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[munson-blurbs]

Living After Midnight (Failed Rockstar!Eddie x Motel Worker!Reader)

♫ Summary: What started as a quest to prove Eddie's 'manhood' ended with a gesture that had you hurtling towards your future--ready or not. (5.4k words)

♫ CW: slowburn, strangers-to-lovers, angst, parental conflict, poverty, lots of bees, mention of parental illness, brief mention of sex work, finally some actual physical contact between them, eventual smut (18+ only, minors DNI)

♫ Divider credit to @hellfire--cult

chapter five: float like a butterfly

For the first time since you’d started working nights, you didn’t dread the sound of your alarm ringing. You’d always appreciated its stillness, with only city noises and the occasional guest puncturing the perfect silence. There were some nights where you didn’t speak a word for the full eight hours of your shift; you just read or wrote or daydreamed until the clock struck six.

Except for last night, of course, when you’d passed the time by talking with Eddie and minimally contributed to wallpaper removal. Your mind flickered back to the way he’d placed his hand on yours. The sensation of his palm, calloused but warm, lingering a beat longer than necessary. 

The whole moment could have been deemed unnecessary, in theory. Surely he could have modeled the action on his own and then handed you the tool so you could imitate him. Was it truly to show you how to scrape off glue, or did he have a more gratuitous intention?

Shaking your head, you eschewed the idea almost as quickly as you’d considered it. He was just being polite, a rarity among most of your male guests. Maybe that's why you were so hyper-focused on it; years of clipped conversations and crude comments had you mistaking kindness for something more flirtatious.

Speak of the Devil…

Eddie stood in the lobby, his guitar case slung across his back. He kept one elbow perched on the desk as he spoke to your mom. Whatever he said was making her laugh, a genuine one that brought a light to her eyes. She noticed you first, and when she waved you over, Eddie turned around to see what caught her attention. His smile shifted from open-mouth to close-lipped, more thoughtful and discreet without losing any of its charm.

Slinging your bag off of your shoulder next to the desk, you feigned a casual demeanor and asked, “What did I miss? Serenading my mom?” You nodded towards the guitar case, biting back a smile.

Eddie shook his head, his curls falling in his face. “Tried to make a couple bucks down at the subway station.” He shrugged, shoving his hand in his pocket. “Not enough for a ticket home, but it’s a start.”

Home. Obviously he was going home. New York had nothing for him, had chewed him up and spit him out like he left a bitter taste in its mouth. He had no reason to stay.

Oblivious to your disappointment, Mom laughed again. “Mr. Munson–”

“Eddie. Mr. Munson is my uncle.”

“Eddie,” Mom quickly amended, “was just telling me about the time he ripped his pants while he was on stage.” 

Rosy red seeped into Eddie’s cheeks, evidently not expecting your mom to share that information with you. “And that was the last time I wore leather pants,” he said. “Lesson learned.”

Deeming this conclusion insufficient, you inquired further. “How exactly does one rip leather pants?” You stifled a giggle, just imagining him feeling a sudden breeze mid-concert.

“Well, ya see,” he started, crossing his arms over his faded Metallica t-shirt and smirking, “I’m what’s known as an enthusiastic performer. And as such, one might find that leather can be quite restricting.”

“So…you got really sweaty and they ripped.”

Eddie hid his face behind a curtain of curls, all but confirming your suspicions. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Heiress,” he warned with a smile, cocking his pointer finger in your direction.

Mom took that as her cue to leave, quickly clasping your hand and excusing herself. Thick tension set in without her there as a buffer. Her presence prevented any conversation from dipping too deep into flirtation; now, there was nothing stopping it. 

Except, of course, the looming fact that he was a guest. And like all guests, he was a temporary fixture in your life. 

“The new wallpaper didn’t come in yet,” you blurted out. Dad had insisted on ordering it from a family friend, saving money but forgoing the promises of timely delivery afforded by bigger suppliers. 

Eddie shrugged, unbothered by the information. “I know.” He placed a cigarette between his lips and held out the pack in offering, but you shook your head. Without missing a beat, he put his own cigarette back and returned the box to his pocket. “Your mom was saying how excited she is for you to finish your classes and take over the motel.”

Panic flooded your lungs and constricted your breathing at the potential crisis he might have inadvertently caused. Did Mom seem upset? Her usual signs were noticeably absent: narrowed eyes, set jaw, lips painfully taut in a silent roar: we’ll discuss this later. 

There was none of that. She was laughing. Happy. Not a hint of disappointment. Yet anxiety still hooked its claws into your skin, a stinging reminder of the anvil dangling over your head. 

“You didn’t say—”

“Not a word.” Eddie waved away the thought. “Just smiled and nodded.”

Your chest went concave with relief, and you had to stop yourself from reaching out and pulling him into a hug. His arms held a surprising strength, as evidenced by his wallpaper removal abilities, and you wondered how they would feel wrapped around your waist. Did he hug tightly, not letting go until all of the air had been squeezed from your lungs? Or did he prefer a softer, lazier embrace, one with a hand free to stroke up and down your back?

Why did it matter?

“Is there a reason you haven’t told them?” he asked. The sound of his voice invaded your senses, pulling you back to reality in an instant. “I mean, they seem nice enough.”

Stooping down to grab your notebook, you nodded in agreement. “That’s part of the problem, I guess.” Your teeth scraped along your tongue as you considered your words. “If they were shitty, I wouldn’t feel so bad about letting them down.”

“Letting them down?”

You nodded, feeling that familiar pit that formed in your stomach whenever this subject arose. “Yeah. I can’t be a social worker and run the motel. And if I don’t stick around, they’ll have to close this place for good.”

Eddie breathes out with a low whistle. “Pretty high stakes.”

“You can say that again.” Resting your elbows on the desk, you buried your head in your hands. “How did your parents react when you told them you wanted to be a rockstar?” you asked, your voice slightly muffled. 

He took so long to respond that you looked up, wondering if he’d up and left while you weren’t watching. 

“My dad’s, um, not in the picture, and my mom died when I was a kid,” he finally said, using his left thumbnail to pick at the right. 

“I’m sorry.” And you were: for his loss and for prying into his history. Mortification bloomed and prickled sweat under your arms, and you clenched them to your sides in a feeble attempt to hide any forming stains.

“S’okay. I mean, you didn’t know, so…” his shoulders moved up and down, his mouth drawn into a forgiving half-smile, “now you know.”

Now you know. A little slice of him, presented to you like one of the cakes the local bakery kept locked behind a pane of refrigerated glass. The ones you admired as a kid, reveling in their perfectly smooth icing and intricately piped pastel flowers. They’d always seemed too delicate to touch, so you’d skipped over them in favor of sprinkle-laden cookies.

Logically, you know that the cakes were made for consumption. All you needed to do was ask for a taste. But you could never bring yourself to ruin their beauty. Not then, and not now.

And so, as always, you stepped away and chose the easier path instead.   

“Did you really rip your pants on stage?”

Eddie’s nose wrinkled at the sudden subject change, but he recovered quickly. “Sure did. Split right down the seam.” He puffed out a short laugh through his nose. “Poor Gareth got an eyeful that night.”

“Are you sure that isn’t the real reason you left the band?” Picking up the nearest pen, you poked the capped end into his forearm. 

He play-winced, rubbing the spot the cap touched, and shook his head. “Nah, this was my high school band. Corroded Coffin.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“Oh, yeah. We were terrifying.” Eddie widened his eyes in mock-horror. “The backbone of Indiana’s satanic panic, actually.”

You raised your brows. “Impressive.”

“Mhm. We only broke up because our bassist went to college out of state. Princeton.” He lowered his voice at the name as though relaying confidential information. 

“Not the Ivy Leagues!” You pressed your hand to your heart, clutching metaphorical pearls. 

Eddie grimaced. “I’m afraid so.”

“I’ve heard Princeton is known for their demonic studies program, so that tracks.”

This is nice. This is easy. No mention of schoolwork, or the motel, or parents—or lack thereof. You could do this all night. 

A throat clearing followed by a hacking cough took you both by surprise. Peering over Eddie’s shoulder, you found Phyllis standing in the lobby doorway. 

“There’s a wasp nest outside my window,” she said, tugging up one drooping shirt sleeve. The odor of stale cigarettes grew stronger as she walked closer to you and Eddie; even if she quit smoking today, the pungency would always cling to her. 

Uncapping your pen, you reached into the desk drawer and grabbed the stack of Post-Its. “I’ll make a note to get some insecticide spray tomorrow,” you promised, poorly curbing your exasperation. 

If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. 

The older woman didn’t put up any argument, but Eddie was obviously displeased. “Like hell you will.” He glanced around, pent-up energy overflowing as he bounced on the balls of his feet. “You got a baseball bat around here?”

Your “Uh, no,” overlapped with Phyllis’s nonchalant, “Yeah, of course,” and she left to fetch it.

A sigh escaped you, hinting at your mounting irritation. “Eddie, absolutely not,” you insisted. “Just wait till I get the spray and you can do it then.”

He clicked his tongue with a note of condescension that you didn’t particularly appreciate. “Don’t worry about it, Heiress. I’m from the Midwest; our wasps are like your rats. This’ll be nothing.” When you remained unconvinced, he adopted a teasing grin. “I don’t tell you how to do your nerd stuff, do I? So leave me to my man stuff in peace.”

You nearly choked on your own saliva. “Your man stuff?”

“Yes. Very strong and burly.” He flexed a bicep for emphasis and you threw your hands up in defeat, trying to ignore the soft fluttering in your stomach at the vein bulging through his skin.

Phyllis returned with the bat, the wooden neck clenched between arthritic fingers. “It’s right around the side,” she told Eddie. “Just look for the giant nest. And don’t forget to give this back when you’re done; I’m working tonight.” She thrust the bat into Eddie’s hand and padded back to her room, slippers thwacking against the linoleum. 

Eddie twirled the bat, threading it through his fingers and catching it smoothly. He smiled, unable to camouflage his pride. “See? I got this.” His grasp was determined without a hint of tenderness, a stark contrast to the way he’d held your hand the night prior. Tucking it underneath a denim-clad arm, he took a deep breath and pushed through the front door like he was preparing for battle.

You watched him leave, shaking your head. Evidently, he had a point to prove, but you doubted the chances of his success. Part of you wished you could leave the desk to watch him in action. Another part was relieved that you had the excuse to avoid witnessing this disaster as it unfolded.

As you predicted, not even half a minute had passed before you heard Eddie yelping, his footsteps thudding towards the motel’s entrance. He flung the door open with enough force that it smacked against the wall, scrambling to slam it shut behind him. His chest heaved under his jacket as he tried to catch his breath. 

“Shit, shit, shit.” He swatted around his head at some lingering wasps. “Son of a bitch!”  

Sucking your tongue to your front teeth, you bit back an I-told-you-so. “How’s your ‘manhood’ or whatever?” 

Maybe that wasn’t much better than outright gloating, but you couldn’t help yourself. 

Eddie made a closed fist with only his middle finger sticking up, and he winced almost immediately. “I think one of those little fuckers got me.” He cradled one hand in the other as you walked towards him for a closer inspection. 

Sure enough, a stinger was poking out from the side of his forefinger.

Phyllis came shuffling back from her room, pink lipsticked mouth pursed in concern. “Jesus, kid. Were you trying to piss them off?” The loose skin under her neck wobbled when she chortled. “You swung at that nest like you were Babe Ruth!”

Through a tense smile, you asked her to get a soapy washcloth so you could clean out the wound before it could spark an allergic reaction. “Unless, of course, that interferes with your man stuff,” you said to Eddie, all-too happy to throw his words back in his face.

“Fuck off.” A traitorous chuckle broke through his stoic exterior despite his very real pain. His eyes followed your movements as you grabbed the first aid kit.

You took his warm palm in yours, gently turning it to assess the afflicted finger. The stinger was lodged under his skin, already turning the surrounding area an angry red. 

“Oof, he really stung you good, huh?” Your tone was all sympathy; you figured he’d gotten enough jabs from the wasps. 

Eddie gritted his teeth as you gingerly scraped at the stinger with the edge of your notebook, taking care not to squeeze out any of the venom. You tightened your grip to keep his hand in place, feeling the soft but steady thrum of his heartbeat between his wrist and his thumb’s tendon. It had a melody of its own. 

Slowly, meticulously, you eased the stinger out from where it was wedged.

“Sorry,” you said softly, noting the way his eyes clamped shut as you drew out the stinger and brushed it onto the desk. 

“S’okay.” He managed a small smile, one you returned without hesitation.

The night was still for a moment before he spoke again, his voice soft but eager. 

“Tell me more about Izzy.”

Apparently, you weren’t the only one with a penchant for rapid subject changes. 

At once, your head was filled with memories of her: the pigtails held in place with thick rubber bands, the popsicle juice-stained pink t-shirt, the giggles that melted away your stress from a succession of ungrateful customers. He said something else, but you were too engrossed in your own thoughts for the words to register. 

“Hmm?”

“The little girl you helped.” Eddie cocked a quizzical brow, suddenly worried that he’d remembered incorrectly. “That was her name, right?”

You nodded. “She was only there that one day. I didn’t see her again.”

Her mother was probably too embarrassed to stay any longer and found another motel. If you could go back in time, you would have reassured her, maybe even offered to watch after Izzy while she worked. You might have informed her of programs where she could find a job that didn’t put her or Izzy in harm’s way. 

Eddie continued talking, for some reason persistent in his quest for answers. “But you said she talked to you while she was drawing. About her favorite stuff?”

Phyllis returned with cloth before you could answer him, and she rested it on the desk with a sigh. “I’m gonna head out,” she said, pointing at Eddie, “but my bat better be in my room before I get back, Yogi Berra.”

He nodded, absently massaging the nape of his neck. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” One burgundy-painted fingertip pointed at Eddie, then at you. “I like this kid.”

How do you even respond to that? An honest, ‘me, too’? An overly sarcastic, ‘he’s alright’? 

You opted for a small, unassuming smile and the reminder to be safe, which was absurd when you really thought about it. Phyllis had been doing this, as she put it, “since my tits were above my belly button,” yet you were telling her about safety. 

Bringing your attention back to the sting, you clutched the sopping wet washcloth. Phyllis apparently hadn’t wrung it out; water dripped down the side of your fingers and splashed onto the floor in an uneven plop-plop-plop. 

With an abundance of care, you swiped the cloth over the sting site. It was already starting to swell, the skin raised and angry. 

Eddie reflexively pulled away, the tension evident from the way his front teeth formed grooves in his lower lip. 

“Fuck, that hurts.” His free fist pounded into the desktop with so much force that, for a split second, you worried that he might leave a dent. 

“I know, but we have to clean it out,” you said. 

He grumbled something unintelligible under his breath; you weren't sure you even wanted to know what he said. “Yeah, yeah.” He winced as the frayed fibers grazed him again. “So…Izzy?”

“There isn’t much to say,” you answer honestly. “I mean, she just told me she loved McDonalds french fries and Muppet Babies. Especially baby Fozzie Bear.”

“Anything else?”

You thought back for a moment. “Her favorite animal was dogs, but only the little ones. She said the big ones scared her because they barked too loud. Oh, and her favorite color was light purple.”

The memory is bittersweet, bathing you in both comfort and a dull ache. It was almost six years ago but the little girl had made herself at home in your mind. You thought about her on a daily basis, wondering if she and her mom were still bouncing from motel to motel, or if they’d found a permanent place to settle. Every ounce of optimism you possessed worked to help you believe that they were safe and that she didn’t remember when safety wasn’t guaranteed.

“I knew it.”

You looked up from applying calamine lotion, dabbing the pink-stained cotton ball over any excess dripping off of his finger. “Knew what?” 

“I knew you’d remember everything she told you.” His thumb relaxed and fluttered down until it rested on yours, the pad of his finger on your knuckle.

You reached for a Band-Aid before realizing that opening it required two hands. With more hesitation that you anticipated, you let go of him. “And what makes you say that?” You wrapped the bandage around his finger, careful not to press too tightly around the sting. “There. Good as new.”

Eddie smiled his appreciation. “I, um, had a similar experience when I was a kid.” He swallowed, picking at the Band-Aid until the adhesive side began to bunch up. When he allowed himself to glance at you, he saw you looking back at him, silently encouraging him to tell his story. 

“My mom got sick when I was in kindergarten. The treatment made her tired and nauseous, like, all the time; when she wasn’t sleeping, she was throwing up.” His eyes clouded over and his voice cracked slightly; he cleared his throat and continued. “I was at school one day, and the social worker asked me if I had anyone at home who washed my clothes for me. And when I told her no, she asked me to bring any clothes I needed cleaned with me the next day. So I did, and after school let out, she took me to the Laundromat.” 

If you told him that he didn’t have to keep talking, he'd stop. He’d wipe away any residual tears and excuse himself, and you’d once again spend your shift alone. And so you didn’t say anything, just stood there as his gears turned in recollection.

“She had this game: she’d hold up a piece of clothing and ask if it goes in the ‘lights’ or ‘darks’ pile, and she would get faster and faster until I was laughing too hard to answer.” Eddie exhaled a short laugh and swiped his tongue over his top teeth. “The whole time, I’m thinking that it’s all fun, that this is a normal thing that every kid did. I didn’t realize until years later that it was because my clothes smelled, y’know?” 

Sheepishness colored Eddie’s face in pink splotches as he shifted from man to boy and then back again. 

“Anyway, your story about Izzy kinda reminded me of that. And she might not remember your name or even what you talked about, but she’ll remember someone being there for her. Someone who didn’t act like she was a bother or a charity case. Just a kid who wanted to play.”

His words left you without any of your own. There was so much to digest; chiefly, your newfound glimpse into Eddie’s past. And though you’d only ever known him as an adult, you were still picturing him as a child. He sat atop a counter where others folded their clothes, his brown eyes–looking even bigger than they did presently, given his small stature–gazing up at the woman in wonderment as he giddily sorted his laundry. 

And then, of course, there was the delicately embedded compliment. The reassurance that you had been a positive force in Izzy’s life, even through one brief encounter. 

It was the only part that you could elaborate on without intruding on his privacy. He’d shared something so personal, and while you were desperate to learn more about him, you didn’t want to barge past the boundaries he had so carefully constructed.  

“Yeah, I…just wanted her to feel safe, I guess.” You’d devised a plan while you drew flowers and Care Bears in case no one showed up to find her. Everything had to be done so that she remained in the dark about the situation’s severity; you’d have Mom or Dad check the room, only calling the authorities if Izzy’s mom was unresponsive—or worse. 

In the end, there was no need for you to worry. Her mother was alert and Izzy herself was none the wiser that anything was wrong. You hadn’t even told your parents about the situation despite their potential involvement. Eddie, of all people, was the only other person who knew. 

He nodded and reached over, giving your hand a subtle, tender squeeze. 

“You did.”

Reassurance drifted through the air and clung to you like the sharp scent of tobacco on his jacket. Receiving compliments wasn’t your strongest suit, so you pivoted topics to avoid stretching the ensuing awkward silence any further. 

“The calamine lotion should help with the itching, but you can take some Benadryl if it’s still bad.” Rummaging through the first aid kit, you searched for the medication but only managed to scrounge up a bottle of expired ibuprofen. “There’s a pharmacy a few blocks down. They’ll have some there.” A little mom and pop shop that sold candy and cheap wine in addition to different over-the-counter medicines, it had been a community staple since before you were born.

The corners of Eddie’s eyes crinkled, lips turning upwards in amusement. “An heiress, a social worker, and a nurse? What can’t you do?”

That was a loaded question, and you were relieved that it was rhetorical so you wouldn’t have to list all of your shortcomings. You settled for flipping him off with an accompanying smile of your own.

“I should probably get that bat before she gets back,” he said, glancing towards the older woman’s room. He lowered his voice and continued. “She kinda scares me.”

“Oh, I definitely would not get on her bad side,” you agreed. “Phyllis’s wrath will make that wasp sting feel like a walk in the park.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” His laugh was music that stirred up a desire to dance, to be carried by the melody like a strong gust of wind, and then he was out the door.

Immediately, you were inclined to find something new to talk about when he walked back in. You’d had two days of companionship and had been spoiled by it; the thought of another night in solitude suddenly seemed lonely.

You couldn’t ask about his parents or the social worker who’d taken him to the Laundromat; that was too personal, too soon. Same with his old band. But music–his favorite songs, musicians, albums–that might be safe enough to explore.

The door opened and brought with it a cool evening breeze. Eddie returned much more confidently than he had the last time, Phyllis’s bat slung over his shoulder. 

“Apparently, I actually managed to knock the nest down,” he reported, sounding as surprised as you felt. 

He stifled a yawn, denim creasing at the elbow when he lifted his hand to cover his mouth. It was then that you noticed the way sleep tugged at his eyelids, dashing any remaining hope of having a conversational partner this evening. Asking him to stay awake for you was just selfish. 

“I’ll see you around, Heiress. Let me know if there’s any more man stuff you need from me.” He rapped his knuckles on the desk twice in quick succession and started towards his room. 

“Night, Eddie.”

Opportunity slipped through your fingers as he walked away, the sound of his footsteps eventually too muted to hear. You shoved your disappointment beneath the surface. Eddie wasn’t your friend; he was a guest who happened to be friendly. Asking him to stick around and chat would be unprofessional. 

If he happened to stop by the desk while you worked, you could make small talk. Otherwise, it would be business as usual. 

Minutes were hours and hours were days. Another trucker needed a room for the night, and you checked him in around four o’clock. 

You thought about the certainty in Eddie’s assurance that Izzy had felt safe with you. He didn’t know her; he barely knew you, and he wasn’t even there when it all happened. Yet his approval illuminated from the inside out and you replay it over and over. 

You did. You did. You did. 

Izzy was safe with you and she knew it. If you swallowed your fears and forged your own path, you could help other kids just like her. But it would come at a steep cost unless your parents could somehow miraculously afford to hire a new employee.

Your stomach turns just imagining the motel’s windows shuttered, a For Sale sign propped up in the door, ready to be snapped up by a major hotel chain for a mediocre sum that would barely pay off the overdue bills. It haunted you.

How long could you do this? How long could you push off your own dreams in favor of your parents’? At what point did you cross that fine line between selflessness and martyrdom?

Exhaustion crushed your body, strong enough to overpower the churning anxiety. Still, your sleep was fitful, and you woke up before your alarm feeling wholly unrested. Achiness radiated through your bones as you dragged yourself out of bed.

You knew what you had to do.

Dad noticed your earlier departure, so used to you leaving at 1:45 every day like clockwork. His brows pinched with perplexity as he determined whether he’d forgotten about a change in your schedule.

“Just running an errand before class.”

His confusion faded, replaced with a grin. “Thought I was losing my mind.” The way he stood under the lighting accentuated the gray flecks in his hair and mustache and solidified that he was, in fact, aging. His eventual retirement loomed closer, more of a when than an if with each passing day.

“Can’t lose what you never had,” you teased weakly. Dad met your joke with a wink; if he had picked up on the falter in your voice, he was gracious enough to ignore it.

You took a slight deviation from your usual route, walking past the bus stop and turning the corner until you reached the mailbox. It beckoned you, taunted you, sneered at your cowardice. The stamped envelope mocked you tenfold; innocuous on the surface but held the weight of betrayal.

It contained your admissions letter to NYU with the “accept” box marked and a deposit check that nearly drained your savings, ready to go.

The mailbox hinge creaked open so loudly that it seemed to echo. All you had to do was drop the envelope down the chute and pray that you made the right choice.

Regret surged through your veins the moment the envelope left your fingertips. You acted on instinct, shoving your hand back down the box to reclaim your letter, but you knew it was a fruitless effort before you’d even failed. It was already lost in a sea of bills and birthday cards. 

“Shit!” Yanking your arm out before someone accused you of mail theft, you tilted your head back in an attempt to stop the impending tears.

With one stupid decision, you’d heaved a shovel into the dirt and begun digging a grave for the family business.

What the hell were you thinking? 

As though it had a mind of its own, your foot swung out and smacked against the tin drum with all of your might. It took a beat for the pain to hit, the throbbing in your toes matching the reverberating metal.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” You didn’t care who saw, who heard. Anger and self-loathing bubbled over like boiling water and scalded you in shame. Everything was so far out of your control, and you couldn’t rein it in. The world kept spinning fast, faster, too fast—

“Kicking it won’t make the mailman show up, y’know. ‘S not like rubbing a genie’s lamp.” 

Eddie stood on the other side of the mailbox. A plastic bag dangled from his hand, the box of drugstore brand antihistamine peeking through its translucence. His playfulness morphed into concern when he noted your dewy lashes. “Heiress? You okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” You swiped at your cheeks and sniffed back the mucus that collected in your nostrils. You probably should have been embarrassed that he’d caught you in such a state of distress; maybe you would be once the dust settled. 

He wrinkled his nose dubiously. You couldn’t blame him; why would he be convinced when you were assaulting mailboxes and swearing at the air?

“Seriously. Just having a bad day.” And it was going to get even worse if you missed your bus—again. “Thanks for asking, though.” You managed a grateful smile to prove your sincerity.

Grabbing your backpack from its spot on the ground, you zipped it back up and hoisted it over your shoulder before starting back towards the stop. 

“Hey, wait a sec.” Eddie called out to you, shuffling over until he was by your side. “You, uh, your makeup…” He trailed off bashfully, raising his thumb but stopping before it touched your skin. “May I?”

You nodded, breath hitching as the pad of his finger grazed just below your eye. He gently rubbed, tongue poking between his lips while he focused on removing the smudge without hurting you. 

He was close, almost too close for comfort. There was a small cut on his chin where he must have nicked himself shaving, and you forced yourself to stare at that instead of his wide eyes. 

“There…we…go.” He held up a mascara-stained thumb as evidence. Without thinking, you pressed your own thumb to it. The knuckles of your remaining four fingers slotted between his until you pulled away. 

Eddie laughed, apparently amused by the odd gesture. “I’ll take that as a thank you.” He wiped the residue on his shirt, not caring if it left a mark. “Don’t miss the bus; wouldn’t want you to be late for your nerd stuff again.”

“Mhm.”

You harnessed all of your strength to unglue your feet from the sidewalk. Your body operated on autopilot to its destination while your mind only thought of the heat that leapt from his thumb to yours, or maybe yours to his. 

It was cyclical, you surmised as the bus approached, with no clear beginning or end.

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[winchesterszvonecek]

Prosecutorial Misconduct 18+

Chapter 1 - An Evening at Forlini’s

Word Count: 6489

Series Masterlist | Full Masterlist

When Detective Melanie Dodds entered the quiet establishment of Forlini’s, the first, and only, person that caught her eye was ADA Rafael Barba. He was by himself. His perfectly tailored blazer now gone from his body as he sat perched on a stool about halfway down the bar, nursing a single glass of scotch in one hand and flicking through a thick manila folder with the other. 

It made her frown, seeing him with his nose buried so deep in another case when they’d only just put their most recent one to rest. Melanie always told him he needed to slow down. That he needed to stop pushing himself so hard, but he never listened. And granted, neither did she when anyone would tell her the same anytime she got so wrapped up in a case that she forgot to eat or drink, but at least she knew when to shut off when said case finally came to a close — which was more than could be said for Barba. 

Nevertheless, Melanie took her time in approaching him, opting to drink in the sight of him sitting there for as long as she possibly could before she annoyed him by snatching away his file. His hair was slightly tousled. His sleeves were rolled up, showcasing the slight tan to his muscular forearms that sat atop the bar where his stuff resided. Even the top two buttons on his shirt were undone, his silk tie absent from its usual place around his neck and no doubt shoved lazily into the pocket of his briefcase. 

Melanie would never admit it aloud to anyone, her partner included, but she’d always found Barba attractive. From the way he presented himself, with that scheming smirk he displayed so frequently in court and that cocky strut of his when he walked. To his usually perfect hair and many tailored suits that Melanie just happened to be a sucker for, it all made him utterly delectable for a woman like her. And oftentimes, she never could get him out of her mind. 

“Detective, are you planning on joining me?” Barba called towards her, pulling Melanie out of the trance she’d fallen into over seeing him with his hair down, so to speak. “Or do you need another few minutes to… ogle me?” 

She knew that sentence was a joke on his part, but Melanie’s face still reddened and given the otherwise pale complexion of her skin tone it was highly noticeable. Barba said nothing though, whether he chose to deliberately spare her the embarrassment of being caught staring or whether he had simply chalked her sudden blush up to the change in temperature from her entering the bar, Melanie had no idea. But she prayed for the latter.

With a flustered clear of her throat, Melanie stepped closer to him, “You would be so lucky as to have me ogle you.” 

“Lucky's not exactly the word I would use.” Barba retorted quietly, glancing to his side to fire Melanie a playful smile — which earned him a gentle punch to the arm as she glared at him. 

The two of them had always had a flirtatious-banter-like relationship. Ever since Melanie witnessed Barba be literally choked with his own belt in court, she’d never once let it go and he was more than happy to play along. He enjoyed seeing her smile when he did, and he wouldn’t admit it aloud, but he liked her. Their interactions were the sole highlight of his boring days, and if playing along meant he got to keep them, then so be it. He’d even continue to take Carisi’s relentless teasing about the two of them being like an old married couple, as just the idea of that… warmed his heart something terribly. 

“Careful counsellor, I could have you arrested for slander,” Melanie fired back, rounding his stool to take the one on his right without the need for an invite, as no matter the circumstances she was always welcome to sit with him. 

“I’d be out in no time…” Barba replied, bringing his glass to his lips before taking a deliberately slow sip. “Insufficient evidence… They’d have no grounds to hold me.” 

“We’ll see about that,” Melanie murmured, hearing Barba chuckle faintly into his near empty glass as she motioned for the bartender’s attention. “Could I please get a tequila? Neat. And a refill for my friend here.”

The bartender nodded, then went to grab their drinks. 

“Tequila, huh?” Barba questioned, a lick of worry rolling off his tongue as he put his folder away and swivelled on his stool to face her. But Melanie ignored him, and instead continued to stare absently at the rows of bottles that sat behind the bar. Thus, he waited, until the bartender returned with their drinks and it wasn’t until Melanie had taken her first sip of tequila, did he speak again — keeping his tone as casual as could be as he knew Melanie hated getting all touchy feely, as she so often put it. “I saw you talking to your dad earlier, outside the courthouse. It seemed… intense.” 

Melanie scoffed and downed her drink, easily, in one swift mouthful, “Everything to do with my father is intense. Including his ideology on how I should present myself within the department, which he made very clear when he reamed me out for standing up at that press conference.” 

At that, Barba said nothing. He had nothing, as he already knew well about her fathers feelings on that particular subject. Chief Dodds had made them exponentially clear to him when he stormed into his office afterwards, practically seething with rage over seeing Melanie on TV, standing by Barba’s side after he explicitly told her not to get herself involved. 

Barba wouldn’t lie, at that moment he’d actually felt a touch of fear in his chest when Dodds threw his door open so hard it almost shattered. He half expected the Chief to hit him the second he entered for dragging Melanie into things, but to his surprise all he did was grit his teeth and — not so much threaten — but strongly advise him what would happen if he dragged his daughter down with him. 

Going after social services had been a risky move, Barba knew that from the get go. He knew he’d need as much help as he could get, and when Melanie offered him hers? Well, feelings or no feelings, he wasn’t exactly about to say no. She was the best help he could ever ask for, and it was because of her testimony alone that the grand jury decided to indict the social workers who indirectly caused the death of little Keisha Houston.

After all, Melanie had been the one to find Keisha, locked in that puppy cage. Starving. Dehydrated, and when she told that jury… When her eyes began to glisten with tears and she painted the picture of what they did to that little girl, Barba knew he had won. He always did when Melanie was involved, and no threat to his job by her overbearing police chief father was ever going to stop him from seeking it whenever the opportunity presented itself. 

“You know, I sometimes think he just does all this as a way to try and get me to leave SVU,” Melanie continued, pulling Barba out of the depths of his mind and throwing him right back into reality — where his heart sank to the floor at the very notion of her leaving. “He’s always wanted me to start working my way up the chain of command. I can’t even count the amount of times he’s stopped by my house to check in on me… Only for me to find an application for the sergeant’s exam sitting on my coffee table when he left.” 

“That’s not something you’re interested in?” Barba asked curiously. 

Melanie shook her head, “It’s hard enough being a female detective with a rocky history and a deputy chief father, I don’t need to add an extra case of nepotism to that pile by trying to move myself up the chain of command.” 

“That’s a shame,” Barba sighed, causing Melanie to shift in her seat to finally face him, just in time to see his lips twitch upwards into an openly amused smile. “I’d have quite liked to hear Carisi have to call you Sergeant.”

At that thought, Melanie let out a gentle laugh — a sound so sweet that Barba almost melted where he sat. He went to open his mouth again, to ask another question in order to keep the topic of conversation going, but like every other time he’d tried to chip away at Melanie’s secretive outer shell, he was interrupted. Her phone had started ringing from within the pocket of her signature leather jacket, causing them both to sigh quietly, of which Barba’s went entirely unheard.

With a muttered excuse me, Melanie dropped her hand to the gap between their bodies and began to fumble around in the deep space in which her phone was buried. She pulled it out, keeping it suspended by her waist as her eyes fell to the dimly lit screen below, where her stomach sank beyond the surface of the floor the second she saw who was calling her.

“Do you need to take that?” Barba asked, unable to stop his own eyes from drifting curiously towards the name that lit up the small space between them. He wondered who Mikey was, and why, instead of answering his call like he expected, all Melanie seemed to do in that moment was reach up to the silver necklace that was always present around her neck — hanging from which was a small DNA charm that sat perfectly between her collarbones and always made him smile at the irony. “Melanie?” 

A few more seconds passed during which she still didn’t reply. Nor did she pick up the phone which continued to ring, with the face of an unfamiliar man still openly displayed on the screen that Melanie’s thumb hovered shakily over. She drew it slowly towards the green of the answer button, where it lingered for a couple seconds longer. But then, before Barba could excuse himself to allow her some privacy, it diverted straight to red and tapped decline with much more force than necessary.

“Sorry, it uh, it’s nothing,” Melanie shook her head softly, flashing a partially forced and apologetic smile Barba’s way as she silenced the phone, placing it back into the safety of her pocket. “All good.” 

“Good,” Barba murmured, sceptically. He knew well enough that everything was not all good , and that something was clearly bothering her. However, he also knew Melanie. He knew when to carry on and when to let things go, and by the way her shoulders stiffened over that phone call as she ordered another drink — a double, this time — he could easily tell it was time for the latter. 

Therefore he stayed quiet. Instead, he simply continued to gaze at her, his eyes lingering on the oaky tone of her own that glistened in the ambient light of the bar. He wondered how long it had been since she last closed them. Her eyelids seemed heavy. Her pale complexion and lack of make-up showed off the dark circles beneath her lashes more prominently than usual, and each time she blinked Barba doubted that she’d even be able to open them again. 

“When was the last time you slept?” He asked worriedly. And it only increased when Melanie’s eyes darted instantly away from him and towards her freshly poured drink, which she swirled gently before raising to her lips. “Or ate something for that matter?” 

“I had a sandwich at the station earlier,” Melanie replied, her brow creasing as she took a slow sip of her tequila. She could feel the harsh burn of it run down her throat and land in her stomach. Her seemingly empty stomach, as it soon gurgled faintly at the mention of food — Perhaps that sandwich hadn’t been today after all. “I mean, I think I did… What day is it?”  

“Melanie,” Barba scolded, his lips pressing into a tight line as he frowned at her. What was it with SVU detectives and their complete inability to look after themselves? “You need to start taking better care of yourself.” 

Melanie scoffed into her glass, “You sound exactly like Carisi.”

“Well, for once he’s right,” Barba agreed, watching as Melanie’s eyebrows lifted slowly over the rim of her glass as she took another slow sip. He didn’t usually like to agree with Carisi, but in this case he made some rather excellent points. “I’ll deny that if you ever tell him but he is right, Melanie. I know you like to look out for your victims, but you need to start looking out for yourself first.” 

Melanie pressed the rim of her glass firmly against her lips before lowering it. Then, she sighed. Barba was right. She did need to start taking care of herself, but the only thing was… She didn’t know how. She wore herself thin even during the most cut and dry cases, but you throw an incident of child abuse in there and she was as good as gone — which is exactly what Carisi had told her earlier that day when she turned down sharing his pizza. 

Well, he told her that in his own way, that is. He often expressed his concerns far less politely than Barba in that he told her bluntly that she looked like she had both feet in the grave. But she rarely listened to him. He did it far too often for his own good and besides, no one else in the squad ever said anything. They probably never noticed it, and if they did, they didn’t find it concerning enough to bother bringing up to her directly. 

But Barba did. He always did, and he was a man known for running solely on excessive amounts of caffeine, so if he was telling her that she needed to slow down… then perhaps she really, truly needed to slow down.

“Come on, let me buy you dinner,” Barba said, cocking his head in the general direction of the few empty tables that hugged the wall behind them. He then slid off his seat, hitting the wooden floor beneath with a soft thud as he grabbed his blazer that lay draped across the empty stool beside him. He folded it neatly over his arm then picked up his briefcase before turning to Melanie, holding out his hand where her hesitant eyes dropped to instantly as she began to pick at the chipped black polish that he never saw her nails without. “Don’t make me subpoena you.” 

The hope that riddled Barba’s emerald green eyes as he stared patiently into her own wrapped around Melanie’s chest like a rope, making her unable to say no to him as she simply couldn’t take having to see it diminish should she tell him the truth. That she wasn’t hungry, and probably wouldn’t be until late evening tomorrow as she never could eat during cases involving children as they always made her sick to the deepest pit of her stomach. 

But no one else knew that. Not Carisi. Not Liv. And certainly not Barba. She hadn’t told them yet. She didn’t know if she ever would. Or if she ever could, so she certainly wasn’t about to break out the confessional over something as silly as not wanting to eat tonight. There’d been plenty of other times where she’d felt forced to eat a sandwich or a bag of chips just to stave off suspicion from her co-workers, so a plate of pasta and some breadsticks wouldn’t exactly be a tough challenge. 

With that in mind and a half-forced smile rising on her face, Melanie reached out her hand and clasped it with Barba’s. It was cold, like he’d have guessed. And not just from the rings that always littered her slender fingers, but from her very skin itself. It was like ice. He could almost feel it tremble, even beneath the warmth of his touch, which told him there may be more to what’s been bothering her than she was truly letting on. But he said nothing. He’d gotten her to agree to dinner, and that was a miraculous win as it is, so he didn’t want to make her close herself off by asking more questions whose answers were of no concern to him.

Therefore, all he did was return her smile, help her off her stool and lead her happily towards a small table that sat tucked away in the corner. As they reached it, Barba’s hand fell reluctantly from hers. He set his briefcase aside then quickly draped his blazer over his seat before retreating a few steps back in order to pull out hers. Only, he didn’t even get the chance to feel the chair beneath his fingertips before Melanie stopped him, her hand latching itself tightly onto his forearm in an attempt to keep him in place.

“Actually, do you mind if I sit there?” Melanie asked, nodding towards the seat he’d picked for himself that sat pressed up against the back wall of the establishment. “I just… I have this thing… About sitting with my back to the door.” 

And just like that, things in Barba’s mind clicked instantly into place. It made sense, now that he thought about it — now that she’d said it. He’d never noticed it before but Melanie always did seem to favour sitting places where she could easily see each and every exit. In his office she’d always pick the couch over his desk, and when sitting at his round table with victims and whatnot, she’d always pick the seat next to the window — and if that wasn’t available she’d choose to stand, with her back pressed tightly up against the wall and her eyes fixed on the door. 

It was the same in interrogation. No one ever could get her to sit down when questioning suspects as both sides of the tables had doors behind them. Even her work desk faced the public entrance of the bullpen. And even though there was plenty of empty space and even the break room in the distance behind her, she still had Carisi sitting directly in front of her. Not to mention Rollins and Fin sitting just off to her right, which more than likely made her feel safe from whatever it was that had brought on this apparent fear. 

“Of course, whatever makes you comfortable,” Barba said softly, and with a reassuring smile. He pulled his arm back and grabbed his blazer then shuffled past her, happily taking a seat in the opposite chair as Melanie settled herself in hers. “If you don’t mind me asking, is that a cop thing…? Or a you thing?”

“Little of both, I guess… I just don’t like surprises,” Melanie exhaled tiredly, shrugging her shoulders out of her jacket and placing it lazily over the back of her chair. She didn’t elaborate any further when she turned back around. She didn’t want to either, and Barba clearly picked up on that by her lack of eye contact as he quickly dropped the topic of conversation. 

Instead he picked up their menus and handed one to Melanie, hearing her soft thanks as she took it from his grasp and flicked it open. They remained silent until they ordered. Barba had put a few seconds of thought into his, in that he picked something he wanted. Whereas Melanie ordered the first thing her eyes landed on as she was too tired to actually read over the menu. 

“So,” Barba began hesitantly, drawing Melanie’s attention up and away from the long sleeves of her t-shirt that seemed to be more interesting than he was. He didn’t take it to heart, though. She’d had a long week. She was tired. No doubt hungry, and deep down he knew that she was happy to be here with him. He just needed to coax it out a little first. “A detective… What’s that like?” 

Melanie’s eyes narrowed, “You want to know what it’s like… being a detective?” 

Weird. Barba wasn’t usually into small talk, let alone small talk about the theatrics of being a detective. 

“Why not?” Barba shrugged, taking a sip of his scotch as he tried to play himself off as nothing but curious over the profession. Which granted, he was a little, but really he just wanted to know about her . And this seemed as good a place to start as any. “You always ask me what being an ADA is like, why can’t I reciprocate?” 

“I mean… No offence, but I usually ask that in more of a " how do you sleep at night" kinda way, not a vaguely curious about the job kinda way,” Melanie confessed. She only ever asked him that when she was pissed at him. 

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Barba admitted, and if he seemed offended by that statement, he didn’t outwardly showcase it. “But still, humour me… Catching bad guys. Is it everything you dreamed it would be?” 

“No, not really,” Melanie replied, and Barba’s eyes widened in surprise as he always got the impression that she loved what she did. “I always wanted to be a cop when I was a kid. Well, except when I was seven and spent the entire year wanting to be Ariel from the little mermaid.” 

At that thought, Barba let out a soft chuckle as he allowed his gaze to cast over the entirety of the natural beauty that was Melanie’s face. He tried picturing how different she might look with bright red hair flowing around those delicate features, rather than the darkness of the jet black locks that were splayed out messily over her shoulders. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see it. He was just too enthralled by the perfect version of her that sat before him, that his mind didn’t seem to want to allow any other variation of her to enter it. 

“Once I got over that though, I always knew I’d be a cop. My brother and I, we used to steal my dad’s NYPD shirts all the time and go around the house pretending to arrest people,” Melanie continued, a fond smile tugging at her lips as she absently reached up for her necklace, her fingers drawing slowly over the short swirls of the DNA charm that hung there. “It drove my mom crazy, but my dad he… He always used to say that the department wouldn’t know what hit it when Mikey and I joined.” 

“Mikey… That’s your brother?” Barba asked carefully, watching as Melanie’s motions of tracing her necklace came to a slow stop. 

“My twin brother,” Melanie corrected quietly, dropping her hand back down to the table as Barba’s eyebrows raised. He never would have guessed she was a twin. 

“Twins… I heard that’s quite the bond,” Barba said, sipping on his scotch as Melanie lightly rolled her eyes and huffed quietly to herself. “Or not… Did something happen?” 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Melanie snapped, in a tone harsher than she ever would have liked to have aimed in his direction. Immediately after she picked up her glass, downing the entirety of her drink in one go as Barba did nothing but roll his lips. She set her glass back down, dropping her eyes to the table and closing them, in order to purposely miss seeing the look that flashed across his face at that moment. 

But it was pointless. She didn’t need to be looking at him to know it was there. To know that he was hurt, as she could sense it. She could always sense it and it pained her to know that she was the sole cause of it this time. She could already feel the thick tension that seemed to be forming in the air between them and the longer Barba remained silent, the more the regret built in her stomach over bringing Mike into things. He always was a touchy topic, but she couldn’t blame Barba for being curious as she was well aware that she was a closed book when it came to her personal life. He was only trying to get to know her, and honestly… that only made things feel about a hundred times worse. 

“I’m sorry,” Melanie whispered, opening her eyes and slowly drawing them back up to meet him. “That was… That was uncalled for.”  

“Hey, don’t worry about it, okay. I get it. Family can be tough.” Barba said assuringly, resisting the urge to reach across the table and take her hand. “But just so you know… If you ever do want to talk about it, I’m here.” 

A sweet smile crept across Melanie’s face, “I know. And thank you… You’re a good friend.” 

Friend. She might as well have just ripped Barba’s heart right out of his chest and stomped on it. Sure, he always knew they’d never be anything more than friends. After all, they worked together. It would be highly unprofessional and morally unethical to be anything more. Not to mention the near ten-year age gap between them. 

Or the fact that Melanie’s father pretty much hated him already — that was all he really needed to know that the status of their relationship would never change in his favour. It was carved into stone at this point and he’d made his peace with that a while ago. But still… hearing her say the word friend out loud? When he was all but in love with her? Well, it wasn’t exactly easy on his mind. 

Or his heart. 

“As an ADA I don’t have a lot of those,” Barba confessed, breaking Melanie’s heart as he did. “So I try my best to keep the ones I do.” 

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” Melanie assured him, “No matter what you do, or how much you annoy me,” — meant playfully, of course — “you’re stuck with me.” 

“I guess I better try harder then,” Barba joked.

Melanie chuckled, “Bring it on, counsellor. I’ve put up with Carisi for this long without killing him, so you better bring your A game.” 

“It’s the only game I know,” Barba replied a touch breathlessly, taking a sip of his scotch whilst continuing to gaze at Melanie over the rim of his glass. He watched as she glanced at some of the artwork on the wall to her left, tucking a thick curl behind her ear which showcased the three silver hoops that bordered her lobe in order of size, the largest of which had a tiny sword hanging from it. 

Fascinated, his eyes continued to trail along the curve of her ear, passing a small snake stud that sat in the crook in the middle before coming to land on the thick silver bar that sat diagonally just above it. On one end was a small metal fletching and on the other a partially rounded point, creating the illusion of a miniature arrow having pierced right through the top of her ear. He’d never noticed it before — or rather, he’d never seen it. And the more he thought about it, the more he came to realise that Melanie had almost always worn her hair down on the days he had seen her as he’d liked to think he’d have remembered the pin board that was once her ear. 

The two of them really couldn’t be more different if they tried, yet Melanie still seemed to have her hooks dug deep into him. It didn’t matter to him that they were nothing alike, both in personality and in style, Barba still liked her. He always had ever since the day he first saw the real Melanie. The one who he’d wondered had ever really existed as in all the time he’d known her, he never once thought she had a soul that wasn’t as dark as the hair on her head. 

Most days it seemed like she only had two consistent moods — gruff and cold. But then one day, during the case of Avery Jordan, when Melanie had personally driven Avery to the airport in order for her to flee the country so she didn’t have to undergo the ridiculous visitation rights with her rapist, Barba had finally gotten a true peak behind the curtain that was Melanie Dodds. 

Before, he’d found her annoyingly stubborn and bad-tempered. He’d seen her as nothing more than a detective who thought she was untouchable given who her father was, but when he found out that she’d risked her own career for a woman she barely knew? That’s when things changed in his mind and ever since then, he’d been completely and utterly hooked on her. 

Due to that, when dinner arrived, Barba kept the conversation flowing. He asked her basic things, like what she liked to do in her spare time, to which she replied with something he never would have seen coming — that she played online video games with Fin any chance they could get. From first person shooter games to calming farming games, they played the lot and to be honest Barba wasn’t sure who he was more shocked over hearing that about. 

After that he kept going. He asked her about her favourite movie — Jaws. He asked if she had any favourite places she liked to go in the city and he was rather surprised to find out she had such a deep love for the aquarium. That she’d sit there for hours simply watching the sea life swimming carefree around her, and not finding it at all scary when the sharks would loom hauntingly over her — which he guessed wasn’t actually that surprising given his newfound knowledge of her favourite movie. 

He then went on to more… personal questions, you could say, in that he finally asked what it was really like being partnered with Carisi — which Melanie had chuckled at given the plainly obvious humour that had unintentionally come out alongside that question. She knew well that her partner irritated him at times with his far-out theories and refresher courses on the law — Barba’s words, not hers — but despite that, Barba had seemed genuinely interested, and so she gave him nothing but a truthful answer.

That Carisi was a great partner. 

And yes, sometimes he could ramble on about how society was growing closer to inevitably collapsing, and when it came to chasing perps it was often left up to her as Carisi was too tall and too skinny that any time one of them turned a sharp corner, he’d almost lose his balance and go flying into any nearby objects (which Barba found greatly amusing when she told him and would never be letting go), but he was still the best partner she’d ever had.

Sure, Amaro had been great and she missed him terribly but the two of them clashed way more often than they would have liked. They were too similar, and Amaro was too angry, but with Carisi it was like they flowed together perfectly and she couldn’t ask for a more trustworthy partner — all of which she happily told Barba when he asked for more details, part of him almost wishing he hadn’t as he wouldn’t deny… He felt a little jealous of Carisi. And he’d be denying that if he somehow ever found out. 

“Law lessons aside, Sonny is great. He puts up with me and my bullshit,” Melanie carried on, using her fork to break off a small piece of their remaining chocolate cake. They’d gotten a slice to share after dinner, yet she hadn’t seemed to notice that Barba’s cutlery was still clean. “He knows how I like my coffee. My preferred stakeout snacks and music… That’s all I can ask for, really.” 

“If you ask me, the guy deserves a medal,” Barba mumbled jokingly, ignoring the pit in his stomach as he earned himself a tight glare from Melanie, who then reached out and gently nudged his leg with her foot in retaliation before finishing off the last of the chocolate cake.

By the time they left Forlini’s and stepped out into the cool summer’s evening, Melanie was feeling better than she had done in weeks. And it was all thanks to Barba. He’d gone out of his way to make her feel comfortable enough to let her guard down long enough to enjoy a nice dinner. With some rather pleasant company, as she wouldn’t lie, despite his quirks and their witty banter, she’d always thought Barba was all business all the time. 

But tonight she’d been proven wrong. 

Tonight he’d been different. He hadn’t been Barba, the reputable ADA who always seemed like he had his life together. No, tonight he’d been Rafael, the man who’d grown up as a scrawny kid in the Bronx and knew firsthand just how hard life could truly get. 

“You know, I, uh…” Melanie began, taking a deep breath of that warm summer’s air that engulfed her. “I really needed that. It’s been such a crazy few weeks and I guess I just…” 

“Forgot that you’re human too?” Barba finished for her, and Melanie nodded sheepishly. He didn’t give anything in response to that other than a gentle smile, as he didn’t think the subject called for much more speculation. Instead, he placed his hand on her forearm and gave it a light, comforting squeeze before cocking his head to the side, “Come on, let me walk you home.” 

“You’ve done enough for one night,” Melanie protested, “You don’t need to do anything else.” 

“I know I don’t need to,” Barba replied, reluctantly dropping his hand and allowing it to hang loosely by his side as it twitched to reach back out and lace itself with hers. “But I want to. And besides, what kind of man would I be if I let a pretty, slightly intoxicated woman like you walk home alone through this neighbourhood?” 

“I’m the one with the badge and gun here, counsellor,” Melanie said humorously, patting her hip and ignoring the way her stomach flipped over hearing him call her pretty. “And last I checked, crime rates in this neighbourhood are at an all time low.” 

“Irrelevant,” Barba replied, briefly waving his hand in front of him as though brushing that off. “My mother would be disgraced to find out I let you walk home alone, regardless of your profession, so let’s go.” 

Holding out his arm, Barba’s eyes continuously flicked from the grey fabric that covered it to the indecipherable look that was plastered over Melanie’s face. He always hated the fact that he never could tell what she was thinking most of the time. It made it nearly impossible for him to ever know whether or not there was some part of her that might feel the same way about him as he did about her. Truthfully, it grated on him, even now, but when she eventually smiled and gave in, that feeling quickly faded away. Replaced with nothing but pure and utter warmth in his chest when she linked her arm with his and happily allowed him to begin walking her down the block.  

They remained silent for the most part, simply choosing to enjoy each other’s quiet company rather than feel the need to fill it with mindless small talk. It wasn’t an overly long journey to Melanie’s place anyway, and soon enough Barba felt the disappointing feeling of her arm slip from around his as they came to the bottom step of her townhouse — which he was rather surprised to find out she lived in as she’d always struck him as a loft apartment kind of girl. 

“Well, this is me,” Melanie exhaled, nodding lazily to her house as she spun to face Barba properly, where a sudden awkwardness seemed to sweep over the entirety of her being. She couldn’t help but feel like she was at the end of a date, where she never knew whether to invite the guy inside or leave him stewing on the sidewalk wondering whether or not he’d ever see her again. “Thanks for getting me here safely.” 

Smiling at the slight humour in her tone, Barba replied, “You’re welcome.” 

“So, I guess I‘ll probably see you tomorrow,” Melanie said rather hopefully, backing up one step towards her house and praying she didn’t trip and end up embarrassing herself.

“It’s likely,” Barba nodded briefly, “I have some paperwork to go over with Liv, so I’m sure I’ll see you in the squad room.”  

At that Melanie gave him a single, smiling nod of her own before wishing him a soft and quiet goodnight. One that almost made his heart weep when he then had to see her turn fully on her heels and ascend the steps to her front door. Wanting to make sure she got inside safely, he lingered, watching as she fumbled for her keys and began to unlock the strangely numerous locks she had on her door. 

When it finally creaked open he made his move to leave, the shiny silver rims of the black motorbike parked adjacent from Melanie’s house catching his eye as he did. He pondered the idea of it being hers. It matched her personality to a tee and he could almost imagine her cruising smoothly down the streets at night, the wind blowing through her luscious locks as if he knew her, she wouldn’t haven’t ruined her look with a helmet.  

That’s about all had time to think about before he suddenly heard the soft pats of Melanie’s feet mixed with the gentle jingle of the chain that hung from her jeans coming back down the cement steps of her brownstone. He spun on his heels instantly, finding that Melanie was already close enough to him that he could reach out and touch her. His mouth opened, words sitting on the tip of his tongue only he didn’t get a chance to free them before she leaned in, placing a soft, heartwarming kiss to his cheek. 

Almost instantly, Barba’s stomach flipped inside him at the sudden feeling of her lips on his skin. They were soft to the touch. A surprisingly higher temperature than the rest of her and when she parted them a sharp, shuddering shiver rippled up his spine at her breath puffing out across his face as she whispered,  

“Thank you.” 

The words didn’t even have time to settle in the air before she was gone from in front of him again, leaving Barba to do nothing but stand breathlessly on the sidewalk and watch as the front door of the brownstone finally swung shut… with Melanie securely behind it. 

-> Chapter 2

[misterrogers22]

Episode 26 of the Juras-Sick Park-Cast: "Control"

is now available on Youtube! Featuring excellent guest @Jordan_Mallon sharing about #tyrannosaurus #triceratops #spiclypeus lumping and splitting and naming new #dinosaurs!

#JurassicPark #MichaelCrichton

0:00 - Introduction Welcome to the Juras-Sick Park-Cast podcast, the Jurassic Park podcast about Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park, and also not about that, too.

Find the episode webpage at: Episode 26 - Control www.jurassickparkcast.blogspot.com/2022/08/episode-26-control.html

06:17 - Interview with special guest Dr. Jordan Mallon In this episode, my terrific guest Dr. Jordan Mallon returns to chat with me about: Tyrannosaurus imperator, T-regina, and T-rex, amorphous reptile bones, lumping and splitting, species diversity, extinctions, Triceratops trivia, big dinosaurs in Late Cretaceous North America, the bias in the fossil record towards large dinosaurs, naming dinosaurs like Spiclypeus, dinosaur names based on the Jurassic Park film, dinosaurs named in honour of Michael Crichton, dino-mania, styracosterna v. ankylopollexa, comparative anatomy, hadrosaurs v. saurolphines, synonymizing dinosaur names, Gryposaurus, Edmontosaurus v . Ugrunaaluk, phylogenetic mapping, why DNA doesn't preserve (hint, it's water!), and more!

15:00 - Why lumping and splitting different species of dinosaurs?

18:10 - The coolest things about triceratops!

29:15 - Naming dinosaurs, and dinosaurs named after Jurassic Park.

Plus dinosaur news about:

01:25 - Tyrannosaurus imperator, Tyrannosaurus regina and T. rex! Insufficient Evidence for Multiple Species of Tyrannosaurus in the Latest Cretaceous of North America: A Comment on “The Tyrant Lizard King, Queen and Emperor: Multiple Lines of Morphological and Stratigraphic Evidence Support Subtle Evolution and Probable Speciation Within the North American Genus Tyrannosaurus”

03:48 - A specimen-level phylogenetic analysis and taxonomicrevision of Diplodocidae (Dinosauria, Sauropoda)

0:33 - Featuring the music of Snale www.snalerock.bandcamp.com/releases

Intro: Supergroovy. Outro: T-Shirts.

The Text: This week’s text is Control, spanning from pages 126 - 133.

01:00:16 - A synopsis of the chapter Control in Jurassic Park Synopsis: As Jurassic Park’s employees conclude their demonstration of all their systems of control, Grant and Malcolm find themselves uneasy with the park’s approach to controlling living, breathing animals in an artificial setting, which is aiming to recreate a natural park setting.

01:06:33 - Analyzing the literary and stylistic techniques

01:13:12 - Discussions surround The Illusion of Control, dinosaurs, Version 4.4, Control is a hoax, Timeline and the God Complex Discussions surround: The Dinosaurs, Version 4.4, Control is a Hoax, the Timeline, and the God Complex.

Side effects: May cause animals like the Gila monster and rattlesnake to share their hemotoxins.

Thank you! The Jura-Sick Park-cast is a part of the Spring Chickens banner of amateur intellectual properties including the Spring Chickens funny pages, Tomb of the Undead graphic novel, the Second Lapse graphic novelettes, The Infantry, and the worst of it all, the King St. Capers. You can find links to all that baggage in the show notes, or by visiting the schickens.blogpost.com or finding us on Facebook, at Facebook.com/SpringChickenCapers or me, I’m on twitter at @RogersRyan22 or email me at ryansrogers-at-gmail.com. Thank you, dearly, for tuning in to the Juras-Sick Park-Cast, the Jurassic Park podcast where we talk about the novel Jurassic Park, and also not that, too. Until next time! #JurassicPark #MichaelCrichton

[denimbex1986]

'When we told people we were writing a sci-fi novel together during lockdown, they’d ask us what it was about. A reasonable question, but very hard to answer. “A love letter to genre fiction” felt insufficient, and “a military spy adventure mystery horror sci-fi queer romance thriller” too much. But now, in this glorious summer of Barbenheimer, a time of proliferating memes and T-shirts printed with hot-pink mushroom clouds, we usually answer the question with “It’s Barbie meets Oppenheimer”.

Set in 2010 in a universe just one perilous step from our own, Prophet was intended to be as comedic and subversive as Barbie and as darkly philosophical as Oppenheimer – and it also has scenes set in nuclear test towns in the Nevada desert overrun with animate plastic dolls. But the deepest connection between Prophet, Barbie and Oppenheimer is that all, in different ways, are shaped by nostalgia. Greta Gerwig’s film playfully interrogates the candy-lit utopia of a consumerist childhood, and Christopher Nolan’s complex response to the terrifying romance of the cold war nuclear desert reminds us of a time when the apocalypse was easier to comprehend because it only came in nuclear flavour.

Our subject, in Prophet, is the literal weaponisation of nostalgia. The plot is about a covert American military project that’s experimenting with a mysterious substance that causes those exposed to it to spontaneously create beloved childhood objects out of thin air – to quote Walter Benjamin, they literally “seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger”.

Once they create their object, they are trapped in a deadly trance clutching it, be it a doll, a teddy bear, a Scrabble set or rocking chair. This came partly from the notion of the “Valley of Lost Things”, a literary conceit discussed in Kathryn Schulz’s wonderful memoir Lost and Found that situates all the things we’ve lost in our lives in a far, inaccessible place. The idea can be found in works as various as Mary Poppins and the 1516 epic poem Orlando Furioso. But it also came from that strange, heady pang we all feel when we see a photo of something from our childhood on social media – a candy bar or a toy or the decor of a fast food restaurant. As the historian David Lowenthal maintained, we all crave evidence that the past endures in recoverable form – that some mechanism or faith will enable us not just to know it but to see and feel it.

It’s not hard to understand why nostalgia is everywhere in this era of pandemic and economic hardship. It feels as though the world is spiralling towards fascism in the midst of an accelerating environmental apocalypse, and a yearning for a lost past that seems safer and better than our present is an understandable reaction. Nostalgia flourishes in societies after wars and times of social dislocation.

In the 18th century, however, when the word nostalgia was coined by the medic Johannes Hofer (from the Greek nostos, meaning homecoming or home, and algos, meaning pain), it was to describe a military disease experienced by Swiss mercenaries on battlefields far from home; they became indifferent and haggard, heard voices and saw ghosts. Later, nostalgia was considered a vice, the consequence of not being manly enough, before shifting in the Romantic period to become a far more positive phenomenon, linked to a sense of national or cultural pride.

Today, nostalgia has become a viciously effective way to guarantee instant emotional engagement across advertising, television, movies and social media. Hollywood is so rife with it, it feels as if it’s entering a death spiral of recycled intellectual property. Following Barbie, there are Hot Wheels, Polly Pocket and Barney the Dinosaur movies all in the works. Across every sphere, late capitalism is eating itself, using nostalgia as a seasoning.

When we asked people on Twitter what single emotionally resonant object they would retrieve from their own past if they could, the responses were bewitching and often heartbreaking. Button boxes, parental jackets, grandparents’ lounge chairs, lampshades, childhood trees, pets. Some, chillingly, mentioned ex‑girlfriends. But because, as the critic Jean Starobinski explained, our longing for home increasingly shrank in the 20th century into a longing for one’s own childhood, mostly the objects were toys.

We built Prophet from nostalgic things, weaving it from tropes pulled from old spy movies: snowbound ski-chalet lairs, secret medical laboratories, shady government operatives. We gave it Bourne-style action scenes and B-movie horrors. On a different level, it’s about the legacy of trauma, dislocation and loss, all classic nostalgia triggers.

At its heart, our novel is a fable about how dangerous it is to venerate the past at the expense of the idea of a future. We’re living at a time where believing in a livable future feels increasingly difficult. The despair this belief evokes in us makes it easy to give up, stop fighting, turn to nostalgia for our refuge. As Rebecca Solnit and others have written, it takes hard work to trust that there is still uncertainty about the future. But we need that uncertainty. We need hope. We must recognise and believe that, even now, history can still be made and changed for the better by our actions.'

[futurecommpr]

Green Up the Planet Launches Ecology Fundraiser

Green Up the Planet is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing underfunded schools with vital resources for teaching students about the environment. They have recently announced the launch of their fundraising campaign to support their upcoming ecology project, coinciding with the fall reopening of schools.  With a vision to create a greener future for all, Green Up the Planet strives to empower schools and inspire environmental stewardship.

In recent years, public schools have encountered a multitude of challenges, including the impacts of COVID-19, the surging growth of homeschooling, and insufficient funding. As schools strive to adapt their learning environments, the challenges range from a shortage of books and supplies to limited access to technology. Jacob Dearing, Board Director of Green Up The Planet, stresses “there is an urgent need for greater investments in our educational infrastructure, as these challenges have become even more evident.”

School districts continue to grapple with critical budget cuts and funding shortages that are expected to deepen further. This presents a crucial opportunity for both industries and nonprofits to step up and fill the void. Green Up the Planet was established with the mission to ensure that underfunded schools have access to innovative tools for teaching critically important subjects such as ecology and protecting the environment.

Students at schools participating in the Green Up the Planet program will receive a packet containing a grade/age-appropriate book about plants, engaging stickers, a seed packet, and a t-shirt featuring the Green Up the Planet logo. The intention of these resources is to ignite discussions about the environment, fostering engagement not only within the classroom setting but also extending beyond its boundaries.  The supplies are currently being stocked and assembled, and distribution to schools will begin in October.  Through direct collaboration with suppliers, the organization has successfully secured below wholesale costs for all items contained in the packets.

To contribute to the fundraiser and make a difference in a young student’s life, interested individuals can visit the website at https://greenuptheplanet.org/ to sponsor a packet or make a flat donation. Additionally, donations can be made through the GoFundMe page at https://gofund.me/f9422fcc .

Teachers and school administrators who wish to apply for their schools can do so directly on the website.

For more information, please visit: https://GreenUpThePlanet.org.

[morganaspendragonss]

quédate un segundo más (1/8)

@911lonestarangstweek day 8 - t is for...tumour, terminal, treatment

title from voy a quedarme by blas cantó, translates roughly to 'stay a second more'

thanks to @halsteadmarchs and @tarlos-spain for the beta!

as shown above, this will be eight chapters if all goes to plan, and i hope to finish it before season 3 begins. much of what is written both in this chapter and in future ones is ripped directly from life and i am only writing from my own perspective and experiences of losing a loved one to cancer.

ao3 | 1.6k | angst, hurt tk, cancer, terminal illness, more warnings to come in future chapters

A rare genetic mutation.

That’s what the doctors tell him when the results come back.

A rare genetic mutation that has rendered his cancer practically undetectable until its latest stages, until all that’s left to do is wait to die.

TK’s hands shake as various leaflets on Managing Your Diagnosis and What To Expect and Looking After Someone With Cancer are placed in them. He feels two steps to the side of himself, his entire world halting in its tracks the moment those words had left the doctor’s lips.

“I’m afraid it’s not good news,” he’d said, eyes wide and empathetic. “Your scans and blood results have come back showing evidence of a tumour on your pancreas. There are treatment options which we can and will—with your consent—pursue, however I have to inform you that your cancer is entering stage IV. It has begun to spread to your bladder and liver. I’m sorry to say that, at this point, treatment is more focused on managing your pain and making you as comfortable as possible; we do not anticipate recovery.”

It’s just… TK’s fine. He feels fine. Like, sure, he’s been a little more tired recently and he’s been getting these weird pains, but they always fade after a while, and he’s fine.

But he couldn’t deny the blood spotting his pee, the last straw which had finally sent him to the doctor’s office.

Too late, apparently.

A touch on his knee brings him back to reality with a start. TK looks up to meet the doctor’s kind gaze, and he wants to cry.

“I understand this is a lot to take in,” he’s saying. “If you have any questions, please ask.”

“I…” TK shakes his head, swallowing a couple of times before dropping his eyes to his knees, the words on the pamphlets blurred through his tears. “How long?”

The doctor hesitates a moment, then sighs regretfully. “I can’t say for certain. People frequently outlive their projected timeframes; equally, it could be less. However, given the way your tumour looks and the rate it appears to be spreading at, I would estimate around six months.”

Six months.

Six—six months.

“Oh,” TK says, and it feels wildly insufficient but it’s all he has. What even is there to say? He’s dying, and that’s...that’s that.

“Do you have a support system in place?” the doctor asks. “This is going to be a difficult process, and you are going to need other people to help you through it.”

TK nods slowly, not looking up. “M-My husband. Carlos. He was supposed to come with me today but he was called into work last minute. He’s a detective, so he couldn’t exactly refuse—not that that stopped him from trying.” He laughs wetly, remembering how he’d insisted that everything would be fine when Carlos had stalled leaving this morning. “And there’s my dad, and my team—my family. I’m a paramedic and I work in a fire station, so we’re all pretty close. I… Shit, I’m sorry. You don’t need to know all this.”

“It’s okay.” The doctor is still smiling, still so understanding, and TK wonders—just how many times has he had to do this? “I’m glad to hear you have solid support behind you; that’s going to be incredibly important for the coming months. I’ve also given you a few leaflets about support groups you can access, that your family can access, and, of course, your treatment team will be there every step of the way.

“Now,” he continues, returning to a semi-professional aspect, “I want to see you later this week to iron out how we’re going to proceed. For now, why don’t you go home and rest, allow yourself to process this? Does Friday at 10.30 work for your next appointment?”

TK nods absently, clutching the pamphlets tight enough to crease them. “That’s fine,” he whispers.

“Okay,” the doctor says, just as quiet. “Are you going to be okay to get home?”

“Yeah.”

But he doesn’t move. He can’t. In this room, he’s separated from the rest of the world—TK doesn’t want to go back into it, where he’ll have to tell everyone he loves that he’s… That he…

“TK.”

TK’s head snaps up at the doctor’s voice and he flushes a little at seeing his pointed look. “Sorry,” he mutters, scrambling to stand up.

The doctor stands too, much more gracefully than TK, and gets the door for him. “It’s okay. I’ll see you on Friday, TK, alright?”

He mumbles an affirmative then steps out of the office, taken aback for a moment by the bustle and noise in the corridor. It’s strange to witness it now, to see all these people who don’t know him from Adam going about their lives, while his has, in the span of thirty minutes, completely crumbled.

TK takes a deep breath (and how many of those does he have left?) and joins the flow.

*

He’s home.

That’s… He doesn’t remember it. He must have unlocked the front door because the keys are in his hand and he’s standing in the entryway, but TK has no idea how he managed to get from the doctor’s office to here.

He made good time though, judging by the clock on the wall.

Small victories.

With heavy steps, TK walks to the sofa, easing himself down and tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. It still doesn’t feel real that there's this—this thing inside him, growing and mutating and killing him. He’s not sure when it finally will.

Maybe in a few months, when his skin is sagging off his bones and his hair is gone and even the very act of breathing is a challenge.

Or maybe in a few hours, when Carlos comes home and TK has to break the news. TK can picture his face now, the way his ever-present smile will crack and break, the shock and hurt and grief that will take its place.

He thinks he understands his dad now.

TK closes his eyes and tries to clear his mind, just for a moment, of everything that’s happened today.

Which, as it turns out, is a mistake, because that’s when he remembers the letter that came for them yesterday and the phone call they’re going to make after dinner.

The phone call they were going to make after dinner.

TK wants to scream at the unfairness of it all. They’ve been waiting for that moment for so long, the moment in which they found out they were finally cleared to adopt a kid. And now…

Gone.

Carlos is going to be crushed.

As if the universe is reacting to that last thought, the door suddenly swings open, marking Carlos’s return from his impromptu shift. For a moment, TK panics. He’s not ready, dammit, he needs more time to plan and to figure it all out, how he feels and what he’s going to say, but—

But, in the end, it doesn’t matter. He could have had the most detailed and well-thought out plan in the world and it wouldn’t have mattered.

Because all it takes is one look at Carlos’s smile for TK to fall apart.

Carlos is by his side in an instant, gathering him in his arms and sliding to the floor with him when TK can no longer support himself on the couch. TK fists his hands in his husband’s shirt and cries into his neck, all the emotion that’s been slowly building all day exploding from him all at once.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Carlos shushes, which only makes TK cry harder, because how is he supposed to tell him that it’s not?

He shakes his head and clings onto him tighter, feeling Carlos do the same to him in return. TK’s always felt safe in his arms and it’s no different now; he thinks that, if he can just stay here forever, maybe things will turn out okay after all.

But the moment ends, as they tend to do. When TK’s sobs have run dry, Carlos carefully pulls back from him, his hands rising to cup his face and wipe the tears from his cheeks.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” he asks softly, so much worry in those damn eyes that it hurts. “Is it… Did the doctor say something? Are you okay?”

TK opens his mouth, but the words refuse to come out. All he manages is a wordless shake of the head, and even that turns Carlos’s expression into the picture of devastation. He can’t bear to look at it, so he wraps his arms around Carlos’s waist and leans into him again, resting his head on his chest.

Carlos holds him and presses a kiss to the top of his head. “We’ll get through it,” he promises. “Whatever it takes.”

And it turns out that he does have a few more tears left in him; TK squeezes his eyes shut and breathes out shakily as a couple of lone drops fall down his cheeks. “We can’t,” he whispers hoarsely. Carlos stiffens and shifts as if to look TK in the eyes, but TK doesn’t let him. If he has to look at Carlos, he doesn’t think he’ll have the courage to say it. He hesitates a moment longer, a huge lump forming in his throat, but eventually he manages it.

“It’s cancer,” he chokes out. “Stage IV. Incurable. They think… I’ve got six months.”

It’s like time stops.

They’re both motionless on the floor of their front room, neither saying anything, barely breathing as the weight of it settles between them.

TK doesn’t know how long it lasts for, but suddenly Carlos sobs and grips onto him with a bruising strength. Carlos’s body heaves and shakes with the force of his cries, and it’s TK’s turn to hold him as tears drip down Carlos’s cheeks into his hair.

And, in that moment, it becomes real.

[oyesmendes]

a year later

a/n: remember the person who asked for whiskey and pendants part two? and i told her no? well i was wrong. i made this a 5SOS and Shawn Mendes crossover LOL don’t killme 

@mendesficsxbombay​ hope i didnt rip too hard

One year. They’ve been broken up for one year as of today, not that anyone was counting. Y/N couldn’t be bothered to count the number of days since the supposed love of her life broke her heart into pieces and left her hanging by a thread. She had better things to worry about. Like how she was on her way to an album release party for 5 Seconds of Summer, in her favourite scarlet red dress, the fabric clinging on to her body and hugging the curves she was once too shy to show off. Her hair was now cut short, the messy waves of her hair doing wonders to frame her face. She got a tan from her recent trip to Bora Bora, figured that she would go even if Shawn wasn’t the one to take her there. It was a solo trip to foreign land, scary yet exhilarating, and somehow in-between her time in Bora Bora and the party that she was now on the way to, Y/N found herself. She started dating again, no surprise one of the 5SOS band members, Calum. But she also finally knew how she wanted to live her life by her own rules, to play the game her way. She let herself love in the ways she hadn’t done before, and honestly, she was making good progress. Y/N was happy, so fucking happy and content with her life.

“We’re here” the driver announced as the car came to a stop. Y/N thanked him before stepping out of the car, making her way into the building. She met with her friends at the rooftop bar, nursing a cocktail as they caught up and discussed the album tracks. The band had greeted her with a wide grin on their faces, throwing around too many inside jokes they had made during the course of curating the album. She then shared the deepest, most loving kiss with her boyfriend and then left him to party the night away with his brothers. Y/N was having a good time, dancing to the songs that she had painstakingly produced. That was until he sauntered in.

One of her friends nudged her slightly, turning her attention to the entrance where Shawn stood, exchanging hellos with the band. She would’ve guessed he would be here, after all he was friends with the band before she worked with them. There was a pang in her chest when she actually took in his appearance. He had an acid wash denim jacket on, signature white T-shirt with black skinny jeans, not forgetting his worn out Chelsea boots. He looked fresh as hell she wasn’t going to lie, his hair styled perfectly and the smile on his face as wide as when he first locked eyes with her. Before she could even react, Shawn’s eyes were scanning the crowd. It was as if he knew she would be there, and of course why would he not know? Her name was on the record for God’s sake. She quickly turned to face the bar, her friends providing the adequate distraction as they went on about their lives. Though it wasn’t long before a hand landed on Y/N’s shoulder, and the look on her girl friend’s faces was enough to tell her who it was.

“Hey” She breathed out. He had a beer in his hand, cheeks flushed from the influx of alcohol. Shawn grinned stupidly, babbling out a response to her. Y/N got off the bar stool, turning to face him.

“Nice to see you again.” A genuine smile was on her face now, because it was really nice to see him again, and the fact that he looked happy was good.

“I almost didn’t recognise you with your hair, and wow, this dress.”

“Thanks.” Y/N said shyly. The confidence that she brewed over the past year was now gone in an instant while she was under his eyes. She cursed at herself mentally, standing up straighter in her black stilettos. He never saw this side of her before and to Shawn, it was absolutely stunning. An awkward silence fell between the both of them, the chatter of the rooftop bar insufficient to fill the air. Y/N played with the rings on her fingers, hands still wrapped around the half empty glass.

“Can we talk? Maybe somewhere quiet?” Here we go. Y/N nodded, grabbing her glass off the table as she followed behind Shawn. They made their way through the small crowd, stopping to greet mutual friends every once in awhile. Shawn let them to a corner with less people, and a view overlooking the Los Angeles skyline. It felt like their first meeting all over again just that this time, her heart was in different place and the feelings between them far from mutual.

“This is nice isn’t it?” Shawn sighed, letting the cool wind brush his face. She hummed in response, watching the lights sparkle below them.

“I’m sorry for that night, Y/N” He tilted his body to face her. Throughout their two year relationship, Y/N was like an open book and Shawn knew her every move before she even thought about it. But right now, the book was closed, and he was trying really hard to read the words that weren’t there.

“I am too.” She turned to face him as well, and that’s when she noticed the pendant sitting on his chest. The one that she left on the floor of his apartment lobby, the one that brought them together and broke them apart. Her breath hitched in her throat when she felt Shawn grab onto her hand softly. There was no more spark, at least for her, it was just a shockwave sent through her system as she quickly pulled her hand back. Y/N watched as Shawn’s face dropped, him nodding understandingly.

“I just wanted to say I miss-“

“No, please don’t do this” She ran her hand through her hair, the messy curls now a disheveled mess.

“Let me apologise, Y/N. Let me fix this.”

“What for?”

“For the sake of our love.” Y/N let out a humourless chuckle at those words. This was some cliche scene straight out of a movie and right now, she wasn’t having it.

“For the sake of our love? Are you out of your mind, Shawn? There was no love between us the moment you led that stupid blonde chick- Sarah, come into our life. There was no love the moment you left me to clean up the pieces of that broken glass that afternoon.” Her voice was raised ever so slightly, earning the attention of some people nearby. She turned to face the skyline again. It felt like a sick joke to Y/N - now that she was happy, he wants to come rolling in? No God damn way.

“We both had a part to play that afternoon, Y/N.” Shawn stated as a matter-of-fact. Two can play this game.

“Yeah, but I didn’t have a part in sitting on your lap throughout the party that night.”

“I just wanted to apologise, why do you have to make this so hard?” Shawn sighed. Now Y/N felt the anger bubble in her chest. She slammed her cocktail down on the ledge to make a point.

“Do you think I had it easy? I look put together yes, but the scars from the heartbreak are still here, Shawn. I was hurt but I’m getting over it, I’m happy. As much as you would like for us to kiss and make up, I can safely tell you that it’s not going to happen. I’m not the same person anymore.” As if on cue, a six foot tall Australian made his way to Y/N’s side, hands wrapping around her waist protectively.

“Everything alright, love?” Calum kissed the top of her head, looking at her then at Shawn. Y/N could only smile and nod though the hurt on Shawn’s face was evidence that nothing was right. Calum acted oblivious to the situation, pulling her in even tighter. 

“Then is it alright if I steal her away from ya for a minute?” Shawn nodded with a tight lipped smile as he watched her cuddle into the Calum’s side.

The rest of the night felt like a blur to Shawn. Y/N disappeared with Calum after the encounter with him to the other side of the bar so she could calm down. Once she emerged in the crowds again, Shawn had his eyes following her as she jumped from group to group with her boyfriend, if not she was stuck to the side of his bandmates or their girlfriends. He wanted to get to her, explain everything and let her punch him if she must. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, and how much he loved her. He wanted to show her the pictures of Aaliyah’s graduation, the new song he wrote a couple of weeks ago that he thought would be perfect for her to produce. And most importantly he wanted to show her the ring he meant to give her that night a year ago. But he couldn’t.

She looked too happy and confident in her own skin that he couldn’t bear stripping that away from her. She was in love, the glow of her skin and look in her eyes as she stared at her boyfriend didn’t keep anyone guessing. A loud laugh erupted from her lips while she stood next to one of the band members. Her eyes found Shawn’s and she looked for a brief moment before returning her attention back to the group.

“If you’re going to stare, at least be more discreet, mate” Calum said as he took the seat next to Shawn. Shawn stayed silent, eyes still following her as she leaned on the shoulder of one of the girls.

“I know you still love her.” Shawn looked at Calum who was undoubtedly a little drunk, but he was right, even a blind man could tell Shawn was still head over heels for her.

“I do.”

“But you’re in love with the old her.” What the fuck was this man talking about? Shawn thought to himself. He downed the last shot of tequila, wincing as the alcohol slid down his throat. Shawn wanted to get up from his seat and bolt out those doors, but Calum’s next words glued him to the bar stool.

“I know this is stupid, and trust me mate I can’t believe I’m talking to my girl’s ex-boyfriend, but yeah Y/N’s changed.”

“In what way?”

“In the smallest as well as the largest of ways.” Calum took a swig of his beer, “She no longer drinks whiskey like how she did a year ago. Made me get rid of all my whiskey glasses.”

Calum didn’t know it was a low blow, but Shawn felt the knife stab his heart. He waited for him to continue, “She’s so confident of her work now, and she’s one of the most creative people I know. She’s comfortable in her own skin, she’s happy-“

“You don’t know that.” Shawn cut him off but Calum could only smile to himself as he set his bottle down.

“I do, she wasn’t like this a year ago in that club.” Both their eyes flickered over when a large chorus of laughs came from her and her friends. She was dancing and twirling around, something she would never have done with Shawn.

“I get why you still love her, Shawn. But that’s the old her you’re seeing. This is a brand new Y/N, I hope you know.” Calum pat Shawn on the back before joining his friends. He watched as she kissed him softly on the lips and pulled him to dance with her. She was happy.

Shawn could only push the tray of shots back to the bartender as he made his way to leave the bar, to leave the woman he once called his own.

[kon-igi]

E DOVE LA TROVO LA MASCHERINA, CARISSIMO KON?

Per il titolo ho usato una domanda sarcastico-apocalittica - e un filo Imperatrice Furiosa - che una mia vecchia amica mi ha posto in risposta alle mie solite raccomandazioni listate, quelle che oramai hanno fatto sforare le quote latte alle ginocchia di chiunque.

In realtà, se mi aveste voluto davvero bene e mi aveste accettato completamente come vostro Salvatore e Redentore, la mascherina ce l’avreste dovuta avere già da mo’, cioè da quando ho cominciato a farvi dono dei miei Sacri Comandamenti in Preparazione all’Apocalisse Zombie ma nooooooo, tutti ‘ahahahah che simpatico buontempone, adesso ci metto un like’ e poi a comprare 10 grammi di catalogna, due pacchetti di cracker e una sciarpa di cotone all’uncinetto che fa venire i geloni solo a guardarla.

Questo tumblr ora ha paura di me. Io ho visto il suo vero volto. Le sue strade sono lunghi rigagnoli e i rigagnoli sono pieni di sangue e quando alla fine le fogne si ricopriranno di croste tutti i parassiti affogheranno… il sesso e i delitti accumulati come sudiciume li sommergeranno fino alla cintola e le puttane e i politici guarderanno verso l'alto e grideranno: ‘SALVACI!’ e io sussurrerò…

Vabbe’ dai… tralasciamo il momento drama e facciamo che io vi dico come salvarvi e voi accettate il Corpo di Kon-igi sotto forma di cialde di cioccolato bianco.

(vogliamoci bene... questo è il momento per sdrammatizzare)

Tornando al titolo, quando ho affermato che ogni mascherina che non avesse perlomeno una dicitura FFP3 fosse inutile, in realtà sono stato troppo tranchant e un po’ impreciso, complice il fatto che ci tenevo fossero ben chiare le indicazioni del CDC, dell’OMS e di tutti quegli organismi SERI, dei quali io mi limito a riportare le indicazioni senza inventare o improvvisare alcunché… come purtroppo ho visto fare anche qua.

Per una questione di mera fisica, è ovvio che qualsiasi tessuto o materiale posto tra la vostra bocca e l’ambiente esterno abbia una capacità di trattenere e filtrare polveri e areosol ma è ovvio anche che lo faccia in maniera MOLTO VARIABILE

Questo significa che se una mascherina con dicitura FFP3 filtrerà completamente il 98% dell’aria inspirata con un 2% di penetrazione esterna, classi minori filtreranno meno (FFP2 –> 92% con 8% e FFP1 –> 78% con 22%)

Non è che siano INUTILI… filtrano meno.

E comunque anche una FFP3 (N95 per gli oltreoaceano) non è MAI sicura al 100%, soprattutto se indossata a cazzo e senza aver eseguito il FIT TEST… al supermercato ho visto mascherine da 25 euro l’una indossate col naso di fuori o con la breccia di Porta Pia sul mento. E allora sono meglio le vecchie ninja stilose con la pashima damascata sulla bocca modello Lawrence d’Arabia che guardano rabbiose i neri che portano l’ebola (che non si trasmette per via respiratoria, aggiungo).

Perciò CI TENGO A DIRE CHE PER QUANTO NESSUN DISPOSITIVO FILTRANTE, TRANNE UN HAZMAT SUIT CON AUTORESPIRATORE SIA SICURO AL 100% E CHE QUINDI LA SICUREZZA DI NON BECCARE IL CORONAVIRUS CE L’AVETE SOLO RIMANENDO A CASA, UNA QUALSIASI MASCHERA E’ SEMPRE MEGLIO CHE NESSUNA MASCHERA.

Questo vale, ovviamente, se vi sta bruciando casa e voi dovete scappare fuori in mezzo alla folla di curiosi o se vi stanno portando a forza in ospedale dove purtroppo è molto facile che qualcuno vi appesti… se con una maschera inadeguata andate a un aperitivo sui navigli o a portare i vostri figli alla nonna novantenne con la bombola di ossigeno, SIETE DEGLI STRONZI IRRESPONSABILI. PUNTO.

Detto questo e ritornando al discorso dell’emergenza ‘sempre meglio di nulla’ sono anni che gli esperti stanno studiando l’efficacia dei cosiddetti dispositivi filtranti HOMEMADE cioè di quelle mascherine costruite in ambito casalingo con materiali di facile reperibilità. Questo ha senso se considerate che molte di queste epidemie da patogeni respiratori colpiscono zone del pianeta dove l’accesso ai servizi medici o a una semplice rivendita di articoli sanitari è praticamente impossibile.

Intanto io vi lascio gli studi (faticosi) in link e poi, per amor di Apocalisse Zombie, riporto lo schema di costruzione di una di queste mascherine home made

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2662657/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3373043/#!po=16.6667

The World Health Organization recommends protective equipment including masks (if they not available, a cloth to cover the mouth is recommended) for persons who must handle dead or ill chickens in regions affected by H5N1 (5). Quality commercial masks are not always accessible, but anecdotal evidence has showed that handmade masks of cotton gauze were protective in military barracks and in healthcare workers during the Manchurian epidemic (6,7). A simple, locally made, washable mask may be a solution if commercial masks are not available. We describe the test results of 1 handmade, reusable, cotton mask.

  Prototype mask. A) Side view, B) Face side. 

This mask consisted of 1 outer layer (≈37 cm × 72 cm) rolled and cut as in panel B with 8 inner layers (<18 cm2) placed inside (against the face). The nose slit was first placed over the bridge of the nose, and the roll was tied below the back of the neck. The area around the nose was adjusted to eliminate any leakage. If the seal was not tight, it was adjusted by adding extra material under the roll between the cheek and nose or by pushing the rolled fabric above or below the cheekbone. Tie b was tied over the head. A cloth extension was added if tie b was too short. Finally, tie c was tied behind the head. The mask was then fit tested.  

For material, we choose heavyweight T-shirts similar to the 2-ply battle dress uniform T-shirts used for protective masks against ricin and saxitoxin in mouse experiments (8). Designs and T-shirts were initially screened with a short version of a qualitative Bitrex fit test (9) (Allegro Industries, Garden Grove, CA, USA). The best were tested by using a standard quantitative fit test, the Portacount Plus Respirator Fit Tester with N95-Companion (TSI, Shoreview, MN, USA) (10). Poor results from the initial quantitative fit testing on early prototypes resulted in the addition of 4 layers of material to the simplest mask design. This mask is referred to as the prototype mask (Figure).

A Hanes Heavyweight 100% preshrunk cotton T-shirt (made in Honduras) was boiled for 10 minutes and air-dried to maximize shrinkage and sterilize the material in a manner available in developing countries. A scissor, marker, and ruler were used to cut out 1 outer layer (≈37 × 72 cm) and 8 inner layers (<18 cm2). The mask was assembled and fitted as shown in the Figure.

A commercially available N95 respirator requires a fit factor of 100 to be considered adequate in the workplace. The prototype mask achieved a fit factor of 67 for 1 author with a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) panel face size of 4, a common size. Although insufficient for the workplace, this mask offered substantial protection from the challenge aerosol and showed good fit with minimal leakage. The other 2 authors with LANL panel face size 10, the largest size, achieved fit factors of 13 and 17 by making the prototype mask inner layers slightly larger (22 cm2).

CONSIDERATE CHE QUESTA MASCHERINA FABBRICATA CON UNA T-SHIRT NON È CONSIDERATA SICURA IN UN AMBIENTE SANITARIO AD ALTO RISCHIO CONTAGIO ED È DA RISERVARE A SITUAZIONI IN CUI L’ALTERNATIVA IMPORREBBE IL MUOVERSI A VOLTO OBBLIGATORIAMENTE SCOPERTO.

Ora devo andare... Il Grigio Pellegrino, così mi chiamavano. Per trecento vite degli uomini ho vagato su questa terra e ora non ho tempo. Se ho fortuna la mia ricerca non sarà vana! Attendete il mio arrivo alla prima luce del quinto giorno. All'alba, guardate ad Est.

[jerseydeanne]

Read last two paragraphs and you will realize the truth about living in US as former royals.

Why Harry and Meghan will find life even harder as non-royals

By Kyle Smith

Harry and Meghan don’t know how good they have it. They want to bust out of their gilded cage and roam free, but they’re so naive they’re like fluffy kitties who have never crossed a busy road before and are likely to get squashed if they try.

A key motivation to the shocking Megxit announcement this week — even as the Queen warned Meghan and Prince Ginger Whiskers against going public with their moronic plan — was their fury with the media. They hate the “Royal Rota” system, in which a designated royal reporter and photographer cover their events as representatives of the entire media and the royals have to do a little light waving and smiling and generally go along with it. What they don’t seem to understand is that this system exists for their protection; in exchange for the small compromise of making nice with designated journos on a set schedule, they get a break from the pandemonium of being trailed by hordes of invasive paparazzi at all times.

They think life is so great outside the Firm? Let them call up Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Those two aren’t royals. How much privacy did they enjoy during their relationship? Being in the crosshairs of the media evidently took its toll on both of them. Pitt lamented on a podcast released earlier this week that, “I’m just, like, trash mag fodder. I don’t know … because of my disaster of a personal life, probably.” He developed a drinking problem that hit crisis level on a plane in 2016, after which Jolie dumped him. It’s not clear whether Pitt has any relationship with his son Maddox, 18, who is now a university student in Korea. When an interviewer asked about his dad visiting him on campus, Maddox said, “I don’t know about that [or] what’s happening.” Asked whether the pair’s relationship is over, he added, “Well, whatever happens, happens.” Being a global celebrity who isn’t in a royal family isn’t automatically easy.

Like all celebrities, H & M think their media coverage is intrusive but in their case they think the coverage is also racist and insufficiently respectful of their self-image, which is cool global ambassadors of woke. They envision puff pieces that portray them as daring new avatars for social justice, and there will be a few of those. But they also envision enjoying total control over their image. That just isn’t going to happen. They say that in the future they will work only with “grassroots media organisations and young, up-and-coming journalists” and “provide access to credible media outlets focused on objective news reporting.” In other words: You’re fired, media. H & M dream of picking and choosing their own outlets, preferably the “grassroots” (read: progressive) ones that will amplify the political virtue-signaling envisioned by the Woke Wallis Simpson (as Brendan O’Neill of Spiked dubbed the former Ms. Markle).

As if! Within the royal embrace, media coverage is bubble-wrapped. Out there in the cold cruel world of ordinary celebrity, it’s anything goes. No “Royal Rota” agreement applies in Hollywood. It’s every paparazzo out for himself, every time you go out for a coffee, and when you’re on your own property you have to pay for your own security to keep them at bay instead of sending the bill to the taxpayer. The Royals, because of the circumstances of Princess Diana’s death and because of the institutional respect commanded by the Crown, are just about the only celebs west of Vladimir Putin who can enforce any limits whatsoever over their coverage.

Besides, if H & M ever were to break completely free of the Firm (unlikely), a big chunk of their mystique would be gone. They’ll soon find themselves being mocked for pimping out their new Sussex Royal brand. Hoodies, T-shirts, socks, ball caps and pencils — really? They’re going to leverage a thousand years of dignity and tradition for a bunch of cheesy crapola that’s going to wind up at the Dollar Tree? The whole point of being royal is to float above and beyond ordinary existence, to make ordinary mortals fantasize about what it’s like to be you. Once you’re doing interviews with E! or hawking Christmas ornaments on the Home Shopping Network, you’re just two schmucks getting torn apart by the late-night comics.

This is beautiful! So funny and true but that’s what Pit Stain wants. She wants to be chased. 

Thank you anon, 🥰

[kavayu666-blog]

Please help a lesbian immigrant get an abortion

Trigger warning for violent homophobia, rape and pregnancy/abortion

Hello Tumblr, my name is Yuliya and I am a Belarussian immigrant currently living in Warsaw, Poland. I moved here a year ago after being outed by a ‘friend’, which ruined my life there. Since then my life has improved. I currently study English and make do on minimum wage.

TW. I was raped three weeks ago (11/5/18) by a homophobic man after taking a too long way home from a friend’s house. I feel completely disassociated from the event, like I’m not even here. I will not post details for this reason mostly as I want this post to get at least minimum attention and I do not want it to be more triggering than it has to be. I have a reason to believe the attack was homophobic as I was wearing a pretty obvious gay pride t shirt, and was called slurs by the rapist. I made a report to the police after coming to my senses and they listened to me, but due to ‘insufficient evidence’ (no video cameras, markings on my body, plus I felt a general distrust of me, which I suspect was because I’m an immigrant) nothing really happened. The report was made, that’s it.

Now that I know for sure I am pregnant, I do not qualify as a rape victim who would be able to get a legal abortion here, and I’m traumatised enough not to try to get into a battle of convincing anyone I should. Although abortion is legal in Belarus, I lack the funds to make the trip and I certainly do not want to face my family. A more affordable and easy way for me to deal with this is to use Women on Waves to order an abortion pill. To place an order, I need 80 euro; unfortunately, I do not have that kind of spending money at the moment, and that’s why I’m turning to this. Please, if you have anything to spare, it will save me at least a little bit. I’m looking for help in real life as well and will close my paypal link if I get anything close to the amount of money I need.

my PayPal

Thank you so much for any help whatsover

[artemis-crimson]

@onewhoturns tagged me!

1.) Real name: Clara 2.) Nicknames: Arty? 3.) Zodiac Sign: Capricorn! 4.) Gender: Female? 5.) Nursery: Dunno what this mean, it’s a solid word though I guess? 6/10 6.) Primary School: Oh! It’s about what happened when we went to school! Fucking miserable but hey figured out I was bi as all hell  7.) Secondary School: Gee I sure hope so 8.) Hair Color: Dark brown 9.) Long or Short: Short but I’m growing it out again 10.) Loud or Quiet: Loud but it’s funny to walk around for hours and nobody notices you’re there or if you where there and now you’ve been missing for ages 11.) Sweats or Jeans: Fuck pants dude, skirts. I wear skirts 12.) Phone or Camera: Phone! My camera is old and fills up fast 13.) Health Freak: I’m here for a good time not a long time 14.) Drink or Smoke: Unfortunately 15.) Do You Have A Crush On Someone: Yeah! I have a girlfriend, I love her! 16.) Political orientation: Left? Society is to serve humanity, governments exists to protect their people, everyone deserves a fair chance, ect? 17.) Piercings: I’ve just got my ears pierced but microdermal piercings are kinda really pretty too 18.) Tattoos: Also pretty but piercings are better cause they fucking sparkle, look at that there’s fucking metal in your skin and you can have cute things or fucking gems attached  HAVE YOU EVER [BEEN IN]: 19.) Airplane: Fuck yeah! And a helicopter! I love flying! 20.) Car *Accident*: A truck bumped me once? 21.) Fist Fight: Several! Many? More sanctioned ones than just brawling and I think that’s rather mature of me FIRSTS: 22.) First piercing: Ears 23.) First Best Friend: A girl named Olivia! I’ve known her since kindergarten and we’re still friends 24.) First Instrument played: I played the xylaphone and glockenspiel at school and I was the worst at it 25.) First award: I won a medal for the best grades in the worst class in high school, I’m only counting the things I actually worked for and not participation or consolation prizes cause y’know, they don’t count 26.) First Crush: In retrospect probably one of my friends from when I was little and clueless but first one from post oh shit I’m queer realization is said girlfriend 27.) First Language: English. 28.) First Big Vacation: I went to Hawaii with my whole family on my mums side (and my dad) for my oma and opa’s anniversary  LASTS: 29.) Last Person you talked to: My little sister! 30.) Last Person You Texted: Ana! who is the girlfriend I keep mentioning 31.) Last Person You Watched: I was watching Prey stuff to reference something earlier? Last human would also be my sister who I watched get a blanket for the plus nineteen degrees celsius heat the absolute madwoman 32.) Last Food You Ate: Pizza! meaty meat pizza 32.) Last Movie You Watched: Infinity war unfortunately, I wanted to see the moon throwing scene so I skipped through everything for that. 34.) Last Song You listened to: Bad Believer by St Vincent 35.) Last Thing You Bought: Poutine and bubble tea 36.) Last Person You Hugged: This is depressing, I don’t know. Does my PC count? I needed to adjust it again and that’s the last thing of any importance I’ve touched in a while now soooo FAVES: 37.) Food: Chocolate! Fish! Meat! Bread! Sugar! Curry! Ice cream! 38.) Drinks: TEA! Hot Chocolate! Milk! Horchata! Bubble tea! Soda! Port! 39.) Clothing: Comfortable skirts and t shirts with hoodies/sweaters and fuzzy leggings and scarves but it’s too warm for that 40.) Book: Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci 41.) Color: Purple! especially lavender 42.) Flower: Also lavender  43.) Music: Miracle of Sound! he’s got lots of different genres, Hozier and Seeming are great too and a bunch of video game soundtracks are great too 44.) Movie: Pacific Rim I think 46.) Subjects: Science! I want to know how everything and everyone works and then I want to help all of it

IN THE PAST YEAR I… 47.) [ ] Kissed in the rain 48.) [ ] Celebrated Halloween. 49.) [ ] Had Your Heart Broken 50.) [x] Went Over the Minutes on Your Cell Phone  51.) [x] Someone Questioned Your Sexual Orientation. It’s a constant state of denial babe 52.) [x] Used a Weapon Technically 53.) [x] Breathed fire I inhaled a candle flame that count? 54.) [ ] Had an Abortion 55.) [x] Done something you’ve Regretted   56.) [ ] Broke a Promise 57.) [x] Kept a Secret 58.) [x] Pretended To Be Happy 59.) [ ] Met Someone Who Changed Your Life 60.) [ ] Pretended To Be Sick 61.) [ ] Left The Country 62.) [ ] Tried something you normally wouldn’t like, and liked it. 63.) [x] Cried Over The Silliest Thing 64.) [x] Ran a Mile 65.) [ ] Went To the Beach 66.) [ ] Stayed Single CURRENTLY: 67.) Eating: Avoiding sleep 68.) Drinking: Oolong tea 69.) Getting Ready To: Sleep 70.) Listening To: I did forget to change this whoops, I’m listening to this https://youtu.be/4MN8gw6S4kM 71.) Plans For Tomorrow/Today: Berry farm trip! 72.) Waiting For: Sleep YOUR FUTURE: 73.) Want Kids: Not especially? I don’t think I’d be good at it 74.) Want To Get Married: Yeah! I’m sappy and it’s useful incase someone is hospitalized or for taxes or wills or visas which is less sappy and more practical but is there anything more romantic than making sure your partner has safety nets and an easier life? Huh? 75.) Careers in minds: I want to help people, I just don't know how yet? WHICH IS BETTER ON A GIRL/GUY: (again blatant nb/gq/ag exclusion) ON A PERSON/PARTNER: 76.) Lips or Eyes: ...Eyes? 77.) Shorter or Taller: All the same to me? 78.) Romantic or Spontaneous: This is vague and weird really, like what if you think romance is spontaneity? however since it’s capitalized I’m assuming you mean like the Romance period and I think that’s pretty good 79.) Nice Stomach or Nice Arms: Also weird! who wants their partner to get sick? I don’t want them to get sick? Arms are for holding, stomachs are for eating these things are not related  80.) Sensitive or Loud: None of these questions make any fucking sense 81.) Hook-up Or Relationship: Relationship? 82.) Troublemaker or Hesitant: These things are not mutually exclusive either HAVE YOU EVER: 83.) Lost Glasses/Contacts: My glasses once got smacked off my face with a boom and into a reservoir 84.) Ran Away From Home: Nope 85.) Held A Weapon, For Self Defense: I do not believe it has been self defence technically no 86.) Killed Somebody: I’m onto you you dirty cops 87.) Broken Someone’s Heart: Sure hope not! 88.) Been Arrested: Can’t catch meeeeee DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 90.) Yourself: I am here, I am trying, I am failing, I will try again or I will die, there’s no belief involved 91.) Miracles: Sort of? Not really? I don’t think the universe is going to make anything happen for a reason kind or cruel 92.) Love at First Sight: No, love needs you to know someone 93.) Heaven: Nope! 94.) Santa Claus: Nope? Never have, wrong cultures for Santa  95.) Easter Bunny: Nope, wrong cultures again 96.) Magic: I’m not sure, insufficient evidence ANSWER TRUTHFULLY: 97.) Is There One Person You Wanna Be With, Right Now: Yes! Cause I’m taken! Am dating! Have girlfriend, I’m girlfriend! It’s great! 98.) Are You Seriously Happy With Where You Are, In Life: Nope! Can’t remember ever being truly seriously happy but that’s alright though cause nothing lasts forever and either I’ll get around to it eventually or I just won’t? No point in worrying 99.) Are You Happy With The Person You’re With: Also yes! Incredibly! I try to not get started cause I’m told I can be insufferable about it but so very very happy 100.) Post as 100 Truths and Tag five People: this is more 99 truths ain’t it, so here’s the last one, I am constantly terrified my plants will die but act tough in front of them cause someone has to not wilt under pressure 

@alienhazy, @nightcoreapologist, @kajafrompluto, @criticalrolo, @elvenorc

[scullys-right-eyebrow-txf]

The Only Choice - Chapter 42

Set after the event of ‘Three Words.’

Chapter 42 - Changes

 “He’s being such an ass,” Scully complained to her mother over a cup of tea as she sank further into the comfy sofa. “He’s being reckless. He’s a real jerk to Agent Doggett. He certainly doesn’t seem like he wants to discuss us or the baby or anything he went through. I know that he needs time, I know that, but he’s being such an ass!”

 “Dana, I certainly don’t understand what happened to him, how he’s here, and truthfully I try not to think about it too much, but you’re right. He needs time to acclimate. Whatever happened to him was traumatic and he’s obviously not okay,” Maggie said, rubbing her daughter’s back comfortingly.

 “I know,” Scully responded, dropping her head into her hands, “I just wish things could be like they were.”

“I think that you’ve both changed too much, experienced too much for things to go back exactly how they were. But you’ll find a new normal together. Maybe you can talk to him about what you went through while he was gone, maybe it will help him open up,” Maggie suggested.

 Scully sighed and rested her head on her mother’s shoulder, her exhaustion evident. “I just don’t want to burden him any more. I think…I think he could be suffering from PTSD. He needs to see someone about it but I’m afraid to bring it up He won’t take to that suggestion well.”

 Maggie took Scully’s mug and placed it on the coffee table before pulling her closer to her side. She held her silently for a moment until Scully reached for her hand, placing it atop her protruding belly. Both women laughed softly as they felt the strong, repetitive kicks from inside.

 “You’re going to be okay, Dana. All three of you,” Maggie said, placing a comforting kiss to her daughter’s temple. “Do you want me to talk to him?” she asked with quirk to her eyebrow.

 Scully chuckled and wiped away a rogue tear. “Oh no, I don’t think he’s ready for the mom lecture yet. I know you. You’ll go in all nice and sweet with the best intentions, but it will totally turn into a ‘how dare you treat my daughter like this’ conversation.”

 “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Maggie replied innocently.

 “Sam Carter, 11th grade,” Scully said without missing a beat.

 “Well that’s different. He was being an ass,” Maggie replied, both women breaking into laughter.

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

 Although comforted by the afternoon spent with her mother, Scully felt her sadness begin to seep back in as she entered her apartment. Her empty apartment. Where she once envisioned Mulder meeting her at the door with a kiss, she was now greeted by only silence. She wondered what he was doing. Was he at home, lonely and needing her? Was he off somewhere with the Gunmen causing trouble? Breaking into more government buildings? In the basement looking for the next case to take him away from her and his problems?

 She wanted to call him. She wanted to check on him but he would know that she was checking up on him and wouldn’t appreciate it in his current mood. It was Sunday night and she had spoken to him that morning; he said he had some stuff to do. He didn’t elaborate.

 She was worried about him but wanted to give him his space. It was basically what he asked for. She should just go to bed; she would see him at work the next morning. Although not fully reinstated, she had no doubt that he’d be at the office bright and early.

 Bed, yes that was the best thing to do. The sooner she fell asleep the sooner morning would come and she would see him. She trudged through the apartment to her bedroom where she collapsed unceremoniously onto the bed, exhausted despite having not really done anything that day.

 She grunted and stretched around her belly to remove her shoes, and that was when she saw it. The closet door. It was open. She always closed the closet…and Mulder always left the door open. With dread, she ungracefully rose to her feet and approached, peeking in, afraid of what she’d find. Or what she wouldn’t find.

 His suits were gone. His favorite suits that had come to live at her home when he did. The suits she had been unable to box up and shove into a storage unit. They were gone. As were his shoes and button down white shirts. The things he would need to go back to work, they were as absent as he was.

 Scully was barely able to make it back to the bed before collapsing with grief. He really had no intention of coming back home then. At least not in the near future. He snuck in like a burglar, like an ex-lover, to retrieve his things while she was away.

 Scully hurt. Her body hurt. Her soul hurt. Her heart hurt.

 She let the tears run untouched down her face as she curled into a ball and tried to forget her pain. She just wanted to sleep. She didn’t want to think, to worry, to hope, to hate. She just wanted it all to go away for a little while.

 And it did, but not for long.

 Scully awoke with a start, pulled from her dreamless sleep by a sharp kick and a full bladder. She did her business in the bathroom, only looking at her sad reflection long enough to wash away the dried tear stains on her cheeks, before making her way to the kitchen for a glass of water. But as she made her way past the darkened nursery, something from inside caught her eye. She turned on the light and gasped.

 The crib. The assembled crib stood proudly in the middle of the room.

 Scully collapsed into the rocking chair as the tears began anew. It wasn’t the first time that she had cried over that damn crib and her inability to make heads or tails out of the insufficient instruction sheet. She could have asked for help from a multitude of people, but she just wanted one thing in that nursery that was assembled by her child’s parent. One thing that would make her feel like her child was coming into this world with a normal family that did things normal families do.

 Well normal might not describe their situation, but her child’s father put together the crib and that was something. That was a start.

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

 Mulder let out a sigh of relief when he entered the basement office early the next morning only to find it empty. He hoped that Doggett would keep a wide berth, but Scully…not Scully. He wanted her around, more than he wanted air in his lungs, but he just didn’t know how to act around her.

 He felt like an ass for sneaking into her apartment to get his work clothes. But he didn’t mean to sneak. On the contrary, it took him hours to work up the courage to go over there, but when she wasn’t home he took the coward’s way out and helped himself to her closet. Truthfully, he was shocked that his clothes were still hanging next to hers like nothing had happened in the past in the past six months. It was obvious that she had taken his absence hard, but it worried him that she hadn’t even been able to pack up his suits. It also worried him that his apartment was untouched, the rent paid, and cleaner than he had left it. He just worried about her, for a million different reasons, and he wished that he could talk to her about it. But he was a coward. He was afraid of what she’d say. He was afraid to know what had happened to her while he was gone. Mostly he was just afraid.

 Then he heard it, the familiar click clack of her heels, becoming louder as she neared the office. Even though he prepared himself, he couldn’t help but feel shocked every time he saw her new figure. To him it seemed like just yesterday that she was trim and athletic yet soft in all the right places.  She was perfect to him then, but now, now her beauty was unfathomable. She was still tiny, from behind she didn’t even look pregnant, but the swell of her protruding belly, her enlarged breasts, the slight roundness of her face…he just wanted to run his hands all over her body in reverence.

 And the glow. He never understood the whole ‘pregnant glow’ business, but she seemed luminous to him. The sight of her filled him with such love that he had to will himself to not collapse at her feet and weep. Or to fall into her arms.  But he couldn’t do either of those things because there was this weird wall between them. It was his fault, of that he was sure, but he didn’t know how to bring the wall down. It was the only way he had to protect himself, to protect her from the reality of what had happened to him, to them.

 “Hi Mulder,” Scully said softly and he realized that he must have been staring.

 “Hi,” he returned with the most carefree smile he could manage.

 She returned his smile as she hung her coat, Mulder silently cursed himself for not getting up to held her with it, and placed her briefcase on the desk.

 “Here,” he said quickly, jumping up to offer her his chair, “please, sit.”

 “It’s okay, Mulder. It’s your desk; I was just borrowing it for a little while,” she said moving to lower herself slowly in the chair across from him.

 He looked around and noted once again Agent Doggett’s desk in the corner. Why in seven years had he never gotten Scully her own desk?

 “How are you feeling?” Scully asked, trying to tiptoe around the elephant, or one of the elephants, in the room, but desperate to know that he was alright.

 “Feeling brand new,” he answered with a sarcastic laugh. “How about you?” he added softly.

 “I’m fine, Mulder. I, uh, just wanted to thank you for putting together the crib. It meant a lot to me,” she said, almost shyly.

 “My pleasure, Scully,” he answered truthfully. Assembling that crib was truly the only thing that had brought him joy since waking. “I’m sorry if it seemed like I was sneaking around. It wasn’t my intention; I thought you’d be there.”

 “It’s okay, Mulder,” she replied, looking at her hands in her lap.

 An awkward silence stretched between; neither knowing what to say. Finally Mulder could take it no more and once again took the coward’s way out.

 “Well, uh, I’m actually on my way out. I need to run some errands. There’s quite a bit of paperwork entailed with coming back from the dead. I need to go to the bank and get the accounts put back in my name,” he said, starting to ramble.

 “Wait,” Scully said, digging through her bag before locating the small piece of plastic she was looking for. “Here’s your bank card back. I, um, I spent about $1500 on things for the baby, but I’ll pay you back,” she said quickly, unable to look him in the eye.

 Mulder reached out and closed his hand around hers, the card still in her palm. “Scully, I left that money to you. You don’t have to pay me back. And keep the card. Use it for whatever you need, for you or for the baby.”

 Scully met his eyes and nodded gratefully, savoring the feel of his fingers on her, their first touch in days. But too soon he was gone, running away again.

 “I’ll talk to you later,” he said over his shoulder as he fled.

 Every step he took away from her hurt, but he didn’t know what else to do. All he wanted was for things to go back to how they were before any of this occurred, but he knew that it wasn’t possible. Too much had happened, to both of them. They were both different from how they were.

  He just hoped, prayed really, that these new versions of themselves could find their way back together.

[12-3amproductions]

Elisa Lam

The body of Elisa Lam, a Canadian student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, was recovered from a water tank on top of Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles on February 19, 2013. What may have happened to her before she died, leading to her body being found in that water tank?

Elisa Lam was born on April 30, 1991 in Canada. Her parents came from Hong Kong and opened a restaurant in Burnaby, a district of Vancouver, Canada and she was a student at the University of British Columbia. She had a twitter account and her own blog which she would update frequently about fashion and some of her life’s personal moments.

She was having depression at that point of time and would often post depressing thoughts mainly on her blog to share the journey with people that could possibly relate or to just have a platform to express her feelings on. Her blog was last dated back in July 2012 and she afterwards moved to tumblr and continued her expressing her thoughts there.

It was said that she had to take medication to keep her illness in check; Dexedrine, Serequel, Efexor, Lamictal & Zyban. She traveled alone, on Amtrak and intercity buses. She visited the San Diego Zoo and posted photos taken there on social media. On January 26, she arrived in Los Angeles. After 2 days, she checked into the Cecil Hotel near downtown’s skid row.

It was said that she was assigned a shared room on the fifth floor, but was complained by her roommates to the hotel management about her (what was described as) ‘odd behavior’. She was then moved to the fourth floor of her own after two days. According to her family, they intended to keep her history of mental illness a secret. Though she had no history of suicide attempts, there is one report claiming that she had previously gone missing for a brief period before but was very brief and could not be deemed certain.

During her time in Cecil hotel, she would often call her parents everyday to update them about her stay and it was only on January 31, 6 days of staying in Cecil hotel that she was scheduled to check out of the hotel on that day and leave for Santa Cruz. Her parents did not receive any call or messages from her and called the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The family immediately flew to Los Angeles to help with the search. She was last seen by Katie Orphan, a manager at a nearby book store just down the road from the hotel. She described Elisa Lam as ‘outgoing, very lively and friendly’ upon a chat with her about whether what book she was getting and also about traveling with the weight of it.

The police searched the entire hotel during the investigation of her case of going missing. They searched Lam’s room and had dogs go through the building, including the rooftop, however unsuccessfully attempting to detect her scent.

The officer in charge Sgt. Ruby Lopez said later that they didn’t search every room in the hotel and explained that they could only do that if they had an evidence or a solid cause to believe that it is caused by a crime. On February 6, a week after Lam was last seen, the LAPD decided that they needed more help and began distributing flyers in the neighborhood and on online websites. This brought the case of Elisa Lam to the attention of the public, especially in social media where it became viral.

On February 14, after another week with no sign or sighting of her, the police department released a video of a last known sighting of her taken in one of the Cecil Hotel’s elevators by a video surveillance camera on February 1. This became viral once again and drew more attention to the case due to Lam’s strange behavior in the video.

In the clip, it shows the camera at one of the elevator cab’s rear corners looking down from the ceiling, offering a view inside the lift as well as the view from the lift door that shows part of the hallway. Elisa Lam entered the lift with a red zippered hooded sweatshirt over a gray T-shirt, with black shorts and scandals. She enters the lift and selects 4 in the button panel. She then took a few steps back and waited for a few seconds. After seeing that the door did not close, she stood beside the control panel. Then, she began to put her right foot forward and pop her head out of the lift to look at her right and left before she stepped back in the lift quickly. She stepped back to the right side of the lift and leaned against the wall beside the button panel and stood there for awhile. Then after, she walked towards the doors of the lift and stood there for a few seconds before stepping out of it and into the hallway. She went back into the lift again and went back out, moving to the left side of the CCTV’s view. While she couldn’t be seen from the range of the CCTV’s view on the footage for a few seconds, she was revealed faintly leaning beside the lift on the outside of the hallway. She then came back in the lift and this time, selects more buttons and seemed to only be pressing on the ones at the middle section of the button panel. She went out of the lift again and is seen doing seemingly odd hand gestures as though she was communicating with someone on the outside. She then went to the left side of the hallway and couldn’t be seen from the range of the CCTV anymore. The lift remained opened for awhile before it started closing after Elisa Lam stepped out a few moments later.

Many of the people comment the video after watching saying that it is very ‘unsettling to watch’. Though there were several theories evolved to explain her actions, many viewers argued that the video had been tampered with before being made public.

Despite the obscuring of the timestamp, they claimed that the the video had been deliberately slowed down, and nearly a minute of the footage had been discreetly removed. This could have been done simply to protect the identity of someone or conceal evidence that her death had been the result of a criminal act. It was on the morning of February 19 when Elisa Lam’s body was found in one of four 1.000-gallon (3785 Litre) tanks that provides water to guest rooms, a kitchen and a coffee shop in the hotel. Her body was found by one of the hotel’s staff as there were complaints from the guests at the hotel that the water pressure was very low. Some claimed that their water was colored black and had an unusual taste. The hotel staff mentioned that when he was about to inspect the water tanks, he noticed that one of the water tanks were opened and he looked inside only to find Elisa Lam floating in the tank.

On February 21, the Los Angeles coroner’s office issued a finding of accidental drowning, with bipolar disorder as a significant factor. The full coroner’s report, released in June, stated that Lam’s body had been found naked, clothing similar to that she was wearing in the elevator video was floating in the water, coated with a “sand-like particulate”. Her watch and room key were also found with her. Her body was moderately decomposed and bloated. It was mostly greenish, with some marbling on the abdomen and skin separation evident. There was no evidence of physical trauma, sexual assault, or suicide. Toxicology test was incomplete due to insufficient blood being preserved. Though the investigation had determined how Lam died, it did not offer any explanation as to how she got into the tank in the first place. Doors and stairs to access the hotel’s roof were locked, with only staff having the passcodes and keys. Any attempt to force them would supposedly have triggered an alarm. However, the hotel’s fire escape could have allowed her to by pass those security measures, if someone had accompanied her there.

There was a video made by a Chinese user after her death posted on the internet to show that the hotel can be easily accessible via the fire escape and that two of the lids of the water tanks were open. A lot of viewers mentioned about going to the tank by herself which was merely impossible. All four water tanks are 4 by 8 foot (1.2 by 2.4m) cylinders propped up on concrete blocks.

There is no fixed access to them and hotel workers had to use ladders to look at the water. They are protected by heavy lids that would be difficult to replace from within. Police dogs that searched through the hotel for Elisa Lam, even on the roof, shortly after her disappearance was noted, did not find any trace of her (although they had not searched the area near the water tanks). The autopsy report and its conclusions have also been questioned. For instance, it does not say what the results of the rape kit and fingernail kit were, or if they were even processed.

It also recorded subcutaneous pooling of blood in Lam’s anal area, which some observers suggested was a sign of sexual abuse; however one pathologist has noted it could also have resulted from bloating in the course of the body’s decomposition and her rectum was also prolapsed. Even the coroner’s pathologist appeared to be ambivalent about their conclusion that Lam’s death was accidental. What was amidst was that her autopsy result was only out 4 months later, which should not be the case as an autopsy would usually come out within 2 weeks, latest. One page of the report has a form with boxes to check as to whether the death was accidental, natural, homicide, suicide or undermined, in large type and a sufficient distance from each other. The ‘accident’ box is dated June 15; however three days later the “undetermined" box was checked instead.

Since her death, her tumblr blog still continued to update, presumably through tumblr’s queue option which allows posts to automatically publish themselves when the user is away. Her phone was not found either with her body or in her hotel room; it has been assumed to have been stolen at some time around her death. Whether the continuous updates to her blog were facilitated by the thief of her phone, the work of a hacker, or through the queue, is not known; nor is it known whether the updates are related to her death.

In September, Lam’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit, claiming the hotel failed to “inspect and seek out hazards in the hotel that presented an unreasonable risk of danger to (Lam) and other hotel guests”, and was seeking unspecified damages and burial costs. The hotel argued it could not have reasonably foreseen that Lam might have entered the water tanks, and that since it remained unknown how Lam got to the water tank, no liability could be assigned for failing to prevent that. In 2015, the suit was dismissed.

Case’s Conclusion

[your-dietician]

He tried to commemorate erased history. China detained him, then erased that too

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/latest/he-tried-to-commemorate-erased-history-china-detained-him-then-erased-that-too/

He tried to commemorate erased history. China detained him, then erased that too

He stood in Tiananmen Square, wearing sneakers, track pants and a black T-shirt printed with the date of a massacre.

It was June 4, 2019, the 30th anniversary of the killing of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing. Dong Zehua, then 28, hadn’t even been born when tanks clattered over the square and the world watched. The events on that bloody day in 1989 weren’t taught in school or ever mentioned in Chinese media. But Dong knew what had happened.

Tech-savvy and good at English, Dong had mastered circumventing the Great Firewall. He had learned about the anti-government protests and deaths through foreign websites banned in China. As the anniversary approached, he booked a train ticket and traveled to Beijing, keeping the T-shirt hidden until he was on the square.

Dong was a jiulinghou, as those born after 1990 are called in China. They are a nationalistic generation raised on “patriotic education” and state propaganda in a prosperous, increasingly strong China. Many have little knowledge of the traumas their parents endured or the ongoing suppression of Chinese citizens around them.

But there are outliers among them. A handful of Chinese youth like Dong have tried to expose and preserve China’s true history and honor those erased from the official story. They do so despite censorship, imprisonment and growing pressure from peers who are encouraged to report on anyone who criticizes the state.

Counter-narratives have been crushed by a Communist Party determined to carefully choreograph its 100th anniversary in July. That means deleting official wrongs, promoting a whitewashed version of party history, punishing those who deviate — and in recent days, expunging the records of that punishment as well.

“What they’re doing is to control every Chinese person’s thinking and erase every person’s history,” Dong said. “They want to write history themselves.”

To Dong’s surprise, two other young people were in the square the morning he arrived: Yuan Shuai, 24, a recent college graduate from Inner Mongolia working at an advertising company in Beijing, and Gao Tianqi, 21, a Beijinger attending university abroad who’d come back for the summer. Gao carried a yellow umbrella — a symbol of Hong Kong’s youth-led democracy movement — with the number “30” written on it in black marker.

Story continues

They hatched a plan to interview foreigners on the square and post a video of their comments online.

“It was a normal, simple sense of justice in our hearts, thinking: I want to do this, because someone should,” said Dong. “Someone should commemorate. This shouldn’t be forgotten.”

The three were arrested within hours. Yuan and Dong were convicted of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” and sentenced, respectively, to six and seven months in jail. Gao was let go after 38 days of detention without trial.

Dong was quiet for several months after his release. But on June 4, 2020, he emailed The Times about his experience and provided a link to a judgment issued by the Beijing Dongcheng People’s Court. The Times verified the judgment, which was documented in a public archive of court rulings kept by the Supreme People’s Court online.

Last month, he contacted The Times again: The record of his arrest had vanished.

“In their eyes, it’s as if our detention never happened. It’s as if they never did it to us,” Dong said. “They deleted it … as if they can just delete all Chinese people’s memories…. With one stroke of the arm they can cover the sky.”

It wasn’t just Dong’s case. Thousands of politically sensitive cases disappeared last month from China Judgments Online, the public archive.

The deletions were first noticed by a Chinese activist with the Twitter handle @SpeechFreedomCN, who has been keeping an archive of speech crime cases. He has tracked more than 2,040 cases, dating to 2013, based on official documentation in China Judgments Online or public security bureaus’ reports on the social media apps Weibo and WeChat.

There are more than 600 cases of punishment related to speech about COVID-19. Most are fines, “education and warning,” or detention for up to two weeks for posting online messages about the coronavirus or the government response.

They include the case of Li Wenliang, the young doctor who died of the virus after authorities reprimanded him for warning others about the outbreak, but also hundreds of lesser-known ones: a Qinghai man given 10 months of jail for tweets criticizing China’s COVID response; a Beijinger jailed six months for warning classmates in a WeChat group about a COVID case; a popular Weibo blogger in Hebei province given six months of prison for compiling stories of Wuhan residents’ suffering during lockdown.

Other commonly punished speech “crimes” include insulting the police, petitioning for help from the central government, or trying to expose government corruption. Many cases punish Chinese citizens for activity on Twitter and Facebook, evidence that their behavior beyond the firewall is also under surveillance.

Last month, the activist — who asked not to be identified for his protection — noticed that several of the key searches he conducts on the archive each day were suddenly coming up blank. Terms such as “Weibo + picking quarrels and provoking troubles,” “Twitter + picking quarrels and provoking troubles,” or “national leaders” came back with zero results.

The Times repeated the activist’s search to confirm the cases’ disappearance, reviewed a selection of screenshots in his archive of court cases that used to be online, and called 12 courts across China to inquire about the deleted cases.

Two of the courts, both in Hubei province, did not pick up repeated calls. Employees of the courts in Shanghai and the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu confirmed that the cases existed and were as described in the screenshots, but did not explain why they’d been taken offline. Others declined to provide information to The Times.

“If we think it can be shown then it is, and if we think it shouldn’t, we take it off,” an employee at a local court in Hunan province told The Times over the phone. “There must be a reason it can’t be shown, but this is a work secret. We don’t need to tell anyone and you don’t need to understand.”

The activist said China’s tolerance for free speech is evaporating: “We thought the people being arrested for speech online were only very extreme cases,” he said. “But when we looked closely, we saw many people are not ‘serious’ at all and yet are detained. Many people without much influence are also arrested. Control is getting stricter and stricter.”

A seller with a portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, next to a picture of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong at Dongfanghong Theater in Yanan. (Hector Retamal / AFP/Getty Images)

This tightening comes as China is emerging as a global power and the Communist Party prepares for its centennial. President Xi Jinping has launched a nationwide campaign for citizens to study newly revised volumes of Communist Party history and celebrate its achievements. It is a brazen reinvention that will keep younger generations living with an airbrushed past.

All cinemas in China have been ordered to screen at least two nationalistic propaganda films each week. Schools, hospitals, lawyers associations, and Buddhist and Taoist temples have held “Red” singing competitions, patriotic poetry recitations and political study sessions.

The newest edition of official party history no longer criticizes Mao Zedong for chaos and killings in the 1960s and ’70s, but praises his Cultural Revolution as an anti-corruption measure and blames the upheavals on “insufficient implementation of his correct ideology.”

The party narrative glosses over the failures of the Great Leap Forward, making no mention of the tens of millions who starved to death in the 1950s and ’60s. It calls the Tiananmen Square protests a “political storm” incited by “anti-communist, anti-socialist foreign enemy forces” backing an “extremely small minority.” It mentions no killing of protesters — some estimates say thousands died — only that authorities took “decisive measures to calm the counterrevolutionary riots.”

More than a quarter of the book, which was published in February, is devoted to China’s “new era” under Xi, in which the “China dream” of great national rejuvenation is fulfilled. Five pages describe the COVID-19 outbreak, praising Xi’s leadership of the response as a demonstration of how the party always puts “the people” first.

Students wave Communist Party flags as they prepare to watch the movie “The Founding of a Party” in Yangzhou to mark the centennial of the Communist Party of China. (AFP/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, those who deviate from Beijing’s narrative of harmony and prosperity are punished.

Last month, two computer coders went on trial in Beijing for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles,” the same blanket crime applied to Dong for his T-shirt in Tiananmen Square. They were Cai Wei, 27, and Chen Mei, 28, friends who’d created an online archive of articles called Terminus2049, hosted on GitHub, about the COVID-19 outbreak, whistleblower doctors and lockdown in Wuhan.

Many were reports by Chinese journalists who risked their lives covering the early days of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, only to have their articles censored as Xi pushed for “positive energy” propaganda focused on praising heroes, not marking human suffering.

Cai and Chen were detained in April 2020 and had been held for more than a year before they went to trial. Their families were not allowed to see them, hire personal defense lawyers for them or examine the documents explaining charges against them, according to Chen’s older brother Chen Kun, who now lives in France.

“Ten years ago, this wouldn’t be a problem. You wouldn’t be detained for just archiving information. At most they’d threaten you and ‘have tea,’” Chen Kun told The Times in a phone interview, using a common euphemism for disciplinary meetings with authorities. “We didn’t realize that in 2019 and 2020, China’s internet control became much stricter than in the past.”

Chen Kun was born in the ’80s and had lived in a China with access to Google, Twitter, YouTube — all platforms that are blocked today. Internet access gave him not only understanding of China’s history, but also connection with like-minded friends and the chance to take small actions for social progress.

He had spent years working for Liren, a grass-roots organization that ran rural libraries and summer camps promoting civic engagement among underprivileged Chinese youth. His brother had met Cai at a Liren camp 10 years ago, when they’d been inspired to work on behalf of marginalized groups.

Liren was shut down in 2014. Chen Kun, who was head of the organization at that time, spent several months in detention.

But the brothers kept their ideals. The younger Chen worked for a charity in Beijing that aided people with disabilities. Online, he and Cai created Terminus2049, archiving censored articles about China’s #MeToo movement, labor protests and forced removal of migrant workers from Beijing. They also ran a discussion forum that didn’t require real-name registration, unlike most Chinese social media.

In earlier years, hosting such archives and forums was safe. Those arrested for speech tended to be “long-term rights activists and anti-CCP dissidents,” Chen Kun said. But now, ordinary people are being detained for actions as innocuous as a retweet.

“We are watching China’s speech environment being squeezed bit by bit until you cannot speak,” he said. Even worse, he said, the pressure was coming not only from officials but also from ordinary people — friends, family, neighbors and netizens who are increasingly reporting one another’s speech, especially online.

Official statistics show that mutual tattling has increased. In 2020, China’s Central Cyberspace Administration handled 163 million reports of improper online speech, an increase of 17.4% from 2019. The majority came from Chinese social media platforms including Weibo, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. More than 60% were reports of sexually inappropriate content, while 7.7% (about 12.5 million reports) were political and 1.1% were “rumors.”

In April, China’s Central Cyberspace Administration issued a new request for reports of “hazardous information involving historical nihilism.” It offered phone, app and website options for tattling on anyone caught “twisting” party history, criticizing party leaders, ideology or policy, “smearing” heroes and martyrs, or speaking negatively of China’s traditional, revolutionary or modern culture.

Mutual reporting continued to grow, with nearly 15 million reports that month, an increase of 38.4% from March and a 2.6% increase from April 2020.

“It will be like the Cultural Revolution,” Chen Kun said. “Normal people stand up to struggle against you. This makes you feel really hopeless.”

That sense of nationalistic, voluntary mutual censorship is particularly strong among the young, he said, especially urban youth who grew up in a rising China with no knowledge of their own history — aside from the the triumphalist narratives taught in school — and no experience of open information.

An exhibition at a Beijing museum in March 2021 marks the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China. (AFP/Getty Images)

Even Dong, Yuan and Gao, the three who went to Tiananmen Square on the anniversary of the massacre, had believed that the Chinese government today would never use violence against its youth. Born in 1991, 1995 and 1998, respectively, they were highly educated city kids: “Maybe because we are young, we were thinking too well of the government,” said Dong. “We never imagined it would treat its own people this way.”

The day they were arrested in the square, police strip-searched them and made them stand for hours against a wall, then interrogated them overnight in metal “tiger chairs” that bound their wrists and ankles. They refused to believe that the three had not known one another beforehand or received foreign support, Dong said. In their thinking, it made no sense for anyone born after 1989 to care about what happened then.

“They don’t believe that actually, a lot of people in China have conscience,” said Dong. “It has nothing to do with your age, education, or whether your family has been hurt.”

Interrogators told Dong he’d receive a lighter sentence if he confessed to the “picking quarrels” crime. He did, but still spent seven months in Beijing’s Dongcheng district detention center, in a cell of 20 people squeezed into about 430 square feet.

Inside, they were forced to watch “educational videos” praising the government and write self-criticisms and confessions. They were fed mostly water and cabbage. At night, they took two-hour shifts patrolling the cell, where the light was never turned off. In the daytime, aside from the reeducation sessions, they sat on a mat in silence.

Dong fears that his peers and those younger than him still don’t know what lies behind government propaganda.

A teacher and her students in Lianyungang, China, pose with Communist Party emblems during a class about the party’s history in June 2020. (AFP/Getty Images)

“Young people these days are completely led by the government narrative. It’s the only information they come into contact with,” he said. Many of the linglinghou and lingwuhou, those born after 2000 and 2005, are the quickest to point fingers at others, he said, accusing anyone who questions the government of backing from “foreign forces.”

It’s a “terrifying” and “very narrow” way of looking at the world, he said, one intentionally constructed by the government.

“Young people across the world should be the most anti-establishment, the most open and alive in their thinking — but not in China. In China, the youth have been shut in the government’s thinking cage for too long and cannot find an exit,” he said.

Police monitored Dong after his release, telling him he could not go to Beijing and threatening him and his parents anytime he made WeChat posts that they deemed sensitive. “I feel that I have just moved from a smaller prison to a bigger one,” he said.

In the days before June 4 this year, he received multiple warnings to keep quiet. Yet he asked to tell his story with his real name. “We don’t need to use lies. We don’t need to hide. We haven’t done anything wrong,” he said.

The world should know of those being silenced every day in China, he said, even if their records at home are wiped away.

(This is the first in a series of occasional stories about the challenges the young face in an increasingly perilous world. Reporting for the series was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.)

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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