#meanwhile excusing every act of aggression against us as justified

[former-leftist-jew]

"Christa... I felt the same. That it would have been better if I was never born at all. The world hated me just for existing. To give countless joy to many people, I gave up my life. But - when I did, I wished from the bottom of my heart. If someday I was given a second chance at life... This time. I would live for no one but myself!"

Ymir (left), convincing her beloved Cyrsta (right) to stop lowkey throwing herself into suicide missions to please the society that openly wish she'd never been born... because Ymir has spent her whole life hating herself for being Jewish "Aldean."

I'll admit, when I first saw this scene in Attack on Titan, I cried for like an hour, and had to process it for like a day. This show understands what it's like to go from a self-hating Jew trying to "pass" as goy, to learning to love yourself and live for those you love, despite the people who want you dead, better than most media I could name.

[metabolizemotions]

II. The political game

Notes: in tags of that.

(forgot about spoiler feature. edited to shorten)

Dixon, Ross, Bishop, the union

Dixon was just vile. 

Bishop had the evidence. She felt vindicated. For all her preaching about the importance of rule-following in a paramilitary system, for her condemnation of Bishop for rule-breaking, for her shutting down of Bishop for her appeal regarding the injustice she was dealt in response to her support of BLM, Ross herself broke the rules. Ross did promote Sullivan when he did not earn it. Ross did have a romantic relationship with him. Ross did make him acting captain then. 

It was wrong to blackmail, no excuses. But Ross also did take revenge via Beckett. Bishop did endure months of workplace aggression after months of her career being suppressed, the culmination of all that triggering a mental breakdown. Meanwhile, the chief broke rules, has been enjoying a sexual relationship, and punished Bishop w/o getting her own hands dirty. An apathetic and incompetent man, impaired by his alcoholism, continued to be captain and continued making mistakes w/o consequences.  

The right thing for Bishop to do would actually be to report Ross to the union - the protocols Ross always preached about with fervor. She was not obliged to protect Ross and Sullivan. She did not owe Ross the respect she did not receive from her. She did not owe Sullivan the goodwill he did not return for having his back. She owed it to herself to be the bigger person. She owed it to Carina to be a better person. She chose not to become like those she was fighting against. She chose female solidarity and decency. She chose to fight Dixon, again.

The ball was in Ross’s court. 

In the short meeting, Bishop was not defensive nor vindictive. Nor did she feel schadenfreude at Ross’s predicament. She showed genuine regret for her actions. She was wracked with guilt over Cooper. She kept her cool when Ross was suspicious of her intentions. She later told Carina that Ross had every right to hate her. Even though Ross did not acknowledge that she broke the rules herself or she used Beckett to punish Bishop, indirectly causing her mental breakdown. Understandably, Ross was blindsided and mortified. 

But her meeting with the union again showed her hypocrisy. All she said about sexism was true. They somehow thought Dixon was justified in taking those photos cos she openly called him out on the truth. But she also impassionately defended herself when she forcefully shut down Bishop’s justified allegations. She was literally vibrating with anger when making the speech. 

Ross's complicity and responsibility        

She broke the rules and denied it. Bishop broke the rules and she did not officially report her to keep her secret under wraps. She didn’t actively handle the suspected addiction issue of one subordinate while passively causing the mental health crisis of another. If Beckett was liable for Cooper’s death, who was ultimately responsible?

Beckett’s conscious and continued decisions to haze Bishop, take sadistic pleasure in taunting her and pettily ignoring her despite her attempts to make peace? Bishop giving him alcohol in retaliation? Ross setting in motion the mutual destruction of two subordinates with mental health issues? Beckett’s white-knuckling through his withdrawals and performing even more sub-optimally at his job and putting his team and civilians in even more danger than he did on a good day? His clear knowledge of his problems with leadership and addiction and his repeated refusals to accept help from Herrera, Sullivan and Ross? The team’s lack of support of Bishop through her demotion? The team’s indifference to her bullying by Beckett and display of schadenfreude at her pain? The team’s resignation at Beckett’s apathy, incompetence and his other workplace aggressions - sexism, hostility and lack of respect for the team? Should Sullivan have tried harder to push him for AA meetings? Should Ross have insisted he enrolled in the department’s mental health program? What about the old boys’ club for putting and keeping the Becketts in positions of power and oppressing the Bishops for not toeing the sexist line?   

It was a convoluted web of systemic problems, collective behavior and personal choices culminating in the tragedy of Cooper’s death and the team’s “mutiny”. But the greater power a leader holds, the greater their responsibility and the greater the ramifications of their decisions.

Bishop, Ross, Beckett, Sullivan - winners and losers of the game

No doubt Bishop, Ross and Sullivan have had different experiences, in the world, or in the systems they work in. 

What Sullivan said about his experiences as a black man were true but when it suited him, he downplayed that aspect to benefit from the system. He wanted to persuade Dean to drop the lawsuit against PD in exchange for a promotion from Gregory. After both he and Dean were arrested when the police were abusing the black mother of the kidnapped girls. After saying he did not need to perform his pain so Bishop could feel better when she asked Diane to help them process their emotions after George Flyod’s murder. He used his previous experience of racial prejudice at another station to accuse Dean of discriminating against him, and making 19 uncomfortable for him. Dean called out his bs and how he preached about moral integrity in the academy but did not practice it. When McCallister said Bishop was cocky for leading the team for the BLM march, he only weakly opposed and turned around and went for her job instead of speaking up for her for standing up for his community. Like the other people in FD or PD who were on track for promotion so they toed the line.          

Same for Ross, as a WOC in military or FD. She told Herrera about how it took longer for her to climb up the ranks as a woman. But only when she was the one who faced FD’s sexism, she stood up to the system. 

If Sullivan was an “alpha” who found himself trapped below his station and tried desperately to climb back up, Beckett was a “beta” who found himself out of his depths but knew the political game well enough to protect his job. Sullivan believed he was better than everyone else and deserved better while Beckett was insecure and abused his subordinates. 

Beckett seemed to represent the mediocre white man who failed up and stayed where he was cos the system was overrun with people like him. Ross mentioned he dodged demotion a few times. Right from the start, he was a sexist and apathetic jerk who didn’t respect his team, enjoyed microaggressions to mocking to outright hazing. He did not make any real effort to earn the team’s trust and respect then whined that he shouldn’t bother cos nothing changed. He could not keep up with his more competent and driven subordinates so he suppressed them and used his authority to shut them up when concerns were raised. He was petty and vindictive. When Sullivan reported his suspicions about Beckett’s drinking on the job, and he passed the alcohol test, he took revenge by making an exhausted team who just finished eating run till Vic started puking. When Bishop tried to get her job back, he hazed her for months, including making her pick up the mints he spat onto the ground. 

Help was offered repeatedly by Sullivan, Andy and Ross. He knew he wasn’t well and couldn’t cope and refused help. He blackmailed Sullivan to not report him in exchange for his keeping quiet about him and Ross. Addiction is a disease but not seeking help was his fault. As a fire captain, he put his team and civilians in danger day in and day out. He also made conscious decisions to continuously create a hostile workplace and harassed his subordinate for months. He caused multiple near fatal accidents due to his negligence and inability to function fully. He waited till someone died on his watch and his team became so distrustful of him that they staged a “mutiny”. Only then did he seek help from his union rep who told him to check into rehab to protect his job and limit his liabilities. Yet he had the freedom to check out early and simply waltz back to his captain position if he so chose, and there were no repercussions of any of his actions whatsoever. 

Becket, Sullivan and Ross are older, and have seen more of the atrocities and the injustice. But sometimes they do also use these as reasons to excuse themselves when they make mistakes. At other times, they use a different standard to judge someone like Bishop and probably thought she must always have had it easier. When she was the one who used her privilege and power for the greater good and not abused it for her own benefit. Yet they are still on high horse and continue to be self-serving. They, like Dixon, know how to game the system. They use it against younger amateurs in the political game like Bishop who dared try to challenge their power.   

Everyone on the team is a flawed human who has made morally ambiguous decisions, broken rules or been mean and unreasonable. The external circumstances and internal mental states, causes and effects, actions and consequences, rights and wrongs, morals and ethics... Do we judge people by their worst or best or the sum total of their actions? Whether they feel regret? Whether they apologize? Whether they hold themselves accountable? Whether they make amends? Whether they try to do better?

Growth and leadership - Bishop, Herrera, Ross

I think everyone should be allowed the chance to grow. 

Even the chief. We saw Ripley more briefly, and as a more fully-formed and self-assured leader.

Bishop grew into her role as captain and earned the respect of the team. Her work ethic was drilled into her by Lane, for better or for worse. Carina's encouragement and support solidified her conviction to lead with heart. She used her power for good, to stand for what she believed in.

Herrera's confidence as a leader grew as she rose up to lead 23. I think Pruitt made her want to continue his legacy at 19 while Ross inspired her to see the possibility beyond that. Her leadership style is influenced by Pruitt - to treat the team as a family who care for each other and to challenge injustice. 

Ross is starting to see beyond the black-and-white of rule-abiding. Perhaps Herrera's encouragement would make her want to challenge the system more, for her own sake and hopefully for everyone else after. To not just remain a part of a broken system and enforce the rules on others but bend the rules for herself.

They can all learn from one another. Bishop and Herrera could learn Ross's political smarts while Ross could benefit from them, to learn to lead from the heart.

Bishop, Ross, Beckett, Sullivan - the different framing of their actions

I interpreted Ross awkwardly thanking Bishop later on as her being humbled by the experience and maybe even sort of an embarrassed apology. Also Bishop giving her the photos was her apology and later saying sorry again could be her reiterating her regret at her mistake and her sympathy for Ross's situation. I don’t think they will have a proper talk about all that has transpired b/w them. 

Towards Beckett, Bishop also did not harbor any resentment or hostility. On multiple occasions, she has shown her complicated feelings of regret and compassion. Beckett seemed to be sorry towards her too, since her hospitalization. During his apology, he seemed to be directing it at Bishop at the beginning.    

Warren’s impassioned speech about the system failing addicts in general was true but for FD, there were resources, like what was available to Beckett. Sullivan was injured on the job but he chose to hide his condition to protect his position and opted against surgery and chose to self-medicate. Even after excusing his stealing of schedule II narcotics and OD-ing on the job because he was in extreme pain, he chose to commit many more offenses to cover up. Including abusing his authority, gaslighting, threatening, coercing, colluding while using his past hardship to justify his mistakes and yelling at Ben for making him report himself after Vic confronted him about Dixon’s falsified reports. For him, it's the first instinct - intentional and cunning. He has to be cornered to question his morality and make the right decision.   

Bishop rallied the team to speak for him at his hearing. The team gave glowing remarks despite all that he did, partly for Herrera’s sake. But after Bishop broke protocol to save a boy’s life, the team was quiet, only Herrera stood up for her against McCallister. Even Miller, who told Gregory that 19 always put lives above protocol. Sullivan knew if the team talked to the press Bishop would probably have kept her job and 19 would be safe. But he offered himself to take over her instead and claimed it was to save 19. Warren asked Bishop to forgive Sullivan so that he himself would feel better. Gibson asked Bishop to do so cos the divorce with Andy was hard on Sullivan. The team was indifferent to Beckett’s bullying of her and even mocked her pain. Even Herrera, who knew what happened and was on good terms with Beckett, pleaded for Gibson and not Bishop.  

Bishop made mistakes but always owned up, took accountability and made amends instead of blaming her actions on her mental condition or circumstances. It was the opposite. She refused to admit that her dad was abusive, just like she pretended to be fine after months of Beckett's abuse. Her mental health crisis could not excuse her actions but when her mental fog cleared, she was plagued with guilt and regret. Taking morally ambiguous actions were not her modus operandi but a result of her tunnel vision to achieve her goals or reckless retaliation at injustice and tyranny. For her, it's the last resort - impulsive and unthinking. She made morally questionable decisions when she was cornered.  

Somehow in both cases with Ross and Beckett, I don't think the show would actually address anything more. I am not fully on board with this storyline of Ross as portraying feminism and female empowerment. It is a reframing of a personal offense as a systemic problem. Ross is not only a victim of sexism but also a perpetrator. Also, empowering one woman does not take away the disempowerment of another. That is not true feminism. 

There doesn’t seem to be true justice too when it comes to the writing. With Sullivan, they conflated his addiction with his personal offenses and framed it as a systemic problem. They are framing Beckett’s addiction that way too. When Bishop went against a systemic problem, they framed it entirely as her personal problem, even the workplace abuse inflicted on her. The system did not fail Sullivan; it failed Bishop. The team failed her too.

[arbenia]

The other day on the BBC news I saw a young, educated and eloquent Serbian woman speaking about the life of ordinary citizens under the NATO bombing. The Serbian citizens are afraid, she said. Normal life is more and more difficult. There are power cuts, and people are forced to go several days without access to the Internet. There is also a cigarette shortage. But yes, they are trying to live normally. They go to work, they shop, and they sit in cafes. Of course, the bombing turned the Serbian citizens against NATO, not against Slobodan Milosevic. After all, “bombs are dropping from the sky.”

Clearly, this young woman, like so many Serbs, does not want to understand that her country is at war. They still seem to be thinking, What has all this to do with me? I know this mechanism of denial, because I have seen it before. Serbs by and large ignored the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. It was always happening somewhere else, to somebody else, and they were not involved. It was the Serbian army, the police, the paramilitaries, but not them, the ordinary citizens. But now, when it is happening in Serbia and affecting all of them, they are still somehow surprised.

The young woman on TV used the expression “Serbian citizens,” but her use of this phrase suggested that these Serbian citizens are people struggling to maintain the normality of their daily lives. By “Serbian citizens” she evidently meant only Serbs. Others–that is, Albanians–are simply never mentioned in that context. Their problems are not addressed, by her or other Serbs. In the perception of ordinary Serbs, Albanians are not included in the category of Serbian citizen and therefore are absent from the language as well.

Why? The problem is that Serbs–or anyone else, for that matter–cannot identify with the suffering of others if they are not able to see them as equals. In Yugoslav society Albanians were never visible. There was no need to construct their “otherness”–as, for example, with Jews in prewar Germany or recently with Serbs in Croatia. The Albanians were never integrated into the country’s social, political and cultural life. They existed separately from us, barely visible people on the margins of our society, with their strange language that nobody understood, their tribal organization, blood feuds, different habits and dress. They were always underdogs. What was their place in the Yugoslav literature, in movies and popular culture? What famous Yugoslavs were Albanians? Because of that estrangement, not many voices were raised in protest during the past ten years, when Albanians in Kosovo lived practically under apartheid.

For the older generation, the only visible Albanians were people in white caps coming from Kosovo to their cities to cut wood in the winter. For my generation they were people selling ice cream all over Yugoslavia. They spoke our language with a funny accent and never could pronounce “lemonade” properly. They lived among us, but we chose to ignore them. If we did happen to notice them, we despised them, laughed at them, told jokes about them. I never had an Albanian friend in Zagreb. No one I knew married an Albanian. But the difference between Croats and Serbs was that Croats did not really have to deal with the Albanians; we had no Kosovo.

It was clear that they belonged to a different category from Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins or Slovenes. Serbs could even fight a war against Croats, but they never perceived each other in the same way they both perceive Albanians. The prejudice against Albanians can be compared to that against Jews or blacks or Gypsies in other cultures. Today every Serb will tell you that Albanians multiply like rabbits–that this is their secret weapon in the war they are waging against Serbs in Kosovo. This is not nationalism; this is more or less hidden racism.

The woman on the BBC the other day may be only an ordinary person, but there are other Serbs who should know better and who can’t use the excuse of innocence so easily. They are the people in the opposition. But all one hears from them is their lament about the destruction of democracy and civil society in Serbia. The NATO bombing is to them a savage attack, a terrible act of aggression against a sovereign state–they all use the language of Milosevic’s propaganda. There is “the other Serbia” they say, a better Serbia of the brave people who fought Milosevic all along.

Surely there is another Serbia that will surface once Milosevic is gone. And surely everyone can understand that opposition people are afraid now. One is tempted, however, to ask, Exactly what opposition, what civil society, what “other Serbia” are we talking about? The one that for more than a decade was not able to produce a democratic alternative to Milosevic? The one that never established contacts with Albanians from Kosovo in order to work together for the common future of both nations? If the opposition, political as well as intellectual, ever had anything in common with Milosevic, it was in its attitude toward Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians were a litmus test for the opposition all these years, and they always failed it. Now they are engulfed in self-pity.

An open letter from Vladimir Arsenijevic, a young Serbian writer of some renown, circulating on e-mail, is a striking example of this invisibility of Albanians. In his answer to a friend from Zagreb, who reproached Serbs for their lack of remorse over the situation of the Albanians, he wrote: “On account of lack of pity for the fate of Kosovo Albanians, I know (from my own experience–and I know that I have no bad feelings whatsoever directed toward anybody, least of all Albanians) that it is very hard to care about somebody else’s problems if you are personally experiencing major problems of your own at the same moment. There is no favoritism in this society. Everybody is too busy surviving here to be able to feel any remorse…. Remorse is a privilege of the well-nourished, clean and civilized. And we are all Albanians here. All of us: Serbs, Montenegrins, Hungarians, Slovaks…. Poor, underfed, degraded, oppressed. And I mean ALL of us, even those who have supported Milosevic with all their heart through all these years of terrible hell.”

There is something almost obscene in this sudden “visibility” of Albanians, in the Serbs’ desire to achieve the status of victim through this kind of identification. Albanians remain an abstraction, an empty notion with no real substance, used solely as a means of adding visibility to Serbian suffering, thus denying the Albanian identity once more. I can see this young writer sitting at his computer (there must have been no shortage of power then) in his Belgrade apartment: He sends his e-mail letter, checks the latest war information on the Internet and goes to bed. Meanwhile, his Albanian counterpart, with whose suffering he identifies so much, sits in a tent somewhere in Albania or stands in the mud, waiting to cross the Macedonian border. His house is burned down, his computer–if he ever had one–has been taken by Serbian paramilitaries and he doesn’t know where his family is.

If the young writer considers himself an Albanian, why is he not fleeing to Macedonia or Albania as well? How cynical–or young or innocent or perhaps stupid–do you have to be to say that? It is as grotesque as if the Germans, after World War II, had said, “We were all Jews.” After all, had they not suffered occupation, bombardment, rationing?

The writer means to say that if the Serbs are victims, then how can they possibly have anything to do with the responsibility for this war? Or for the Milosevic regime? War goes deeper than bombardment, and the more we pretend it doesn’t concern us, the more it invades us. War is destructive of the human soul. It corrodes human beings, bringing out things we didn’t know about ourselves. And when he says that remorse is a privilege of civilized people, he puts himself and his nation on the level of people without pity. He is justifying the inhumanity of his people, and that is terrible.

This is what the war is doing to the young writer. But like the woman on the BBC, as well as ordinary people and opposition intellectuals, he is not able to realize that. Precisely this denial, blindness, unconscious racism and cruelty toward other human beings, this lack of remorse (but no lack of self-pity!), is what war is doing to Serbs, and it is much more devastating than NATO bombs. Living with Milosevic’s regime and the war for so long takes its toll. It has changed Serbs in the past ten years, and the rest of the world is witnessing this only now, still puzzled and bewildered by it. It is hard to understand that our acquaintances, our lovers, drinking buddies, philosophers, our once dear friends, are different people. It is even harder to understand that they themselves let that change happen.

`(Slavenka Drakulic, a Croatian-born author, is a Nation contributing editor. Her latest book is A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism.)

[weerd1]

Star Trek DS9 Rewatch Log, Stardate 1909.01: Missions Reviewed, “Doctor Bashir, I presume,” “A Simple Investigation,” “Business as Usual,” and “Ties of Blood and Water.”

“Doctor Bashir, I Presume” opens with Rom failing to ask Leeta out…again, much to her chagrin. Meanwhile, Chief and Bashir are playing darts when they are approached by Dr. Zimmerman from Starfleet medical, who plans to use Julian as a template for a new long term medical hologram. Zimmerman is brash, but Julian plays along until he hears Zimmerman will interview his parents.  

Bashir earnestly asks Zimmerman not to, prompting him to immediately invite Richard and Amsha Bashir to the station. Julian is not happy, and begs them not to reveal “our secret.” Meanwhile Zimmerman is taken with Leeta, and not only asks her to dinner but arranges for her to take a job on Jupiter Station where she will manage her own café. Rom wishes her well, still to shy to try and stop her. Bashir’s parents find him in the infirmary and apologize, telling him they will never reveal that he was genetically enhanced as a child. After they leave, it turns out to have been the hologram, and both O’Brien and Zimmerman have heard the confession. Bashir laments to his parents how selfish they were that because he was a slow child falling behind that they had to have him illegally enhanced as to avoid embarrassment. Amsha tells him it had nothing to do with shame, and that they loved him too much to watch him suffer due to his disability. Bashir plans to turn himself in, but his father confesses, and trades two years in a penal colony for Bashir continuing his career. As Zimmerman and Leeta plan to leave, Rom catches them at the shuttle door and confesses his love for Leeta, who overjoyed tells him she loves him too. 

Bashir and O’Brien play darts, and when Chief wins for the fifth time he suspects maybe the genetically enhanced Bashir is throwing the game. He tells Julian not to hold back. Julian throws three bullseyes. O’Brien decides the Doctor needs to play from a line farther from the dart board.

This episode really brings a lot of earlier inconsistencies together for Bashir- why he threw away a pro tennis career, why he threw away his shot at valedictorian, why he refused to visit or acknowledge his parents back in the episode were Odo offered to check in and he said “there’s no one there I want to see.” Interestingly enough, as much as all of this starts to make sense now, this was an almost last minute decision on the writers’ parts. Even better is how they will play forward.  Interesting that Earth brought such a fear of genetic manipulation with them into the Federation after the Eugenics War. Almost four centuries later and they still insist against it. Also nice to see Rom and Leeta finally come together. They are a fun, unexpected couple, and always adorable.

“A Simple Investigation” starts with two thugs vaporizing a man in his quarters and then going to find the woman that man was supposed to meet. Odo actually finds her not knowing she may be involved in anything, and is somewhat taken with her; later she tries to use a cybernetic enhancement to break into his computer.

 He questions her and she initially gives him a story about trying to find a missing daughter, but he soon finds she is carrying a data crystal that might belong to a mobster in the Orion Syndicate. He puts her under protection, hiding her in his quarters, and they soon have to admit they have feelings for one another. They share an intimate evening, and she decides to reach out to the vile gangster to return the crystal, making a deal to meet his thugs. When she is on her way, a policeman from her home planet arrives, revealing she too is law enforcement and so far deep cover in the Syndicate they have removed her memories, storing them on the crystal she is about to trade for her life. The thugs of course plant to kill her, but Odo intercedes. When her memories return, she remembers she has a husband, but tells Odo he will always have a place in her heart.

Trek takes on a noir thriller with a femme fatale for Odo in this one, and it’s OK. I’m not sure I buy Odo becoming so enthralled so quickly, but it is fun to see weird little bits of gossip—and perhaps jealousy—from Kira about the newcomer. 

Odo choosing to become intimate has a shapeshifter raises questions I’m not sure I really want answers to, but he seems to make it work. The mind boggles.

“Business as Usual” for Quark as he is going broke. He is deep in debt when Cousin Gaila, the arms dealer who once tried to kill Quark, has a proposition.  They will sell arms, but none of the real weapons will enter the station. They will use Quark’s high resolution holosuites to demonstrate, but all the sales will happen outside Federation space.

 Sisko is furious, but none of it is technically illegal. Particularly when Quark’s main contact, Hagath, turns out to have sold weapons to the Bajoran resistance, and the government owes him a favor. Starfleet, even Dax, begins to shun Quark, who keeps trying to make excuses why it is ok. Quark can’t justify it anymore when one of Hagath’s new customers is specifically looking for weapons to allow him to kill about 28 million people. Quark decides to invite the leader of the other side of that contract to negotiations as well, and when they start shooting, negotiations are over. 

Sisko confronts Quark, as now the Regent who wanted the weapons is dead, but Quark mentions that 28 million people won’t miss him. Sisko concedes it may be 28 million and one; he still bills Quark for the damage to the cargo bay.

I am always a sucker for a Quark episode, and finally getting to meet Cousin Gaila, who really is a smarmy sort.  Also neat to get a guest appearance here from classic noir actor Lawrence Tierney as the Regent. We last him saw playing true to his film roots in the TNG episode “The Big Goodbye” where he was a fictional mob boss.  Certainly more frightening as a genocidal ruler then a holographic gangster. Interesting to see this season play a little more with what holographic technology would be capable of between the holo communicators, an long term holo-doctor, and  holographic arms deals as demonstration.

In “Ties of Blood and Water,” Cardassian Legate Ghemor, whom we last saw when Kira was kidnapped and altered to look like his daughter, comes to the station at Kira’s request to act as head of the legitimate Cardassian government in exile while the Dominion “occupation” goes on.  

Ghemor is very glad to see Kira, but tells her he is not the right man to lead Cardassia from afar- he has a terminal disease and will be dead soon. When Dukat gets wind of Ghemor being on the station, he calls to demand extradition, but Sisko reminds him that The Dominion has not bothered to negotiate any diplomatic niceties with the Federation or Bajor.  Kira agrees as “daughter” to listen to and be with Ghemor as he dies, allowing her to collect a great deal of knowledge about the Cardassian government as it now stands. This experience does remind her of her own father’s death, when he was wounded by Cardassians.  She chose to hunt down those who did it rather than stay with her father while he died. Dukat arrives at DS9 to demand Ghemor, and brings with him the Vorta Weyoun, whom Sisko had watched die back in season 4. He reveals the Vorta are a series of clones, and the new Weyoun is just as conniving as the last.

 Dukat brings information to Kira revealing that Ghemor was responsible for a massacre of monks during the occupation, after which Kira refuses to see him. Odo, and then Bashir admonish Kira, mentioning that Ghemor would have done this when he was 19, and how he has put himself on a different path to redeem those actions.  Kira is forced to acknowledge that as with her father, she was looking for an excuse not to be there when he died, and chooses to return to Ghemor, taking him to the end. When he dies, Dukat wants to take the body back to Cardassia where they will reveal that Ghemor recanted his opposition to the Dominion in his final hours and give him a hero’s burial. Sisko refuses as Kira has already taken Ghemor to Bajor where she buries him with her parents.

A very intense episode for Nana Visitor and Major Kira. There is a certain realism to a character who can meet death on a battlefield every day, but can’t sit with it when it comes for a loved one slowly. Visitor plays the sadness and misplaced aggression perfectly, and really delivers at the end of the episode as she has to put what she has done into perspective. Just a great performance. And of course we get Weyoun back here! Apparently, the Vorta as clones was never a consideration until they decided they just had to get Jeff Combs back as Weyoun despite the character’s death.  Good decision, and with hindsight, I am very much looking forward to at least three more Weyoun deaths.

NEXT VOYAGE: Quark and Rom’s mom has a new boyfried…the Grand Nagus? Can you hear “Ferengi Love Songs”?

[outlyingthoughts]

Trapped in a carnival: Feb 19

According to the Oxford reference definition, a carnival is : “a social expression that often subverts and parodies the conventions of society. Such subversion, parody, and satire, when applied to other realms of everyday life such as literature, is sometimes called ‘carnivalesque’. It exposes and mocks the flawed practices and decrees of officialdom”.

Costumed festivities are and have been a recurrent pattern in innumerable cultures across the globe. Whether it is the Catholic carnival or the Halloween tradition in the english-speaking world (derived from the pageant celebrations of the Gaelic Samhain Eve festival), it appears that costuming is part of basic human traditions and behaviors, regardless of cultures, ages and places.

Couples days ago, my friends and I were about to attend a themed party (basic human behavior remember?). Angels and demons. After agreeing that we’d go all together, we quickly started to rack our brains, trying to figure out how we would dress up for the event and we settled for matching outfits.

A friend and I ended up twinning as demons, both of us wearing bodysuits with coordinated colors. red and black. Hellish colors for what we expected would be hell of a night. But when I got my bodysuit out of the mail, questions were raised. As I tried it on for the first time with two friends, one had a knee-jerk reaction to it, stating that it was a lot and that she wouldn’t be comfortable wearing it. The other one’s opinion was in between, liking the outfit but also unsure about the revealing features of the bodysuit.

Revealing, indeed it was. A red laced V-neck, leaving little room for mystery. And even though questions started to build up into a debate within my styling crew (isn’t that what friends are?) on whether I should pull it off or not, one part of me was clinging onto the idea of wearing it. As I slipped into the bodysuit, I also slipped into the character, making me out of the sudden both emboldened and confident. Frustrating it would have been to not wear it.

Women bodies have always been pointed out as fruits of sin, and this idea is somehow anchored in most of human cultures for a reason I still haven’t figured out. As early as the metaphor of Adam and Eve, women have been branded with the symbolism of temptation but also as temptations themselves. We have been directed by patriarchal society to hide our bodies, one way or another, and throughout history to remain pure: putting on us men’s faults, weaknesses and inability to control their desires and blaming the victims.

As much as desires are also part of basic human behaviors, they are also a peculiar craft of our own. Shaped and reshaped during our entire socialization, they are mirrors molded in the cultures we live in. Human desires are inherently artificial, they are not biological needs and are rarely fulfilled for the sake of specie survival.

Thus the idea of lack of agency regarding one’s desires and the debate on one’s responsibility over her/his desire is a crucial concept. Researches have been and are still conducted to analyze the human brain and its reactions. The results of the first studies of that kind had serious legal implications as law solely relies on them to prove that humans are physically able to control their desires, thus legally binding them for their voluntary and conscious choice to commit an offense or a crime in the pulse of a desire. Such studies highlighted the fact, that it is possible for any mentally healthy human to control its desires and react to them according to her/his will.

Based on this, the almost automatic societal response consisting in blaming male’s lack of control and agency towards their sexual desire over women’s behavior and appearance comes as a proof of the normalization of what I consider a deviant behavior that men are socialized to interpret as normal or at least something they shouldn’t be held responsible for. Funnily enough, throughout history, those same men claimed that women had no will of their own and thus shouldn’t study, vote, work on their own, meaning shouldn’t be responsible of their own lives. For centuries, we have been handled by our fathers, husbands or literally any chromosome Y bearing person on earth, the very same that are rarely held accountable for their abnormal desire-led behaviors while putting a stereotype of irresponsibility on women.

Without meaning to, my red laced top was thrown in the middle of an everlasting debate: should I censor myself or be blamed for other people’s voluntary sexualization of my body ? A lot of weight on the shoulders of an eighteen years old girl who just wanted to party with her friends. As one part of me craved to rock my very own forbidden fruit as I felt enbolded in it and it had been praised by all my very feminist and politically aware friends, the other part of me held all the negative remarks, feeling guilty just at the thought of wearing it, as it would make me the prey of male gaze. If I listened to the remarks I got, by dressing up in such ways I’d justify or worst encourage the behavior I was denouncing earlier. To sum up, I’d become another blamable temptation. This highlights how we still live in a patriarchal society in which the rape culture is still a burning reality, where sexualizing women’s bodies regardless of the context or their intent is still the norm.

After dwelling on whether I should or not wear it, I went against my doubts and decided that I’d wear it for several reasons. Firstly, I know for a fact that if you are going to be sexually harassed or aggressed, the way you dress is just a mere excuse for the aggressor. Hiding behind clothes branded as « safe » isn’t 1) a solution for the societal issue behind the debate 2) going to prevent the person whose mind is set on agressing you from agressing you. It simply strips you from your freedom to dress accordingly to your own will, and that is a fundamental freedom for women. That day, I decided to not let male gaze or any normative patriarchal discourse prevent me from exercising this freedom that has been given to me through the fights of generations and generations of women.

As for the “reputation” side of dressing up in such ways, I sent out to our main groupchat the following text: «so I’m gonna go like that (insert picture) to Angel and Demons, so if you wanna gossip about it, you can start now, because people will see my nipples and I don’t care, if anyone pisses me off, I’ll tell them not to look at me, it’s not my problem if people choose to sexualize a part of my body that is not sexualized on men». I did not want to let slut-shaming get in my way, and quite frankly it’s 2019, if you put words and meaning behind appearances and acts, there is little harm possible to your “reputation”. Everybody understood and accepted my decision, my incentives were praised and others girls told me they had also decided to dress up in -what could be branded- a “scandalous” way. Being mainly surrounded by male friends that are aware of how flawed our society is in terms of sexism and aspire to participate along the side of women in the making of new norms, they also supported my choice of wearing my red bodysuit and I was, then, 200% sold.

From the moment I posted that text until the day of the event, everything went great, people might have been bad mouthing me but for all I knew and I cared, my friends supported me and the party turned out to be a fun event and we danced the night away. I don’t know if it is that I’m surrounded by an amazing community or that I simply got lucky, but no one harmed me, looked at me intensely in that threatening sexual manner that too many of us know. I tried to limit the spread on social media of pictures from that night to websites where I could control them. Yet to be honest, as soon we accept to take pictures or go out in our everyday life, we accept that anyone can find, keep and spread later images of us in public spaces. This bodysuit debate made me come up with a guideline of only wearing and doing things I would and will still be ok with being seen and posted in a twenty years time. This oversharing and ineffaceability that characterizes the internet created something that most of my friends and I have integrated. Living in an overconnected world and planning to have thriving careers, we owe it to our success to own and control every single word, act and image of us that could be, in this digital age, used against us.

But here again, I would willingly show these pictures to my children, and if I ever get lucky enough I’d be proud to explain my decision of wearing such revealing piece of clothing to who ever would try to minimize my professional legitimacy or who I am to a simply piece of scarlet lace. Because that is something that needs to be reiterated, the world has to stop associating women’s worth to their appearance. I find it increasingly shocking as days pass by that a woman can be denigrated on the basis of her clothing only because people have crossed boundaries and sexualized parts of her body regardless of whether she meant or not to sexualize her outfit. I could go on and on about Instagram’s policy regarding the ban women’s nipple while male nipples are seen as non harming to/by the Instagram community, or even something as innocent as hairstyles in the professional life (the fact that black women are often facing troubles within the corporate context because most of our natural hairstyles are considered to be unprofessional or unfit to someone holding a high position in hierarchy): it appears that women’s bodies have been institutionalized as a danger to human kind requiring to be tamed or hidden.

Meanwhile, few days after the Angels and Demons night, one of my relatives called me, fuming after seeing pictures from the party. He said he was ashamed of me, of seeing me dressed up like this, in a way he considered indecent.

But whether it is or not indecent, little do I care. The problem with “indecency” or such terms is that they are socially constructed and vary according to time periods and cultures. One part of me has understood through socialization that indeed nudity or partially nudity is indecent/deviant, abnormal/illegal in public, which makes me understand his point of view and shock, but then another other one looks at #freethenipple movements and many others, that argue that what makes women’s breasts or part of them indecent today is the tradition of blatant sexualization of women’s bodies throughout ages. In my relative’s argumentation, it appeared that a huge part of the issue to him was the vision people would have of me, that men already “disrespect women but that it’d be worst” if people associated me to that lacy scandal. He professed that I’d only meet ‘bad men’ and have a bad reputation if I kept up with that attitude.

And I was shook to my very core.

There was something extremely primitive and backward to his arguments. While I could understand his views on decency, the fact that he supported them using patriarchal clichés, implying that if I hooked up with men and dressed in a provocative way, I could/would only be passivily used by men. Through his speech, he took from me any kind of control over my sexuality or room for my own desires as he was describing the “consequences” of appearing in public in such ways.

This made me realize how women’s desires are often suppressed or disregarded from mainstream discourses and ideas but also the way I was educated by my atheist so-called progressive left leaning family. Within my family context, female sexuality was solely addressed in the context of informing us about sexual reproduction -which I already feel very lucky I received because there is an unbelievable number of women on earth who are not taught about their own selves, thus lacking of any resources to learn how to protect themselves and their sexual life-. But never has any adult throughout my teenage years addressed what pleasure was. Not in sex ed class, not in a family talk on sexuality, never.  The thing is that along with not owning the sexualization of our bodies or the link between our reputations and appearance, society also expected us to be hidden whores. You’re expected to meet patriarchal expectations, be a sexual being (remember our bodies throw men “out of control and responsibility”!) but you can’t explore it on your own  (outside of a normative heterosexual monogamous exclusive relationship) without being discredited, stigmatized as being a slut or deviant.

As such my relative was afraid that my reputation as a woman (supposed to have standards) would be jeopardiwed because I’d be associated with a provocative piece of clothing suggesting that I’m not a hidden whore but an public one. It felt like he thought I couldn’t afford to not be respectable based on men judgement and standards. Then he suggested that my outfits would increase the chances of me of getting raped or sexually harassed and it felt like he was just re-assessing the entire sexist dynamic of our society: instead of normalizing women’s ability to dispose of and expose their body in the way they want to, it just slut-shames them into covering their body parts.

By saying that he was ashamed, he associated my clothing to a certain type of behavior that he then judged and shamed. Adding to the fact that it is inherently wrong to “judge a book by its cover”, it just shows how even people that know you rarely dissociate people from their appearances and tend to easily forget your initial worth when they interpret negatively the symbolism in your clothing. As he normalized through his discourse the minimization of women to their appearance and legitimized through his meant-to-be educational advices that women are treated and seen as if they were as shallow as the layers they coat themselves into, I felt hurt. Without meaning to, he still suggested that I was acting like a whore. As hurt as I was, still I knew.

I knew that I had slipped into my stigmatizing scarlet bodysuit just the time of a night and I wouldn’t let myself become my carnival costume. And so no matter how bad I felt, I decided that I’d keep on dressing up the way I wanted to. One day this relative might tell me off again and I’ll tell him: I won’t reduce all my intelligence, experiences, dreams and expectations to the way I appear to people that are -sorry if I cross anyone- stupid enough to judge me only in the context of a themed party and choose to ignore the multiple layers a human being can have.

[practicingprose]

If I Was A (White) Boy

I vividly recall my 18th birthday. My senior prom was the night before and I was doing my “grown man” thing. That morning, my friend [Chase] hit me up to hang out. Before I pulled up on him, I bought a cheap cigar just to say I could. He gets the bright idea to go to Cracker Barrel. At the time, both he and his girlfriend worked there. His plan was to leave her a little love letter in the car. Simple enough....and then the cops got called.

What I wouldn’t have given back then for the benefit of the doubt. “They might not be causing trouble. It is Sunday, the busiest day at this restaurant during the post-church rush...Can’t nobody be THAT stupid.” But, nah.

That’s what makes it so interesting to see that way certain young men are coddled and protected. No matter the damage they’ve done or how old they are, they are to be helped -- not held responsible. 

So when Brock Turner rapes a woman, he gets months in jail because they wouldn’t want a rape conviction to sully his future. 

When Billy McFarland scams millions out of people, her’s still considered a “kid” and given a chance to defend himself. 

When a crowd of kids surrounds a Native elder, we see the narrative shift from their aggressive behavior to the Black Israelites who had previously riled them up. No mention at all about any of the group -- who were there counter protesting against the Women’s March -- and their rowdy behavior even before the stand off. We’re given every reason to excuse their fangs. We’re told that dog don’t bite. And now this boy is trying to profit from his actions by suing publications for portraying him as a racist. 

The Washington Post should be more responsible for his portrayal than he should.

Throughout time, there have been thousands hundreds of thousands millions countless examples of the disparity of judgement of white males and black males. 

Black preschoolers were 3.6x more likely to be suspended than their white counterparts. A study released by the Government Accountability Office last year found that although black students made up only 15.5% of the student population, but accounted for 39% of students suspended from school.

Students with learning disabilities or histories of poverty, neglect, or abuse are particularly vulnerable to removal-style discipline that leads to the "school to prison pipeline," according to the American Civil Liberties Union, a national trend wherein "children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems."

Why can waves of white boys crowd and surround this elder and these “aggressive men they were so afraid of” and be seen as children when black boys can’t walk in groups of 4 or more in the mall?

Why are MAGA hats -- which are quickly becoming seen as kindling to an everlasting ember -- allowed to be displayed so prominently, but ordinances get passed just so I have to pull my pants up?

Whenever a white man commits a crime, he’s always depicted in the press as a really nice person who no one knew had this dark side. Or they snapped. This is often despite countless people who had gone on record with concerns. Sometimes, they have a long record of offenses overlooked or played off. We’ve seen this with the terrorists -- let’s call it what it truly is -- in Las Vegas,  Sutherland Springs, Parkland, Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh and Santa Fe.

This isn’t even unique to America. It’s been less than 48 hours after the mosque massacres in New Zealand, we have sympathetic articles being written about the shooter by the Daily Mirror -- a tabloid in London. Stark contrast to their coverage of the Pulse shooter in Orlando:

Meanwhile, black boys and girls shot dead by anyone* don’t even get to grow cold before their names and images are torn apart by the media and racists worldwide -- those both unrepentant and “unknowingly” [wink wink]. The fear of some big black person attacking you is often seen as stronger than the need to uphold “the law.”  

*[Ed. Note: One day we need to have a conversation about how white vigilantism ranging from Permit Patty to Zimmerman levels stem from their inability to mind their own business.]

It happened with Oscar Grant. Trayvon Martin. Jordan Davis. Michael Brown. Dontre Hamilton. Sandra Bland. Tamir Rice. John Crawford III. Ezell Ford. Laquan McDonald. Akai Gurley. Jereme Reid. Renisha McBride. Charley Leundeu Keunang. Tony Robinson. Anthony Hill. Meagan Hockaday. Eric Harris. Walter Scott, Freddie Gray. William Chapman. Samuel DuBose. Jeremy McDole. Jamar Clark. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. Joseph Mann. Paul O'Neal. Korryn Gaines. Sylville Smith. Terence Crutcher. Keith Lamont Scott. Alfred Olango. Deborah Danner. 

We say the names because these people should forever be remembered. 

Walter Scott’s Killer got 20 years. Laquan McDonald’s got 6.75 years. Mans who shot Oscar Grant did like 7 months. That’s it. The people are currently awaiting the sentencing of Nouman Raja, the officer who killed Corey Jones as he was waiting for a tow truck on the side of the road. Raja was not uniformed when he approached Jones at 3am. Raja claimed that Jones pointed a gun at him before he fired. This was disputed by the fact that Jones was on the phone with with roadside assistance when the officer approached unannounced.

Even with all of that evidence, it wasn’t a slam dunk that there would be a conviction in the case. Many police officers are exonerated when being investigated by their peers. They’ve got to present a unified front. These then become the cats who get fat and take pride in the system they’re perpetuating. Remember when the Fraternal Order of Police in California sang a song shitting on Mike Brown at a fundraiser? 

Look at the list of names again. How many never made it past grand jury? Isn’t it crazy that the police perform more due diligence to plan for the civil unrest after no conviction than they do during the investigation? How many names not listed here have been lost throughout history because of the justice system we can now see isn’t protecting all of us everywhere?

“Why all of the attitude against police officers?”

I don’t know, officer. Maybe he knows. He knows that had he been someone else, he would be home right now. He knows that despite what you’re saying to both he and his mother, you’re not just “doing your job.” Perhaps there are some actual violent crimes that the Violent Crimes Unit could be investigating. Mans went to the store for a slushie and got handcuffed for an improper turn?

There’s something to be said about the fact that it’s being done so blatantly yet people refuse to address these issues. Why do you think it’s so important to control the internet? Or that shaming people talking about issues is where we’re at as a society. There are two realities in America and when attention is brought to an issue, it’s called “racebaiting.” FOH. How do we engage in a dialogue about things we’re choosing not to discuss? When has an out of sight, out of mind approach ever fixed an issue?

That’s what’s got us to this point -- where the people being oppressed are being told that everything is fine by those doing the oppressing. And everyone else is on the fringe dancing along to the beat. People automatically believe that people who look like them act like them. They’re able to extend those people the benefit of the doubt. “I wouldn’t behave that way, so I know he wouldn’t behave that way.”

Remember that young girl who sued the University of Texas over their Affirmative Action policy? I wonder how she feels that the entire time she was looking at black people being the reason she didn’t get into school...whole time, the actual culprit was people with deeper pockets who looked just like her? 

But somehow this will be overlooked. Another week in this high speed newscycle and this will become a joke to some. Those are the people far removed from single mothers being jailed just for trying to get their children into better schools. Somehow one of those is a justifiably incarcerable offense. The other...the verdict is still out. But something makes me think that money, fame and influence will play a factor.

The rich are buying their underachieving children’s way into elite schools and high society networks while others are busy trying to protect their kids from the school-to-prison pipeline. 

This is America. There are definitely two sides.

[shiningamongdarkness]

Chapter 27. Night without nightmares

Shining among Darkness

By WingzemonX

Chapter 27 Night without nightmares 

The night before his little adventure in Oregon, Cody Hobson was at Lisa Mathews' house. They had a light dinner cooked by her and drank only half a glass of wine because the next day they had to work. Soon after that, they went to the room and made love slowly and delicately, without any pressure or rush.

 As a lover, Cody considered himself average. He hoped that his lack of initiative or assertive behavior was compensated for by his dedication and attention to detail. Most of the time, it was difficult for him to be sure about this since Lisa tended to be somewhat silent during the act. However, when he felt her slender legs tightly around his hip, and her fingers gripping his hair violently, then he could be sure he was doing a good job, and that gave him much more confidence and freedom. That night, Lisa just did that, a couple of minutes before they reached a quiet, pleasant climax together.

 They had met a little less than a year ago, at a dinner in honor of a veteran professor of Biological Sciences who taught at the University of Washington, and with whom Cody had begun to build a friendship almost since he first came to Seattle. Lisa was a biochemist and worked in the research laboratory of a very important pharmaceutical company. She was also studying for her Ph.D., where she took a class with that professor, so she was therefore invited to the same dinner. The professor, whose last name was Carman, had introduced them to each other without any particular reason except that "I had the feeling that the two of you would get along very well ." Some time later, and looking back on how things had ended after that moment, Cody would wonder if something of shining had to do with that feeling. But, in the end, he concluded that it had been merely good luck.

 Or at least, it was initially good luck without a doubt.

 Lisa was modest in appearance, with a slim body, curly black hair, and flirty freckles on her face. Anyone would say that she was not precisely gorgeous and, in fact, she could easily pass for the classic girl who spent her college years nailed solely to her studies, with her thick-framed glasses, her teenage acne scars, or his somewhat withdrawn attitude. At least during a first approach. But for Cody, she almost immediately became the real example of how beautiful, attractive, and sensual a woman could be, inside and out.

 In the beginning, everything was perfect. Light dinners, comedy and romance movies, talk about biology, biochemistry, or any other random subject that had little or nothing to do with their works... And sex; sex was definitely something special, despite those moments when the young high school teacher pressed himself to play a proper role.

 Cody had never consciously considered the possibility of being in love. In fact, they had never used the words boyfriend and girlfriend, at least not between them. Still, he was sure there was something special between the two of them, and he knew it was the same for Lisa. But Cody also knew that it wouldn't last forever, and sooner or later, something would come up that would end up causing trouble. That something began to emerge a month ago. Since then, those small moments that previously were so comforting and pleasant for him ended up becoming almost like Russian roulette, in which this subject could or could not come to the surface. And Lisa still hadn't reacted explosively to it; it was usually more like a cold silence.

 At the moment, Cody was sitting on the edge of the bed, buttoning his shirt. Lisa meanwhile rested reclining and wrapped in her bed cover with her head resting on the bulky pillow.

 "You're leaving now?" She had asked him as soon as he stood up, putting him on alert.

 "I have classes tomorrow," he replied, although perhaps more cutting than he really wanted.

 After that, Lisa remained in reflective silence. And for a moment, Cody thought he might be well off that time. He would finish dressing, take his wallet and cell phone, give her a sweet kiss on the forehead, and let her rest peacefully until the next day.

 But it was not like that.

 "Why don't you stay tonight?" Lisa asked slowly, pulling her head away from the pillow just enough to see his back. Cody froze. "The school is closer to here than to your house on the outskirts."

 Cody remained silent, his fingers paralyzed in the previous position to button his last buttons. He breathed slowly and gradually tried to continue his work.

 "It would be rather strange if I go with the same clothes I wore today," he commented in a tone that was trying to be funny, but he was sure it hadn't sounded quite like that.

 "Children don't notice what clothes their teachers wear," Lisa replied, sitting up completely, exposing her slim torso and small pink breasts. "And even if it were, it is not as if you were some adulterer cheating on his wife."

 "I suppose not. But I don't have my toothbrush here, and I have to get up earlier than you. I'd hate to have to force you to lose that couple of hours of sleep because of me."

 "How considerate," she muttered in a sarcastic, almost aggressive tone, just before she rested her head back on the pillow.

 Cody was silent for a few moments as he perceived that feeling of rejection spring from her words for the first time. Perhaps it was indeed the first time he had heard it, but he was sure that it had not arisen spontaneously at that moment. For some time ago, he had been able to feel it germinate and grow little by little, with each moment similar to that which had arisen.

 He could, as on past occasions, withdraw and leave things like that, hoping that by tomorrow she would have forgotten everything, and it usually happened. But sooner or later, that would no longer be so; denying that would be stubbornness from his part.

 The teacher sighed heavily and stood up from the bed. His shirt was buttoned but stripped, and he was still missing his socks and shoes that rested on the rug to one side.

 "Hey... listen," he started to say in a somewhat uncertain tone, "it's not what you think..."

 "What do I think?" Lisa murmured with blunt coldness, turning her head back to look at him as best she could. "That you are treating me like I'm your prostitute?"

 "It isn't like that…"

 "The first time I asked you, I thought maybe I had crossed a line too soon. But we have been together for almost a year now, and you have no qualms about sex, but it seems like I am pointing a gun at you every time I ask you to stay here, or me at your house. You even made up I don't know how many excuses for not joining me at Thanksgiving."

 "Lisa…"

 "If I hadn't already been to your house, I would think you were married."

 "I'm not married."

 "I know. No matter..."

 She settled her head back on the pillow, in an apparently comfortable way, and closed her eyes as she wanted to fall asleep. It was not as such what she wanted, Cody was sure. It was more a way to give a point to her angry speech, in case it was not clear.

 Seeing this situation from the outside must have seemed even somewhat comical. Of all the different problems a couple could have, was not sleeping together really that serious? Perhaps in the short term, no one would think so. But at a point, at a point when one of them wanted to go a step further, to go deeper into what intimacy with the other could offer, little by little, it could create small friction that could end up creating a significant crack.

 Cody did not know if the crack had already formed, or were only the first signs of its arrival.

 He took a step toward her, but he really wasn't able to move any further. What could he say to justify himself? The secret reasons that led him to have that attitude were so hard to explain, and even more to understand. How could he subject her to something like this when he sometimes envied her ignorance?

 Timely or not, considering the moment, his phone, laying on the bureau on the side of the bed, began to ring incessantly accompanied by the sound of vibrating against the flat wooden surface. He looked for a moment at Lisa, whose only action was to turn to his other side to turn her back to the cell phone, and perhaps, therefore, to him. Then Cody slowly approached the phone and checked its screen. It was an unknown number, although not really. It was because he had not yet saved it in his contacts, but not because he had received some calls from the same number several days before. However, he had not answered any at the time.

 Cody answered immediately and held the phone close to his right ear.

 "Hello?" He murmured slowly, almost as if he really feared to wake Lisa if he raised his voice too much.

 "Cody, hello," Matilda Honey's voice sounded on the other end of the line, confirming his initial suspicion when he saw the phone on the screen. "Sorry to call you so suddenly, are you busy?"

 "Matilda?" No, I was just…" He stopped for a moment and looked at Lisa. She hadn't moved an inch; she was still lying down, half of her bareback peeking out from under the cover. He did not think a bit that she was really asleep, but still hurried out of the room quietly. "What happens? You sound altered."

 Cody could hear the psychiatrist take a deep breath, perhaps trying to calm nerves that overwhelmed her.

 "Listen, I know this is very sudden and without warning, but I need to ask you a favor. Could you accompany me to Portland early tomorrow?"

 "To Portland?" Cody exclaimed, a little confused. He was already standing in the living room, a few meters from the door of the room. "I thought the girl you were treating was near Salem."

 "It's about something else," Matilda declared in a severe tone. "It's long to explain, I'll tell you better when we meet. But there is another girl who was being treated by a colleague of mine, and he is now dead. He thought the girl could have an Antisocial Personality Disorder."

 "So, she is a psycho girl?"

 "Something like that... But I think it could be something else."

 Cody thought a little about that last clarification. If she called him in that rush to ask for help, he didn't have to speculate so much to make a solid theory of what she meant.

 "Something else like our specialty?" He murmured slowly, almost as if he were an accomplice to some mischief that caused him guilt inside.

 "Exactly. Maybe it's nothing, but if it's something and I don't know what, I could need some support. I know it's too much to ask, and you should miss your classes. If you can't…"

 "No, no, don't worry," he went on to answer immediately, without the slightest doubt about it. "I'll be there. Where do we meet?"

 Matilda sighed in relief.

 "Thanks, Cody."

 After searching Google Maps for a while, Matilda suggested seeing a Starbucks near the building where the Family Affairs offices were located. Once they hung up, just as Cody turned around, he found Lisa's slim figure wrapped in a pink nightgown, standing at the entrance to the bedroom. She looked at him blankly, almost as if she really wasn't aware that he was still standing there.

 "Who's Matilda?" She asked in a sober voice.

 "She's an old friend from many years ago."

 "From Alabama?" Her voice sounded somewhat incredulous. "What's she doing in Portland?"

 "She's a psychologist... I mean, a psychiatrist. She's dealing with a case in Salem and, apparently, another one came up in Portland, and she wants my help."

 Lisa narrowed her eyes a little as if silently accusing him of some wrongdoing.

 "Help with what? You are a biology teacher, not a psychiatrist."

 Cody opened his mouth a few inches, but no word came out of it. He stayed like that for a moment, before closing his lips again. His gaze had taken on a guilty and self-conscious feeling.

 Lisa held her hands up to him as a "stop."

 "Enough, I don't want you to make any more excuses for me," she declared so bluntly that it was almost like a slap to Cody, and perhaps he would have preferred one instead. "Just leave it like that. I'll take a bath. Lock up when you leave, will you?"

 If Cody intended to say something else, he still didn't have a chance. Lisa went back into the room, then went straight to the bathroom and locked herself in it. Cody thought fleetingly that he hadn't slammed the door behind her simply because his personality wouldn't allow it. For his part, he stood for perhaps several minutes in the room, feeling like the worst trash in the universe for making a person as good and pure as Lisa Mathews feel so bad. Only the distant sound of the shower opening made him react at last.

 He entered the room again, grabbed her remaining possessions, finished dressing quickly in the living room, and then retired before Lisa came out of the shower. Being halfway to his house, the idea that perhaps she hoped he was still there when she finished bathing and they could talk about the subject more calmly, would fall like a rock. He felt foolish by not have done that, but it was too late to just back down.

 And even if he stayed, he still wouldn't have anything to say to her when she left that bathroom, so it might as well have been all the same.

He didn't know exactly what would happen with Lisa from that embarrassing moment, nor did he even know what would happen in Portland with that mysterious case. At the moment, it was best that he tries to focus on that last one, and try to sleep as well as possible… without nightmares.

— — — —

 A peaceful night's sleep passed, despite the situation. The next day, however, would turn out to be anything but peaceful. He met with Matilda at the agreed Starbucks, and there she would show him the small file she had put together about the girl they were going to see: Lily Sullivan. Cody understood at the time why his help was so required. There was a possibility that the girl would be an illusionist, a telepath, and also a bit of a tracker, at least over short distances. They had met people who had those abilities, and even both at the same time. However, if the papers Matilda found were right, it might be something even more complicated than that.

 In the end, however, they wouldn't even meet the girl in person. A car accident had happened very early in the morning, and Lily Sullivan had been taken to Providence Medical Center. After an eventful talk to try to convince them to let them see her, Matilda and Cody would end up caught in the middle of a kidnapping and a shooting, and almost as suspects of being complicit in it, in some way. The victim of all that, depending on which perspective they saw it from, would be Lily Sullivan, who would disappear under the nose of the police, and theirs as well.

 The most troubling thing for Cody, however, was that Matilda had been attacked in some way. When he found her in the empty Emergency Room, she looked really bad. And soon afterward, the police came and pulled them apart, preventing him from even asking her directly what had happened. After that, they guided him to a small waiting room, where they forced him to take a seat and wait, under the strict watchful eye of an officer prostrate at the door like the guard of a palace.

 During that time, no one came to take his statement or tell him if he was supposed to be under arrest. They had him almost isolated, but not entirely since he still had his phone with him. He considered calling Matilda to ask where she was, or perhaps Eleven directly to report the situation. However, the way that officer looked at him from time to time kept him too alert. Cody wasn't sure what he would say or what he would do if he even saw the intention of taking the phone out of his pocket. Little by little, the hospital was filling up with police officers, and they all looked quite nervous and upset by the death of one of their colleagues. So, Cody preferred to do nothing to make the situation worse.

 Matilda appeared after a while at the door of the room, escorted by another officer. Cody was relieved to see her, although this was somewhat diluted by seeing her limp slightly.

 "Have a seat," said the officer escorting her. Matilda gave him a sidelong glance, then walked over to where Cody was sitting. The more she walked, the more she seemed to get used to the pain in her ankle and begin to walk normally.

 The brunette sat down right on the seat next to him and crossed her arms. She looked askance at the officer at the door, and the officer looked at her back with the same grumpy attitude that had been in all that time Cody had been there.

 "Are we under arrest, or what?" Matilda murmured sarcastically to her partner.

 "They would like that for sure," Cody replied calmly, but not for that reason very animated. "How much longer will they have us here without even questioning us?"

 Matilda was silent for a while after that, as if she was pondering something, or perhaps many things. Cody was deciding whether or not it would be appropriate to ask her about what had happened when the typical sound of a received message was made quite clear in the silence of the room. She noted that Matilda had been a little startled by it, almost as if it had woken her up from a small dream. Cody knew it had been his phone, as he had also felt it vibrate in his leg. He reached into his pocket and slowly pulled it out without taking his eyes off the officer at the door, hoping he didn't misinterpret their movement.

 Cody completely took the device out of his pocket, unlocked it, and in its notifications he could clearly see a single message received, with the name of its sender and a single phrase accompanying it:

Lisa: We need to talk

 Cody froze after reading such written words on the screen. There were very few cases in which that phrase was accompanied by a positive or happy connotation. Almost always, it was followed by problems.

 He stared at the screen for a few moments, not carefully analyzing the message received but rather waiting if he received any more. Lisa seemed to have no intention of doing such a thing, at least not at the time. If he allowed himself to guess, that first message probably had cost her quite a lot to write and send, and she didn't have the strength to repeat the feat unless Cody opened the door for her.

 He did not want to open that door, at least not at that time and place.

His finger approached the power button by itself, and turned off the screen again, only to put it back in his pocket, not so carefully compared to how he had take it out.

 "What happens?" He heard Matilda ask beside him, making him turn to see her out of mere reflection; she looked at him curiously.

 "No, nothing ..." he murmured slowly and muffled. "It's just a small matter that I left pending in Seattle.

 "I thought you had asked for permission."

 Cody denied.

 "It's not about work, it's..." He was silent for a few moments, wondering a bit about what to say. "It doesn't matter, I don't have the head for that right now."

 And it was not a lie. Everything that had happened that morning, and much of it still unknown to him, was already dense enough for him to be distracted in an insignificant couple fight ... Or, at least that was what Cody was saying to himself to convince himself of not attending to that matter in those moments; to convince himself to not focus his mind on trying to guess what was behind that simple "We need to talk."

— — — —

 The rest of the day was not at all quieter. Detective Vazquez of the police accused them into his paranoia of everything that happened. Cole Sear of the Foundation, whom neither Matilda nor he knew, came to help them. They sneaked their way to the scene of a murder, while the fresh bloodstains were on the floor and wall. And apparently his new friend Cole could talk to ghosts. That last, they would know until shortly after, but apparently, thanks to this, he was able to find out the identity of the kidnapper of Lily Sullivan and the murderer of the police officer. And it did not turn out to be a straightforward story to tell at all (although Cole did not have much problem in telling Vázquez anyway).

 Anyway, Cole managed to get them out of that hospital in one piece, so they couldn't complain. He turned out to be a fascinating person, even by the standards of people who already Cody knew from the Foundation. He was a nice person, or at least Cody had liked him quite a bit. However, Matilda had a very different opinion.

 Even after saving themselves from being arrested, they did not have a calm afternoon. Cody and Cole accompanied Matilda to solve a problem that had occurred with the girl she was dealing with in Eola. It led them to learn first-hand what she could be capable of.

 Cody was really shocked and very confused after this first meeting with Samara Morgan, and the explanation Cole gave them after that didn't help much to calm things down either. It also didn't help to see Matilda lose control and throw Cole against a table right in front of him, or receive a few scolding from Eleven over the phone. However, hear the voice of her former mentor, as well as her directions on how to proceed, did give him some reassurance. It was a little pathetic that an adult man still felt reassured that someone else was telling him what to do and that everything would be fine if he did. But apparently, that had been the case. Matilda also seemed calmer after speaking with Eleven, but he wasn't sure how much or if it was for the same reasons.

 After all that little adventure, all that remained was to go home and rest. Cole would stay the night in the same hotel as Matilda. However, Matilda would spend the night in Eola's Psychiatric Hospital to monitor Samara. So, the detective from Philadelphia and Cody shared a car that would leave the detective first in Salem, and then follow the entire route towards Seattle. Luckily it wasn't that late yet, but the distance was enough to warrant a significant tip to the driver. Would the Foundation reimburse it if he requested it?

 His car would arrive in a few minutes, so they both went to the main doors of the hospital to wait for it. Cody was monitoring the current location of the vehicle he had requested in the application, and Cole meanwhile took the opportunity to smoke a cigarette with much more ease. Cody wasn't a fan of tobacco at all, but he also didn't mind that people smoked next to him.

 "Well, she's a special person, isn't she?" Cole muttered as he looked up at the sky, just after releasing a thick puff of smoke. Cody turned to see something confused.

 "What did you say?"

 "Matilda... well, Dr. Honey, I mean." He laughed mockingly, a little forced. "It seems difficult to deal with her."

 Cody thought about that observation a bit. Was Matilda difficult to deal with? Not really. In fact, it was the first time he had seen her behave that way with someone. She usually got along well with everyone, as far as he knew. The circumstances under which she had met Cole Sear, however, seemed to have been less than optimal.

 "That will change," Cody pointed out neutrally. "I think she already started to like you."

 "Really? I don't think I realized that" Cole pointed out wryly. He gave yet another taste of his cigarette. The vehicle was already about to arrive according to the application. "Are you and she very close?"

 Cody raised an eyebrow, puzzled by the question.

 "Close? Well, we became friends years ago, but we hadn't been in contact for a long time."

 "Ah, so you two don't...?" He didn't finish his sentence, and instead just looked at him with an expression he didn't quite know how to interpret. "You know, are you nothing else?"

 Cody blinked, intrigued.

 "Matilda and me? Not at all. In fact, I…" His voice caught in that instant, when the idea he had tried to ignore since receiving that message, abruptly entered his head. "I... date someone... or at least I used to..."

 Cole's eyes widened in surprise.

 "Oh, it sounds serious," he commented slowly, as if afraid to say something wrong.

 "Let's say there are things about me that I can't tell anyone, as you well know. And that has brought us some problems lately."

 "I understand," the detective replied simply because, at that moment, their vehicle approached them through the parking lot, until he was just ahead.

 Cole's luggage was carried in the trunk, and both men climbed to the rear. Their driver was a short man with white skin, very short red hair, and green eyes. He didn't talk much, and in fact, that was good at the moment, although Cody had a long solo trip with him in Seattle, so it could get a little boring if he kept doing it.

 Once the car started and was already on the road to Salem, Cole spoke again.

 "That would be solved if you are sincere, you know?" He said suddenly, taking Cody awkwardly. "I mean the problems with your girl... Ah, sorry, is your couple a girl?"

 Cody rolled his eyes a little. He wasn't the first to ask him that question, or the like. But he understood that there was no malicious intent in that, but rather a desire to not guess things in advance.

 "Yes, it's a girl. And about be sincere with her... You make it sound easy."

 "Because it is. You can't hope to have a long-lasting and stable relationship if you are not totally honest with the other person."

 In addition to being a policeman and a demon hunter, was Cole also a loving counselor? What a surprise box turned out to be Cole Sear.

 "Have you always been honest with...?" He was silent for a moment, realizing what he was about to say. He glanced sideways at the driver, who seemed quite focused on the road and was apparently not paying attention to their talk. In the same way, he decided to lower his voice and take care of his words. "Are you always honest with what you can do, with all the women you date?"

 "Of course not," Cole snorted in an amused tone. "But it's not like I go out on many dates, actually. What the Doctor said a while ago is not very far from reality. I am not really comfortable with many people."

 "Seriously? You seemed quite comfortable this whole day."

 "A mask, I think she called it."

 Cody was not so surprised by what he said, but by how he did it with a big carefree smile on his face.

 "But I'm not the most practical example," the detective continued. "Look at Eleven and her husband, for example. A lovely family, a beautiful house, and all because there are no secrets."

 Cody looked out the window thoughtfully.

 It would be difficult for me to believe that Eleven does not keep any secrets to her family, was the thought that crossed his mind, but he was not able to say it out loud.

 He would love to be honest with Lisa, he would love to be able to adapt his life to hers and make the two of them totally fond. But he couldn't, because of the shining, because of that ability that allowed him to materialize his thoughts, including his dreams, in a way lived in the real world more than any other illusionist, but more unstable. Lisa wondered why she never wanted to sleep with her but didn't know if she might be able to understand it. It could be days, weeks, or even months without anything happening, or at least nothing terrible. But it would only need a bad night, an uneasy dream, a dark figure that slipped from his subconscious to emerge, and then that would be the end of everything.

 It had happened before, and several times. When his nightmares took over him and changed his entire environment for the worse. He lived alone in a house on the outskirts, with no very close neighbors, for that reason. So he always had in his pocket a bottle with small white pills, a unique drug that in an emergency could help him sleep, without any dream involved. It had horrible havoc on him, making him wake up more tired than when he had gone to sleep, making him irritable and paranoid, until he managed to go back to sleep on his own. For that reason, he had opted better for near isolation, and for always take care of the places where he spent the night.

 How could Lisa digest something like that? How could she understand that her partner did not want to sleep next to her for fear… of killing her unintentionally?

 "It's different with me," he said thoughtfully. "I ... really can't have a conventional relationship like others. When I sleep, things can become dangerous. I couldn't forgive myself if Lisa got hurt, or worse, because of me. I couldn't forgive myself for losing another loved one for… this I can do."

 Cole looked at him silently, apparently somewhat surprised by his words. Throughout that day, he had only been able to tell him lightly about the nature of his abilities, and especially what they could do. He hoped, however, that it was enough to give him an idea without having to say it in the presence of his driver.

 "Then, will you finish her?" Cole questioned skeptically.

 Cody hesitated.

 "I don't know... I haven't decided, but maybe it's for the best." He crossed his arms and leaned back against his seat. "I shouldn't be thinking about my disastrous love life after everything that happened today."

 "It's never a bad time to think about that," Cole added, more serious than expected.

 The rest of the way to the Salem Grand Hotel after that was relatively short. The vehicle was parked just in front of the building. Cole opened the door on his side, but before going down, he turned to his partner.

 "Well, I'm going down here," he chirped and held out his right hand in greeting. "A pleasure, Cody."

 "Likewise, Cole," the professor replied, not entirely sharing his enthusiasm, but still squeezing his hand firmly.

 "I'll see you on Saturday if everything goes well."

 "Yes."

 Cole put his feet out the door and stood upright on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. The chauffeur had gotten out to open the trunk and put his suitcase down, and Cody took advantage of that short time to ask one last question.

 "Hey, wait," he murmured a little loudly, leaning out of Cole's still open door a little. "Why were you asking about Matilda? Did you like her... in a romantic way?"

 Cole shuddered a little, but immediately forced himself to smile again carelessly and calmly, his hands on his waist and his chest out. For the first time that day, Cody seemed to see a bit of that "mask" that Matilda had mentioned.

 "Me? No, I don't even know her," he replied wryly. "But… it wouldn't be so crazy, would it?"

 Despite his carefree demeanor, it seemed to Cody that he really wanted to know his answer. It was not an easy thing for him to reply, as he didn't really know Matilda as much as it might seem.

 "As far as I know, she doesn't date anyone," he commented neutrally, "and I'm not sure if she ever has. At least I think you gave her a strong first impression."

 "It's what I do best," Cole said mockingly. The driver placed the suitcase right next to him, and he grabbed it by the handle immediately. "Rest well."

 "Same."

 Cole pulled his suitcase toward the hotel, and Cody was out of sight behind the automatic doors. The driver returned shortly after to his place, and without saying a word, he started again, now to Seattle.

 Cody took advantage of that time of travel and silence to reflect. Inevitably, his attention ended up refocusing on that message he had received that afternoon. He had an eye on him again; everything looked the same:

Lisa: We need to talk

 Just those words, and nothing else. Lisa hadn't written anything else, and neither had he. He considered for a few moments if it was appropriate to answer her being so late, but there was not an inch of him who wanted that idea. He just wanted to rest and forget about that long day. Ignoring not only his problem with Lisa, but Lily Sullivan, Samara Morgan, Leena Klammer, and whoever Matilda's mysterious attacker was. Try to have another night without nightmares.

 There would be plenty of time to worry about it later...

END OF CHAPTER 27

Author's Notes:

—Lisa Mathews is an original character of my creation who is not based directly or indirectly on some other well-known character from a novel, movie, or series.

—This was a chapter mainly to tell this piece of backstory for Cody that I wanted to put in for a few chapters ago, but that I decided to leave for later since he didn't find much room in other chapters. However, I thought it was better to put it here before moving on to another topic.