.”

“Just like that, baby girl,” he says as he adjusts both your wrists in one hand and uses his free one to wrap around your throat. “Say my name just like that.”

“Please, August,” you beg again, too desperate to put up a fight. “I need you to touch me.”

“Be specific,” he tells you as he licks a stripe up your neck. “Tell me what you want, baby girl.”

You love how dirty he makes you feel, how he talks to you like you’re the sexiest woman alive. It does things to you that you can’t explain. And it gives you the audacity you need to voice your desires. “I want to feel you inside of me.”

He hums into your neck, clearly liking the idea as he spreads your knees apart with his leg and presses into against you core. You cry out and begin to grind against his leg. You’re so wet that your heat spreads to his leg as you continue to drip through your underwear. Fuck, there’s too many layers of clothes between you right now.

“Fuck me, August,” you cry out.

He stills and pulls back from you, looking in your eyes for a sign of hesitancy. “You’re sure?”

You nod hurriedly, past the point of words. Fuck, you need him.

He kisses you roughly enough that you feel it in every part of your body. His hands move from your wrists and neck to grab your ass and lift you from the ground. Your legs instantly wrap around his waist. You never break the kiss as he leads you to his bedroom. Your heart races in your chest in anticipation and nervousness. You want this as much as you’re afraid of it.

August is gentle as he spreads you out on his soft bed. He takes his time to take off your shirt and unbutton your jeans before pulling them down with your underwear. As soon as you’re naked in front of him you close your legs and wrap your arms around your breasts. He growls in disapproval and grabs your wrists, holding them above your head. He nudges your legs apart with his own and takes in the sight of you again.

“You don’t get to hide from me,” he says, and his husky voice on top of the look he’s giving you makes your nipples harden with desire. His eyes flick down to your chest and he lets go of your hands so he can grope at your breasts.

“Oh!” you cry out as he wraps his mouth around your right nipple. He runs his tongue over the bud before clasping his lips around it and sucking--hard. Your mouth falls open with a gasp.

His left hand massages your other nipple while his right hand reaches between your legs and cups your heat. His fingers are instantly coated in your wet arousal. It makes you blush, him knowing just how wet you are, but the way he moans in approval before running his fingers between your folds just makes you more breathless. The stimulation on your breasts and between your legs is more than you can handle. You feel your body tighten as your thoughts become blurred.

“August,” you gasp out, knowing what that feeling signals. “August, I’m gonna... fuck, I’m...” You’re so fucked out that you can’t finish your sentence to warn him properly.

He continues to grope and suck on your nipples as he inserts one long, thick finger inside of you. The feeling is foreign, but it’s so fucking amazing that your walls clench around him immediately. He curls his finger inside of you just once. That’s all it takes for you to come undone underneath him. You cry out his name as you cum and your body shakes and spasms through your high.

He pulls away from you when you can breathe properly again. The smirk he’s giving you makes you blush and you want to smack him for it, for gloating in the effect he has on you. “You’re so fucking sensitive, baby girl. This is gonna be fun.”

Before you can ask what he means by that, he inserts another finger inside of you. The stretch is tight and it hurts for a few seconds. He curls his fingers inside of you and the pain quickly turns to pleasure so great that your eyes squeeze shut and you’re reduced to a moaning mess again. His fingers move fast inside of you. It doesn’t take long before you’re gasping and falling over the edge again. You cry out and clutch onto his forearm as you cum for him again. Your eyes water as your body becomes overstimulated.

August, the fucker, doesn’t even give you time to come down from your high before he moves between your legs and kisses your heat. His lips latch onto your clit. By the time you come back to your senses, your body is already writhing against him again. Your hips buck up to his fingers and mouth as he goes all out on you. His fingers move at an inhuman speed inside of you and you realize that he added a third finger at some point. You’re so wet that your pussy makes a squelching noise every time his fingers move inside of you. The noise is so vulgar that your face burns. Sweat sticks to your neck and back as your fingers clench the sheets beside you.

“Please, August!” you beg. Five minutes ago you’d been begging for him to fuck you; now you’re begging for him to relent.

But your words only spur you on and he swirls his tongue over your clit, his lips still sucking hard on your heat. Your legs clench around him as you cum again. Your body spasms uncontrollably and tears fall down your face. You’ve never felt this much pleasure in your entire life. He swallows up every drop of your arousal.

“You taste like fucking heaven, baby girl,” he groans and the sound of that noise falling from his mouth just does the filthiest things to your mind and you’re desperate for him once again. He kisses each of your thighs. “Relax, baby girl, I’ve got you.” If his words don’t have an affect on you, his mouth returning to your clit certainly does. His fingers move inside of you again and it isn’t long before you’re overwhelmed with pleasure again.

“August, please!” you cry out as tears snake down your cheeks. His fingers are moving so fast inside of you, his tongue circling your clit so intensely, that you’re about to cum again--for the fourth time tonight. And he hasn’t even fucked you yet. Your vision is blurred and your body is on fire and the pleasure is so close to turning to pain.

You need his cock.

You need him inside of you.

You need to feel him fill you up to the brim, feel him warm your insides with his seed.

You need him to claim you.

August pulls his mouth away from you and your body twitches, your nerves too overwhelmed and overstimulated to process any input in a normal manner. You open your eyes just enough to look down at him between your thighs, smirking like the fucking devil. “I’ve already claimed you, little one,” he says, and you swear your entire body burns with a blush as you realize that you just said all those things out loud.

“Please,” you gasp, your breaths coming in quick, short bursts.

He rises from the bed and you whimper at the loss of contact. You instantly miss the warmth of his body and the stimulation of his mouth and tongue making you completely soaked for him. He undresses himself slowly, taking his time with every button on his shirt. He’s fully aware you’re losing your mind with every passing second. After what feels like an eternity his shirt falls to the floor. Your eyes rake over his body. You’ve seen him shirtless before but it’s never any less impressive. Your eyes jump all over his skin, not knowing where to look first. The sight of his muscles flexing and jumping in his arms as he unbuckles his pants makes you drip even more for him. And those scars, tiny war wounds he’s gotten from what he won’t say, but a reminder that he’s dangerous all the same--god, if the sight of those scars don’t just make the filthiest things run through your mind. Your hands ache to run through that thick, dark chest hair. He steps out of his pants and you’re already so wound up that you moan at the sight of his cock, hard and huge. Your walls clench as you anticipate the sting you’ll feel as he pushes himself inside of you for the first time.

“Fuck me,” you beg when you see the lust in his eyes, making the room burn with an intoxicating, mind-numbing heat.

He’s on top of you a second later, pushing your legs apart and lining up with your entrance. You close your eyes in anticipation when he pushes the tip in and stays there, waiting for you to adjust to his size before pushing further in.

“You’re so fucking tight, I love this pussy,” he growls as he continues to sheath himself inside of you.

You cry out his name in a whimper, though it’s more out of pleasure than pain. God, the things this man is capable of making you feel... it’s terrifying how intoxicating he is.

At long last he bottoms out inside of you. He wraps his hands around your hips, so tiny in his hands, before beginning to move inside of you.

“Gonna fuck you until you cry,” he promises.

It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before. You don’t know what to compare it to. It’s so much better than his fingers. His tongue on you feels almost as good as this, but the feeling of him inside of you eclipses everything else. His grip on your hips is tight as he bucks his hips against you, his balls slapping against your ass. And, fuck it, your body is so wound up and tired and overstimulated that tears already spill down your cheeks, giving August exactly what he wants. He slows his movements inside of you to a gentle pace. You open your mouth, but nothing comes out, your brain and body too tired to function properly. August leans down and licks the tears that fall down your face. The act is so sweet, yet simultaneously so arousing, that you moan and whine.

“I love the little sounds you make for me, baby girl,” he whispers. Seconds later he’s pounding into you again, turning your whines into full out screams.

His thrusts grow sloppier, the pace quickening even more, and you wonder when he’s going to cum. Your body is at the edge too, but you’ve already cum so many times that you don’t know if you can do it again.

One of his hands move to your throat, squeezing tight enough to keep you from breathing, while his other moves down to circle your clit. Within seconds your body is so aroused that every part of you is tingling. Your walls clench around his cock as you cum. He follows seconds later. His seed is warm inside of you and shit, he didn’t wear a condom, but you’re too out of it to care or really process what all of that means.

August pulls out of you and releases his grip on your throat, letting you breathe again. He lies down beside you and pulls you into his arms. You rest your head against his chest and listen to his heart begin to slow. His fingers run through your hair soothingly. That’s the last thing you’re aware of before you fall into a deep, blissful sleep.

...

You don’t know what time it is when you wake. All you’re aware of is how sore your body is--and that August is gone. You get out of bed, wondering if he’s getting something to eat downstairs, when you notice a post-it note on the bedside table. You pick it up and read:

By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. Don’t come looking for me this time.

--AW

***

Taglist:

@littlefreya​

@agniavateira​

@hnryycvll​

[lookwhatilost]

I’m going to use this video as something of a case study to prove my point. Some things that are necessary to point about Ben Shapiro: he is an intelligent person, he speaks quickly, and he makes good quips. This makes him very good for the YouTube video “LiBtArD wReCkEd” compilations. He’s also very dishonest and he tends to misrepresent statistics. This is, of course, because Ben is a fascist and fascists don’t care if they’re telling the truth.

So, this is a thirteen minute video, and barely a fraction of what this student is laying out is going to get covered. The reason why Ben is letting him talk as much as he does in the beginning instead of interrupting him the moment he started explaining what socialism is is because he’s looking for something to quote back at him. Usually he’ll let his “debate” opponent talk until he finds something to do this with, and hit them hard on the point he stops them on.

Next we have this “workers or the government” thing Ben comes back at him with: he clearly said “workers owning the means of production”. He even said it twice, I believe, and Ben pretty much says “I know you’re talking about that, but if you said THE GOVERNMENT owning the means of production, that would be very ineffective” and then he rattles off on that. Even though this student never said anything about redistribution – he deliberately stepped away from that point at the very beginning. He acknowledged the fact that Ben will often talk about redistribution without actually engaging with the core points of socialism and, once more, he never said anything about government control and he never said anything about lack of free market enterprise. Socialism and free market enterprise aren’t in any way disparate. Market socialism is a thing.

Hypothetically, what you’d have to do here is let him talk on, and when he’s done, say “That was great and all, Ben, but I pretty clearly said worker owned means of production. Would you mind answering the actual question.” You can’t treat people like this in good faith. Ben knows exactly what he’s doing here with his talking points. No one brought up the Scandinavian countries. No one brought up government owned means of production. Nobody brought up free market enterprise. Nobody brought up being paid $100,000 to dig holes in the ground. No one brought up redistribution policies – unless you count the kid bringing it up to clarify that this wasn’t what he was talking about.

He then brings up that he’s an owner. Ben is smart enough to understand the basic principles of socialism, but he recognizes he isn’t capable of addressing any substantive criticism, so he’s deliberately pretending to misunderstand what this kid is saying. “Freely choose to alienate your labor” as if you have any choice in society these days. That’s like saying you freely choose to shit inside of a toilet. You don’t have many other options in regards to that. You can if you want to, but eventually, you’re going to get in trouble with it. Again, this is a deliberate misinterpretation. The workers owning the means of production gets brought up, and he spends the first two minutes of his response saying “if you meant the government owning it, that’s disastrous, and by the way, Norway is actually capitalist, and socialists won’t tell you this, but they actually have free market enterprise. And I’m a worker, so workers do actually own the means of production. Isn’t Bill Gates a worker?” Aren’t the tens of thousands of people under Bill Gates also workers? We’re talking about all workers, not just the one worker who also happens to own the company.

Him crafting rebuttals that actually take into consideration the tenants of socialism would, at least on some level, give the socialist credence to argue in a reality based sense. If a reactionary defends their belief system by attacking socialism in ways that are actually salient, you’ve set the socialist up to debate in a fact based argument, and that’s not what reactionaries dominate. Reactionaries dominate in a purview of recited dialogue trees, of snooty quips, and emotionally based arguments. This is where they thrive. They do not want to bring the argument into a reality based discussion.

In three minutes, he’s introduced so many stupid misconceptions that the student is going to spend more time arguing against the misconception than he will putting forth his own argument. He could spend a literal hour trying to correct the dumb, deliberate straw men that Ben Shapiro has thrown out here and never will he get a chance to substantively put forth any real advocacy for socialism.

To counter his “criticism” on labor theory of value: what if you spend a lot of time and money digging up diamonds from the ground? There are plenty of diamonds that get dug up that have absolutely no mechanical or industrial purpose. He’s saying “labor theory of value is dumb and bad because the market theory of value is what’s correct” without presenting any sort of argument to support that. Neither of these are holistic theories, both of them have valid places in society as lenses of interpretation, but this is not a substantive criticism. It is, in fact, very stupid.

It also helps that he has all the social capital in this situation. You never, ever want to challenge a reactionary when they have the podium and you don’t, and while they have the audience and you don’t. If they are even slightly intelligent, it is literally impossible for them to lose in the eye of their audience.

When the student brings up Mondragon: this is what reactionaries do. They define capitalism as freedom. Capitalism is when the owners of capital own the means of production and socialism is when the workers own the means of production. Not that we should take much that economic theorists say for granted on the account of most of them being cheerleaders for capitalism, but there are plenty of things that Ben laid forth that many economic theorists would disagree with. For one, he’s laid out the assertion that free markets are somehow absolute to capitalism and antithetical so socialism, that worker owned communes are an example of capitalism, and the degree to which government intervention is present in an economy is deterministic to whether or not it is socialism. Reactionaries operate in a delusory, fantastical land where the characteristics of capitalism are amorphous and capable of being shifted to suit one argument to another. In one instance, capitalism is the liberator of the working class, the distributor of technology, and in another instance, the very real consequences of capitalism are instead a product of corporatism, of government intervention, of “globalist” policy. Not true capitalism, mind, just other things.

And hey, guys, I’ve read the Communist Manifesto. Does anyone remember any segments in there where Karl Marx claimed the government needed to cram down and force people to participate in guild markets? Does anyone remember that part? I don’t.

Anyway, this is why you don’t argue with reactionaries when they have the podium and you don’t. The student got a bunch of time to speak where he laid out a very calm point, Ben got a bunch of time to speak where he then said a bunch of shit that had nothing to do with the kids argument to mislead the audience, and then deliberately interpreted what the kid was saying to present a straw man that the kid would have to correct. Now Ben has got the student in a position where he’s basically saying “I don’t disagree with anything, you’re basically saying capitalism. Worker owned means of production? That just means the people who own it also work at it, right? If Republicans did that, would you vote for them?” The kid is never going to be able to correct all this, not in a million years, and now when he speaks up, Ben is going to keep hammering this in, deliberately interrupting the kid and forcing him to answer misleading questions.

This is how you win a Ben Shapiro debate. This is how you “own libtards”. You get the mic, deliberately misinterpret what they say, you throw straw men at them and force them to defend or respond to that, both of which are impossible, and then, just to keep them off base, you continue to interrupt them when they respond to your point. It’s a very, very simple formula to follow if you are intellectually dishonest and a complete fucking asshole.

But yeah, the free market is not exclusively capitalist. For one, the free market does not have prescriptions. The free market is not a physical entity, it’s a concept that some people aspire to, unfettered trade. And free market socialism is a thing, yet again.

At around the 8 minute mark of this video, the student makes a bit of a mistake because he’s not really harping in on the public vs private ownership of the means of production, but Ben Shapiro’s line there is completely irrelevant: “So companies shouldn’t be able to have investors?” This is a tangential question. This would be like him talking about socialized ownership, and Ben leans into the microphone and asks “well, who’s the CEO then, dummy?” This is to say, it’s tangentially related, but it has nothing to do with the thrust of the argument.

His counter to the pencil factory example is pathetic. No one mentioned doctors. No one mentioned everyone in society getting paid the same amount. This has nothing to do with doctors and pencil factory workers, this has to do with pencil factory workers and pencil factory owners. He thinks this is a “gotcha” but it literally has nothing to do with the argument the kid is making.

It is so, so difficult to maintain your composure when you are around a hostile audience. At least if you were on stage, you would have the positional authority over them. You’d be in a place where, at least physically, you are given credence by the architecture of the room – standing atop something, having the lights on you, being behind the podium, having unfettered control over the mic. These things can lend you a lot of confidence. But if you’re just standing there and someone else is holding your microphone, and the audience claps whenever Ben Shapiro says something… Ugh.

But it comes as no surprise that Ben sees capital and labor as one and the same, because he’s a fucking capitalist and he’s a piece of shit. To him, people and money are just interchangeable cogs in a larger machine that he benefits from, and that is how most capital owners see them. After all, labor is a resource, and capital is a resource, and that’s all you look at them as – resources – there isn’t much of a difference between the two. Now, of course, you’ve got a few more ~libcucky~ takes on it, like how humans are human beings, and we have rights, and should be entitled to happiness and respect, but that doesn’t really factor into that sort of economic, capitalist worldview.

To summarize, this juxtaposition, “you’re a socialist, I’m a free marketer. You’re talking about things that are voluntary, which means they can’t be socialist, because socialism is authoritarianism”, this is the dichotomy that he’s been trying to reenforce this entire conversation. I don’t know how deliberately he’s doing this, but it’s very effective. In the mind of every audience member right now, what Ben is doing right here is destroying this “libtard” right now by saying “Heh, idiot. You think that’s socialism? How can that be socialism if there’s freedom involved?' and that’s basically what he’s going for here. But when the kid gets flustered and struggles to make a coherent point in the face of all this, Ben can just shit on him. And then the people who edit this shit put in airhorns and laugh tracks so the smooth brained dipshits watching this unironically know when to clap and bark like seals at the libcuck getting owned. It’s pathetic and it’s not a real argument. Fin.

[emospritelet]

Manifesto Prompt : Anna insists it will look good if Sutherland is the one bringing Belle the folders back to wherever she is.

[AO3]

x

Sutherland had spent a restless night, and felt tired and irritable the next day. Press briefings and the planned visits to a local school and hospital were the last thing he felt like doing, but he drank several cups of coffee and ate a good breakfast, which made him feel a little more human. If no less irritable.

One of the chief reasons for his bad mood faced him on every news channel: Miss French, with her flashing blue eyes and perfect lips, puffed up with righteous indignation and berating him in the marketplace. He sounded calm when he spoke to her, his demeanour smooth and unruffled, but some of the newsroom guests on the early morning newspaper review segments still found something to criticise. Sutherland scowled from his place on the couch as they wondered aloud whether his lack of reaction suggested that he didn’t care about the suffering of ordinary people in deprived constituencies like Avonleigh. 

“Public service passion standing up to posh privilege,” announced a left-leaning columnist, a disdainful twist of his lips showing beneath one of those hipster beards as he shook out the paper. “Sutherland has to expect more of this as we get deeper into the election year. There’s a lot of dissatisfaction with the Government, and I’m sure the redoubtable Miss French is only the first of many to confront him over his record.”

“There’s a certain amount of glee all over Twitter at Miss French’s outburst,” added his female counterpart. “I won’t repeat the hashtag that seems to be trending, though.”

“Belle French is only saying what many in the country are thinking,” went on Hipster Beard. “Looks as though Sutherland might have his work cut out for him in appealing to ordinary working people.”

“It’s not as though I’ve had a lack of bloody critics up to now,” growled Sutherland, glancing at the coffee table, where Miss French’s folder of research still sat. He still hadn’t decided what to say to her.

“No press were allowed in when the two met for a discussion last night, but I suspect the Prime Minister might find it difficult to charm his way out of this one.”

“I’m not trying to charm my way anywhere,” said Sutherland loudly, as though the panel could hear him.

“What have I told you about yelling at the TV?” Anna swept into the room with an armful of newspapers and her free hand clutching his leather briefcase. “Turn that off, we have to be on the move soon.”

“Fucking gladly,” he muttered, flicking at the remote control and shutting off those having a laugh at his expense. “Any coverage of what we actually came here for?”

“Some,” she said. “Not as much as we’d like. Which is why today is important.”

Sutherland ran a hand over his face.

“Fine,” he said tiredly. “It’s the school first, yeah?”

“We’re scheduled to be at St Cuthbert’s in thirty minutes.”

“Any more coffee?”

Anna gave him a flat look.

“You already look as though your bloodstream’s pure caffeine.”

“Yes, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

She sighed heavily, dropping the newspapers on the table.

“Fine. Don’t complain to me when you get heart palpitations.”

“As if.”

She poured him another coffee, and one for herself.

“That’s it. It’s not very hot, either.”

“It’ll do.”

Anna sat down on the couch next to him, crossing her legs and giving him a thoughtful look.

“Didn’t you sleep last night?”

“Not much.”

“What’s the matter?”

Sutherland gave her a level look.

“Are you serious?”

“Oh, the Belle French thing’ll blow over,” she said impatiently, waving a hand. “Especially with what you plan to do with her. Assuming she agrees, of course.”

“I think you should ask her,” he said. “I’m willing to bet she’d respond better to you than to me.”

Anna shook her head.

“If you give the folder of research back and ask her yourself, it’ll look better,” she said. “She’s more likely to be persuaded that you’re taking her seriously that way.”

“I’m not making another press opportunity out of this,” he said impatiently. “Either she’s interested or she isn’t; I’m not having the whole thing play out on national media.”

“So go over there before we leave,” she said. “Wait until all the press are on the bus and pop to the library. That way you’ll be assured of some privacy.”

“So she can tell me to fuck off without anyone hearing, you mean?”

Anna looked irritated, slapping her hands down on her thighs.

“Why are you so convinced she’ll be hostile?”

“Experience?”

“From what you told me, your meeting last night was perfectly civil,” she countered. “And you’ve faced far more urgent crises and not batted an eyelid. What’s making you lose sleep over this?”

Sutherland hesitated, reaching for his coffee as he thought it over.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It bothers me. Can’t explain it.”

She was watching him with a shrewd expression that usually meant she had worked something out, but wasn’t ready to tell him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it anyway, so he drained the lukewarm coffee, pulling a face.

“Come on, we can think about Miss French later,” he said, pushing up off the couch. “St Cuthbert’s, right?”

x

Thirty minutes later Sutherland was walking down a school corridor with the Deputy Head of St Cuthbert’s, Mrs Nolan. She was a petite, dark-haired woman with a pixie cut and a kind smile. The press pack, kept in line by Anna, followed as they walked, and Mrs Nolan explained a little of the history of the school, and its more recent issues. 

“The school’s pretty much at capacity right now,” she said. “Class sizes have increased over the past couple of years, but we’re still just about on target.”

“Do you have trouble filling teaching vacancies?” asked Sutherland, and she shrugged.

“I think our turnover is less than the inner cities, but sick leave has increased with the class sizes. We’re forced to use more substitutes than I would like, and we’ve had to cut back on after-school programmes.” She glanced at him. “I don’t know what the kids would do if it wasn’t for the parents that run sports clubs. And Belle with her classes at the library, of course.”

Of course, he thought wryly.

“I thought you could meet with the Year Threes,” she said, drawing to a stop outside a classroom door. “They’re doing a project on Vikings.”

The classroom was bright and cheerful, pictures of Viking longboats and Norse gods pinned up on the walls and the children, all around seven or eight, seated around tables with paper and paints. They looked up, eyeing the visitors with curiosity.

“Good morning everyone!” called Mrs Nolan.

“Good morning Mrs Nolan,” chorused the class. Mrs Nolan put her hands together.

“I’m sure you all remember me saying that the Prime Minister would be visiting us today,” she said. “He’s come to take a look at your project work, and these nice people have come with him to take some pictures.”

One ear on the clacking of cameras around him, Sutherland crossed to squat down by the nearest table. A small girl with round glasses and two brown braids was carefully painting a large tree with spreading branches.

“Hey,” he said gently. “What’s your name?”

“Effie,” said the girl, not looking at him.

“Is that for your project?”

“It’s Yggdrasil,” she said placidly, brush swirling on the paper.

“It’s very good,” he said. “I was never much use at drawing when I was your age. Or any age, really.” 

Effie finally looked at him, her thick glasses giving her a somewhat owlish expression. Eventually she nodded, as though she had remembered something.

“You were on the telly,” she said decidedly. Sutherland smiled.

“That’s right.”

“Miss Belle shouted at you,” she added, and Sutherland felt his smile slip a little.

“Yes, she certainly did.”

“I like Miss Belle,” she said, dipping her brush in the paint again. “I’m sure if you say sorry, she’ll be nice to you again.”

Sutherland wanted to sigh. Flashes in the air made him very aware that the press were getting every moment of an eight year old giving him advice on how to handle Miss French.

“Do you go to the library?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” she said eagerly. “I go every weekend, and just read all day! Miss Belle makes me tea. And she has biscuits.”

“Chocolate biscuits?” he asked, and she beamed.

“One day we had chocolate fingers.”

Sutherland put a hand up to cup his mouth, as though they were sharing a secret.

“I like to dunk those in my tea,” he whispered, and she giggled, nodding.

“What would you do if the library wasn’t there?” he asked, and she wrinkled her nose

“Dunno.”

“Is there anywhere else you can go to read?” he asked. “What about home?”

Effie rolled her eyes.

“I have twin brothers,” she said, in a deadpan tone, and Sutherland nodded.

“Well, it was nice to meet you, Effie,” he said. “Good luck with your project.”

“Thank you.” She gave him another thoughtful look. “Be nice to Miss Belle.”

“Of course.”

Sutherland straightened up, mouth flattening as he moved on to the next table. Miss French certainly has her supporters. I suppose it’s hardly surprising if she’s teaching them all after school. Perhaps once we get to the hospital I’ll finally be free of her. Unless she has a part-time job as a bloody paramedic.

x

Two hours later, Sutherland was walking the hospital corridors with Miss Fay, the Matron. He was due to tour the wards before sitting down with the Board of Directors for a lunch meeting. The hospital smelt strongly of disinfectant, and ahead of him a janitor with a beard and a surly expression was mopping the floor.

“We had an outbreak of norovirus in December.” Miss Fay walked serenely along the hospital corridor beside Sutherland, brown hair brushed into a neat, shining bun. “It meant closing one of the wards during a flu outbreak, but I ordered a deep clean, so we managed to get it under control.”

“Did that result in any cancellation of procedures?” asked Sutherland, and she sniffed.

“Some, but we’ve rescheduled ninety percent of them. It was more a case of delay than cancellation. Difficult decisions needed to be made for the good of all.”

“Indeed.” 

They drew closer to the janitor, who had grounded his mop and was glaring at Sutherland from beneath heavy brows.

“Sorry we’re undoing all your hard work on this floor,” said Sutherland apologetically, and the man’s scowl grew.

“Not as sorry as this town’s gonna be when the library closes,” he said roughly.

“Leroy!” snapped Miss Fay, and his scowl twisted into something sullen as he drew back. Sutherland shook his head.

Miss French again. I can’t escape the woman. She’s bloody everywhere in this town.

“I keep hearing a lot about this library,” he said. “You make use of it yourself?”

Leroy raised his head, a suspicious look on his face.

“Yeah,” he said. “Belle helped me get this job. Let me use the computer, helped me with my application - she’s like an angel in this town. And book club once a week’s the only thing that gets me out of the house in the evenings. Take that away, you take the town’s heart, don’t you get that?”

“The Prime Minister isn’t taking anything away,” said Miss Fay stiffly. “And I suggest you find another floor to mop. Go on, now.”

Leroy muttered something under his breath, pushing his cleaning cart with him as he stomped off.

“I apologise for Leroy,” said Miss Fay. “He rather idolises the librarian, it has to be said.”

“So I see,” said Sutherland. “Do you know Miss French?”

She sniffed again.

“I don’t use the library myself, but she runs a book reservation and collection service for our longer-term patients. Brings a trolley of books around twice a week.”

“That sounds like a useful service,” said Sutherland. “What do the patients think?”

“Oh, I’m told they appreciate it. She reads to a few of those with impaired vision.”

“Sounds as though she’s very dedicated to her profession,” he observed, and she shrugged.

“Perhaps.”

“What impact do you think the loss of that service would have on the patients?” he asked.

“Well, I daresay they’d get over it,” she said. “No one’s irreplaceable, are they? Their families would have to step up, instead of leaving it to others. Follow me, I’ll show you around Paediatrics.”

She marched on, and Sutherland shared a look with Anna before following.

“Miss French’s role seems to extend beyond that of a regular librarian,” he murmured, watching the back of Miss Fay’s head as they walked.

“All the more reason to have her on our team, wouldn’t you say?” whispered Anna, and Sutherland sighed.

“Alright, fine,” he said, his voice still low. “I’ll talk to her.”

[chriscolfernews]

Chris Colfer is renowned for his Golden Globe-winning performance as Kurt Hummel on Fox'sGlee, where he helped bring the story and struggles of a gay teen to an international audience.

However, the 29-year-old actor-turned-writer is also taking the literary world by storm. Colfer has written an impressive 15 novels, most notably his The Land of Stories children's fantasy series. He does not shy away from LGBTQ activism on the page. His latest book, A Tale of Magic..., which centers on people persecuted for practicing magic, "is an allegory for being gay," Hummel told The Advocate in a recent interview.

Evoking a children's version of The Handmaid's Tale, A Tale of Magic presents a world where women have no rights and are barred from reading. Additionally, practitioners of magic are condemned to death or life imprisonment. A young girl, Brystal Evergreen, rebels against this tyranny by engaging in both. In turn, she is sent to a correctional facility to "cure" her of her magic. A mysterious savior, Madame Weatherberry, rescues Brystal from detainment and recruits her on a mission to change the hearts and minds of the kingdom.

In the following interview, Colfer discusses how antigay politics of the real world inspired his magical allegory, which he calls a "manifesto for compassion. I’ve never written anything like it before." A Tale of Magic, now available on Amazon and wherever good books are sold, also recently debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, demonstrating how Colfer's message of political resistance has resonated with young audiences.

The Advocate: Congratulations on your new book! What inspired A Tale of Magic?

Chris Colfer: Trauma, mostly. I was 11 years old when 9/11 happened. I remember I was old enough to understand what was happening, but I wasn’t old enough to understand why it was happening. And I don’t think anything is scarier for a child than confusion. I can’t imagine how scared kids must feel nowadays. So I wanted to write a book that parents and teachers could use as a point of reference when they explain the troubling things their kids and students see on the news. I hope it puts things into perspective while giving them a magical adventure at the same time.

You’ve written 15 books. What’s the secret to your productivity? Caffeine. Lots and lots of caffeine. Also, isolation. Sometimes I’ll go weeks without seeing anyone besides my boyfriend and our dogs.

Who are your literary influences? Well, I apologize for sounding like a millennial cliché, but J.K. Rowling had the biggest impact on me. I wasn’t a good reader when I was young, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was the first book I actually enjoyed reading. And some of my happiest childhood memories were going to those midnight release parties. I then went on to devour everything by C.S. Lewis, Eva Ibbotson, and Bruce Coville. On some level, I think I’m still mourning the end of Harry Potter. It left a void I’ve been trying to fill by writing my own books.

What appeals to you about the fantasy genre in particular? I suppose it’s the escapism and encouragement it provides. In fantasy, a mouse can slay a dragon if it’s courageous enough. That’s very therapeutic for those of us still battling our own dragons.

A Tale of Magic, much like The Handmaid’s Tale, shows a bleak world where women have no rights. Also, practitioners of magic are subjected to imprisonment or even the death sentence. While writing the book, how much did the real world and the current political climate influence your storytelling? The current climate was the entire inspiration. A Tale of Magic was supposed to be an easy task for me. It was supposed to be the start of a simple prequel series. The working title was The Land Before Stories. But when I sat down to actually write it, I felt so angry and helpless by the state of the world, I had to do something more so I could sleep at night. Even if I was the wrong messenger, even if it didn’t do well, I wanted to do anything I possibly could to guide the next generation onto a better path. It ceased to be a prequel and became a completely original story. Now I consider A Tale of Magic my manifesto for compassion. I’ve never written anything like it before.

What is the overarching message you wanted to send by centering your story on a character who is not only discriminated against for her gender, but also her extraordinary abilities? I want young people to know that just because they’re born into an environment that doesn’t accept or appreciate them, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an environment that will. There’s a lot of love waiting for you out there if you’re willing to look for it. I’m living proof. Also, the more the world discourages you, the more it needs you.

The protagonist is sent to a “Correctional Facility for Troubled Young Women” in the hopes that she will be “cured” of her magical gifts. This storyline echoes the experiences of survivors of conversion therapy. How do you think fiction — your novel in particular — can fight against antigay forces like "ex-gay" therapy in the real world? Thank you for making that connection. In my opinion, the purpose of fiction, besides providing an escape, is to subconsciously plant seeds of reason and compassion in people’s minds. That was the sole mission of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. After reading about the horrible and abusive experiences at the Correctional Facility in A Tale of Magic, I hope my readers will grow up with a resentment of conversion therapy already ingrained within them. If I can get them to sympathize with the struggles of a fictitious magical community, then maybe, just maybe, they’ll be more likely to sympathize with the struggles of other communities fighting for acceptance in the real world.

In addition to A Tale of Magic being a novel, do you see it as a work of LGBTQ activism? I’d like to think so. Although, I have no control over how other people will interpret it. For me, the magic in A Tale of Magic is an allegory for being gay. The characters are raised to believe magic is demonic and unnatural. They’re sent to camps where they “pray the magic away.” And they’re all on a mission to prove "magic isn’t a choice." But what magic represents for me may be different for a little girl in Egypt or a teenage boy in Japan. We all have obstacles that hold us back. We’re all assigned different stigmas based on our circumstances. So, whatever your “magic” may be, A Tale of Magic is about overcoming the forces that suppress it.

We’re living in a world when books are still being banned — and the written word itself is under attack. As a novelist, do you see it as your duty to fight against censorship? Absolutely. You have to be incredibly strategic to get your book into the hands of the people who need it the most. Especially when your books have LGBTQ themes. So many authors get criticized when they reveal a character’s orientation or gender identity after publication instead of on the page. But I don’t always agree with those critics. In some places books are instantly banned if they have any LGBTQ characters or LGBTQ references whatsoever. But there are ways of getting representation into those territories that goes under the radar. That’s the purpose of the character Xanthous Hayfield in A Tale of Magic. His orientation is never directly addressed in the first book, but there are enough clues so a closeted little boy living in an oppressive country can relate to him and know he’s not alone. But I don’t think censorship can survive the modern age. In fact, I think governments shoot themselves in the foot when they apply censorship. It instantly triggers a wave of curiosity and publicity you can’t buy. So please, by all means, ban me.

Did you have a Madame Weatherberry, the "fairy godmother" character in A Tale of Magic, in your life? My grandmother was my biggest cheerleader growing up. She made me believe in myself, and I think that’s the greatest gift you can give a kid, even if you don’t necessarily believe their dreams are practical. I used to sit with her for hours and hours on her back patio and talk. We’d make game plans of how I was going to accomplish my goals while she smoked and polished her guns.

You dedicate your novel to those whose shoulders you stand on — presumably LGBTQ pioneers. Did you have any particular figures in mind when making this dedication? There are a hundred names I could list that everyone knows, but it’s really about the people who are unknown. I get pretty emotional when I think about it. There are millions of people who never got to reap the benefits of their courage and honesty, but because they stood up when they did, I get to do what I love and be with who I love. I can’t imagine the bravery it took. Even right now, there are people in other parts of the world reading this website in secret, looking for encouragement as they fight for their right to exist. Wherever they are, I hope they can feel the future’s gratitude.

If you could have any magical ability, what would it be? Honestly, I’d be happy with just a faster metabolism. That sounds pretty magical.

What appeals to you about your literary work, versus the world of television and film? I suppose it’s the control. When I write a novel, it can be anything and everything I want it to be. I get to tell the story and describe the images exactly as they exist in my mind. In film and television there’s always so many cooks in the kitchen it’s difficult to produce a pure vision. There’s a lot of compromising and negotiating and it requires a lot of patience. Also, I can write books in my pajamas. It doesn’t get better than that.

Would you adapt A Tale of Magic into a movie or TV series? I would love to see A Tale of Magic come to life. I guess it all depends on my experience with the Land of Stories film adaptation. For my own physical safety, I hope the Disney/Fox merger settles so we can finish it. There are millions of kids around the world who are going to want to hurt me if they don’t get a movie soon.

[all-hail-the-witcher]

every book i had to read for english and why i didn't like any of them

i woke up thinking about this and decided to make this post. for context, i went to public school and was on the honors/ap track for english. i am a firm believer that english teachers ruin books for their students inadvertently. this is my experience:

6th grade language arts

we read three books during 6th grade, bridge to terabithia, the cay, and where the red fern grows. and i had to read a wrinkle in time over the summer which i didn't understand like at all so I'm just gonna skip that one honors english was not a thing until 8th grade where i went to middle school so this was a regular english class and i hated it. it was also a double period class for some reason, so i had an hour and a half of language arts every day. 

it took us half the year to read bridge to terabithia. i am not kidding. that book is like maybe 100 pages and it took us a good 4-5 months. this is because our teacher stopped us every time we got to a pice of figurative language and made us analyze it. every. single. piece. i got so bored that i read ahead and then got in trouble for reading ahead. needless to say, i absolutely detested bridge to terabithia and would not touch it to this day if my life depended on it. 

after bridge to terabithia we read the cay. this took us the rest of the year. the cay is a relatively short book as well so i got bored with this one quickly as well. i really dont remember much about the discussions, but i remember a long one about how the cover was “inaccurate,” which, yes, it was but i dont know if a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds need to spend a week debating that. i think i hated it mostly because, again, we read it for 5 months. 

the last three weeks of the school year, our teacher gave us a book and said “here read this before school ends because we have to read three books a year and we only read 2″ (for context, the other language arts class had read about 5-7 books that year and found it insane that we were “still reading bridge to terabithia”) so i read where the red fern grows. all in all it wasn't a bad book, i did kind of enjoy it, but since i was rushed reading it on top of all my other homework and because it was definitely ahead of my reading comprehension level, it wasn't my favorite.

7th grade language arts

now, a bit of a disclaimer here, this was the year that i was in language arts with the guy i had a crush on and one of my close friends at the time. so, i didn't really pay that much attention to begin with. we read quite a few books in this class, but I'm not sure if i remember all of them. again, this was a double period. 

i think the first book we read was freak the mighty. i remember not liking this book because i felt like i was missing something. there was definitely some kind of metaphor or something in there that i was supposed to get but because i was literally twelve i didn't get it and i didn't find the meaning in it. theres nothing more frustrating than reading a book that you dont understand.

after that I'm pretty sure we read the wave. it was explained to us that the wave is supposed to symbolize how the n*zis came to power and all that stuff, and while we all knew this, i dont think we really Understood it. (probably because we were 12). we all kinda saw it as a joke and thought it was funny. i think that if i read it now i would be like. “well shit this is really interesting” but 12 year old me wanted to make fun of it with the rest of my class. 

i think we read seed folks next. this was another book that just went over all of our heads. its about how a garden changes a whole bunch of peoples lives which is like, super interesting. but none of us got it and were like “lol this is stupid” so much so that we actually stopped reading it. like my teacher stopped having us read it.

I'm fairly certain the last book we read was the miracle worker. a lot of us had had to read parts of it before that class so we were all kinda familiar with it already. i vaguely remember some kind of obnoxious class joke about the book that was probably rude. i remember finding it interesting, but there were so many activities we did about the book that i lost interest. 

8th grade honors reading

this class was A Trip. i liked the teacher, but she was a little out there. its unclear whether she got fired or just didn't come back after that year. i had a lot of fun in her class but it was usually because we all bonded over hating the assigned reading.

i dont remember what order we read the books in and i dont remember if this was all of them, but to the best of my recollection this is what we read

we definitely read romeo and juliet. by the time you're in 8th grade, everyone knows the story of romeo and juliet, so it wasn't like that suspenseful or a surprise or anything. but we had to act the reading out. yes we had to act out romeo and juliet. with burger king crowns. and wrapping paper swords. clearly the teacher was trying to have fun with us, and it was fun fun for awhile but it got old. especially when you got participation points taken off your grade if you didn't read for once of the characters (which is massively unfair because not everyone wants to get up in front of a class in a paper crown holding a wrapping paper tube and read in old english when you're 13 but whatever). 

we also definitely read animal farm. it was another book that went right over our heads (or, mine at least). i didn't actually really understand it until i had to read the communist manifesto for ap euro senior year. and our teacher talked in a bad russain accent the entire time? i could barely keep the characters straight, let alone analyze the underlying message and all that. now i might actually like it since I'm a history major and have a decent background on the russian revolution, but at 13? no thanks.

the one book that everyone hated (including the teacher herself) was farewell to manzanar. it was a memoir about a young girl growing up in the japanese internment camps and looking back on her life and stuff like that. the story itself was very interesting and we all learned a lot from it. but the person who wrote it did not know how to write. it was confusing, some chapters made no sense, and none of us generally knew what was going on. we had to finish the book because we were the honors class, but the regular class got to stop after chapter 6. 

i think we only read 4 books that year and the fourth one was the outsiders. this was one of two books that i actually liked the entirely of my public school education. i kinda vibed with it when we were reading it and then i vibes with it more once i got to high school and rediscovered it. it was just a good book, pretty solid, good themes, fantastic. 

9th grade honors english

i absolutely hated this class. hands down the worst teacher i ever had. she was one of those that should have retired 20 years ago but was still teaching for some reason. and she hated kids. legitimately. that was the first time i got a c and it took my parents a long time to realize that it wasn't because of me, it was because the teacher was absolute shit. the only thing that made that class bearable was the fact that my friend was in there and so was this guy that totally like her so he would flirt with her pretty incessantly and it was Hilarious. 

we read so many books that year and i hated all of them. a lot of them were like greek dramas and plays? like we read oedipus rex and julius caesar and antigone. and i hated all of them because the teacher made me hate reading and made it seem like a chore. 

by far the worst was the old man and the sea. i hated that book, hemingway was terrible. i struggled to find any kind of meaning in it and connected all of my responses to the bible because my teacher loved it when people did that.

we read inherit the wind and to kill a mockingbird and all quiet on the western front which were the only books i found remotely interesting. but i still hated them because i knew that we would have to do her reading quizzes which were impossible so it was pointless to read the book anyway. 

and we also read a raisin in the sun. i dont remember what this was even about except that there was some kind of insurance money involved. but by this point we were all really done with our teachers shit and my one friend legitimately said during class “but, ms. [name] if you put a raisin in the sun, doesn't it just get more raisiny?”

10th grade ap english language and composition (american lit)

i loved this class and the teacher but i hated all the assigned reading because we read it for the ap test. everything you read was in the context of having to find themes and shit to write about on the ap. so i didn't really get any of the books for that reason. i think we only read three and they were the scarlet letter, the crucible, and the great gatsby. i kind wish i paid more attention to gatsby and i think i would like it more now but at the time i detested it. we also had to read grapes of wrath over the summer and i hated that. i wanna read books to read them, not to come into school and write essays on them. also the ending was weird and i hated it.

11th grade honors (british lit)

another bad year of english, not quite as bad as freshman year, but still bad. still hated it. i outlined many fics in that class. the teacher did not like me and i did not like her. she also talked in this weird fake almost british but not quite accent that sometimes still haunts my nightmares. she was also one of those backwards feminists who claims they're a feminist but still was sexist in her favorites and the way that she treated people in the class?? after english i had math and my friend (the same girl who said the thing about raisins freshman year) and some others would complain to our math teacher about our english teacher. math was essentially a support group for english where we would discuss answers to reading checks. 

over the summer we read 1984, which, cool concept (esp right now) but i hated knowing that i had to find some kind of deep meaning in it because i was going to have to write an essay on it as soon as i came back to school.

from there i think we read beowulf which was interesting. i dont know if we actually read the whole thing or just excerpts but again, i hated looking for meaning.

we read a tale of two cities which was like the one book i actually wanted to read because i am a huge fan of the shadow hunters book serieses and will and tessa quote that book all the time. i think if i had read it to read it it would have been better but first, dickens is wordy and weird and second i dont really wanna have to search out symbolism while I'm reading because its required.

we read macbeth, which i just didn't like. idk why. i just kinda thought it was stupid. i dont really have an explanation for this one. i think it was because we read it in the old english and that confused me a lot of the time.

and we read jane eyre. the only thing i remember from jane eyre was “pathetic fallacy” which is where the mood of the scene is reflected in the weather. i dont wanna dissect a book like that. and also my teacher referred to the book as “jane” but she said it “jAAYYneeE” which was annoying. 

12th grade ap lit

dear god. this class. i had issues with this class. our teacher was something. everyone was afraid of him. e v e r y o n e. he ran detention and didn't know how to match his clothes and wore skinny ties. he had three swell bottles the he would bring with him to school every day. people claimed he used to be in a rock band and that was why his voice was so high pitched and weird. some said his wife left him, others said he had a kid. we were genuinely confused by him. he didn't teach, he yelled at you for doing things wrong without giving any instructions on how he actually wanted it done. he made college out to be some big scary thing where we would all be trampled. but mostly, he was an existentialist. 

we had to read song of solomon over the summer. i hated it. i didn't hate it because of the messages and all that stuff, no the book itself was good and toni morrison is a great author. i just hated the fact that there was graphic description of incest, necrophilia, or sex at least once every 5-10 pages. i didn't wanna read that. and it turned me off the book. so when he asked us if we liked the book when the year started i said no and i argued with him about it. and he hated me for the entire year. 

next i think we read waiting for godot. which was absolutely terrible. its literally a play where nothing happens. it would have been funny except that i knew i was gonna have to write an essay on it. how do you write an essay on a play where nothing happens? literally all of our discussions about it were about existentialism and it was terrible. 

we read the metamorphosis, which everyone hated cause it could have been written in like 4 sentences. and our teacher thought he was So Clever for assigning it to us. he thought it was the biggest joke. and he went on and on about how its about existentialism and blah blah. the book would have been funny had he not only discussed it in regards to existentialism. 

i think next was hamlet. i would have like hamlet had we not discussed it only through the lens of existentialism. its a good play, but i hated it because of the way he talked about it. even now, i only like it to make fun of the way he liked it. my friend and i send hamlet memes to each other all the time but only cause they remind us of our teacher.

one flew over the cuckoos nest. the second and final book that i actually liked my entirety of school. i dont know why i liked it, but it was just a good book. our teacher also had some kind of weird cowboy trope thing that he thought mcmurphy fell under which i thought was hilarious. the essay i wrote on that book was the only one he wrote “nice job” on and i still have it somewhere

my friend claims that we also read the stranger. i dont really remember what that book was about except some guy shot some people. there was definitely something in it that i didnt get. 

anyway in conclusion required reading ruins books. when i told my creative writing advisor that i out of all the books i read for school i only like the outsiders and one flew over the cuckoos nest she was like “yeah, english teachers really ruin books for students”

[migleefulmoments]

Chris Speaks Through ATOM

Abby’s Book Club is finally coming through with the long-promised lit analysis of A Tale Of Magic by Christopher Paul Colfer. 

Like all great explorations of fiction, they are looking for the author’s main messages. The tinhatters love them some symbolism so they will be scouring the tome, searching for anything they can make into a symbol of Darren’s great oppression, Darren’s great love, Darren’s gay or just plain old Darren. 

The one thing that stuck out to me as I listened to the audiobook-well besides the obvious LGBTQ themes- was the lack of anything suggesting Crisscolfer. TLOS had several romances that the tinhatters were able to exploit to meet their symbolic needs, but ATOM is about kids- the main character is 14 yo and romance is not on her mind and many other characters are even younger. The story is about self-acceptance and homophobia, The characters have many lessons to learn before they can think about a healthy romance. But never fear, Abby’s Book Club found what they were cclooking for and see Darren all over the story. But first, let’s talk a little about what I see in a quick and dirty analysis of the most obvious themes of the story and then talk about what Chris says about his own story while promoting it. 

One thing about Mr. Colfer’s writing is that he doesn’t rely on subtlety to get his message across- his messages are loud and clear and right there for you. True, he is writing for kids, but he just isn’t subtle- he beats his message with the veracity of an over-excited Bam Bam Rubble. In an interview (below) with the Advocate, the interviewer asks about the obvious conversion therapy storyline Chris responds by thanking them for picking up on that. Thank you for picking up on that? It’s so obvious! It’s Stephen King thanking his readers for picking up on the horror themes in Carrie. 

Under a cut because this is super long 

Chris Speaks Through ATOM

While promoting the book, Chris made it very clear that the story is meant to be a book of inspiration for kids around the world. He was inspired to write a book he calls a “manifesto for compassion” after getting so depressed about our political climate and receiving letters from scared gay kids from around the world. He wanted to write a book that 

“parents and teachers could use as a point of reference when they explain the troubling things their kids and students see on the news. I hope it puts things into perspective while giving them a magical adventure at the same time”

He goes on to say the current political climate is the entire inspiration for his book. When asked what his overarching message he answered: 

“The current climate was the entire inspiration...when I sat down to actually write it, I felt so angry and helpless by the state of the world, I had to do something more so I could sleep at night. Even if I was the wrong messenger, even if it didn’t do well, I wanted to do anything I possibly could to guide the next generation onto a better path”

When asked about the overarching message of the main character being discriminated against for her gender and her magic abilities, he replied:

“I want young people to know that just because they’re born into an environment that doesn’t accept or appreciate them, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an environment that will. There’s a lot of love waiting for you out there if you’re willing to look for it. I’m living proof. Also, the more the world discourages you, the more it needs you.”

When questioned about the storyline that clearly references conversion therapy he said: 

“Thank you for making that connection. In my opinion, the purpose of fiction, besides providing an escape, is to subconsciously plant seeds of reason and compassion in people’s minds. That was the sole mission of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. After reading about the horrible and abusive experiences at the Correctional Facility in A Tale of Magic, I hope my readers will grow up with a resentment of conversion therapy already ingrained within them. If I can get them to sympathize with the struggles of a fictitious magical community, then maybe, just maybe, they’ll be more likely to sympathize with the struggles of other communities fighting for acceptance in the real world.”

He was asked: In addition to A Tale of Magic being a novel, do you see it as a work of LGBTQ activism?

“I’d like to think so. Although, I have no control over how other people will interpret it. For me, the magic in A Tale of Magic is an allegory for being gay. The characters are raised to believe magic is demonic and unnatural. They’re sent to camps where they “pray the magic away.” And they’re all on a mission to prove "magic isn’t a choice." But what magic represents for me may be different for a little girl in Egypt or a teenage boy in Japan. We all have obstacles that hold us back. We’re all assigned different stigmas based on our circumstances. So, whatever your “magic” may be, A Tale of Magic is about overcoming the forces that suppress it”.

ATOM is dedicated to the LGBTQ pioneers who came before you, what particular figures? 

“There are a hundred names I could list that everyone knows, but it’s really about the people who are unknown. I get pretty emotional when I think about it. There are millions of people who never got to reap the benefits of their courage and honesty, but because they stood up when they did, I get to do what I love and be with who I love. I can’t imagine the bravery it took. Even right now, there are people in other parts of the world reading this website in secret, looking for encouragement as they fight for their right to exist. Wherever they are, I hope they can feel the future’s gratitude.” 

Themes and Message of ATOM

 LGBTQ

“Magic” is an allegory for being gay. Society is scared of magic and detests anyone who can perform magic. Magical creatures have all been banished from the kingdom and anyone with magical powers has to hide it from the kingdom or they will be sent to a special “correctional” facility where they will be forced to try to rid themselves of their special powers. The magic kids are called “fairies” (I couldn’t decide if this made me laugh or if it was horrifying). 

Self-acceptance:  Madam Weatherberry is recruiting students for her new academy, Hogwarts (I can’t remember the real name but I believe it was a mouthful and a running gag). The academy will teach magic but it will also teach it’s students self-acceptance and how to love oneself. Brystal finds herself a leader at the school. 

Normalize magic to change society’s perception: The kingdom is a dystopian world that resembles Trump’s base in 2020 or all of America up until the 20th century. The father insists on austerity for the entire family and women have no rights. Women aren’t allowed to read (except recipes and grocery lists), they are required to look like ‘Living dolls” at all times including wearing complicated, layered clothing and women and girls do all of the work around the home and garden. Girls are expected to want nothing more than to get married and have children. Anyone with magical abilities is immediately shunned and sent to a correctional facility to be cured. Madame Weatherberry’s new school’s mission is also to change society’s perception of magic kids through normalizing magic. She also rejects society’s strict rules for male and female rules. Girls are allowed to read and study in the same books and classes as the boys.  

Chosen Families- Brystal is shunned by her family and after being convicted of being magical, she is sent away to the “correctional facility”. It is there, away from her real family that she meets the people who become her chosen family. 

It Get’s Better: Brystal learns that it gets better when she is empowered by Madame Weatherberry to love and accept herself. She meets other magic kids who support and love her replacing her judgemental, unsupportive family who shunned her. Brystal is so empowered that she leads the effort and successfully defeats the villain in the story 

Conversation therapy is horrific- The “correctional facility” is a dark place where young fairies spend years living in austere conditions away from their parents. They have to follow strict rules and participate in “therpies” in order to cure themselves of their magic. Like in real conversation therapy, the techniques to rid the magic are barbaric and ineffective. 

This is my quick-and-dirty analysis from what I remember, I don’t have the book to reference (I can’t bring myself to listen to 25 hours of audiobook) and I am not great at this. So now let’s see what the Book Club has come up with shall we? I am highlighting the ccDarren analysis with both bold and italics. I am not going to add my own comments to their posts just becuase I don’t want it to get confusing. Notice how they pull out one word from the to associated with Darren’s story.  It’s literature’s version of cropping a video into 1-2 seconds, slowing it down and making it a gif to watch over and over and over.  

*****************************************************************************************************

Abby’s Book Club

December 26, 2019

Submission from a friend (I posted my brief thoughts at the end). Major spoilers below. Scroll past if you haven’t read and don’t want to know.

First off, just in the note to the readers, I knew this book was going to be full of some good stuff.

Obviously, all interpretations are my own, after my first read through.

“A tale of magic follows a group of young fairies as they fight for acceptance in an oppressive world where magic is outlawed and despised. This story is very close to my heart, and writing it was the most challenging and emotional process I’ve experienced as an author to date. …… I hope it encourages and comforts anyone who may be fighting their own battle for acceptance and equality.”

Fairies= anyone feeling different or told they can’t be who they are, perhaps including the LGBT community? Hmm.. Close to his heart? What closer to his heart than the reality he’s living?

“If we want to change the world’s opinion it must be encouraged, not forced– and nothing encourages people like a good spectacle.”

Hmm… a spectacle? Sounds familiar. You can’t force anyone to believe anything, but it can be encouraged by opening your eyes to a good spectacle, like say a wedding, and realizing that it just doesn’t make sense if you open your eyes. Nuff said. 

One of the books that Brystal comes across is by Daisy Peppernickel. I think that speaks for itself. It’s clearly known that Daisy is a certain someone’s nickname, especially used by the part of his fans that believe in Daisy. 

“.. each author’s cause of death was EXECUTED FOR CONSPIRACY AGAINS THE KINGDOM. … It was a graveyard for truth and an archive of people the Justices had silenced.”

Deleted tweets, accounts vanishing into thin air. This sounds a lot like the conspiracies against (str8) fandom. It’s no secret that people have been silenced.

“All the books in the secret room were written by people who felt and thought exactly like she did, by people who questioned information, who criticized social restrictions, who challenged the systems set in place, and who weren’t afraid to make their ideas known.”

Questioning information? Challenging the system? Not afraid to make their ideas known? Can’t think of anybody that might do that.

“Personally, I think life is way to complicated for anyone’s life to be set in stone.”

Even though D seems to be in a death sentence, there’s way more to life and his fate is not set in stone. C believes in his man, and knows he can overcome this.

“Sometimes as  a survival method, fairies suppress their magic so deep within themselves that it becomes extremely difficult to reach it.”

This reminds me of D’s dudebro persona that he brings out. He’s suppressing himself so far that at times he’ll turn himself into a different caricature of himself. We all know Daisy is in there somewhere under the layers of D-bag. 

“It’s very hard watching someone you love in so much pain.”

C watching the person he loves get knocked down over and over, he’s speaking directly from his own experience here.

“Horence had the misfortune of falling in love with a witch. … Naturally, such a relationship was forbidden, so for over a decade, Horence and the witch carried on a secret affair. When Horence’s soldiers discovered the relationship, the men betrayed their commander. They burned Horence at the stake and forced the witch to watch it happen.”

Using LGBT to equal ‘magical’ (As I’ve found countless references I haven’t even put in here) D fell in love with someone magical (gay), and their relationship was forbidden and secret. Once their secret was out, the team made D pay for it and C had to watch it all go down with nothing that he could do. (Except throw all his angst into his books ;) )

“We must pity the people who close to hate, Brystal. Their lives will never be as meaningful as those of the people who choose to love.”

The pathetic souls that do nothing but hate on C C and spread hate will never have as meaningful of a life as those that chose to love and support our boys. 

“We all know how terrible keeping a secret can feel. Secrets are like parasites, the longer you keep them inside you, the more damage they cause.”

The longer D is force to stay closeted, the more damage it does to him. 

“If we had had everything we wanted then, we might never have found what we needed now.”

This to me feels like C is actually a little bit thankful for the bumps in the road. He’s trying to look on the bright side. If things had always been easy for them, they might have taken it for granted. Everything they’ve been through has only made them stronger. If they can get through all of this shit alive, they can make it through absolutely anything. 

“She dreamed the fairy was repeatedly knocked to the ground by a ferocious monster in a fur coat and snowflake crown.”

The ferocious monster in a fur coat? Makes me think of another monster that wears a fur coat. Shade.

“You can stop pretending, Brystal. I know you’re aware of much more than you’re letting on.”

C knows that we know. He’s not living under a rock.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I refuse to sit back and let a frosty old witch take Madame Weatherberry away from us.”

Frosty old witch= Obviously M

“Do you guys know what your love languages are? Mine is quality time. It used to be physical touch, but that wasn’t working very well, so I had to change it. People are so picky about personal space and–”

C cherishes any quality time that he gets to have with D, since it it’s not always available. 

“Sometimes good people do bad things for the right reasons.”

I have this bookmarked, along with some other passages about the Snow Queen / Mrs. Weatherberry. I know that there’s /some/ significance around this, but I haven’t fully figured out exactly what all it symbolizes. I have a few ideas, but nothing really seems to line up completely to me. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it at some point!

I think those are the big things that I’ve bookmarked. There’s so much more I could talk about, but I’m afraid it would start to not make any sense if I just started rambling, so I decided to go off of passages from the book and my thoughts on why I think they’re significant or tie into C C. 

You can feel free to just keep this for yourself, or post it at a later date, or take pieces parts to post. Whatever you want!

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ajw adds: I know I’ve been really bad about posting on the book. I saved this submission because I thought it was brilliant and a lot of great insights.

My opinion on the Madame W/Horence/Ice Queen? C is Madame W/Ice Queen and D is Horence. I too thought frosty old queen at first referred to m. But once the twist was revealed I’m convinced it’s c and his dual personality like the twins. He is a Gemini as he likes to remind us. It’s his struggle between being happy with the love he was blessed with and his desire to destroy for the people that have so gravely hurt them.

The quote above to think about most.

Sometimes good people do bad things for the right reasons.

That’s him talking about their Pr life and I’d guess directly addressing the fraud in NOLA. He’s believed in d and he wants us to believe in him too.

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February 7, 2020 (X)

Anonymous asked:

Call me crazy but the 'out of the woods' thing got me thinking. Wasn't froggy hiding away in the woods while he didn't feel free to let himself be seen? Didn't he get fake married in the woods? D is forced to hide away in the woods because he can't be himself. Out of the woods could be a hint for just general freedom, not just done with the current projects. Plus HE will be around more once he is free to be himself, as opposed to his team tweeting most of the time as him.

Nonnie, excellent analogy, Froggy did in fact hide in the woods and was hiding when he first met the twins, though he did not fake marry. The wedding in the woods was very real- Jack and Goldie who also represent D&C.

But let’s even take if further.  M, as part of her narcissistic need to mock fandom, staged that wedding at a venue where it looked like it was a “wedding in the woods.”  Mocking C and D and fandom.  

D, in his own words, is now almost “out of the woods.”  He is very deliberate and he has used that phrase twice now in just a few weeks.  It certainly makes me think….

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February 8, 2020 (X)

Anonymous asked:

So I’m 100% convinced they were together up through mid season 4. Didn’t C that was the time he was going through rough times in his personal life? And he took out in his book?

ajw720 answered: C released TLOS2 on August 6, 2013, right before the start of season 4 of G/lee.  What was happening season 3?  His relationship with RM completely broke down.  And more, at some point during season 3, and you can see it play out on screen with the change in how K/laine was treated, a decision was made to severally closet D and to hide the CC relationship. And while she had not yet moved to LA, it was only a few months away so likely something talked about and decided.  And this is likely leading into the time they decided D could be the next pop sensation to fulfill millions of teenage dreams ,So angsty indeed but I don’t think they broke up. Not long after W transitioned from PA to BF. W is solely a tool to hide CC.  They may have been having troubles, but very much in a relationship that TPTB decided had to be hidden.

Remember in TLOS2, the evil character was blatantly named after PBB.  There were a group of men locked in jars, frankly i think each represented parts of D that Swiller bottled up in a jar.  And I think it was just C venting and getting it out. While CC was clearly present in TLOS1, it is TLOS2 where C started using his voice and he has not stopped through to his most recent book where he is still talking about D and their story.

souly And let’s not forget this chapter in TLOS2. IMO, one of the most interesting ones.

ajw720 Yesterday was a day as many of you know and I completely fucked this up. The book came out after season 4. So even more angsty that what I wrote. While C was writing this his world was kind of falling apart. Things were bad on set. They had separated him and d during filming using the onscreen break up as a device to break them up in real life. PBB was moved to LA and W was suddenly being used to appear like a possible bf. So much of that book was about what was happening especially the jars and the chapter @souly identified. This is when he publicly announced that m was an evil force in their lives.

And again he’s still using his books. D is all over ATOM. Still going strong.

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February 8, 2020 (X)

Let’s Talk about the Book Again, Shall We? I was inspired by the excerpt of sequel!

This post is about the character, who I don’t think is M, though in later books, who know (she seems to perhaps have a turn in A T/ale of W/itchraft?), but I think she less desirable traits are absolutely modeled after M.  Some of my fav quotes under read more.  C I love you, I laughed at loud at some of these lines.

Lucy Goosey or as she pronounces it, “Goo-say” which we would know if we had any “class.”  Just reminds me so much of D pronouncing PBB’s last name which is not how it looks:)

C’s introduction of Lucy Goo-say:

“The girl wore a black bowler hat, an oversize black jumpsuit, big black boots, and a bottlecap necklace.  She carried a small suitcase made from a taxidermy porcupine, and a canteen made from a beaver skull was draped over her shoulder.

On describing her perception of her talents:

“We are not just a family, we’re the Goose Troupe! You can’t have a band without its star tambourine player.”

And:

“and exceptional talent… don’t forget exception talent.”

And 

“And I have thousands of adoring fans.”

Our Lucy hates performing in the Southern Kingdom, due to the restrictions, described as follows, which are admittedly horrible but makes me think of things that would be of concern to our fake Mrs.:

“They’ve got all these rules about what artists are allowed to do.  We can’t sing profanity, we can’t play loudly, we can’d dance crudely, everyone has to be clothed- it takes all the fun out of it! I can’t even bang my tambourine on my hip without being fined!”

On describing Ms. Goo-say’s bedroom:

“As she stepped inside, Brystal had to remind herself she was stepping into a thirteen year old girl’s bedroom, because Lucy’s chamber looked like a tavern.” Huh, tavern, Swiller’s favorite type of place.

And my Favorite line perhaps in the entire book as it describes PBB, I mean L/ucy, so well and is a sign in her bedroom (this line wakes me want to kiss C it is so fabulous):

“PLAY HARD, WORK HARDLY.”

And upon meeting a troll, Lucy  describes herself as a “celebrity” and declares:

“I’m Lucy Goose, of the world renowned Goose Troupe. I’m sure you have been to one of my shows.  Me and my family have performed for trolls and goblins all over the In-Between.  We’re kind of a big deal around here.”

The Troll replies:

“oh yes, I remember you.  You’re the fat girl who hit the obnoxious box of chimes until I had a splitting headache.”

Remind anyone of a member of an internationally renowned touring band?

#chris speaks through atom #atom spoilers

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Feb 8th, 2020 (X)

flowersintheattic254 @ajw720 thank you for the reminder. The decrisption of the bedroom has me in hysterics and of course her absolute belief she was talented. I remember reading your copy in a day and messaging you over Lucy, so many things reminded me of Swill/er, but the….

“PLAY HARD, WORK HARDLY.”

…was perfection.

ajw720  @flowersintheattic254 I remember that day well. I found myself waiting for your messages so we could discuss more and more. Just did a second, very short post on lies to post shortly.

But I do think we need to adopt

PLAY HARD, WORK HARDLY

as another classic fandom phrase, thanks to our amazing captain, when describing she who loves to swill:)

leka-1998 I couldn’t stop myself.

flowersintheattic254 @leka-1998 I 💕 you 🙂.

notes-from-nowhere This is hilarious. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

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February 9, 2020 (X)

flowersintheattic254 ATOM quote from the Snow Queen/Madame Weatherberry.

“My husband never committed a crime or hurt anyone in his life, but humankind murdered him simply to teach me a lesson”.

I think of this quote often.....

ajw720 I think about it often as well. I have no one single doubt that H/orence is D and MW/SQ is C. C is telling you d never did anything punishable. He simply fell in love with his male co-star. His human right. Love is love. Yet he’s been punished every damn day for it, and it’s only gotten worse.

What they have done to him, in my eyes, is akin to torture. No he hasn’t been murdered but they stolen his spirit and they’ve denied him the ability to speak his truth and to love freely. And they’ve jeopardized his well being. And c has had to watch this happen to the person he loves the most and to support him and love him and continue to give him the strength to get out of bed every day. Why @flowersintheattic254 and I almost simultaneously called c fiercely loyal.

Now add C’s recent quote:

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February 9, 2020 (X)

Let’s Talk about lies, shall we?  As C views them in ATOM

Again under read more thought it is has been 5 months, so I hope you all have read this book by now.

Brystal is confronted with the fact that Madame Weatherberry had lied that individuals are born as either a witch or fairy when she discovers that in fact individuals with magic are able to CHOOSE whether to be a witch of a fairy and she founds herself conflicted as she realizes her teacher lied:

“Having magical abilities isn’t a choice, but no one in the magical community is born a fairy or a witch.  We all get to be whatever we want, whenever we want.  Personally, I have never identified as one or the other, that’s why I call myself a sorceress.”

After Brystal sees that one can in fact practice both magic and witchcraft, she is told she should ask the Tree of Truth for the answer as to why her teacher lied.  But only, as the Sorceress warns, if she can “handle the truth, most people can’t.” 

Wow, C is telling us exactly what we know, most people can’t handle the truth and therefore refuse to accept it. Sound familiar?

So Brystal seeks out the Tree of Truth and asks why Madame Weatherberry lied:  The tree replies:

“The same reason everyone lies…to hide the truth.”  The Tree goes on to say, what I think might truly be the most important line in the book:

 “noble people lie for noble reasons.”

He is telling us, he is daring everyone of his readers that is a fan to read and assess and to ask: what lesson is he trying to teach us, his more adult audience?  He is telling us that D, as well as he himself who lies to support D, lie for worthy reasons.  We may never know those reasons, but they are good.Or at least necessary.  We will never know the threats they endure daily, but I am confident they are lying because they feel is is the only path they could chose.

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October 9, 2020 and February 9, 2020 (X)

Let’s Talk about the Book shall We?

I am going to put this under read more to be kind to those that don’t want to read the post before the book.  And reminder, if you reblog, please tag with “ATOM Spoilers” and “Chris speaks through ATOM” so make sure we are respectful of those who are not able to read it yet.  I am starting with some smaller things to give people some time.

Also, please don’t rely on me to tell you everything about the book, I have talked to several and we all see things slightly differently about certain aspects but all agree, a powerful message is being sent by C. Please, please read it. And please send my your thoughts. I am going to spread the posts, try to do 1 a day if I can, so it might take a few days, but the more ideas, the more discussion. I am hardly the authority here, just one person with some thoughts.

Partial Ask:  The tales of t/idbit t/witch in chapter three reminds me of D’s fight and that even though it may look bleak at times he will defeat the dragon and win. But that’s a pretty clear one. (Anon you know I am saving the rest of later as that is clearly the most relevant discussion but the biggest spoiler)

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Anon I could not agree more, absolutely Tid/bit fighting something bigger and who is perceived to be stronger is no question a parallel for D and his fight with TPTB, regardless of who you currently think the oppressors are as so many people have harmed him through the years.

In Chapter One, B/rystal is caught reading the Tales of Ti/dbit T/witch.  For those that have read the book, you know, women are banned from reading books, as they are made for “male eyes only” as woman’s “mind’s are too delicate to be educated” at this time in the narrative in the Southern Kingdom (prejudice and oppression).  Her mother takes the book away from her right before the end and says “The world is dark, Br/ystal, you are a fool if you let anyone tell you otherwise.”  Her mom the proceeds to take all of the books that B/rystal has hidden in her room.

B/rystal however finds a brilliant and creative way to not just finish T/idbit T/witch, but also to read many, many books, including those that are banned (another discussion we can have).

When the book had been taken from her, B/rystal only had 7 pages left to read and was unsure of T/idbit’s fate after his fall caused by running from the Dragon.  

How many times do you think D has felt like he was being all consumed by people from all sides trying to force him into living this current nightmare? That he was helpless and that he could not possibly win? He has been oppressed by F/ox, RM (whether you think he might be helpful now or not), SS (K/en S/unshine to me is still one of the major evil forces), Jumping Jackass, PBB, PBB’s family, and to a lesser extend “friends” and acquaintances surrounding him that have willfully chosen to enable the situation to an extreme. That is the parallel of T/dibit running from the dragon and then fearing the boulders ahead of him.  The danger is surrounding him and it seems inescapable.  

And yet a miracle happens, T/dibut falls through the crack to safety and the dragon is killed in his pursuit.  And the Kingdom of Mice is saved as “the world welcomed a new era of much-needed peace, and it was all thanks to a tiny mouse that braved a big monster.”

Wow, if that is not a huge statement about C’s faith in D.  When C wrote this book, he knew what was happening, he knew D was encaged and I would guess he was well aware at this point the sham mockery would occur. Yet he still believes D is going to win (talk about having faith in someone) and to me, the part about bringing peace to the kingdom is stating that C still believes that he and D can absolutely make a difference in this world when they are finally able to stop running and find peace.  D and C’s power may seem minimal, but there will be a time that will effectuate change in this world. 

[cannabisrefugee-esq]

(via A "Rational Suicide" Note. Ft. Anne Örtegren.)

November 9, 2019

This is a “suicide” note left by a ME/CFS sufferer who sought and found relief from her suffering via legal, medically assisted suicide.  She says this manifesto took her months to write, which I do not doubt a bit: it is long, detailed and polished and was written when she was feeling terrible.  She wrote it with the intent to describe her almost indescribable pain and experience, and to convince others to take action on behalf of ME/CFS sufferers, both of which are lofty communication goals when anyone is seriously ill.

Describing and convincing have been my most impossible endeavors since I’ve been seriously ill myself and I think I have mostly failed, judging by others’ reactions to everything I’ve managed to gather the physical and emotional grit to attempt to communicate: that I am seriously, hopelessly ill with an incurable, progressive disease, that there is no bottom to how bad this can get, and it matters not what anyone thinks about it.  Some things are just true regardless of whether anyone believes it.

In this note, ME/CFS patient Anne Örtegren describes symptoms and dilemmas I have experienced myself and she foresees logical outcomes to her predicament, something sick people and especially sick women are never allowed to do because catastrophization. For example, she knows that her heightened sensitivity to light and sound will make treatment or recovery in a hospital setting impossible where the standard of care in that environment requires constant activity and interruptions, and provides no privacy and no escape from the harsh industrial lighting, interrogations by (allegedly) well meaning staff and the general hustle and bustle of capitalistic money making on the backs and bodies of sick and dying people.

That is but one example of a sick person making informed prognostications regarding likely outcomes of the things other people want to do to us, and as someone who shares these sensitivities to light and sound (and therefore an aversion to hospital settings) as but one example of our shared experience of being seriously ill, I appreciated her spelling it out.  I also feel extremely sad that she had to, and furious that no one who allegedly cared about her wellbeing including medical professionals who should be fucking sensitive to the actual needs of real patients could make the leap themselves.  There are many such examples in this letter.

See for yourselves, and understand that as illuminating and raw as this letter is, it’s also been edited by the publisher and a so-called suicide prevention expert because the bottom line everywhere appears to be that there is no such thing as rational suicide or euthanasia because well people and people who make money off of the long-term sick and dying say so.  And because living in this capitalistic, patriarchal nightmare is so hideous for so many people that “suicide contagion” exists, where just knowing that someone, somewhere had whatever it took to end themselves is likely to cause untold numbers of happy, healthy consumers with bright futures to do the same damn thing.  Yeah that’s it, let’s keep telling ourselves that.

The letter as published is reprinted below.  The unedited letter supposedly exists online somewhere if anyone cares to look and has the energy to figure out how and where the edited version differs from the original.  Comments are open below.

Farewell – A Last Post from Anne Örtegren

Nobody can say that I didn’t put up enough of a fight.

For 16 years I have battled increasingly severe ME/CFS. My condition has steadily deteriorated and new additional medical problems have regularly appeared, making it ever more difficult to endure and make it through the day (and night).

Throughout this time, I have invested almost every bit of my tiny energy in the fight for treatment for us ME/CFS patients. Severely ill, I have advocated from my bedroom for research and establishment of biomedical ME/CFS clinics to get us proper health care. All the while, I have worked hard to find something which would improve my own health. I have researched all possible treatment options, got in contact with international experts and methodically tried out every medication, supplement and regimen suggested.

Sadly, for all the work done, we still don’t have adequately sized specialized biomedical care for ME/CFS patients here in Stockholm, Sweden – or hardly anywhere on the planet. We still don’t have in-patient hospital units adapted to the needs of the severely ill ME/CFS patients. Funding levels for biomedical ME/CFS research remain ridiculously low in all countries and the erroneous psychosocial model which has caused me and others so much harm is still making headway.

And sadly, for me personally things have gone from bad to worse to unbearable. I am now mostly bedbound and constantly tortured by ME/CFS symptoms. I also suffer greatly from a number of additional medical problems, the most severe being a systematic hyper-reactivity in the form of burning skin combined with an immunological/allergic reaction. This is triggered by so many things that it has become impossible to create an adapted environment. Some of you have followed my struggle to find clothes and bed linen I can tolerate. Lately, I am simply running out. I no longer have clothes I can wear without my skin “burning up” and my body going into an allergic state.

This means I no longer see a way out from this solitary ME/CFS prison and its constant torture. I can no longer even do damage control, and my body is at the end of its rope. Therefore, I have gone through a long and thorough process involving several medical assessments to be able to choose a peaceful way out: I have received a preliminary green light for accompanied suicide through a clinic in Switzerland.

When you read this I am at rest, free from suffering at last. I have written this post to explain why I had to take this drastic step. Many ME/CFS patients have found it necessary to make the same decision, and I want to speak up for us, as I think my reasons may be similar to those of many others with the same sad destiny.

These reasons can be summed up in three headers: unbearable suffering; no realistic way out of the suffering; and the lack of a safety net, meaning potential colossal increase in suffering when the next setback or medical incident occurs.

Important note Before I write more about these reasons, I want to stress something important. Depression is not the cause of my choice. Though I have been suffering massively for many years, I am not depressed. I still have all my will and my motivation. I still laugh and see the funny side of things, I still enjoy doing whatever small activities I can manage. I am still hugely interested in the world around me – my loved ones and all that goes on in their lives, the society, the world (what is happening in human rights issues? how can we solve the climate change crisis?) During these 16 years, I have never felt any lack of motivation.

On the contrary, I have consistently fought for solutions with the goal to get myself better and help all ME/CFS patients get better. There are so many things I want to do, I have a lot to live for. If I could only regain some functioning, quieten down the torture a bit and be able to tolerate clothes and a normal environment, I have such a long list of things I would love to do with my life!

Three main reasons So depression is not the reason for my decision to terminate my life. The reasons are the following:

1. Unbearable suffering Many severely ill ME/CFS patients are hovering at the border of unbearable suffering. We are constantly plagued by intense symptoms, we endure high-impact every-minute physical suffering 24 hours a day, year after year. I see it as a prison sentence with torture. I am homebound and mostly bedbound – there is the prison. I constantly suffer from excruciating symptoms: The worst flu you ever had. Sore throat, bronchi hurting with every breath. Complete exhaustion, almost zero energy, a body that weighs a tonne and sometimes won’t even move. Muscle weakness, dizziness, great difficulties standing up. Sensory overload causing severe suffering from the brain and nervous system. Massive pain in muscles, painful inflammations in muscle attachments. Intensely burning skin. A feeling of having been run over by a bus, twice, with every cell screaming. This has got to be called torture.

It would be easier to handle if there were breaks, breathing spaces. But with severe ME/CFS there is no minute during the day when one is comfortable. My body is a war zone with constant firing attacks. There is no rest, no respite. Every move of every day is a mountain-climb. Every night is a challenge, since there is no easy sleep to rescue me from the torture. I always just have to try to get through the night. And then get through the next day.

It would also be easier if there were distractions. Like many patients with severe ME/CFS I am unable to listen to music, radio, podcasts or audio books, or to watch TV. I can only read for short bouts of time, and use the computer for even shorter moments. I am too ill to manage more than rare visits or phone calls from my family and friends, and sadly unable to live with someone. This solitary confinement aspect of ME/CFS is devastating and it is understandable that ME/CFS has been described as the “living death disease”.

For me personally, the situation has turned into an emergency not least due to my horrific symptom of burning skin linked to immunological/allergic reactions. This appeared six years into my ME/CFS, when I was struck by what seemed like a complete collapse of the bodily systems controlling immune system, allergic pathways, temperature control, skin and peripheral nerves. I had long had trouble with urticaria, hyperreactive skin and allergies, but at this point a violent reaction occurred and my skin completely lost tolerance. I started having massively burning skin, severe urticaria and constant cold sweats and shivers (these reactions reminded me of the first stages of the anaphylactic shock I once had, then due to heat allergy).

Since then, for ten long years, my skin has been burning. It is an intense pain. I have been unable to tolerate almost all kinds of clothes and bed linen as well as heat, sun, chemicals and other everyday things. These all trigger the burning skin and the freezing/shivering reaction into a state of extreme pain and suffering. Imagine being badly sunburnt and then being forced to live under a constant scalding sun – no relief in sight.

At first I managed to find a certain textile fabric which I could tolerate, but then this went out of production, and in spite of years of negotiations with the textile industry it has, strangely, proven impossible to recreate that specific weave. This has meant that as my clothes have been wearing out, I have been approaching the point where I will no longer have clothes and bed linen that are tolerable to my skin. It has also become increasingly difficult to adapt the rest of my living environment so as to not trigger the reaction and worsen the symptoms. Now that I am running out of clothes and sheets, ahead of me has lain a situation with constant burning skin and an allergic state of shivering/cold sweats and massive suffering. This would have been absolutely unbearable.

For 16 years I have had to manage an ever-increasing load of suffering and problems. They now add up to a situation which is simply no longer sustainable.

2. No realistic way out of the suffering A very important factor is the lack of realistic hope for relief in the future. It is possible for a person to bear a lot of suffering, as long as it is time-limited. But the combination of massive suffering and a lack of rational hope for remission or recovery is devastating.

Think about the temporary agony of a violent case of gastric flu. Picture how you are feeling those horrible days when you are lying on the bathroom floor between attacks of diarrhoea and vomiting. This is something we all have to live through at times, but we know it will be over in a few days. If someone told you at that point: “you will have to live with this for the rest of your life”, I am sure you would agree that it wouldn’t feel feasible. It is unimaginable to cope with a whole life with the body in that insufferable state every day, year after year. The level of unbearableness in severe ME/CFS is the same.

If I knew there was relief on the horizon, it would be possible to endure severe ME/CFS and all the additional medical problems, even for a long time, I think. The point is that there has to be a limit, the suffering must not feel endless.

One vital aspect here is of course that patients need to feel that the ME/CFS field is being taken forward. Sadly, we haven’t been granted this feeling – see my previous blogs relating to this here and here.

Another imperative issue is the drug intolerance that I and many others with ME/CFS suffer from. I have tried every possible treatment, but most of them have just given me side-effects, many of which have been irreversible. My stomach has become increasingly dysfunctional, so for the past few years any new drugs have caused immediate diarrhoea. One supplement triggered massive inflammation in my entire urinary tract, which has since persisted. The list of such occurrences of major deterioration caused by different drugs/treatments is long, and with time my reactions have become increasingly violent. I now have to conclude that my sensitivity to medication is so severe that realistically it is very hard for me to tolerate drugs or supplements.

This has two crucial meanings for many of us severely ill ME/CFS patients: There is no way of relieving our symptoms. And even if treatments appear in the future, with our sensitivity of medication any drug will carry a great risk of irreversible side-effects producing even more suffering. This means that even in the case of a real effort finally being made to bring biomedical research into ME/CFS up to levels on par with that of other diseases, and possible treatments being made accessible, for some of us it is unlikely that we would be able to benefit. Considering our extreme sensitivity to medication, one could say it’s hard to have realistic hope of recovery or relief for us.

In the past couple of years I, being desperate, have challenged the massive side-effect risk and tried one of the treatments being researched in regards to ME/CFS. But I received it late in the disease process, and it was a gamble. I needed it to have an almost miraculous effect: a quick positive response which eliminated many symptoms – most of all I needed it to stop my skin from burning and reacting, so I could tolerate the clothes and bed linen produced today. I have been quickly running out of clothes and sheets, so I was gambling with high odds for a quick and extensive response. Sadly, I wasn’t a responder. I have also tried medication for Mast Cell Activation Disorder and a low-histamine diet, but my burning skin hasn’t abated. Since I am now running out of clothes and sheets, all that was before me was constant burning hell.

3. The lack of a safety net, meaning potential colossal increase in suffering when the next setback or medical incident occurs The third factor is the insight that the risk for further deterioration and increased suffering is high.

On top of the nearly unbearable symptoms it is very likely that in the future things will get even worse. An example in my case could be my back and neck pain. I would need to strengthen muscles to prevent them from getting worse. But the characteristic symptom of Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM) when I attempt even small activities, is hugely problematic.

Whenever we try to ignore the PEM issue and push through, we immediately crash and become much sicker. We might go from being able to at least get up and eat, to being completely bedbound, until the PEM has subsided. Sometimes, it doesn’t subside, and we find ourselves irreversibly deteriorated, at a new, even lower baseline level, with no way of improving.

PEM is not something that you can work around.

For me, new medical complications also continue to arise, and I have no way of amending them. I already need surgery for one existing problem, and it is likely that it will be needed for other issues in the future, but surgery or hospital care is not feasible for several reasons:

One is that my body seems to lack repairing mechanisms. Previous biopsies have not healed properly, so my doctor is doubtful about my ability to recover after surgery.

Another, more general and hugely critical, is that with severe ME/CFS it is impossible to tolerate normal hospital care. For ME/CFS patients the sensory overload problem and the extremely low energy levels mean that a normal hospital environment causes major deterioration. The sensory input that comes with shared rooms, people coming and going, bright lights, noise, etc, escalates our disease. We are already in such fragile states that a push in the wrong direction is catastrophic. For me, with my burning skin issue, there is also the issue of not tolerating the mattresses, pillows, textile fabrics, etc used in a hospital.

Just imagine the effects of a hospital stay for me: It would trigger my already severe ME/CFS into new depths – likely I would become completely bedbound and unable to tolerate any light or noise. The skin hyperreactivity would, within a few hours, trigger my body into an insufferable state of burning skin and agonizing immune-allergic reactions, which would then be impossible to reverse. My family, my doctor and I agree: I must never be admitted to a hospital, since there is no end to how much worse that would make me.

Many ME/CFS patients have experienced irreversible deterioration due to hospitalization. We also know that the understanding of ME/CFS is extremely low or non-existent in most hospitals, and we hear about ME/CFS patients being forced into environments or activities which make them much worse. I am aware of only two places in the world with specially adjusted hospital units for severe ME/CFS, Oslo, Norway, and Gold Coast, Australia. We would need such units in every city around the globe.

It is extreme to be this severely ill, have so many medical complications arise continually and know this: There is no feasible access to hospital care for me. There are no tolerable medications to use when things get worse or other medical problems set in. As a severely ill ME/CFS patient I have no safety net at all. There is simply no end to how bad things can get with severe ME/CFS.

Coping skills – important but not enough I realize that when people hear about my decision to terminate my life, they will wonder about my coping skills. I have written about this before and I want to mention the issue here too:

While it was extremely hard at the beginning to accept chronic illness, I have over the years developed a large degree of acceptance and pretty good coping skills. I have learnt to accept tight limits and appreciate small qualities of life. I have learnt to cope with massive amounts of pain and suffering and still find bright spots. With the level of acceptance I have come to now, I would have been content even with relatively small improvements and a very limited life. If, hypothetically, the physical suffering could be taken out of the equation, I would have been able to live contentedly even though my life continued to be restricted to my small apartment and include very little activity. Unlike most people I could find such a tiny life bearable and even happy. But I am not able to cope with these high levels of constant physical suffering.

In short, to sum up my level of acceptance as well as my limit: I can take the prison and the extreme limitations – but I can no longer take the torture. And I cannot live with clothes that constantly trigger my burning skin.

Not alone – and not a rash decision In spite of being unable to see friends or family for more than rare and brief visits, and in spite of having limited capacity for phone conversations, I still have a circle of loved ones. My friends and family all understand my current situation and they accept and support my choice. While they do not want me to leave, they also do not want me to suffer anymore.

This is not a rash decision. It has been processed for many years, in my head, in conversations with family and friends, in discussion with one of my doctors, and a few years ago in the long procedure of requesting accompanied suicide. The clinic in Switzerland requires an extensive process to ensure that the patient is chronically ill, lives with unendurable pain or suffering, and has no realistic hope of relief. They require a number of medical records as well as consultations with specialized doctors.

For me this end is obviously not what I wanted, but it was the best solution to an extremely difficult situation and preferable to even more suffering. It was not hasty choice, but one that matured over a long period of time.

A plea to decision makers – Give ME/CFS patients a future! As you understand, this blog post has taken me many months to put together. It is a long text to read too, I know. But I felt it was important to write it and have it published to explain why I personally had to take this step, and hopefully illuminate why so many ME/CFS patients consider or commit suicide.

And most importantly: to elucidate that this circumstance can be changed! But that will take devoted, resolute, real action from all of those responsible for the state of ME/CFS care, ME/CFS research and dissemination of information about the disease. Sadly, this responsibility has been mishandled for decades. To allow ME/CFS patients some hope on the horizon, key people in all countries must step up and act.

If you are a decision maker, here is what you urgently need to do: You need to bring funding for biomedical ME/CFS research up so it’s on par with comparable diseases (as an example, in the US that would mean $188 million per year). You need to make sure there are dedicated hospital care units for ME/CFS inpatients in every city around the world. You need to establish specialist biomedical care available to all ME/CFS patients; it should be as natural as RA patients having access to a rheumatologist or cancer patients to an oncologist. You need to give ME/CFS patients a future.

Please listen to these words of Jen Brea, which sum up the situation in the US, but are applicable to almost every country:

“The NIH says it won’t fund ME research because no one wants to study it. Yet they reject the applications of the world class scientists who are committed to advancing the field. Meanwhile, HHS has an advisory committee whose sole purpose seems to be making recommendations that are rarely adopted. There are no drugs in the pipeline at the FDA yet the FDA won’t approve the one drug, Ampligen, that can have Lazarus-like effects in some patients. Meanwhile, the CDC continues to educate doctors using information that we (patients) all know is inaccurate or incomplete.”

Like Jen Brea, I want a number of people from these agencies, and equivalent agencies in Sweden and all other countries, to stand up and take responsibility. To say: “ME! I am going to change things because that is my job.”

And lastly Lastly, I would like to end this by linking to this public comment from a US agency meeting (CFSAC). It seems to have been taken off the HHS site, but I found it in the Google Read version of the book “Lighting Up a Hidden World: CFS and ME” by Valerie Free. It includes testimony from two very eloquent ME patients and it says it all. I thank these ME patients for expressing so well what we are experiencing.

My previous blog posts:

From International Traveler to 43 Square Meters: An ME/CFS Story From Sweden

Coping With ME/CFS Will Always Be Hard – But There are Ways of Making It A Little Easier

The Underfinanced ME/CFS Research Field Pt I: The Facts – Plus “What Can We Do?

The Underfinanced ME/CFS Research Field Pt II: Why it Takes 20 Years to Get 1 Year’s Research Done

Take care of each other.

Love, Anne

Comments Open.

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

[winteriron-trash]

ASMR [WinterIron Fic]

So I recently discovered ASMR through the wonderful world of the internet, and I thought it was really cool, and of course, it gave me WinterIron thoughts, so I wrote a shitty fanfic about it. If you don’t know what ASMR is, you should look it up, here’s my new favourite channel for it, it’s basically sounds that make you feel all tingly. Okay, I’m done rambling now. Also, don’t worry, I plan on writing the Instagram one after I get some sleep because shit, I did not expect people to be so eager for it. Also thanks to @lovinthepizzalife for being my beta and listening to me go on for hours about ASMR stuff.

-

Bucky first discovered ASMR by accident. He was watching some supposedly funny video Clint had sent him and it showed up in his suggestions.

The premise didn’t necessarily weird him out, per se. Bucky had come to grips with the fact that he didn’t understand half of what went on around him, and just grew to accept it. People making hour long videos of noises like running a brush over a microphone had to be pretty low on the list of strange things Bucky had seen. He still didn’t know what the hell a ‘dab’ was.

But the ASMR stuff was… surprisingly nice.

When Bucky brought it up with his therapist, she was encouraging, gave some lengthy explanation Bucky didn’t really care enough to listen to. The videos helped relax him, and his therapist was okay with it and those were the only two things Bucky cared about.

So Bucky got more immersed in it, found what sounds he liked and what ones he didn’t, what channels were the best. It was a routine and one that Bucky enjoyed. He found solace in routines, something to attach himself to, something that would ground him. He had tried explaining it to Steve, but it ended up going about as well as the time Sam had tried to show Steve how to play Mario Kart, so Bucky just gave up.

All in all, it was a nice, secretive pleasure Bucky could enjoy without having to worry about what other people would think of it.

And then Tony went and fucked it all up.

Well, in all fairness Bucky knew Tony wasn’t trying to fuck it up. Hell, Tony was as oblivious to the situation as anyone else was. But nonetheless, he’d still fucked it up.

Tony had walked into the living room one day, half asleep and looking like death. Bucky barely paid attention. It was common knowledge that Tony didn’t get half the amount of sleep he should, and it was even more common knowledge that it was impossible to get him to sleep.

But then he spoke.

And it didn’t even matter what he’d said. It never mattered what was being said with ASMR, Bucky found. They could be reading him the Communist Manifesto and he wouldn’t give a damn. As long as it was in a quiet, whispery voice that gave him those weird spine tingles, Bucky didn’t care.

That exact voice that Tony was using.

And fuck, it was perfect. Deep and raspy, catching on certain words with consonant sounds emphasized. Bucky’s entire fucking body tingled, mind focusing on that damned voice.

But it was gone as soon as it came, Tony stumbling out of the room with coffee in hand.

Bucky found videos of Tony talking online, and those helped a bit. A few interviews even had him using that deep, raspy voice that gave Bucky tingles. But there just wasn’t enough, and eventually, Bucky ran out of interviews to find. He even tried being around Tony more, but it… wasn’t exactly right.

So Bucky finally worked up the guts to talk to Tony about it, like a normal person. He waited for the right moment when Tony was working on his arm and they were alone, so Bucky had the least chance to embarrass himself.

“Hey,” Bucky said, clearing his throat.

Tony glanced up from Bucky’s arm, tools still digging deep. “Hm?”

Bucky took a deep breath. “Do you-you know what… ASMR is?”

“Autonomous sensory meridian response,” Tony said without flinching, listing the name in a flat monotone. “I never really understood it, but Pepper’s a fanatic. Did you know the person who came up with the name thought ‘meridian’ meant orgasm and that’s why he used the word?”

Bucky blinked. “No, I didn’t.”

“Well, now you know.” Tony flashed a smile. “So what about ASMR?”

“Well…” Bucky swallowed, flesh fingers twitching. “I… get it, you know? It works for me. My therapist said it was a good thing.”

“Mhm.” Tony nodded, looking back at his tools. “A relaxation thing, definitely not the weirdest thing out there.”

Bucky grunted in agreement. “And… I noticed… your voice is a trigger. For me, anyway.”

Tony glanced up again, pausing in his work. “My voice?”

“Yeah.” Bucky pressed his lips together.

“My voice,” Tony repeated, blinking. He knit his eyebrows together. “My voice is a trigger. In a good way?”

Bucky frowned. “Well, yeah. It’s ASMR, so… yeah. A good type of trigger.”

“Oh.” Tony tilted his head to the side. “Most people usually just get annoyed when I talk too much. I ramble a lot. About mostly pointless things, really. I mean, that’s what makes it rambling, but that’s not the point.”

“I like it.” Bucky shrugged. “It’s nice. Especially when your voice gets deep and whispery like… when you’re tired or something.” Bucky felt his cheeks heat.

Tony quirked an amused eyebrow. “Like this?” He asked, voice dropping an octave.

Bucky suppressed a happy shudder. “Yeah, like that.”

“If you encourage me, I’m just going to ramble to you all day,” Tony warned, but it wasn’t much of a warning, the way he used that deep and soft voice that had Bucky’s spine-tingling.

“Mm, that’s fine.” Bucky’s eyes fell shut and he felt tension bleeding out of his muscles. “I don’t mind if you ramble. It’s nice.”

“Huh.” Tony hummed. Tony started talking again, and Bucky honestly wasn’t sure what he was even talking about, something about explaining the parts of the arm, maybe, it didn’t really matter. But his voice was soft and perfect, and Bucky was able to lose track of the time listening to it.

After that, it became somewhat of a habit between the two. Bucky would even purposely seek out or call Tony just to hear his voice. And Tony never questioned it once. He was always ready to talk, just talk about anything. Bucky was sure there was some underlying problem with that, Tony practically tripping over himself just for the chance to talk to someone, but it wasn’t Bucky’s problem, so he tried not to think about it.

It was all well and good until Bucky went and fucked things up again.

He got a fucking crush.

Sure, it was reasonable, in theory. Everyone had a crush on Tony Stark. When Bucky had asked Clint, he even agreed. He was Tony Stark, there wasn’t much not to like. When Bucky actively listened to what Tony was saying during his ramblings, he fell in love a little more.

“So ask him out,” Clint said through a mouthful of cookies, milk carton in hand as he kicked the fridge door shut.

“I thought he was dating Pepper.” Bucky fiddled with his spoon as he stared at his oatmeal.

Clint snorted. “Tell Natasha that, I dare you.”

“What?” Bucky asked.

“Natasha and Potts are dating.” Clint clarified. “Tony’s single. Ask him out.”

“But what if-”

Clint threw a cookie at Bucky. “Come on, man. Don’t ‘what if’. If I did that, I never would’ve gotten the guts to ask Phil out.”

Bucky sighed. “But-”

“Hey,” Clint smacked him. “No buts. Just ask him. Buy him some flowers or something. Be all romantic and forties about it. Or don’t. Whatever works. Just ask him.”

Bucky made a face. “Fine.”

Bucky ended up deciding against flowers. Well, he might’ve gone with flowers if he’d gone with a more coherent plan, to begin with. Instead, the question just sort of fell out when Tony was talking, running his hands through Bucky’s hair. Bucky didn’t know when he’d started resting his head in Tony’s lap during these things, but he did know it was nice.

“Do you wanna get coffee sometime?” Bucky asked, glancing up.

Tony froze, looking down. “Do I- what?”

“Coffee,” Bucky repeated. “Like a date?”

“You-you're asking me on a date.” It wasn’t a question, but the look on Tony’s face was utter befuddlement.

“Yeah.” Bucky nodded.

Tony stared at him. “Why?”

Bucky bit his lip and smiled. “Because maybe I like the guy as much as I like his voice.”

[theculturedmarxist]

Hi there, fellow leftypol dirtbag. Might I ask, what was your journey into leftism?

I grew up in a conservative household. My parents were (and still are I suppose) two Reaganite Republicans and I absorbed all that shit as a child. I supported George Bush 2 and Iraq War 2. I believed all that bullshit about hard work and boot straps, you know, the old fantasy about employers rewarding hard work with commensurate compensation, etc. I wasn’t very sympathetic for black people, the poor, queers, or any of the other people on the Rep’s shit list.

That began to change when I changed high schools. Instead of the upper-middle class, mostly White school I had been going to (and been miserable at), I transferred to an early college. It was a school for kids that, like me, didn’t fit into the regular school system for one reason or another. There were kids there like me who had various social or emotional dysfunctions, but also kids that were there because of who and where they were. It might shock you to find that queer kids and black kids didn’t have the easiest of times in the public school system of the Southern United States.

It was a slow transition, but my views changed. At first I had those idiotic, bigoted views, like that gay guys were a threat to me physically or sexually on account of their orientation. I thought it was morally wrong, blah blah blah, all that ridiculous rigamarole. Then I met some of these people and learned how foolish that kind of thinking was. These people were intelligent and kind, inventive, interesting, and not at all the kind of people that I felt I needed to be worried about. It wasn’t an immediate transformation, but it was the first step in my “deprogramming.”

Looking back, I’m not even sure I would describe my feelings towards these people as “hate” or “fear” so much as “resentment.” I was still trapped in the false mindset of the “just world” fallacy. I was miserable with myself and my place in life, and deluded into thinking that if there was a problem then it was either inherent in myself or because I wasn’t behaving in the right way. At the time I had at least some idea of the oppression and persecution homosexuals and Blacks (for example) experienced. I was starving myself with self restraint, and spiritually mutilating myself in trying to “fix” what I thought was wrong with me. If I was unhappy or unsuccessful or whatever, then it must have been my fault, and if that was the case then it was on me to change myself, “correct” my behavior, and get right with God (literally and in a manner of speaking). Applying that same logic, the problems Blacks and Gays were experiencing were their fault as well, for insisting on being Gay, “out and proud,” or “actin’ Black,” or whatever, instead of how they “should” have been acting. It felt like an insult. Here I was, drowning in my own suffering and misery, and trying like hell to purge whatever defect I imagined was the source. There they were, embracing what I imagined to be the source of their own oppression, and treating the world like it was what needed to change. At the time, there was no way I could comprehend all of this. Even if I could have understood it intellectually, I doubt I would have been able to see it through my ideological delusions.

My ideological development after high school was halting at best. I wasn’t in any shape to live and function on my own, and my first stab at university didn’t go very well. Eventually, I moved back home and got a job, which is what had the most significant effect on me I think. All the nonsense I’d been fed about the fairness of competition and workplace ideals quickly went out the fucking window. I had worked some while I was at university, when I naively thought that student employment at a school would emphasize the student over the employment part. Through the alchemy of Republican logic, it wasn’t the work or employer that was to blame, but the fact that the school effectively had a monopoly. If the Free Market™ was able to decide, no doubt I’d have had a fairer boss and better pay and so on.

But that job wasn’t an anomaly, and neither was the next one, or the next. I had been brought up being taught that hard, honest work would be rewarded with good, honest pay, but no matter how hard I worked or where, it was always the same shit: minimum wage, %2 pay raise, shitty schedules, worse managers, awful bosses, and customers that were just the worst. You didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how you were being treated or mistreated, the customer was your master and you better remember to smile while you’re licking their balls.

Still, even with all of this, I bought the lie that it was just the type of work that was the problem. Retail work is for kids, right? They aren’t serious jobs. I saved up some money while taking CC classes, and eventually went back to university. The second time things went better. Somewhere along the way I’d graduated from Republican to Libertarian™, but that was starting to lose its appeal as well as it became apparent that it was functioning on the same defective logic as its Republican counterpart. I didn’t have any faith in Obama or the Democrats, and being an ignorant American I thought the three were my only options.

My family was what would be described in American terms as “mid-to-lower-middle class,” or you could probably say “comfortable.” Both parents worked, and while we were never “rich” I don’t recall ever having to go without anything essential. My parents were both Baby Boomers, and their parents all more or less came from nothing. To their credit, my parents worked hard to provide the things for me which they didn’t have as children themselves. They did everything they could to help me succeed, but they could still only help.

Paying for school was something that fell mostly on me in the form of loans and grants. Classes were going well for the most part, but my expenses were outstripping my aid. I got a job, but it didn’t help matters much. The pay was lousy, and the hours were from six at night until two in the morning. It started killing my grades and ruining my health. The stress of school and work and financial concerns started to get to me physically.

All while this is going on is the backdrop of the financial crisis. The banks that were responsible got billions of dollars of taxpayer money, while those same taxpayers were getting foreclosed on by those same banks. State services were getting slashed to the bone left, right, and center. There was suddenly no money for unemployment insurance or health benefits for those that needed them, no money for teacher training, or grants for students. There was apparently virtually unlimited cash for the military and the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that dragged on and on. There was plenty to go around to these wealthy executives that created this financial crisis that lost regular people hundreds of millions of dollars in their life savings and retirement plans. This paralleled the situation at my school. The university was flush with cash. Tuition was higher than ever. They had just finished a multi-million dollar building that served no purpose other than to serve as a fancy amenity to lure in out of state students. They’d even invested millions of dollars into their football program and completely renovated the athletic stadium. The chancellor lived in a mansion on campus and drove a convertible sports car. They weren’t hurting for money.

I was, though. I came to the conclusion that I’d have to take classes in the morning and work in the afternoon, and so I went about withdrawing to make space in my schedule for it. Come to find however that you’re only allowed to drop three courses in your educational career, which no one had bothered to tell me. I was able to drop one class, but I had ignorantly spent my other two mulligans the previous semester. No problem, the Registrar tells me, just get your professor, chair, and dean to sign off and you can drop the class. Okay, swell. Professor signs off, department chair signs off, and then it takes a week for the dean to get back to me. Financial hardship isn’t a compelling reason to drop the class. Sorry! I try to explain to her my situation, that if I can’t start making money then I’ll be out on the street, and she tells me to go pound sand. I’d busted my ass working to “get my life back on track,” to go back to school, get an education and all that, like I was “supposed to.” The school didn’t give a shit. I was nothing to them. They had no interest in helping me out or seeing me stay. And why would they? Sixty percent of incoming Freshmen left after their first year, and that was their target demographic. Entice out-of-state students, get them to dump a bunch of money into the school, then kick them to the curb when they can’t for one reason or another hack it. There’s more and more desperate kids every year trying to get that diploma and the golden ticket it promises them. If they don’t like being farmed for revenue, then fuck ‘em.

It was around this time that I got involved with Occupy Wall Street. It was there that I met for the first time actual Communists, and was introduced however superficially to Marxism and Anarchism. It wouldn’t be until afterward that I would get my real education on them, though. I guess I kind of conform to the cliche of becoming a college Communist. A professor of mine knew about my difficulties and my developing political views, and asked if I’d be interested in borrowing his copy of the Manifesto. I did, not knowing what to expect. Then I read the words that changed my life forever:

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.”

It struck me like a bolt out of the blue. I’d always been interested in history, but I treated it as just a long, interesting story. It had always puzzled me because there were innumerable instances of illogical or just plain stupid behavior in the people we studied in school. Things just happened the way they happened, because... well, that’s just how things were, or people are. Every war, injustice, and atrocity in history was because of faulty human nature. People struggle because of the inherent evil inside all men. You know, more ideological bullshit.

Suddenly, though, everything made sense. It was like all the pieces had been in place, but it wasn’t until that bit of context was added that it made anything like coherent sense. It wasn’t only history, but modern politics, too. I couldn’t understand what made Republicans do the objectively awful things that they were doing, or why, or the apparent idiocy of the Democrats, and why they couldn’t seem to do anything right however obvious it might have appeared to do so. Marx shined a light on everything for me. It was like the world suddenly shifted into focus.

After this, for various reasons I left school again, ended up moving back home and getting another job. During this time the political awakening I’d experienced lay dormant for quite a while as I dealt with other developments in my life. Actually, it was Gamergate that was the impetus to get deeper into Leftism. I was still frequently visiting 4chan at the time and watched as the drama developed. I didn’t like Moot banning the topic of Zoe Quinn etc, and ended up migrating to 8chan, which briefly exhibited a sort of Renaissance of the sort of board culture that had either been dead or dying on 4chan at the time. It didn’t take long for the nazis, racists, and other brands of /pol/cuck shithead to drive off anyone decent though, and every board just became a different flavor of /pol/. Complaining about it naturally elicited a chorus of “go back to /leftypol/.” I didn’t have any interest in /leftypol/ at the time and actually mostly avoided it. Online politics at the best of times is hardly enjoyable, and I wasn’t very interested in any kind of /Xpol/, using my impression of the original as a guide.

I had dabbled somewhat in online Leftism previously, exploring labor-related subs on Reddit, like r/iww, r/socialism, r/communism, etc. My experience with r/soc almost turned me entirely off of Leftism, though. I got banned for calling Hillary Clinton a cunt, which only seemed to confirm that SJW/Demcuck reputation that followed other self described “socialists.” I didn’t want any part of a group that would either defend Hillary, or try and control what I said or how I said it. I’d just about written off Socialism entirely when on a whim I decided to take a look at /leftypol/ just to see what all the fuss was about.

I can’t help but feel kind of silly attributing such a major, life-changing moment to going to an obscure image board on such a skeevy site, but it did. It had the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of 4chan in its day as well as a substantial number of posters that knew what the fuck they were about. For a while I was simply hooked. Every time I f5ed, I learned something new about Socialism and Communism. There were in depth discussions on Communist theory and its various theorists and proponents. Not only where there mainstream anarchists and marxists, but representatives of (or simply people knowledgeable of) different currents, traditions, and theories. Posters busied themselves making reading lists and sharing links to resources and ideas. Back when there was still a solid core of /lit/ refugees and philosophy majors, there were constantly discussions on Zizek and Chomsky, Stirner and Nietzsche, Proudhon and Marx, Lukacs, Baudrillard, Gramsci, Bordiga, and on and on. The notion that “socialist” just meant “hardcore Democrat” was instantly and totally obliterated, and I knew that I was a Socialist and would be until I died.

And here I am, still trying to learn and educate myself, and help others with what I’ve learned, for whatever it’s worth.

[littleredroseonthevalley]

East End

Summary: After another round distributing bread, Ernest Sinclaire stumbles on something he was not supposed to know.

Rating: T - Content not suitable for children.  Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with minor suggestive adult themes.

Words: 2109

Notes: So, this is basically an introduction to the MC I have been using on my stories these last few weeks. I expanded, with some (A LOT) of creative liberty, on the White!MC’s backstory provided at that diamond scene with Hamid three weeks ago.

What is historically accurate: The Count of Provence and most Bourbons were living in Britain from 1809 to the Restoration, under an invite from the then-Prince of Wales.

Most of them lived in semi-reclusion in Buckinghamshire, and Louis XVIII did publish several manifestos claiming the crown and outlying what he would do if he were to become king, but, in 1811, it seemed pretty clear that it would never happen. They were on exhile for almost twenty years by then, and Napoleon seemed to be winning, read ‘not losing’, the war against... Europe, pretty much.

It is also true that the British crown was pretty much indifferent about Louis XVIII’s claim. They did support attempts to invade France during the 1790′s, and they were part of the First and Second Coalitions, which intended to restore ‘order’ and ‘legality’ to France, but as Napoleon not-lost wars against three consecutive coalitions, he cemented somekind of legitimacy as the head of the French State.

What is not true: courtly etiquette. I really don’t know how the French greeted their king. I do know, though, it is horribly intricate and took too much research that a 2,000-word piece warrants to get it right. So hand-kissing it is, deal with it.

Without further ado, enjoy!

It was the dead of the night in East End, the weather was cool and a soft mist was forming near the uneven wet cobbles of the street.

They were having an abnormal cold and wet springtime on that year of the Lord 1811. Not a good thing for those who lived on that area of the British capital, for they had not enough money for food, lest for wood and heating.

For Ernest, who had just finished his rounds delivering bread to the starving workers of the area, the weather was, like most things that surrounded him, indifferent.

So is the life of eternal boredom and disinterest. Everything was ambivalent and grey.

It was, however, a hassle. He thought the night would be pleasant enough to walk back to his house, as he preferred, and had dismissed his driver for the night. At this hour, there would be no rentals available, so he would wet his coat over nothing.

He preferred not to be bothered by the curious stares of his groom, but he was better stared at than wet and cold, to be sure.

As the esquire turned a corner, he saw something that greatly confounded him. It was a carriage, and one he knew quite well.

Luke Harper, the groom on the employ of his neighbours, was driving the distinctively luxurious carriage, moving lazily through the fog, believing, within good reason, that he would not be seen or recognized in any way.

The horses stopped at front of the best-kept house on the street. The conductor makes no move to get down from his seat to open the door, as it would be expected of him if he carried one of his patrons.

Ernest had taken this as evidence he was carrying nobody, or that his business at the neighbourhood were of a personal order. Desiring no further entanglement with whatever business the man was conducting, lest it to be something unsavoury, the blond man crossed the street to continue his way to his house, trying to pass unnoticed.

However, before he lost eyesight of the carriage, a woman steps out. She wore a black dress and a cape, but the hood was not covering her head, where a beautiful stem of brown hair, tied neatly to form a thin cascade just past her shoulders.

Ernest could recognize that hair anywhere. He spent much more time than he cared to admit thinking about it, and about the rest of the person who wore it so gracefully. Lady Susan Beauchamp, the natural daughter and current heir of the Earl of Edgewater.

Just as soon as her feet touch the sidewalk, Mr Harper prompts the horses to move forward, and soon it disappears on the mist. The cloaked figure knocks on the door and is quickly ushered inside.

Feeling the curiosity and the concern getting the best out of him, he walks surreptitiously to the building. It was detached from its neighbours, a rarity in that particular street, but it was a guarantee there would be another point of entry or a window to peek.

Walking around the place, the esquire finds such a window, on the left side of the building, overlooking an alleyway. Benefitting with the prevalent darkness at the streets, he could sneak into a comfortable watching position.

Inside, there were about ten people, all wearing black aside from a single overweight man dressed in white, sitting on a chair right about on the far end of the room, on Ernest’s left. None of them wore jewellery, either, probably advisable due to the dangerous nature of their surroundings.

Another thing that resonated with the landowner was the fact there was no women in the room, aside the one brought by Edgewater’s groom and another one, a blonde, standing right next to the fat man.

A few moments later, Susan approaches the man in white, kneels and kisses his hand. Ernest contained his gasp, as it was a much too weird gesture to dedicate to a person, especially one as disgusting-looking as that man on the chair.

The young heiress stands once again and takes a few steps back. Her sights cross with the only other woman’s, who smile kindly at her presence. The man in white starts talking, though, and all eyes are on him.

Ernest could not hear what was being said, but whatever passed through the filter of the glass was certainly not English.

He stood there, observing attentively the exchange, for good part of thirty minutes. However, his focus on the scene meant he did not take proper care of the environment around him, and he was then tackled by a dark figure.

The esquire was hardly a man devout of physical activities, horseback riding and some gardening being the most that brought him outside in the sun. That, coupled with his distractedness, made him to be easily overpowered and taken inside the building.

Once inside, he was placed on his knees in front of the figure in white, being held in position firmly through his shoulders.

“Votre Majesté,” The man holding Ernest said, deferent. “Mes excuses pour l'interruption. Cet homme a été retrouvé à l'arrière du bâtiment. ”

The man in white pressed his lips, a sign of anger. Ernest could feel Susan staring down at him, but he did not look up to meet her glance.

“Vous ne pensez pas que cet homme pourrait être un espion, monsieur?” The fat man asks.

“Il n'est pas un espion, Votre Majesté.” Susan says, with an edge of anger on her voice. “Je le connais, c'est un ami de mon père. Puis-je être autorisé à traiter avec lui? ”

The man signals his approval with a hand-wave and he is taken to a side room, followed closely behind by Susan. She seats on an armchair, while he is forced to stand. The man that guarded him so far brings a few candelabras into the room and leaves them to themselves.

“What in Lord’s name are you doing here, Mr Sinclaire?” She asks impatiently, as soon as they are left alone. “This is not a neighbourhood where I can believe a man of your station happens to be spending his night.”

“I could very well ask the same of you, Lady Susan.” He counters, trying to maintain a haughty position of moral superiority. “If it is no place for a gentleman, it is also no place for a countess in the making.”

Her clear eyes formed a glare one might wonder if it is indeed incapable of murder. “As I am sure you have noticed, seeing you are spying on my every move for God knows how long, I have done nothing unbecoming or inappropriate for my station tonight. I am sorry to say I cannot say the same about you.”

“I apologize, milady, if it seemed as if I followed you here from Trafalgar Square, but do not assume I frequent houses of ill-repute for reasons of my libido.” He says, matching her raging tone. “If you believe me, I say I was on the region for a charitable work. I give out loaves of bread to the women with children.”

The woman evaluates him carefully with her glinting eyes, finally softening her stance. “I believe you. Now, I must ask for you to leave.”

“You will not hand me the courtesy of explaining what was that I saw tonight?” He asks, in equal parts defiant and pleading.

“I do not think I should, but anything you thought you saw would probably be much worse than the actual truth.” She weighted. “Very well. What would you like to know?”

The esquire withholds a scoff. It would serve him no good. Instead, he says, “Who is that man in white? The one you kissed the hand?”

Susan gives him a side smirk, an amused reaction of those who know something their interlocutors do not. “That man, Mr Sinclaire, is Louis, the Count of Provence. Or, if you so prefer, King Louis XVIII of France. In fact, most of those people are members of the Bourbon dynasty. The Count of Artois, the Duke and Duchess of Angouleme, the Duke of Berry.”

The information takes some time to be internalized by Ernest’s mind. The King of France? He remembered reading on the paper a few months back that the surviving Bourbons had come to Britain upon invitation of the Prince of Wales, but he also recalled they were to remain in Buckinghamshire, quite ways off London.

Regardless, why would Susan, the natural daughter of a middle-tier English noble, have any business with the pretender French king or any of his family? Especially one that allowed them such familiarity with the Bourbons?

Predicting it to be the next question from Mr Sinclaire, Susan commences her tale: “You see, Mr Sinclaire, my mother is not English. She is from the continent, more specifically Brittany. Her parents, my grandparents, were landowners, country gentry not too different from yourself or my natural father.

“In 1789, came the Fear.” Her voice grows dark. “I cannot say whether my grandparents were good people, if they were charitable and just or if they were cruel to their serfs. I never met them. In whichever case, they were lynched and their house was set on fire.

“My mother, being just a girl on the cusp of her fifteenth birthday, was spared, but she was now homeless and an orphan. She, then, walked to Caen, where she met an Englishman who was besotted with her singing voice, so much so, he was willing to pay her journey across the Channel and sponsor her entrance to an opera company here in London. Given the ill-feelings the English had towards the French, my mother preferred to conceal her nationality.

“The next part of the story you probably know, my mother meeting my father, he promising to marry her, only for his father to deny him and imposing a match with Henrietta instead.” The woman gloss over the information. “After I was born, my mother started corresponding with several émigrés. She even helped a few settle in Britain under assumed names. In turn, she requested for them to send books to help raising me properly.

“One of those correspondents happened to be the Duchess of Angouleme, who referred me and my family to her uncle. I came here to meet with them, to discuss current events and their plans for the future. It is all.”

“But why here?” Ernest asks, pointedly. “Why so covert about it?”

She sighs. “Britain’s position regarding the legitimacy of the Bourbon claim has changed. While the British Crown sees positively the return of a Bourbon to the throne of France, they are no longer willing to support a takeover on the lines of those in the 1790’s. Restoration depends on whether a final solution with Napoleon can be reached, and how this solution presents itself.

“That being said, and reminding that they are in England under a personal invitation of the Prince Regent, it could be damaging to their standing in the country if they are suspected to be gathering émigrés for another attempt at a takeover. It is better if our meetings, be mine with the Bourbons, be with any other Frenchman, to be as discreet as possible.”

“I understand, Lady Susan.” He nods, soberly. “Thank you for you kindly sharing this story with me. I apologise for imposing into your affairs, especially one of this nature.”

“Pay no heed, Mr Sinclaire.” The woman bobs her head gracefully. “However, I must ask for your absolute discretion on the subject.”

“Of course. I will tell no soul.” The esquire promises, voice even and eyes looking deep into hers.

“Good. Now come, I will escort you out and arrange for a carriage to take you back to your house.”

Susan leads him outside, where a horse car waited, probably for one of the men inside the place. She talks with the groom in French, probably persuading him to take the Englishman home.

As London passes by the window and the East End is left behind, swallowed by the white fog, Ernest considers what he saw and heard from Lady Susan.

The woman was beautiful and fascinating, that was clear to anyone with two eyes and sense, but she also had secrets, and scars, she hides behind that natural debonair of hers.

Perhaps it was childish of him, just some petty curiosity that would bring no satisfaction, if not offense, but if Ernest was sure of one thing, is that he was eager to find out more of what hide beneath Lady Susan’s appearances.

Taglist: @catlady0911; @choicesyouplayandmore; @cocomaxley; @llholloway; @mrsernestsinclaire; @shelivesinthewoods; @tornbetween2loves 

[bahrrss-blog]

DIGITAL PROTOTYPING  Malmö University -2019

DE/RE CONSTRUCT  - 1st of April

De/construct. Promoting our insight into the ongoing course, this task wants us to investigate and "deconstruct" an actual GUI, recognising configuration examples of the interface. Deconstruct phase is followed by reconstruction.

Beginning with the procedure of deconstruction, I started from researching the applications on my phone, seeking around to check whether there are applications with specific capacities that are confounding, hard to enrol naturally, or just inadequately planned. That being stated, telephone applications these days have experienced a lot of cycles and update that most apps are about flawless usefulness astute other than the occasional bugs. I unquestionably experienced serious difficulties finding an application that I had serious issues with. So I decided to avoid confusion this time and go for just any app, giving myself a hard task. That I chose to look at as a challenge rather than an unsolvable problem.

I settled with the application of Instagram. Instagram is a popular application. It is structured is founded on picture sharing. What makes this application emerge is the exceedingly adaptable showcase. You can change the look of your pictures and videos, comment, explore, share, and chat, privately and publicly. In a case of private chate, this feature, probably due to a secondary role for Instagram is very locate.

The fundamental issue I'm having as I utilise this application is that as the primary GUI is made for single communication/share and not to interact.

STUDYING THE STRUCTURE OF INSTAGRAM

I generally end up experiencing considerable difficulties finding and getting to the page where you can see private messages. The application makes it easy to glance through the communities and explore but could be troublesome when you might want to rapidly access chats your friends sent you. 

As an extrovert and someone who likes to communicate, this seems overly complicated for times when talking to people anywhere in the world is free of charge. I attempt to deconstruct in detail Instagram and understand why they have placed direct messages in a place where is hard to find.

These are some of the Instagrams GUI. Here you can five different pages and choose between 5 different functionalities of Instagram. Each display has its purpose. To navigate, to explore, to follow, to add new media, and your own profile.

The main issue with the page I have is, the messaging part. Insofar it is available only on the main page. So not even on your profile, nor any other page of the applications. And, to make even stuff more dislikable for me, there is no even messaging part when the application is accessed from the browser, computer or phone.

The app makes it easy to navigate through all features, such as, follow, like, add a new photo, the main page, or your own profile. However, once you find yourself in any place except on the main page, you can’t see messages being delivered. And, this, in my opinion, can be troublesome, due to a pure fact that messaging is a huge part of social networking.

It is that much complicated that Instagram even made official guidelines on their ‘’how to’’ page. You can see their guidelines on the picture under.

REI found messaging one of, if not the main reason why I use social networks, especially Instagram, it is convenient, retro, and modern way of exploring and sharing, so obstacles like one presented above, strike accords, and that's why I am talking about it. Especially as a Student living abroad, and having friends and families all over the world. I would benefit from facilitated messaging options. I will deconstruct Instagram into details furthermore down in this post. So, stay here around and keep reading.

BREAKING IT DOWN

As you can see on the image, in the right upper corner messages are placed, and on the exact opposite side, down left corner is the home page. (the little house looking alike icon)

Furthermore, I will talk about the Instagram story, in the media presented below, you can notice circles and some of them has a red outline, and some not. The red outline is to show that there is a new story published to buy the user. Once you watched the story (the circle becomes grey and moves away from the top of your notifications)The way to watch someone's story is to just simply press (and hold to pause) on the top of the story. Stories usually can’t be longer than a few seconds, and a maximum number of stories is 100 per day. Each story disappears after 24 hours, with the possibility of being stored on the profile afterwards. It will be available (hidden on the profile, meaning only visible to the owner of that profile for next 12 months, and then it is lost forever)

You can see the stories from the main page, or you can access them also when visiting the page of the person or desired agency.  Also, if you desire to share it outside of Instagram you choose from pressing and choosing the option for three dots in the right corner of the media.

In order to not be too subjective, I have asked some of my colleagues to look into this and give me their honest opinions. I also asked some of my friends who are not familiar with the school project, thinking this way I could avoid bias.

Below is a deconstruction of Instagram with annotations of patterns and functions.

RE/CONSTRUCT

If you look closely to provided re-constructed xd prototype. The icon for messages is located in the bottom grid. Inheritably the bottom grid is fixed on the GUI. Hence, to access the messages will be easy and quick. As explained in deconstruct part, the messages/share feature was placed in multiplied places. Giving the cluttered look and giving a feeling of confusion to users. This design patterns can be blamed on Instagram policies to keep their platform explorative and not based it on messaging. It can be argued that Facebook came to a similar problematics, which Facebook solved by creating separate app only for messaging, But this caused the decrease of usage of the main Facebook overall. However my improved design look is minimal, it would not cause major division between messaging and sharing content on Instagram. On the contrary, it would facilitate the usage of both features.

User testing

In user testing, the general feedback I got is can be summed in three words. ´´Oh, THANK GOD´´ what users meant to say was: someone else is also feeling the same way, Some of the users mentioned that they use Instagram as calling app, video calling app. Instagram has incorporated video and voice calling together with iOS and Android, so when someone is calling on Instagram, feels like you are getting regular phone calls. Furthermore, accessing to the deaths of this calls is a bit harder. Because of the issue mentioned previously. Thus having messaging (which is call and video call) feature display on the main GUI of Instagram on the bottom fixed grid, seemed as change worth changing.

Analysis

When starting this project, I wanted to focus only on a rather overall redesign than touching only some visual design patterns. Like messaging feature. However, the visual design does have a big impact on user experience. For the above solutions, I wanted to show how small changes can make a big impact.

The patterns, as far for the control that Instagram induces, is hard to notice. Mainly because announcements are very well integrated, it is hard to distinguish them from real person posts. It is, however, a typical iOS application pattern. It is very well adjusted with adds.

Instagram has an integrated variety of shapes in its design. Rounded, and squared icons.

The font used on Instagram is: Roboto is used along with Freight on Android. The Instagram website uses Proxima Nova for all text with Neue Helvetica and iOS Freight Sans.

On Instagram, when uploading a photo the design pattern of carousels can be noticed. You can scroll between pictures to select as many as it is allowed to upload.

This is the noticeable design patterns, I was also when user testing attempting to found more of them, but I couldn’t notice. I would need to do an in-depth analysis to find more, or maybe with any new updates of design, the new pattern will appear. Sometimes also, when we are to dwell into deconstructing.

BEYOND THE NORM - 15th of April

Questions: 

What is the speculative approach? What is the critical design? How to relate this to interaction design? Should we, as designers, ignore issues of the world? Should we, as citizens, be satisfied with the world we have?

How can a designer play a role in engaging with the world most critical issues?

Check out the video called Technological Dreams Series No. 1, Robots Dunne & Raby, 2007. It talks about interactive experiences. This video has no voice-over, explaining but clearly explain the power roles that we have over the objects. 

https://vimeo.com/2611597

Critical design is rather about asking a question than finding solutions or looking for the problems.

Answers:

Rather than finding a solution to current life problems, Critical design offers a step into the future and gives us feedback about where should we go further. Critical design tests wander and explore with ideas in a rather than unconventional way. Their exploration can be understood as something between reality and impossible. There is an attempt of drawing distinction between affirmative design (design that reinforces the status quo) and Critical Design - design that rejects how things are now as being the only possibility, it provides a critique of the prevailing situation through designs that embody alternative social, cultural and technical, or economic value (Dunne and Raby 2001)

Manifesto of the Critical Design: Design as a medium, asks, questions, social fiction, parallel worlds, functional fictions etc.

Is it even needed? Do we need art in design? Positive critique is that is pushing boundaries that might result in positive changes. Negative critique is that this type of design is just trying to make some noize and that we don’t really don’t need this design.

What to be thoughtful about is that critical design creates a space for critique.

Thoughtful design is taking into perspective, projecting scenarios and establishing the use of emerging things. Discursive design is distinguishing design field, commercial, experimental, and discursive design. What is essential in design fiction is that the object fits into its surroundings.

Relation of these designs to #IXD 

Prototypes are tenuous, material and experienceable. Prototyping is aligned in order for situations to be understood. 

Issues with Critical Design, it is very hard to know you are on the right path. We don’t know if we are doing a good or bad job. 

In a short conclusion: Critical Desing is here to provoke, to question, to change values, to challenge the status quo, do it with great care if you adopt the techniques of critical design.

Adobe XD tutorials

Learning XD in detail has its advantages. Basic functions sometimes are not enough, it is quite a time saving when you know where something is located. Most of the things we learned in the first Adobe tutorial, I have already been familiar with, but haven’t really used them so much. For example, doing animation with xd was valuable insights. We were wireframing the news app. We created load screens, and the screens were supposed to give feedback. And the feedback was load time. I find this very funny, in times when 5G networks are to be implemented.

We created only a few screens and made the animations. But, it is interesting how this animation would look like for enormous news apps, that contain thousands of information and it is updated literally every minute. I guess this information tells how important this trick was when designing an app.

If you look closely you can see that the small dots under the titles are not all the same for each screen. This, when using the app would give the impression of time passing.

Furthermore, learning about wireframing tools, was also valuable. The thing is not only learning is enough, but this skill also has to be practised and put to use. We used already made screens, in my opinion, it is a bit limiting the creativity of the designer, but on the other hand, the time-saving aspect has to be taken into consideration. It would take much longer to make these screens from scratch. Hereunder you can see some screen I made during the XD workshop.

ANALYTICS EXERCISE  -23d April 2019

After an in-depth exploration of Google merchandise store, there are few design suggestions that I could recommend for googles improvement in sales. Right under you can see chars that are visualising backing up my argumentations.

If we look closely to these numbers under. There is an enormous differentiation between mobile users and desktop users. It is certain there today in mobile purchases are common and becoming the main way of using the internet, also purchases.

This makes sense in many ways because mobile phones are always in our pockets, and we reach for mobile more often then we do with our laptops.  So, I am raising the question about this issue, since Google merchandise store, has more visits from their desktop site.

Overall desktop visits are around 51 000 visits, where on phone it is only around 16000 visits.

This data, made me go and look at the mobile site of the store, and here I have found several design changes that can be applied. This, in my opinion, would give the store market standard, and boost mobile visits. Let take a look at the mobile site (check the media under). There we can see a variety of information hidden, behind the same icon. There are cluttered and not even necessary because all of the information this icon contain can be placed within one icon, or simply displayed on its own. The number of items purchased can be placed on the basked. And the icon next to towards left can be eliminated, or unified with the same icon under.

In conclusion, the site is clean from announcements, which gives it a peaceful place to do your shopping. Adding these small changes would make a site mobile friendly and it would boost visits and purchases made through the phone.

Digital Prototyping -  How do speculative approaches reveal qualities of digital prototyping practice, and what are these important qualities?

To begin with, I can mention that speculative design process requires definitely more than one iteration. In my opinion, there is a need for researching the topic of choice from different angels. To understand the complexity of the design opportunity. It is practically a necessity to deconstruct the science behind the design opportunity.

In this course, the topic was drowned from the perspective of the UN sustainable goals. The pros of having to work with information like this is that is a very well researched topic. Easily accessible information online, multiple sources. All of this facilitates the process of speculation.

On the other hand, I will argue that this limits the creative process. Which many would agree, is necessary for any good speculative design process.

However, since this was the first project of speculative design, having predefined filed of work, can be taken as beneficial, then disadvantageous

Furthermore, if we would attempt to answer the following question: How speculative design is relevant to prototyping experiences in general? We can argue that relevance depends on the design aim. In this project, there was a necessity to use previously acquired prototyping skills, but the context was directed towards, information, visualising or grabbing attention overall. To achieve this our prototyping practice needed the help us come up with this design. I would argue that it help to understand speculation in design, but not to the point where the speculation was entirely clear.

For instance, the design process that my group was undertaking in this course, was clearly divided into two major ideas. Where the first idea, was a bad attempt to speculate, and a rather good attempt to solve the problems. Prototyping wasn't contributing much. On the contrary, on the second interaction, when the ideas were considered quite speculative, prototyping, especially using digital tools (such as xd) made the project harder. This is due to the fact that the initial ideas needed to be transferred to visual aspects. Thus, everything seems as constrained. With each small design implementation, the idea of speculation seemed losing its value.

Conclusively, it is worth considering, in future speculative design practices. that the prototyping practices can be arguably big constraint to the speculative design process.

To relate just argued pros and cons of the mentioned topic to the question of this essay (How do speculative approaches reveal qualities of digital prototyping practice, and what are these important qualities?) I can say the digital prototyping has visual aspects as support. Meaning, the tools digital prototyping uses are dependent by the large scale on the visual aspect. Whether we use video or just images. Having said this, and taking into consideration the complexity of the speculative design. Digital prototyping can serve to clarify this complex nature of this form of design.

To wrap up this thought, I can say, the visual aspect is (if well made) self-explanatory, and overall easy to understand (compared to other expensive mediums) therefore, this characteristic of digital prototyping can serve as an advantage when used in speculative design.

However, there are other qualities of digital prototyping that speculative design can reveal. For instance, these qualities can be reviled depending on which angle we are observing digital prototyping. If we looked at it from the perspective of humans needs, then we have to understand that people seek influence over their environments, and digital technology has traditionally extended possibilities to extend knowledge and control (Gaver & Martin, 2000).

There are examples where just simple machine intelligence was used to arranged and to shape birds' behaviour, by approximating a target tune for birds singing. This allowed could allow the different birds to be trained to take different harmonic roles in an overall composition. Hence, digital prototyping can give a man much more than even imaginable at first glance. We can argue that digital prototyping practice could allow people to extend control to the very wildlife and navigate the future of   (wilderness and of nature) simply uncontrollable. Another example can be given from this course speculative design project. The project Swipe Dream, developed with my classmates, held in itself speculative understanding of the UN sustainable goal number 17. Partnership for goals. Swipe dream places serious manners such as development and many flows from developed to developing world, by using modern dating environment such as tinder. There is no-the less controversy in this project. But, it proves the point that speculative design allows (with use of digital prototyping) us to see important questions in another light, thus illuminating problematics, that otherwise would pass unnoticed.

Furthermore, when the design is used to ends that are provocative,  we are bridging and constructing things. We are also telling stories through objects, which become effectively conversation pieces in  a  very  real  and  persuasive  sense.  Through the projection of design scenarios, design fictions, and narratives of use, the designer as storyteller shifts focuses beyond efficient use, to embrace uncertainty, interpretation and meaning (Malpass, 2016).

It can be argued that speculative design holds immense importance for society. It pushes the boundaries from what we know already. It teaches us new perspectives on the stuff that are already around us. It gives purpose to things that presumably are useless. I connect us with objects around us and allows us to create better futures. Speculatively, digital prototyping shines the most in my opinion when using storytelling through film and images. And when mediums for expression is mixed. Her plays important roles in the ambiguity,

Furthermore, when prototyping in relation to the digital world, if we position design as an effective medium with the intent to construct public and engage user audiences by questioning conditions in everyday life. We need a powerful perspective for the user to understand our points. We need to achieve this critical perspective of the user or observer.Here is when digital prototyping can show it’s powered. If done correctly and with huge dedication, we as a designer can affect the direction where our society is going.

Design can push furthermore from orthodox way of thinking. If we manage to encourage the user to interpret the object, we put the user in a role that opens up for exploration, reflection and engagement. And, is it even necessary to explain how important is for every individual to fully engage in explorations of their own lives.

Conclusively, we can argue that there are multiple design approaches when it comes to speculative design. Firstly the combinations of disciplines. Design can be related to art, architecture or even philosophy. But, due to a necessity for clarity and simplicity, to my knowledge, we can narrow down speculative approaches in at least three different ones. The first sees designers reflecting on and critically questioning design practice. In this course, it was a digital prototyping design practice. Also, the second approach is based on re-thinking the design discipline. For example, rethinking if the digital prototyping is the best approach to explain certain problematics, or would is politics the best place to express concern about climate change, and so on.  When we are talking about politics, to my knowledge and from what literature supporting this paper is indicating, one of the approaches of speculative design could actually be related to the overall importance of this speculation and design for society. Nonetheless, it is important to see the speculative design more as a discursive practice, based on critical thinking and dialogue, which questions the practice of design than to try to select and eliminate this practice in any other way (Malpass, 2016).

On the other hand, digital prototyping practice in too many ways can be a limitation in the ability to explore possible futures. We are all explorer, and the medium we use matters.  Different strategic approaches are both desirable and necessary to achieve the best results possible in the process of exploration.

Digital prototyping is a way of thinking and expressing. It is certainly no so different from physical prototyping. But none the less, the experience digital prototyping can create, might interfere with how we think of our future and how we as mankind will continue to go about our lives. Yes, I argue of the benefits of digital prototyping, but however good and beneficial this prototyping is, it will never bring better results than feedbacks that real users give us.

In conclusion, it can be stated that digital prototyping together with the speculative design is of big importance, it gives us a modern perspective of ourselves and of the context we found ourselves in.

Literature

Gaver, B., & Martin, H. (2000). Alternatives. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ’00. https://doi.org/10.1145/332040.332433

Malpass, M. (2016). Critical Design Practice: Theoretical Perspectives and Methods of Engagement. The Design Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2016.1161943

[elenajohansenauthor]

Fictober18, Day 22: “I know how you love to play games.”

OCs: Shannon and Orlando

Project: Untitled paranormal romance for Fictober18/NaNoWriMo, now tagged #spookyromancenovel on my blog

Potential Triggers: none

Word Count: 2,395

About: BIG CHAPTER! COMPLETELY UNPLANNED PLOT TWIST! THIS IS WHY I LOVE BEING A PANTSER!

The longer I talked, the more insane I sounded. I could hear it in my own voice; I could feel Orlando's skepticism on my skin, though he tried hard to keep his face neutral. I didn't doubt he sensed the truth in my voice, but that didn't make what I had to say any less incredible. I thought the story we'd brought him the first time was strange enough, but apparently, to him, a lone human woman trying to find a way to get herself into the Archives safely was even weirder.

When I was done, when I had told him everything from the names I'd been given to how awful it felt to lie to Noah about my activities, Orlando clucked his tongue at me and said, “You make me feel old, with all that energy you're throwing off., but you're also a disaster. You're like a baby duckling, and I'm watching you head straight for a busy road without your mama to follow.”

I hung my head, wilting from his disapproval. “I know. It's stupid and next to impossible and everyone keeps telling me how dangerous it is, but all I want to do is look at some manuscripts. Other people must get to do that, or why keep them and store them in the first place? Why is there a project to restore them, that Wes is working on, if it's just to lock them away, what's the point?”

Orlando waved a hand, and tiny table appeared between us, already laden with a steaming, fat-bellied iron teapot and two small handle-less mugs. Despite the definite Middle Eastern influences to Orlando's furnishings and the vague African-ness of his wardrobe—the bright prints of his long tunics reminded me of so many tribal photos I'd seen in magazines that I couldn't possibly identify their true provenance—the low table and tea set were distinctly Japanese. It made me ache for Noah in an unexpected way. His parents had raised him on green tea instead of soda, and he'd never acquired a taste for coffee as a result. My parents lived on it, I was sure my mother's blood at any given time was at least thirty percent coffee. But once Noah had started coming around, there was always a box of green tea on the shelf

I had one in my apartment, too, even if it hadn't been touched in three long years.

Orlando poured for us. “You're such an idealist, Shannon. I like that, even if I'm not used to it.” He picked up his mug and saluted me with it. I mirrored him, and we both drank. “Now let me explain, and don't interrupt. In fact, don't say anything at all, not until you've finished your tea.”

I hate being told not to talk, always have. My mouth was open to protest immediately, without thought. But the sharp look Orlando cut me with deflated any protest I would have made. I sipped my tea.

“Ideally,” he began in a soothing, practiced tone, “knowledge should be shared, and would be freely available to everyone. But we both know that's never going to be true, not completely. Because knowledge is power. It's an old chestnut, but it's solid and true. And if there's one creature out there who lusts for power more than humans, it's vampires. They crave power and hoard it like some people hoard their wealth. If the faction that controls the Archives is restoring manuscripts—thank you for that, by the way. I hadn't heard a whisper about it, and it puts some other recent occurrences in a new light. So if they're spending money on that, and giving safe conduct to human artisans to do it, then it must be tied in some way to a bid for power. For influence.”

The answer seemed obvious, even if I could see no obvious connection. “The Enclave negotiations?” I remembered as soon as I said it that I wasn't supposed to speak, but Orlando nodded. My tea was only half gone, but this was a point worth discussing. “How could restoring and preserving old scrolls and books and whatever affect politics?”

Orlando took a long sip of his tea and shrugged. “To know that, I'd have to know the contents of whatever's being restored. Which your friend Wes rightfully chose not to divulge to you. Though in any case, I doubt he knows. If I were in charge of the project, I'd make sure to hire artisans who spoke only one language, then assign to them texts in a different one. Many are illustrated, of course, because who doesn't love old art of demons or monsters or what have you? But if they're books on magic—and if they're in the Archives at all, that's a safe bet—then they'd be useless to anyone who couldn't read them.”

“So Wes is patching up parchments covered in Portuguese or ancient Sumerian or something, while somebody from Russia or Uruguay or Myanmar handles anything in English.”

“Russia, not so much, I'd think.” Orlando chuckled. “English education there is strong, a large percentage of the population speaks, or at least understands, some English. I don't know much about Uruguay, but I do know very few people in Myanmar speak English, so that's not a bad guess.”

I sighed. “I am stupid. I hadn't even considered a language barrier. Even if I could get it, even if I found what I needed, there's no guarantee I'd be able to read it.”

“Now you're getting it. So, as long as we're talking about impossible plans, what you should really be doing isn't trying to get into the Archives yourself, though I can tell your little bookworm heart wants that more than just about anything—and not just to save your best friend.”

I grimaced at him. He was right, of course he was right. I had a good reason, the best of reasons to want to go, but that didn't mean I didn't have selfish motives as well.

“What you need is to discover the identity of a vampire who works in the Archives, capture them, persuade them to find the information you need, then set them loose in their own territory.”

“Persuade them?” There was a hysterical edge to my voice I didn't like, but if my plan was impossible, his was astronomically and ludicrously untenable.

“Magically speaking, of course. You'd never get a vampire to commit that kind of espionage with logic or even threats. There would have to be some kind of mind control or compulsion involved.”

Which was so thoroughly illegal it made my head spin. The law was still catching up to magical ability in many respects, and loads of gray areas existed both legally and morally. But anything that took away a person's will was forbidden.

That raised an interesting point, though. “Vampires aren't citizens, so they're not subject to federal laws. That's one of the items in their manifesto—legal recognition and protection as individuals distinct from their mortal identities.” Noah had accused me of being politically dense; since then, when I'd needed a break from research and planning, I'd read up on current events. The Enclave had been rescheduled in about a month, though there was already fear of more terrorism surrounding it. “So using mind control on them isn't technically illegal.”

“No, it isn't.” He held my gaze over the rim of his cup.

“I can't tell if you're serious or not.” I let out a nervous laugh. “I'm not as strong a reader as you are—you're a big blank spot, mentally. I've only got your expression and body language to go on, and I just can't tell. Are you putting me on to prove a point about how insane I am? Because your plan is way, way worse.”

He said nothing, continuing to stare at me steadily.

I set down my mug and snapped my fingers. “But you didn't come up with this plan in the hour since I called. You're not thinking out loud at me, you've considered this before. You want something from the Archives, too.”

He touched one forefinger lightly to his nose.

“Dammit!” I cried. “I can't believe this is even an option. We're going to get ourselves killed.”

“You were already on that road yourself, Shannon.”

“Yeah, but I was only risking myself. I may have only figured this out just now, so I'm catching up to you on it, but even I can tell we can't pull this off ourselves. I don't know a shred of control or compulsion magic. Do you? You've got the power, at least. I'd hate to pit myself mentally against any vampire but a freshly turned one.”

“I do not,” Orlando stated clearly.

“But you know someone who does.” Before he said anything else, I held up a hand, palm out. “Don't confirm or deny that. I haven't agreed to anything.”  I threw back the rest of my tea in one scalding gulp. “Here's what I don't understand. Where do I come in to this? What do you need me for? Because if you've wanted this for a while but haven't attempted it, you're missing some piece of your plan. And I don't see how I'm that piece. I'm a decent Healer who reads a lot. I'm no spy, and you've proven I have very little aptitude playing at it.”

“You're smarter than you give yourself credit for, duckling. Think on it a bit more, and call me when you figure it out.”

“You know what?” I slammed my tea mug down and stood up. “I won't. Because I already know how you love to play games. I didn't mind when it was the price of admission the first time, and I guess this time I had to prove my bravery or resourcefulness or some shit. But capturing and mind-controlling a freaking vampire? This game of yours is now officially to rich for my blood. I'm folding.”

“You can make up whatever story you want.” Orlando didn't appear the least bit disturbed by my outburst. “You can call every name on that list, but you won't get anywhere. I'll give you credit for your determination and bonus points for your diligence. With the right instruction and some more experience, you could accomplish great things. But you're sheltered, duckling. You were treating this like a tough college admissions screening when it's actually life or death. If you do make it to the Archives, you will be turned or killed, no matter how you got there. That little concealment charm of yours is tattered just from walking the mile from your apartment. Nothing you can manage will protect you inside a vampire stronghold.”

My heart was pounding. I was so, so stupid. It didn't matter that I hadn't put my all into the charm—even if I had, it would hardly be stronger. My only true magical talent lay in Healing. “So what you're saying is that this is hopeless, unless I agree to help you, whatever that ends up meaning. That I won't be able to cure Noah on my own.”

“He'll survive as he is as long as he doesn't break the promise he made; that was the truth, and since you're still trying to save him, I assume that hasn't changed. As for whether or not you can cure him? I don't know. I'm not psychic.” He stopped and laughed at himself. “Or I am, but I can't see the future. And I haven't been inside your mind the way I was in his—maybe you'll find the answer. Maybe. What I can tell you is that your plan will fail. You don't have to help me, but regardless, you should abandon the idea of going to the Archives yourself. If you're killed, the promise will go unfulfilled, and Noah will turn.”

“He can't keep it if I'm a vampire?” I wasn't asking to know what it was. I knew he wouldn't tell me. But maybe he could give me this much.

“Ah, duckling, I like you a great deal, but you're so short-sighted sometimes. What has to happen to you before you rise as a vampire?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I have to be drained, drink the blood of the vampire who does it, then die and be buried. Then I either end up a vampire, or it fails and I turn into a ghoul.” I sighed. “It's death first, either way. Which breaks the promise, even if I'd be there afterward for him to talk to.”

“Which you wouldn't. The vampires are right about that—they're not the same people they were before death. Same faces, same voices, but what drives them is completely different. A vampire Shannon would only want to kill Noah, not save him.”

I hated crying almost as much as I hated being told not to talk, but a few tears leaked out anyway. Somehow, I didn't think Orlando would think of them as feminine weakness and hold them against me. “I really am an idiot.”

“No, duckling. An idiot would still be fighting me, convinced she was right. You're intelligent, but misguided. The type of person capable of making the biggest mistakes for the very best of reasons.”

I covered my face with my hands and wept. After a moment, I was wrapped in sturdy arms and surrounded by a pleasant, almost woodsy scent. Orlando gently pressed my head to his shoulder with one hand while stroking my back with the other. “Hush, hush,” he whispered. “Dry your tears soon so we can get you cleaned up and back home safe. Too many things out there with a taste for scared little girls.”

I choked on a sob and jabbed him in the ribs with my knuckles. “I'm not a little girl.” But the protest felt false even to me, because something intangible in Orlando's aura felt ancient to me, cared for but worn like a temple, wise as an owl. “You're older than you look, aren't you.” I didn't make it a question.

Being able to feel him shake with his laughter was comforting. “Someday people will say that about you, duckling, and I hope it makes you as happy as it does me.”