#none of the works on there are mine; they all belong to their lawful owners and creators

[damned-juggernaut]

gcses started this week (my first exam is tomorrow), and during a computer lesson, in which all of my coursework is done, i searched up 'were Gerald Croft and Eric Birling Gay', and AO3 was the first result...

I am not sure, if I should bemore surprised at "squiffy twink", or at the fact that my school bans reddit, but you can still get on AO3...

[husheduphistory]

Dealt a Hand of Death: The Terrible Table of the Delta Saloon

When gold was discovered in California on January 24th 1848 it changed the landscape of the country with approximately 300,000 people swarming to the state from all over dreaming of striking it rich and finding fortune in the ground. Undoubtedly, the California Gold Rush was familiar to Henry T. “Pancake” Comstock, a Canadian miner and acquaintance with brothers Ethan Allen and Hoesa Ballou Grosh. The Grosh brothers were veterans of the California gold fields and in the fall of 1857 they discovered a promising ore deposit in Virginia City, Nevada. But, before they could claim the land both brothers tragically died. Hearing of their deaths, Comstock took it upon himself to take over their cabin, open their belongings, find the documentation connected to their find, and essentially claim it as his own. In the spring of 1859, two miners named Peter O’Riley and Patrick McLaughlin began to work the area around Six-Mile Canyon when they made a huge discovery, a deposit of silver ore, but their elation was short lived. Comstock claimed the men were working on land he had already claimed for “grazing purposes” and he proceeded to threaten them to the point that in order to avoid issues the miners made him a partial owner in the claim, later named the Comstock Lode.

Mining on the Comstock. Image via wikipedia.com.

The men had no idea what they had discovered. The Comstock Lode was a massive deposit of silver ore, the first of its kind in the United States, and news about new riches found under the earth brought back the excitement of the California Gold Rush from less than ten years earlier. From its discovery in 1859 to 1882 the Comstock Lode yielded what would today amount to over ten billion dollars worth of ore. However, none of the men who discovered the claim never saw that level of wealth. Patrick McLaughlin sold his 1/6 interest in the claim for $3,000 but the money was quickly lost and he died after working multiple odd jobs to scrape by. Peter O'Riley held on to his interests at first but eventually sold them for approximately $40,000. He used the money to invest in other endeavors including a hotel and another venture into mining but his attempts were unsuccessful. He lost everything, was declared insane, and his life came to a close in a California asylum.

Henry Comstock sold his interests and went on to open various shops in Carson City and Silver City. He too lost everything in bad business decisions and in September 1870 he died in Montana after shooting himself in the head.

Henry T. "Pancake" Comstock. Image via legendsofamerica.com.

When the Comstock Lode was discovered it completely transformed Virginia City, Nevada. Once a small mining town it was quickly filled with hundreds of thousands of prospectors, driven by the re-ignited dreams of fortune just waiting to be dug up. The influx of people brought everyone imaginable to Virginia City, and it quickly transformed into a place where law dared not tread. Filled to the brim with bordellos, saloons, and opium dens, the city became the darkest definition of the wild west. In 1872 Mark Twain published his semi-autobiographical novel Roughing It where he wrote about his travels by stagecoach through the American West and later the islands of the Pacific. In the book he writes about his trip to Virginia City stating that “Two days before I lectured in Virginia City, two stagecoaches were robbed within two miles of the town.” Twain himself was later robbed at gunpoint once he arrived in the city, losing his money and a gold watch.

Dreams, greed, and human beings all swept through the west and Virginia City, but there was one more thing that was keeping all of their minds occupied, a card game called Faro. Played using one deck of cards and being fairly easy to learn, gamblers quickly made Faro the dominant card game of every gambling hall in the west from 1825 to approximately 1915. One man who was well versed in the game was a Virginia City gambler named “Black Jake” who decided he was going to capitalize on its popularity, buy himself a Faro game table, and make himself rich taking cash out of every pocket he could. He was known for being a greedy man, but one night in 1861 karma came back strong and the table turned on its owner with Black Jake losing multiple rounds and $70,000 in one night. With absolutely no way to pay out that amount of money, the equivalent of two million dollars today, the disgraced gambler grabbed his pistol and took his own life at the table. With Black Jake gone the table needed a new home, and a few years later it found a new owner whose name has been lost to time. This new owner operated the table for exactly one night where he too lost everything, including his life. It is unknown if he chose to take it himself, or if it was taken from him.

Playing Faro in a saloon circa 1895. Image via wikipedia.com.

Having claimed two lives, the table was stored in the back room of where it was last used, The Delta Saloon, where it would sit undisturbed for decades. It wasn’t until the late 1890s that wealthy businessman Charles Fosgard laid eyes on the table, and he was happy to buy it. Fosgard had a lot of money, but he was looking to reinvest it and in Virginia City with its thrill-seeking gamblers looking to strike it rich in the saloons when they couldn’t in the mines, it made perfect sense to Fosgard to bring the notorious table out of retirement. After converting it into a blackjack table, Fosgard went into business.

One night a drunk miner sauntered into The Delta Saloon and made his way to the blackjack table. To Fosgard’s delight the miner lost hand after hand until he only had one thing left to offer the businessman, his gold ring. He bet the ring against a five dollar coin and finally, he won a hand. Then he won another….and then he won another. The miner and Fosgard went face to face over and over again and a crowd grew to watch as the businessman was forced to hand over everything. By the end of the game the miner was the new owner of Fosgard’s stagecoach, his share in a local gold mine, and $85,000 (over 2.5 million dollars in today’s money.) Fosgard’s fortune was decimated and he did the only thing he could think of, he pulled out his gun and took his life at the same table as the previous two owners (and in the same way as not only them, but also the less-than-legit founder of the Comstock Lode that brought them all there.)

The table was soaked in enough tragedy and it was put out of commission with a new dubious nickname of The Suicide Table. Year after year, and as the population of Virginia City depleted, the story of the table only grew and it was eventually made a feature of The Delta Saloon. People came from all over to see the table, guided by a sign that cheerfully read “See the Suicide Table” in bright paint as you approach the building that had been restored as faithfully as possible to how it was in its heyday in the 1800s. The table itself was also restored, brought back to its original state as a Faro table. It stayed a Delta Saloon attraction for decades, saw in new centuries, and lived quietly with its tragic past and infamy.

Vintage postcard showing The Suicide Table on display at The Delta Saloon. Image via ebay.com.

Then, on March 11th 2019, Virginia City was shaken when a gas explosion occurred at The Delta Saloon. Amid the damage sat The Suicide Table, unscathed other than receiving a coating of dust. Movers were brought in and the table was relocated to the Delta’s sister saloon, The Bonanza Saloon, right across the street where it remains on display under protective plastic housing.

The Suicide Table is still a major attraction in Virginia City, attracting the gaze of thousands of people lured in by its horrific past. In a time and place that encompassed the lawless American West like Virginia City, there are many shocking tales to tell. But standing out in the crowd is a simple Faro table, created as a game of chance, and tied to at least four lives suddenly lost in the bloody name of greed.

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

Sources:

Step Back in Time Virginia City Nevada by The Virginia City Tourist Commission. 2022. https://visitvirginiacitynv.com/history/

Comstock Lode – Creating Nevada History by Legends of America. 2023. https://www.legendsofamerica.com/nv-comstocklode/

The History and Nostalgia of The Delta Saloon by The Delta Saloon. 2023.

The Old West Card Table With a Deadly Past by Danielle Hyman & Adam Aronson. The Daily Beast. September 3, 2018. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-old-west-card-table-with-a-deadly-past

Men’s luck ran out at gaming table by Dave Maxwell. Boulder City Review. June 17, 2020. https://bouldercityreview.com/community/mens-luck-ran-out-at-gaming-table-61432/

[sentrient]

What Is Modern Slavery And How To Prevent It In Your Organisation

We often come across unpalatable news articles highlighting disturbing facts of crimes against people that make us doubt the integrity of our society. Most common amongst these devastating facts is the crime of enslaving people against their will. It is present all over the globe in magnitudes that we hardly want to believe.

If you are a business owner in Australia, you might want to ensure none of your employees or people in your supply chain are being mistreated or enslaved. Doing so is not easy and requires better awareness and the right tools. This article will explain what modern slavery is and how you can ensure it is not present around you.

What Is Modern Slavery?

Modern slavery is the term used to explain the situations of serious exploitation where offenders undermine the freedom of victims using threats or deception. Such practices are often present directly or indirectly in businesses of any type and size and belonging to any industry.

Laws across the world require organisations to report and safeguard themselves against such incidents that endanger the fundamental human rights of any person.

Who Is at Risk?

Offenders of modern slavery often seem to overpower the victims, they belong to the powerful and influential part of society. Whereas the victims can come from lower-income groups or people who are inefficient at protecting themselves from their oppressors. Some of the people who are at a greater risk than others include:

Children

Women

Refugees and people seeking asylum

Migrants

Occupations with lower legal protection

Some Quick Facts

According to Anti-Slavery Australia,

Around 40.3 million people are entangled in modern slavery globally

71% are female (women and children)

Over 1900 people living in Australia are victims of modern slavery

Only 1 in 5 victims are detected in Australia

What Are the Types of Modern Slavery?

Modern slavery is being practised in more than one form and at more than one location across the globe. Out of the various ways used to exploit people of all ages into slavery, we have listed some of the most common ones. They include:

Child labour

Wrongful employment of children (under the age of 18) and making them work for less money is common in unorganised sectors. Children can also be employed to work in mines or sites that will likely harm their health, safety, or morals. It must be stopped at all costs.

Debt bondage

This type of modern slavery is associated with people being forced to pledge their services as security for a debt. More often their services are not applied to free them from the debt. The length and nature of their services are also not defined or limited.

Deceptive recruiting for labour or services

Immoral acts of employing people based on deceitful information constitute modern slavery as well. The people facing this type of exploitation do not know the actual nature of their services to their employer until they have signed any agreements.

Forced labour

As the name suggests, this type of modern slavery involves forcing people to work against their will. Such oppressed individuals later consider themselves bound to work because of coercion or threat.

Forced marriage

As shocking as it may sound, forced marriage is also a form of modern slavery. It involves marriages that were forced because of coercion, threat, or deception and often lack free or full consent.

Human trafficking

This type of modern slavery involves treating people as property rather than human beings. The trafficked person is often moved or harboured by means of coercion, threat, deception, abduction, and fraud.

What Is the Root Cause for Modern Slavery?

Owing to the widespread of modern slavery, it is difficult to associate or blame this wrongdoing on only one root cause. The reasons why this kind of enslavement persists may be related to many reasons. It might begin with underprivileged individuals being forced to work for survival. The reasons that give rise to such situations might either be natural or man-made. Some of the most common of these reasons include:

Poverty

Social discrimination

Civil disruption and armed conflict

Weak law enforcement

Natural disasters

How Does It Impact Organisations and Society?

The exploitation of people in any form is a curse to any society and its organisations. Modern slavery is one of the worst forms of such exploitation being practised by immoral individuals for their personal or financial gains. It deprives people of their fundamental human rights and forces them to work in hostile conditions without adequate provisions for their health and safety.

If not stopped, this malpractice can grow into a norm and affect everyone directly or indirectly involved. The more we ignore modern slavery or stay quiet, corrupt individuals or businesses might continue exploiting people for cheap labour and treat them inhumanely. This may rob everyone of an acceptable quality of life or proper employment opportunities.

How To Prevent Modern Slavery in Your Organisation?

The best way to ensure your employees, suppliers, customers, contractors, and all others that your organisation deals with are free from modern slavery is by providing awareness training and setting strict policies and procedures. It can only be prevented when your workforce and all people involved in your business can identify modern slavery and report it appropriately.

Providing effective employee training for modern slavery helps build awareness and educates employees on how to identify this malpractice. Setting clearly defined policy and procedures can help people in your organisation report any potential or existing incidents of modern slavery.

Sentrient’s Modern Slavery and Human Rights Online Training Course

Sentrient’s modern slavery and human rights online training course explains what modern slavery is, how to identify and report it. It was developed considering an extensive range of information and compliance factors related to modern slavery. It helps organisations provide effective anti-modern slavery training and ensure it is not being practised directly in their organisation or supply chain. The ease of navigation and depth of information makes this course popular amongst businesses across Australia.

Conclusion:

Modern slavery in any form is a social evil that needs to be eradicated from society. Businesses of all sizes and industries must stay vigilant around the use of manual labour inside their organisation and supply chain. It is only with proper awareness and training for employees that the war against modern slavery can be won.

Empower your employees with online modern slavery and human rights training courses, this will contribute to preventing it. Contact Sentrient for more information today!

This blog post was originally published here.

[the-great-imagines-of-1812]

La Vie En Rose- Bucky Barnes x Rogers! reader

Summary: By some miracle, Bucky Barnes doesn’t fall of the train on that cold day in the Swiss alps in 1945. He spend the rest of his days with his girl; you.

Song Used: La Vie En Rose // (The Louis Armstrong version)

Hold me close and hold me fast The magic spell you cast 

You remember the day your Sergeant first set foot in New York City after 2 years of fighting overseas so vividly. Two pairs of arms clutched each of yours; Rebecca, Bucky’s sister, on one side and Winnifred, his mom, on the other. 

Dozens on regiments have reached the US several days before, but because both Bucky and Steve were stuck on one last mission, something in The Swiss Alps, as he had expressed in a letter, they were due on the second to last ship.

But now you were here. Two years of tears, nail-biting anxiety, and exchanging letters back and forth had finally come to an end, and soon both your boys were coming home. 

If it weren’t for the three of you standing near the back, you wouldn’t have seen the ship due to all the people crowding the Brooklyn harbor. Thousands of wives, sisters, brothers, families and best friends all crowded together on that day were there were no clouds in the sky. 

It seemed like some sort of sign. All the madness of war had finally reached it’s end; and now the sun was welcoming the country’s men home.

The magic spell you cast This is "La vie en rose"

You didn’t see Steve or Bucky at first. Rebecca clutched on to you, the poor girl almost breaking out into sobs as the three of you had been waiting nearly an hour since the boat had come into sight. 

Winnifred stood on the very tip of her heels, hand over her eyes, in an attempt to block out the sun so she could get a better look at the soldiers walking down the gangplank. 

The shriek she let out could’ve made you deaf if you didn’t realize what it was for. Helping Rebecca up from the ground where she had collapsed, you clasped a hand over you mouth as the last of the soldiers set foot on solid ground, Bucky and Steve among them. 

Rebecca sped away quickly, her body crashing onto her brother’s in a tight hug. Walking up to them yourself, with Winnifred close behind, you gave Steve a tap on the shoulder and he turned around with a smile.

“Stevie, look at you! You’re so tall now. You’ll have to reach the flour on the shelf for me now.” you smiled, while he wrapped you in a now- tight - hug. 

“I have absolutely no problem at all reaching the flour for-” he attempted to answer you, but was cut off by Bucky.

“What m’ I,  dollface, chopped liver?” He said from behind you. 

Turning around and practically jumping on him, he wrapped two arms around your back. He was warm and smelled like fresh pine. Tucking your head into his neck, you felted grounded and safe. 

Because he was home. 

“Let go of the sister, Buck. She does live with me, and we oughta to all go home to catch a rest.”

“Oh shove off Steve. She may be your sister, but she’s my girl and I missed her.”

When you kiss me, heaven sighs And though I close my eyes I see "La vie en rose"

The day that Bucky got down on one knee with his mom’s ring in hand was one you’ll remember for ever. 

It was a year after he had come home, and Steve had put him through the third degree (despite being his best friend) when he stood at the doorway of the small apartment that you and Steve shared with a small bunch of flowers.

You had come out a few minutes later, with a dusty green dress, hair curled to perfection and a red lip.

Steve had demanded that he bring you home by 9, how he couldn't  hurt you, the regular stuff he would say when Bucky came to take you out on a date. 

The stars seemed to shine for only you two that night. There was a soft jazz tune playing throughout the park. The pair of you had just gone to dinner, and couldn’t stop giggling, which earned you a few stares from the elderly people trying to enjoy a quiet night.

But he sat you down on a bench, grabbed both your hands gently, while he got down on one knee, probably delivering what was the most moving monologue you had ever heard in your life:

“Y/N M/N Rogers, love of my life, doll-”

You knew what was coming. Tears streamed down your face in happiness. “Buck I-”

“Just please hun- let me say what I gotta’ say. We’ve known each other for a very long time now. And ever since I can remember, Steve always threatened to punch me whenever I did so much as look at you.”

This earned a laugh from you.

“But somehow, we made it work, and the three of us ran around Hell’s Kitchen like the mighty trio we still are. Hiding under the watchful eye of Steve in our late teens and early twenty’s was not easy- but here we are. And before I left for England, I promised I was gonna marry ya. And I’m a man of my word.”

He let go of both your hands to dig for something in his pocket. After a few seconds, he pulled out a little red box.

“This ring belonged to my mom, and now it’s mine to use. I hope you’ll let me give it to you. You are the love of my life. I might not have much, but I sure love you with everything I have. Will you marry me?”

You practically jumped on him, and if he wasn’t on one knee and hadn’t managed to maintain balance, he would’ve fallen over. Peppering kisses all over his face while he wrapped his arms around you. 

“I’ll take this as a yes, doll?”

“You bet, Sergeant.”

“Now let me put this ring on you, hmm?”

When you press me to your heart I'm in a world apart

You became Mr. and Mrs. Barnes in the fall of that same year. It was a small wedding, so there wasn’t much planning.

It was held in one of Howard Stark’s many residences, an small estate in Albany, which he offered to have the wedding held, and even officiated himself, as he had been a close friend of yours since you had entered a career in science, and had helped Bucky and Steve overseas. 

There weren’t may people in attendance, but that was exactly what you and Bucky had wanted. There was Steve and your soon-to-be sister in law, Peggy (which you had gotten along fabulously with), Bucky’s mother and father and siblings, Howard himself (of course) and his girlfriend, Maria.

The golden rays of the sun shone through the high windows, light bouncing off practically everything in the room. You had previously saved up enough for a dress, and maybe Howard had given you a bonus in the past couple of weeks just so you could. He didn’t tell you that, of course.

As soon as you had been pronounced man and wife, Bucky swept you up in his arms, giving you a quick spin, dipping you, which got “Calm down you two rabbits-” from Howard. Maria slapped him after.

Celebration soon followed in the dining room of the home, with a home-made meal, courtesy of Winnifred, Rebecca, Peggy and Maria all together.

You couldn’t have been more thankful.

A world where roses bloom And when you speak, angels sing from above

The Barnes Family had been blessed with twins two years later, in 1948. One girl, and one boy; Rebecca Margaret Barnes and Robert Howard Barnes. They lit up both you and Bucky’s life, and you both became involved in a much more domestic life, now moving to the suburbs, but still remaining in the state of New York in order to be close to friends and family, which now included your new niece, Sarah Y/N Rogers. 

Howard and Maria had yet to have kids, but they were in no rush to get married, either. 

Every weekday Bucky would come home from work at the bank, were he was finally able to make the money he had been dreaming of his entire life, and your worked from home, making many blueprints for Stark Industries, which you were now the co-owner of, and spent some days at your office in the city while Maria had offered to babysit numerous times. 

Fridays Bucky would bring home soda-pop for the entire family, which was then followed by a big dinner made by you, and dancing in the living room with Bucky till’ midnight, when the kids were already in bed. 

Saturdays were for the Rogers, Barnes and Stark families to get together and have a picnic in the park you, Bucky, and Steve had grown up in. Maria always had the habit of bringing the watermelon, you the apple pie, and Peggy with her famous  English biscuits. 

Sundays, Winnifred practically dragged three families to church, much to everyone’s protest, but it was always followed by a plentiful Sunday dinner.

Nobody ever complained about that.

Everyday words seem to turn into love songs Give your heart and soul to me,

The years had passed, yet none of these traditions faltered, even when all the kids were of age to leave for their college education. 

Minus one Anthony ‘Tony’ Stark, who had been born in 1970. He was the youngest of the bunch. 

As Rebecca and Robert Jr. had moved off to college in New Jersey at the same time, you and Bucky moved back to the city, not to far from The Starks.

The only one tradition that never faltered was yours and Bucky’s dancing on Friday nights, where you often danced to the song form your wedding- “Dream A Little Dream of Me”

You would love and cherish the small things. You knew that then, you knew that now. 

To love and remember, because as long as you and Bucky had each other, you would always- what was the phrase the French used? oh, right.

You would always see La Vie en Rose.

[thehanwen]

Quarantine Netflix Recs

Since were all at home watching Netflix I thought I would give my fav show/movie for every letter so everyone has something new to watch. Please send me your own recommendations or make your own alphabet list and tag me! Here goes:

A: Anne with an E- This modern take on Ann of Green Gables is quirky, fun, and dramatic. It has good music, writing and is all around a good watch. It deviates from the books a bit, but keeps the spirit.

B: Broadchurch- If you like crime dramas, this is for you. With one crime spanning the complete first season it delves deep into motive and emotions. David Tennet stars in this tense British mystery. 

C: Cargo- A dystopian zombie apocalypse film set in Australia with a focus on human connection, and sacrifice. This is honestly so different than any other zombie movie I have seen in the best way. 

D: Daybreak- Sticking with the apocalypse theme, daybreak is a humorous view on what happens when a nuke kills all the adults and leaves all the teenagers. Its like if high school was the whole world, but the world had also ended. Strong characters and ‘Ferris Bueller’ esc fourth wall breaks give this show something special. 

E: The Worlds Most Extrodiary Homes- For a change of pace this mindlessly beautiful home reality show shows off architecture that could be classified as art and makes me wonder how anyone can actually live here. If you just want something with no stakes what so ever, this is the eye candy for you.

F: Frontier- A gritty, and dark period piece starring Jason Momoa as the badass outlaw working against the British in the Canadian wilderness. Half political, half survival drama this show focus on the fur trade during the 1700s as well as themes like revenge, family history and love.

I have to do two for F: Feel Good- This emotional comedy is about Mae, a gay, ex-addict comic and her previously straight girlfriend. It is real and emotional and hilarious. It’s filled with amazing characters and amazing writing and explores hard to talk about subjects, including addiction, love, coming out, and family and romanitc relationships. 

G: Godless- A refreshing addition to the western genre. An injuryed outlaw, a headstrong widow, the whole of the wild west. Gritty and dramatic, this mini series is a must watch

H: How it Ends- Another apocalypse film, can you guys see a pattern? This one is less about the event however and more about family. A young man and his future father-in-law travel across the desolate wasteland of the USA to save his fiance. 

I: I am Not Okay with This- A sci-fi coming of age story, based on a comic book, about a young girl who develops mysterious superpowers and is not okay with it. Also shes gay and in love with her best friend, its great.

J: John Mulaney- I assume everyone has already seen all of his specials, but if you haven’t go check them out! They are hilarious and relatable on a deep level. 

K: Klaus- This is my new favorite Christmas movie. Its got wit, charm, great character development and beautiful animation. It’s the first original Christmas movie that I've liked. It gives a new spin to all your favorite Christmas traditions while holding on to the essence of the Christmas spirit.

L: Let it Snow- Based of the book co-written by Maureen Johnson, John Green, and Lauren Myracle this film is a feel good romance with quicky characters that have thier lives changed forever by a snowstorm in their small hometown. Friendships and romances are formed and tested as these teens figure out how to deal with what life throws at them. 

M: Maniac: In an unlikely pair Emma Stone and Jonah Hill work amazingly well together in a drug trial that is supposed to cure all mental illness, of course not everything goes as planned. Our heroes go through multiple stages of the trial and discover their brains are miraculously linked. This series merges multiple genres into something surprisingly cohesive. 

N: National Treasure- “I’m gonna steal the declaration of Independence”

O: The OA- A psychological sci-fi thiller about a blind girl who gets kidnapped and held prisoner by a mad scientist looking for other dimensions. The friends she makes along the way mean everything, but when she gets found not only are they missing, but she can see again.

P: Princess and the Frog- A cute Disney twist of the classic fairy tale. A young woman working hard to buy her own restaurant meets a prince that has been turned into a frog by a shady magic man. But when she kisses him he doesn’t turn human, she turns frog. Together they have to figure out how to get back to being human and along the way they learn what they really need.

Q: apparently I have never watched a single thing on Netflix that starts with Q. So Queer Eye I guess. I’ve never watched it, but I've heard good things.

R: The Rain- After a deadly virus is discovered in the rain, sister and brother, Simone and Rasmus are separted from thier family and hide in a bunker for 6 years. Once they are forced to emerge they discover the world is much different than how they left it and their family wasnt all they thought it was.

S: Sense 8- This sci-fi drama focuses on 8 people from all over the world connected by some kind of psychic link. As they discover the extent of thier new abilities they also find out they aren’t the only ones and some others aren’t so friendly. This series was made with so much love and divotion and it shows throughout. The character development and backstories are rich, the writing is witty and thoughtful and the representation and focus on love above all else is so refreshing. 

T: Tallulah- This drama is dark and witty, while simultaneously being bright and uplifting. When a young drifter kidnaps a baby from a neglectful mother and pretends the baby is hers, her boyfriends mother takes them in. The story is about family and doing the right thing, even when you can’t find the right choice in the grey area.

U: The Umbrella Academy- This series based on a comic book written by Gerard Way is about superheroes with out being about superheroes. They don’t save the day. They can barely save themselves, oh and also the world. Numbered 1-7 these siblings all have their own issues and getting them to work together was the dying wish of their asshole of a father.

V: None? Anyone have any ideas?

W: The Witcher- This series, based on a video game based on a book, is about a mysterious monster hunter and the bard he meets a long the way. Somehow full of action and also full of humor this series delves deep into the history and culture of this fantasy world. 

X, Y, Z: I got nothing guys, but thanks for reading all the way down here. I hope you watch some of these shows and that you send some of your own recs to me! 

Also None of these photos or shows or anything are mine and all belong to their rightful owners

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Zuck calls Apple a monopolist

The copyright scholar James Boyle has a transformative way to think about political change. He tells a story about how the word "ecology" welded together a bunch of disparate issues into a movement.

Prior to "ecology," there were people who cared about owls, or air pollution, or acid rain, or whales, and while none of these people thought the others were misguided, they also didn't see them as being as part of the same cause.

Whales aren't anything like owls and acid rain isn't anything like ozone depletion. But the rise of the term "ecology," turned issues into a movement. Instead of being 1,000 causes, it was a single movement with 1,000 on-ramps.

Movements can strike at the root, look to the underlying  economic and philosophical problems that underpin all the different causes that brought the movement's adherents together. Movements get shit done.

Which brings me to monopolies. This week, Mark Zuckerberg, one of the world's most egregious, flagrant, wicked monopolists, made a bunch of public denunciations of Apple for...monopolistic conduct.

Or, at least, he tried to. Apple stopped him. Because they actually do have a monopoly (and a monoposony) (in legal-economic parlance, these terms don't refer to a single buyer or seller, they refer to a firm with "market power" - the power to dictate pricing).

Facebook is launching a ticket-sales app and the Ios version was rejected because it included a notice to users that included in their price was a 30% vig that Apple was creaming off of Facebook's take.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/28/21405140/apple-rejects-facebook-update-30-percent-cut

Apple blocked the app because this was "irrelevant" information, and their Terms of Service bans "showing irrelevant" information.

This so enraged Zuck that he gave a companywide address - of the sort that routinely leaks - calling Apple a monopolist (they are), accused them of extracting monopoly rents (they do), and of blocking "innovation" and "competition" (also true).

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/zuckerberg-apple-monopoly

Now, there are a bunch of Apple customers who consider themselves members of an oppressed religious minority who'll probably stop here (perhaps after an angry reply), and that's OK. You do you. But I have more to say.

Apple is a monopolist, sure, but more importantly, they are monoposonists - these are firms with "excessive buying power," gatekeepers who control access to purchasers. Monoposony power is MUCH easier to accumulate than monopoly power.

In the econ literature, we see how control over as little as 10% of the market can cement a firm's position, giving it pricing power over suppliers. Monopsony is the source of "chickenization," named for the practices of America's chicken-processing giants.

Chickenized poultry farmers have to buy all their chicks from Big Chicken; the packers tell them what to feed their birds, which vets to use, and spec out their chicken coops. They set the timing on the lights in the coops, and dictate feeding schedules.

The chickens can only be sold to the packer that does all this control-freaky specifying, and the farmer doesn't find out how much they'll get paid until the day they sell their birds.

Big Chicken has data on all the farmers they've entrapped and they tune the payments so that the farmers can just barely scratch out a living, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and dependent on the packer for next year's debt payments.

Farmers who complain in public are cut off and blackballed - like the farmer who lost his contract and switched to maintaining chicken coops, until the packer he'd angered informed all their farmers that if they hired him, they would also get cancelled.

Monopsony chickenizes whose groups of workers, even whole industries. Amazon has chickenized publishers. Uber has chickenized drivers. Facebook and Google have chickenized advertisers. Apple has chickenized app creators.

Apple is a monopsony. So is Facebook.

Market concentration is like the Age of Colonization: at first, the Great Powers could steer clear of one another's claims. If your rival conquered a land you had your eye on, you could pillage the one next door.

Why squander your energies fighting each other when you could focus on extracting wealth from immiserated people no one else had yet ground underfoot?

But eventually, you run out of new lands to conquer, and your growth imperative turns into direct competition.

We called that "World War One." During WWI, there were plenty of people who rooted for their countries and cast the fighting as a just war of good vs evil. But there was also a sizable anti-war movement.

This movement saw the fight as a proxy war between aristocrats, feuding cousins who were so rich that they didn't fight over who got grandma's china hutch - they fought over who got China itself.

The elites who started the Great War had to walk a fine line. If they told their side that Kaiser Bill is only in the fight to enrich undeserving German aristos, they risked their audience making the leap to asking whether their aristos were any more deserving.

GAFAM had divided up cyberspace like the Pope dividing the New World: ads were Goog, social is FB, phones are Apple, enterprise is Msft, ecommerce belongs to Amazon. There was blurriness at the edges, but they mostly steered clear of one another's turf.

But once they'd chickenized all the suppliers and corralled all the customers, they started to challenge one another's territorial claims, and to demand that we all take a side, to fight for Google's right to challege FB's social dominance, or to side with FB over Apple.

And they run a risk when they ask us to take a side, the risk that we'll start to ask ourselves whether ANY of these (tax-dodging, DRM-locking, privacy invading, dictator-abetting, workforce abusing) companies deserve our loyalty.

And that risk is heightened because the energy to reject monopolies (and monoposonies) needn't start with tech - the contagion may incubate in an entirely different sector and make the leap to tech.

Like, maybe you're a wrestling fan, devastated to see your heroes begging on Gofundme to pay their medical bills and die with dignity in their 50s from their work injuries, now there's only one major league whose owner has chickenized his workers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8UQ4O7UiDs&list=FLM6hLIAIO-KfsNFn8ENnftw&index=767

Maybe you wear glasses and just realized that a single Italian company, Luxottica, owns every major brand, retailer, lab and insurer and has jacked up prices 1,000%.

https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-glasses-lenscrafters-luxottica-monopoly-20190305-story.html

Or maybe the market concentration you care about it in healthcare, cable, finance, pharma, ed-tech, publishing, film, music, news, oil, mining, aviation, hotels, automotive, rail, ag-tech, biotech, lumber, telcoms, or a hundred other sectors.

That is, maybe you just figured out that the people who care about owls are on the same side as the people who care about the ozone layer. All our markets have become hourglass shaped, with monop(olists/sonists) sitting at the pinch-point, collecting rents from both sides, and they've run out of peons to shake down, so they're turning on each other.

They won't go gently. Every Big Tech company is convinced that they have the right to be the pinchpoint in the hour-glass, and is absolutely, 100% certain that they don't want to be trapped in the bulbs on either side of the pinch.

They know how miserable life is for people in the bulbs, because they are the beneficiaries of other peoples' misery. Misery is for other people.

But they're in a trap. Monopolies and monopsonies are obviously unjust, and the more they point out the injustices they are EXPERIENCING, the greater the likelihood that we'll start paying attention to the injusticies they are INFLICTING.

Much of the energy to break up Big Tech is undoubtedly coming from the cable and phone industry. This is a darkly hilarious fact that many tech lobbyists have pointed out, squawking in affront: "How can you side with COMCAST and AT&T to fight MONOPOLIES?!"

They have a point. Telcoms is indescribably, horrifically dirty and terrible and every major company in the sector should be shattered, their execs pilloried and their logomarks cast into a pit for 1,000 years.

Their names should be curses upon our lips: "Dude, what are you, some kind of TIME WARNER?"

But this just shows how lazy and stupid and arrogant monopolies are. Telcoms think that if they give us an appetite for trustbusting Big Tech, that breaking up GAFAM will satiate us.

They could not be more wrong. There is no difference in the moral case for trustbusting Big Tech and busting up Big Telco. If Big Tech goes first, it'll be the amuse-bouche. There's a 37-course Vegas buffet of trustbustable industries we'll fill our plates with afterward.

Likewise, if you needed proof that Zuck is no supergenius - that he is merely a mediocre sociopath who has waxed powerful because he was given a license to cheat by regulators who looked the other way while he violated antitrust law - just look at his Apple complaints.

Everything he says about Apple is 100% true.

Everything he says about Apple is also 100% true OF FACEBOOK.

Can Zuck really not understand this? If not, there are plenty of people in the bulbs to either side of his pinch who'd be glad to explain it to him.

The monopolized world is all around us. That's the bad news.

The good news is that means that everyone who lives in the bulbs - everyone except the tiny minority who operate the pinch - is on the same side.

There are 1,000 reasons to hate monopolies, which means that there are 1,000 on-ramps to a movement aimed at destroying them. A movement for pluralism, fairness and solidarity, rather than extraction and oligarchy.

And just like you can express your support for "ecology" by campaigning for the ozone layer while your comrade campaigns for owls, you can fight oligarchy by fighting against Apple, or Facebook, or Google, or Comcast, or Purdue Poultry...or Purdue Pharma.

You are on the same side as the wrestling fan who just gofundemed a beloved wrestler, and the optician who's been chickenized by Luxottica, and the Uber driver whose just had their wages cut by an app.

[goulets]

Heartland

Chapter: 4/9 Pairing: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson Additional Characters: Roy Harper, Lian Harper, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake Case Fic / Kid Fic a03 link

Lian looks proud.  “My first word was Daddy,” she tells Jason.  “I bet Dani’s will be, too, since she has two daddies.”

It takes Jason a moment to process what Lian is talking about, and when he realizes it, Roy is suppressing a huge peal of laughter and Dick’s eyes are so wide they’re about to pop right out of his skull.

***

(romina)

The view has changed.

When Romina Falcone was a child, she had stood in this very office at the right hand of her grandfather and looked out this very window, down into the sprawling urban jungle. She’d thought Gotham City was beautiful. Carmine had a story for every building, every street, every truck and car and pedestrian. The businessman who needed funds to keep his product line moving, soon to be in debt to their family. The district attorney’s office who wanted to cut fiscal corners on an exterior remodel, soon to enter into a contract with them. The gas station at a particularly desirable intersection, soon to be abandoned and auctioned off - the delivery van pulling up to the pump, soon to motivate the owners to abandon it. There was nothing, he said, that was out of reach for them. There was no one who could afford not to answer their call.

She sits in the seat he once sat in, her brother at her right hand, the city laid out below her, and she sees none of it.

“Romina? Are you listening?” her brother asks, angry.

“Obviously not,” she tells him. Who would she pick out of this crowd, if she was her grandfather? The woman in the suit, maybe - a journalist, ambitious and easily bought. The corner bistro, in the red for the third year in a row, about to be turned down for a loan extension. The restless pawn shop security guard, washed out from the police academy, in need of a better outlet to exert his will upon the public.

One by one, she thinks. One by one, they will all be within her grasp.

“ - drives me fuckin’ insane,” her brother is complaining, now, to their cousin Antoni and their new employee, Tiberius. “Never listens to a goddamn word I say - “

“Mario.” Romina turns in her chair to face him.

“What?” he demands.

She raises a dark eyebrow.

He straightens, and appears to compose himself. Much better. “Sorry, Ro. There’s a situation at City Hall that I’ve just been made aware of.”

When he doesn’t immediately go on, she feels a flash of irritation. “Well?”

“It seems that several records were accessed over the weekend - the logs were deleted, but our alert system was set off before they covered their tracks.” A dark look passes over his face. “They were looking into Uncle Vincenzo.”

Romina understands. Vincenzo Rizzuto, her mother’s half-brother, is the name they’ve been recruiting under, a name relatively yet-unknown in Gotham. They hid the real Vincenzo well - Romina had Antoni remove her uncle’s head and hands after he killed him, and since the man had been in the country illegally from Montreal, there should have been almost no way to identify his body. The city coroner’s office hadn’t managed it, but obviously, someone else did.

She taps her fingers against the desk. “How inconvenient.”

Tiberius looks curiously between them. “Think it was law enforcement?”

Antoni barks out a laugh. Romina has to agree - besides, she’s been given the distinct impression that Gotham PD is more than willing to welcome them back into the fold.

Unruffled by their scorn, Tiberius moves on. “Surveillance?”

“Plenty,” Mario says. A vein begins to throb in his forehead. “Doesn’t appear to be tampered with. There’s a camera pointed directly at the terminal that was accessed. Didn’t pick up shit.”

“Ah,” Romina nods. An invisible researcher. This explains Mario’s bad mood. “A meta-human, then.”

“Fuckers,” Antoni grumbles.

Tiberius glances around at them, faint amusement in his pale features. “Can I speak freely?”

“No,” Mario spits, but Romina holds up her hand.

“You may.”

Tiberius cracks his knuckles. “I know your family is more...traditional, let’s say, but you guys aren’t seeing the big picture. A lot’s changed since your grandfather was in charge, not just in Gotham. Meta-humans are a resource. A fucking gold mine. You can hire them, create them, sell them, buy them - as a commodity, they bring a higher return than almost anything else out there. And the scope of the industry is unlimited. The Russians are already in the process of cornering the market in Bludhaven. You could have shipping routes all the way out to - ”

He stops, suddenly, because Mario’s patience has expired. He advances heavily on Tiberius, clicking the safety off on his pistol. Romina wonders idly whether it would be more prudent to buy off or to threaten the city clerk to alter their records. It’s too late this time, but it would do well to have someone in City Hall working for them, in the future.

“How many times,” her brother seethes, “do we have to tell you, Tiberius. We’re taking the metas out. Your freak squad has been running this town for too goddamn long.”

“Hey, they’re not my freak squad,” Tiberius protests, putting his hands up. “I’m just pointing out a business opportunity, shit.”

Antoni looks between them, interested. Romina sighs.

“Enough,” she says coolly. “Mario, stand down. Tiberius, you’ve overstayed your welcome. If I want business propositions from you, you’ll know.”

Tiberius straightens his jacket, glaring around at them all dispassionately. He’ll not last much longer, she thinks.

“Antoni, when are the trucks coming in from Chicago?”

“Should be within the hour, boss.” He grins at her. Romina feels a wave of affection for her younger cousin, all bloodlust and mania. If their grandfather had known him, he would surely have adored him as well.

“Go meet them,” she instructs. “Take Tiberius with you. He should meet our cousin Nicola, since he’s so interested in the family’s shipping routes.”

Antoni grins wider. Perhaps Romina was too careless with her phrasing - if Antoni can tell she means to replace Tiberius with Nicola Viti, then he can probably guess it as well. No matter. With both cousins watching him, he won’t have an opportunity to betray them.

Once they leave, Mario comes to stand next to her, turning his gaze out the window to mirror hers.

“It looks different,” he says, sliding his Beretta back into its holster. “That’s what you were thinking about, isn’t it?”

“It is,” she replies. “But I find that the longer I look, the less different it seems.” And indeed, the view is becoming clearer. The run-down garage two blocks over, its owners tired and brittle and all too willing to sign away to new management. The half-finished housing project, abandoned by the city and looking for a new developer. The drug dealer squatting in its basement, hungry to ally himself with a steady supplier.

After a moment, Mario clears his throat. “We need to get rid of Tiberius. His ideals don’t align with ours.”

He’s right, of course. It won’t do to have one of their own sowing discord among the lower ranks. Romina has made one thing clear in their recruitment process - they’re not making a power play for Gotham’s meta-trafficking trade, not entering into competition with Scarecrow or Riddler or whichever absurd character is putting on a show to engage the Batman this week. They’re eliminating them. Meta-humans and theatrical villains might be an inescapable reality of their world, but Gotham belonged to their family first.

“I’m not ready for you and I to go public just yet,” she tells him. “We need Tiberius for one more thing, first.”

He doesn’t argue. “I hope it’s Susie. You’ve kept her waiting long enough.”

Romina scoffs. “She’s lucky that’s all I’m doing to her, after she disobeyed me. No, I’ll have him fetch her in a few more days. Do you think he’ll suspect the trap?”

“No,” Mario snorts. “He’s too convinced of his own importance. Didn’t even blink when I pulled my piece on him. He thinks he’ll wear you down, eventually.”

She nods, satisfied. “That was my read as well.”

“Is it really necessary, though, to risk alienating Susie?”

Romina purses her lips. “She was instructed to leave no survivors,” she says. “I served her an opportunity to settle a score up on a platter, and she repaid me by doing the exact opposite of what I asked. She knew there would be a cost.”

Mario looks skeptical. “Seriously, Ro, it was just a baby. It wouldn’t’ve even remembered its parents.”

“It doesn’t have to remember.” Romina thumbs over the scar on her wrist, the memento from all those years ago. “I don’t like giving orders to kill children, and I don’t expect Susie to like doing it, but it’s necessary to do. The Maronis left us alive, and where are they now? Scrambling in the shadows like rats, terrified to show their faces. You have to be prepared to hunt the children of your enemies, Mario, or they’ll grow up to hunt you.”

Mario grimaces. “It fucking creeps me out, when you talk like that.”

“It’s something our grandfather understood,” she tells him. “It’s practically colonial.”

“Jesus, Ro.”

She smirks. “Don’t like that comparison?”

“You know I don’t, but you’re right. Fuck,” he sighs. “Fine. I’m guessing you want to put Antoni on it?”

“It can wait, for now.” Antoni is reliable as a triggerman, with no limitations to speak of, but he does have a habit of going off-script, and Romina doesn’t want any more deviations in this particular directive. “As you said, it’s only a baby. It can’t pose a threat to us for some time yet.”

Mario exhales, relieved.

On to more pressing matters. “Do you know, I think it’s time we started recruiting in Bludhaven.”

“I agree,” he says, immediately. “The Russians have been struggling to gain a foothold since losing Intergang. It’s the perfect time to strike.”

“And once we deal with them, the entire canal will be ours,” she muses. “Start looking for someone to run the cement factory, will you? I want that housing project on 15th.”

Mario grins wolfishly. “You don’t think it’s too early for city contracts? We can’t take them out under Vincenzo’s name, you know.”

“No,” she agrees. “But it’s nearly time.”

The view is shifting, the longer she looks. The points of connection are starting to take shape, the lines of power that her grandfather once saw so clearly all leading back into the palm of his hand. Recruitment is child’s play - the people of this city are as tired of the Bats and the Jokers as she is. It’s more than a mission, it’s her birthright. Her father was too foolish and weak to recognize it, but Romina was born with her grandfather’s soul. Now, in his office, with the city laid out before her, she begins to understand how he must’ve felt, back then. She can almost taste it in the air. Gotham is ready to come back to them, and Romina is ready to seize it all.

***

(jason)

“I gotta say, I’m a little hurt,” Roy says, throwing a sideways look at Jason.

Jason’s ninety-nine percent sure he’s gonna follow up with something obnoxious, but he gives him an indulgent glance over his coffee cup all the same. “Yeah?”

“That you didn’t call me, you tool. Why wasn’t I the first person to know about this?! Instead I gotta hear it from Donna, who heard it from Wally, who heard it from Dick!! Not cool, dude!”

Jason feels a headache coming on. They’re out on the balcony outside Dick’s room, and it’s as spacious as a balcony for a single bedroom can be, but it’s starting to feel claustrophobic all the same. “It was need-to-know, okay? I was going to tell you, obviously. In case you didn’t notice, I’ve had a few other things on my mind.”

Roy isn’t having it. “You know how Wally knew? Because Dick called him to ask for advice. Because Wally is a father. Kind of like someone else you guys know, right?”

“I did call you,” Dick says from the balcony doorway. Dani is awake in his arms, and Roy’s five year old daughter Lian is at his side peering up at her in fascination. “You didn’t answer.”

Roy flushes slightly. “Well, without a text, how was I supposed to know why you were calling? I figured it was something like, world-ending-cavalry-calling thing. Can’t blame me for wanting to sit it out.”

Dick nods at Jason. “But you’d answer for him?”

“Hell yes I would. I happen to like him better, no offense,” Roy says, offense clearly intended. Dick rolls his eyes.

Jason doesn’t exactly know what went on between the two of them, except that it happened when he was dead. Roy hasn’t been forthcoming about it, and he’s never bothered asking Dick. Clearly it’s not completely water under the bridge just yet, but Dick looks happy enough to see him, and Roy didn’t even blink at letting Lian run off with him, so Jason thinks they must be starting to make up. Really, it’s the last thing he should be hoping for. Dealing with either of them one-on-one is bad enough. If they get chummy again, he’s done for.

“You’re shit out of luck, then,” he says to Roy, about half a second before he remembers the guy’s daughter is standing right there. “Crap. Uh, sorry, Lian.”

“Daddy says ‘shit’ all the time,” Lian replies, shaking her dark hair back from her face. “Shit is just poop, really, so it’s not such a bad word.”

Dick laughs. “So wise.”

“When can baby Dani learn to talk?”

“Um…” Dick looks at Jason, who shrugs helplessly. “Probably not for a while, I’m guessing. She’s only four months old, so she has a lot of milestones to hit before then.”

Lian tilts her head comically. “What’s mile-stones?”

“That’s just a name for important things that babies learn to do, sweetheart,” Roy tells her. “Things like rolling over, grabbing their feet, sitting up, and standing up. You hit all your milestones right on time.”

“Grabbing their feet? That’s silly, Daddy.”

“Hey, it’s an important motor skill, kiddo. Just as important as first words. You were a foot-grabbing prodigy, so I should know.”

Lian looks proud. “My first word was Daddy,” she tells Jason. “I bet Dani’s will be, too, since she has two daddies.”

It takes Jason a moment to process what Lian is talking about, and when he realizes it, Roy is suppressing a huge peal of laughter and Dick’s eyes are so wide they’re about to pop right out of his skull.

“We’re not - I’m not her dad, Lian. She’s not my kid.” Jason should probably just shut the hell up, since he doesn’t think Roy would be too happy about him explaining why Dani is in their care in the first place to his young, already somewhat traumatized daughter.

“We’re just taking care of her,” Dick adds, gently. Lian looks puzzled.

“So you’re babysitting her?”

“Exactly, yeah.”

“Hey pumpkin,” Roy says, reaching over and patting her on the cheek. “We’ll talk about this more later, okay? Let’s not ask too many questions to Dick and Jason, you know how silly Bats are about their secrets.”

“Oh, right,” Lian giggles, looking between them all conspiratorially. “Especially Mister Bruce, right, Daddy?”

Dick raises his eyebrows. “You told your daughter Batman’s secret ID?”

“You wanna fight about it?” Roy asks. His tone is teasing, but there’s a hint of real challenge in his eyes.

Lian looks confused, and Jason takes pity on her. “Guys, knock it off.” He shoves Roy’s shoulder lightly, and shoots a hard look at Dick. “Not in front of the kids, come on.”

Dani, fortunately, diffuses the tension by spitting up in a truly spectacular fashion all over her onesie and Dick’s arm.

Roy bursts out laughing. “Okay, I gotta say, I do not miss that.”

“Did she just barf?” Lian looks horrified.

“No, this is something babies do a lot,” Dick reassures her. “Usually it puts her in a much better mood when she does it, so it’s actually a good thing.”

“Okay…” Lian says uncertainly. “It’s kind of gross.”

“Kind of,” Dick grins. “I’ll just go change her, and, um, wash up.”

“Can I help? Can I pick out her clothes?” Lian looks at Roy excitedly.

“Sure, you’ll be a lot better at picking them out than me,” Dick beams back at her. “Be right back, guys.”

Once they’re out of earshot, Roy turns to Jason. “I didn’t tell her Batman’s secret ID, just so you know. He told her himself a couple years ago, after the attack on Star City. We were all up in the Watchtower, and he didn’t have his cowl...it was such a crazy day, I honestly never thought she’d remember it.”

Jason nods peaceably. “I don’t really give a shit, to tell you the truth.” It’s not quite the truth, actually, but hopefully Roy won’t call him on it.

“Just saying. Anyways, Jaybird, what the hell is going on with you and Dick? Are you fucking?”

Jason almost spits out his coffee. “What?”

“Is it really that weird of a question? You’re living here all of a sudden, raising a baby together, I mean.” Roy tilts his head, looking remarkably like his daughter. “Okay, I guess you’re not fucking.”

“We’re not anything,” Jason says, more harshly than he means to. “Jesus Christ.”

Roy gives him a look of dawning comprehension, which Jason doesn’t like at all. “I see.”

“Do you.” Jason narrows his eyes. “Well, fucking don’t.”

“All right, all right. I’ll cut you a break since I remember what it’s like to be up to your eyeballs in diapers and sleep deprived as hell and being expected to deal with your asshole friends like everything’s normal.” He leans forward to pour more coffee in Jason’s mug. “Talk to me about the kid, then. You said she’s not sleeping very well?”

Jason shakes his head. “She was sleeping great until this past week, I have no idea what changed. Every single noise in the room wakes her up. And if she catches sight of me, it’s all over. She just cries and cries until I pick her up, and she wakes up again if I try to put her down.”

“Damn,” Roy says sympathetically.

“I haven’t gone out in four nights,” Jason tells him, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Dick’s got Russians to deal with in ‘Haven, so he hasn’t been able to take a night off, and I can’t…I just can’t leave her. Doesn’t seem right.”

“You shouldn’t, anyways, if your head’s back here,” Roy says. “Learned that one the hard way.”

“I don’t know what the fuck to do, then. It’s not a fever, she’s not hungry, or wet, she just won’t sleep.”

Roy leans forward. “Listen. This is actually a totally normal, completely awful thing called a ‘sleep regression’ that nobody fucking tells you about before you have a kid. They go through them every couple months, usually before hitting a major milestone. It’s fucked, but it’ll pass, I promise.”

Jason stares at him in surprise.

“What? I know things, fuck you.”

Jason kicks him lightly under the table. Not the best demonstration of thankfulness he could’ve come up with, but it’s all he’s got. “So what do I do, until it passes? Just keep holding her all the time?”

“You could try, but honestly, I think that’ll just make it worse. Do you have a white noise machine?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you tried really cranking that sucker up?”

“Yep.”

“Have you tried putting her in the swing?”

Jason frowns. “They’re not supposed to sleep in there.”

“What, really? Says who?” Roy looks incredulous.

“The fucking American Pediatric Association, that’s who. It says so right on the box. It’s a suffocation hazard.”

Roy’s forehead creases with worry. “No shit? Damn, no one told me about that. I used to put Lian to sleep in that thing all the time when nothing else was working.”

Jason spreads his hands. “Any other ideas?”

“Yeah, actually. Babies have REM cycles, you know, they’re just different from ours. When they’re in a sleep regression, you gotta wait until they’re deeply asleep to put them down. Give it, like, ten extra minutes after she falls asleep.”

“I can do that,” Jason agrees. “Doesn’t do me a lot of good, though, if she wakes up as soon as I fucking cough or unload my gun.”

“Oh yeah?” Roy cocks an eyebrow. “We’re unloading rubber bullets now?”

Jason kicks him again. “Shut up.”

“Shit, Jay. I just can’t believe Dickie is okay with it.”

Jason can’t quite believe it either. He keeps the loaded gun hidden in a shoulder holster under his jacket, but he’s not stupid enough to think that Dick hasn’t noticed.

Roy stretches his arms behind his head. “Sure nothing’s going on between you two?”

“Roy, I’m not having this conversation,” Jason says.

Roy grins. Jason hates that grin. “Alright. So, if she always wakes up when you’re in the room, don’t be in the room. Get a monitor and sleep in Dick’s room. Problem solved.”

Jason takes a long drink of coffee, trying to calm the sudden hammering in his pulse. “Yeah, that’s not fucking happening.”

“Why? If there’s nothing going on between you…”

“Roy,” Jason growls.

“Daddy, look! I helped baby Dani get dressed!”

They both turn to look at Lian in the doorway, standing in a superhero pose with her hands planted on her hips. “Ta-da!” she announces, leaping aside with a flourish. Dick appears behind her, lips pressed together like he’s trying hard not to laugh, Dani presented forward in his arms in a little red dress, red bloomers, and little red socks with white hearts. A little red bow is just visible among her tufts of black hair, and Jason’s heart throbs violently in his chest.

“Wow, sweetie!” Roy opens his arms and gives her a big hug. “Red, huh?”

“I think it’s her favorite color,” Lian says, shyly glancing at Jason. “It’s mine, too.”

Jason swallows. “Where the hell did that dress even come from?” He doesn’t know why he bothers asking, he doesn’t have a clue where any of Dani’s clothes come from. They seem to just materialize in her drawers, and he could probably pinpoint who purchased each item if he laid them all out and put his mind to it, but he finds it’s much easier just not to think about it.

“I don’t remember who got this one, actually.” Dick peeks at the tag. “It’s Ralph Lauren. Maybe Helena?”

“Hey Dick, I was just spitballing ideas with Jason,” Roy says, suddenly. Jason goes to kick him again, but damnit, he’s still holding Lian. Using his own kid as a shield, the fucker.

Dick looks up from bouncing Dani, his eyes widening innocently. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, about your kid’s sleep issues. Jay said she’s startling easily, once she’s down.”

Dick looks at Jason apologetically. “It’s been rough,” he admits. “Sorry, I know you haven’t gotten much sleep either.”

“Apparently it’s totally normal,” Jason says quickly, glaring at Roy. “Roy says it’ll pass in no time. Don’t worry about me.”

“I was suggesting, actually, that she might have an easier time if Jason wasn’t clattering around all the time and waking her up,” Roy goes on, pulling Lian up into his lap. Jason is going to kill him. “You’ve got room, right, Dick? Makes more sense for you two to share so she can get some peace and quiet.”

“Oh!” Dick spares Jason a fleeting glance. “That does make sense...we have the video monitor, after all. You are kind of loud, when you take off your armor.”

Jason crosses his arms. Everyone’s a fucking critic. “Fine. I’ll sleep on the floor, whatever.”

Dick makes a face. “Jason…”

Roy gives him an exasperated look. “What is this, cooties? Are you twelve?”

Lian tugs at his sleeve. “What’s cooties?”

“It’s what Jason’s scared of getting if he sleeps in the same bed as Dick, sweetheart. It’s super silly.”

Dani has apparently had enough of being held on display like a doll, and fusses loudly, kicking out towards Jason and curling both hands up toward her face. Jason can tell she’s a few seconds from a full meltdown - they’ve been coming on faster and faster, since this whole “sleep regression” started. He’s on his feet in a heartbeat, and Dick passes her over without a word. It’s a little terrifying how used to this they both are, Jason thinks as he brings Dani up to his chest. She’s already bigger than the tiny ten-pound bundle that had turned up at the Manor just a few weeks ago, and she’s outgrown the first sets of pajamas they’d put her in. He pats her back soothingly, feels the patch of drool on his shirt that indicates she’s stuffed her fingers in her mouth again. Normally, he’d drop a kiss on her head, but he finds himself reluctant to do so in front of Roy. He doesn’t want Roy to read anything into it - he’s already given away too much during this visit.

“Awww, she’s so cute,” Lian giggles, leaning against her dad. “I wish I could hold her, Daddy.”

“Maybe next time, honey. Baby Dani just wants her grown-up right now. You know how that feels, don’t you?”

Lian nods, looking up at Jason. “Yeah.”

Jason feels ridiculously exposed, under their twin gazes. If it wasn’t for Dani, he’d have jumped over the railing already.

“What are you guys up to for the rest of the day?” Dick asks, rescuing him from their unnerving combined perception.

Roy gives his daughter a nudge. “What are we doing, pumpkin?”

Lian lights up. “We’re going to see Donna!”

“Her favorite,” Roy confirms, grinning down at her. “They’re having a girl’s night, apparently. I’m not invited.”

“Maybe when Dani is bigger, she can come to a girls night with us,” Lian suggests wistfully. Dick looks sad, and Jason doesn’t have the heart to tell her that’s never going to happen.

“Hey, wouldn’t that be fun.” Roy ruffles her hair playfully. “You’d have to share Donna, though.”

Lian pulls back to give him a reproachful look. “I know how to share, Daddy.”

“Sheesh, okay. Anyways, I’ll be around, if either of you needs a wingman,” Roy says, looking between Dick and Jason hopefully.

“I’m staying in,” Dick says. Jason blinks, this is news to him. “Russians are laying low, and no one’s sprung our Falcone cousin from jail yet, shockingly. I know you’re going stir-crazy, so I’ll stay with her tonight.”

Jason feels a surge of warmth towards Dick. He is going nuts, and not just from sleep deprivation. It’ll do him a world of good to get out and get some real exercise, check on all his favorites in the neighborhood and put the fear of the Red Hood back into all the local dirtbags. Tim’s been doing a more than decent job on keeping him updated, and Jason’s grateful, but there’s something to be said for good old fashioned violence when it comes to keeping his people in line. Jason’s itching for it - he hasn’t been back in the field properly for way too long.

“You up for it, Jaybird?” Roy asks. His eyes are practically sparkling - Jason can already feel the beginnings of regret. “It’s been a minute since we teamed up.”

Jason sighs out heavily. “Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Roy laughs. “It’ll be fun! I can impart more sagely parenting advice, you can, um - ” he cover’s Lian’s ears “ - b-a-s-h some s-k-u-l-l-s, it’ll be real therapeutic.”

Lian swats at his hands. “Daddy.”

Jason looks at Dick. “You sure B’s okay with you taking a night off?”

“I’ll make him okay with it,” Dick says grimly. “Besides, I miss her.”

God help him, Jason’s going to miss her too, when he’s out for the evening. Not enough to want to stay in, but damn close.

He looks down at her, dozing lightly against his chest, one round cheek pressed flat, the other drooping onto her curled up shoulder. An image flits through his mind - Dani, older, her tufts of hair grown out long like Lian’s, a wide, toothy smile on her face and her big brown eyes crinkled up at Jason. Calling to him, reaching for him. Daddy. It feels like a bullet piercing his heart, but he can’t stop imagining it. Can’t stop imagining her laughter, the solid feeling of her body in his arms…and someone else next to him, strong hands held out to catch hers, sweetheart sounding out in a voice he’s gravitated toward since he was thirteen years old -

“Jason? You having gas or something?” Roy sounds half amused, half concerned.

Fuck. “Headache,” Jason manages, shoving the intrusive images as far back into his subconscious as he can. God, does he know how to torture himself.

“Well, get rid of it. Imagine how embarrassing it’d be if you got k-i-l-l-e-d by some punk in the Bowery because you were off your game.”

Jason shrugs. “You’d avenge me.”

Roy laughs. “Damn right I would. I’d have to fight Dick here for the honor.”

“To get back at some Bowery punk? Nah, Dickie wouldn’t bother.”

Dick rolls his eyes, but his mouth is twisted with humor. “Hey, I might, depending on how embarrassing your demise was.”

Roy claps his hands. “See, if that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”

Dick goes pink, but he looks happy, at least. Jason imagines strangling Roy, to avoid anything revealing coming out of his mouth.

“I’d better go tell little D he’s got my patrol tonight,” Dick says, after a mildly suffocating moment of silence. “I’ll stick a bottle in the warmer for when she wakes up.”

“You are the worst person alive,” Jason tells Roy, once Dick is gone. “The worst. I literally don’t know why we’re friends.”

“Jason’s joking, sweet pea,” Roy grins at Lian.

Lian huffs dramatically. “I know that, Daddy.”

How the hell Roy Harper created such a great kid, Jason will never know. “What are you and Donna doing for your girl’s night?” he asks her, rocking Dani gently.

“So many fun things,” she tells him seriously. “I have a new Lego set, so we’re gonna build that, and then maybe we’ll play princess school? Or animal rescue school, or maybe both...and we’ll definitely watch a movie! And eat popcorn, of course.”

“Of course,” Jason nods.

She smiles at him, her nose scrunching adorably. “What are you and my daddy doing for your boy’s night?”

Jason makes eye contact with Roy. “Well, I doubt we’re gonna have as much fun as you.”

“No,” Roy agrees, tweaking her nose. “I think we’ll still have a pretty good time, though.”

***

Jason’s prepared for the worst, when they arrive in Crime Alley. He’s expecting his safe house to be trashed by squatters, his civilian apartment to be robbed, and all the local hot spots to be generally on fire. Well. Maybe not on fire, it does seem like Tim’s been doing a pretty good job covering for him. But still, he’s not expecting to roll into his territory and find it…quiet.

Roy takes to the rooftops, and Jason goes to the first busy street corner he sees. “Hey, Ginger,” he calls, jogging up to a working girl he’s got a friendly rapport with. “How’s it going?”

Ginger looks surprised to see him, but not unhappy. “You finally remember your address, Hood?”

“Doesn’t look like I needed to, though,” Jason remarks, glancing around. “Your girls are all good? Any problems that require my attention?”

“Aren’t you sweet.” Ginger looks over his shoulder, as though expecting someone to be there. “No Red Robin tonight? Damn.”

Wow, so that’s how it is. Jason’s already chopped liver. “Ouch,” he says in mock offense. “You know, it was me who told him which blocks to keep an eye on in the first place.”

“You can take that white knight shit straight back to wherever you’ve been hiding out, honey.” Ginger sounds unimpressed. He swears he was more intimidating a few weeks ago. She gives him a meaningful look and makes a shooing motion with her wrist. “It’s good to know you’re still in one piece, baby. Now run along, before you scare off all my customers.”

Taking the hint, Jason moves down the block to his favorite bar, a hideous dive run by a neighborhood relic called Mac Deveroux. Back when Jason was a kid, Mac had frequently paid him to make deliveries, taking alcohol and sometimes food to his customers who weren’t in a position to come and get it themselves. Most of the deliveries were superfluous errands that Mac could just as easily have run himself, but he liked Jason’s observational skills, and the real value of the trip was the gossip Jason was able to pick up along the way. Jason has no idea if Mac remembers him - it’s possible he had a dozen kids on his unofficial payroll, it’s equally possible that the years and the drinking have written Jason’s existence out of his mind. But the man is just as congenial and just as all-knowing about everyone’s business as he’s always been, so Jason makes it a habit to visit him and trade information.

“Hey, Mac,” he calls, pulling off his helmet and sliding into a seat at the end of the bar. He doesn’t always order a drink when he comes here, and he’s not planning on it tonight, but Mac seems to prefer talking to him in just the domino. “Been a minute.”

It’s early, so the place is still mostly deserted, except for a handful of local drunks in various stages of stupor. Mac looks startled for half a moment, then pulls his ballcap down and goes back to being inscrutable. “Glad to see you alive and well, Red.”

Why is everyone so surprised to see him? He’s only been off patrol for a week or so, and he was checking in every few days before that. “Some reason I shouldn’t be?”

Mac side-eyes him suspiciously. “Not especially. People talk. That friend of yours - Red Robin - stupid fucking name, by the way - he’s okay too?”

Jason picks up his helmet and switches the comm on. “Red Robin, Red Hood checking in. Are you dead or injured?”

Tim’s voice comes through almost immediately, annoyed. “Uh, no?”

Jason switches it back off. “Yep, still kicking. Pretty sure Batman hasn’t bit it either, but the night is young. What’s with the sudden concern for my well-being?”

Mac shakes his head. “Folks been talking lately, that’s all. Lots of shit about taking down the Bat, all the rest of the capes in Gotham. Can’t blame me for wondering.”

“People around here are always running their mouths,” Jason says dismissively. “Half the time they tell me about it to my face. Since when are you sweating shit like that?”

“Since it started seeming like more than just talk,” Mac says, serious. “I mean it, Red. You ought to watch yourself out there. And be careful who you talk to, too. I appreciate all you done for me, but it’ll be better if I don’t see you in my bar all too often. You need to chat, you’re better off coming in the back.”

Jason recalls how quickly Ginger had hurried him away, and feels his blood run hot with anger. So these fuckers think they can come onto his turf and threaten his people? They’re gonna be needing more than new kneecaps by the time he’s through with them.

He cracks his knuckles. “Right. Let’s go to the back, then.”

Mac meets him next to a stack of boxes behind his delivery door. He pulls out a joint and starts patting his pockets down, looking for a lighter.

“Here.” Jason fishes one out from his coat pocket, tosses it to him. Not like he’s lighting up much of anything these days.

“Appreciate you, man,” Mac says, catching it. “You want?”

Jason shakes his head briefly.

Mac nods, as though he expected Jason to decline. He exhales a stream of smoke. “Gives me a reason to be back here, you know.”

“Sure.” Jason leans cautiously against one of the stacks of boxes. “So, what’s all this chatter that’s got you and everyone else so spooked?”

“Hmm.” Mac takes another long drag off his joint. “Just a few too many mouths telling the same story in my bar, I’d say. I’m used to hearing guys talk big about taking you out. But this is different, they’re all telling the same story about somebody else taking you out. Taking all the Bat folks out, and the Jokers and the Scarecrow gang too. Saying it’s gonna be open season on all the capes and metas in Gotham, that sorta thing.”

Jason really doesn’t like the sound of any of this. “Who’s supposed to be taking us all out, exactly?”

“That’s the thing about it. No one wants to say, I don’t think most of ‘em even know. You heard about that bloodbath down by the docks, a month back?”

Jason tenses. “Uh-huh.”

Mac looks shrewd, suddenly. “You know who did it?”

Jason can tell from his tone that he doesn’t know, but that he’s dying to. “If someone like you hasn’t found out yet, Mac, I think it’s because certain people want it that way. Just like certain people don’t want you talking to me.”

“‘Certain people’ can kiss my ass,” Mac grumbles.

“Here’s a question, totally unrelated,” Jason says. “Does the name ‘Romina Falcone’ mean anything to you?”

Mac stares at him, dumbfounded. “No....Romina? Mario Falcone’s little girl?”

Jason shrugs one shoulder, trying to appear casual. “You heard anything about her being back in town?”

“No…she’s been gone from Gotham for years. Sad story, really. You know it?” Jason does, but since this is a casual inquiry, he motions for Mac to go on. “Her daddy was Carmine Falcone’s son, a real straight-shooting type, good student, honest, the whole nine yards. Never touched the family business.” Another long inhale off the dwindling joint. “When Falcone first went to prison, gotta be over twenty-five years ago now, the Maroni family took over. Mario wouldn’t throw in with them, so they killed him and his wife. The kids, Mario Jr. and Romina, went to live with relatives in Chicago, last I heard.”

A mob orphan, Jason thinks, just like Dani. Except that Romina and her brother hadn’t gone to live with just any relatives - they’d gone to live with the Viti family, headed by none other than Carmine Falcone’s bloodthirsty sister. “So, no one’s heard from her since then?”

“No one heard from her before then, either. She couldn’t’ve been more than eight or nine when all that shit went down,” Mac says doubtfully. “You sure your intel’s good?”

Jason’s deep in thought, suddenly. “Didn’t say anything about intel,” he tells Mac. “Just asking a question. I gotta go, though. Okay if I slip out the door here?”

Mac gestures obligingly. “Hey, be my guest. I’m gonna do myself a favor and forget this whole conversation now.”

Jason snorts. “Good idea. See you around, Mac.”

“Yeah, yeah. Watch your back out there, kid.”

Jason’s out the door before Mac’s parting words echo back to him. Watch your back out there - what was he, eleven? Twelve, the last time he heard those words?

Maybe it’s a coincidence. Or, maybe Mac Deveroux has a better memory than Jason gives him credit for.

He puts his helmet back on. “Arsenal, status report.”

“All good over here, Hoodster,” Roy replies brightly. “Knocked out a handful of drunk and disorderlies outside a Buffalo Wild Wings just now. Didn’t realize the Bowery was so gentrified already.”

Ugh. “Not all of it is,” Jason sighs. “But, yeah. Sure isn’t how it used to be, over there.”

“No kidding. I’m watching this girl steal a souped-up Camero right now. Ran the plates, and based on the owner’s resume, I might let her get away with it.”

Jason snorts out a laugh. “Works for me. I’ll come meet you over there, just give me ten.”

He’s barely made it two blocks when Oracle’s voice sounds in his ear, her tone making him snap to attention at once. “Hood, we have a situation.”

He stops still on a dingy government housing rooftop. “Go ahead, O.”

“It seems Susie Falcone was sprung from jail earlier today - we missed it because her release was processed under another name, but I have the video feed, and it’s definitely her.”

Oh, fucking finally. Jason was starting to think he wouldn’t have a chance to get any real exercise tonight. “You got a name for me?”

“Guy by the name of Tiberius. Albanian, according to Red Robin. I’m running his face through Interpol, but it takes time.”

Jason hops onto a nearby fire escape and swings up to the roof of an office building to get a better vantage point towards the harbor. “Is B gonna crap himself if I take the lead on this?”

Barbara’s quiet for a moment. “Do you care?”

Jason flexes his hand over the grip of the gun strapped to his thigh. “I mean, no,” he starts to say, knowing as soon as the words are out of his mouth that it’s not entirely true. “Just...it’ll be a pain in the ass if I have to fight a whole fucking mafia, plus him, that’s all.”

Oh, incredibly convincing. Jason’s surprised he doesn’t hear her laughing down the line.

“I think you know how to avoid his ire,” Barbara says. “You’re closest, so I’m putting you on it.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Jason adds, feeling more like an idiot by the second. Forget Dick, talking to Barbara always makes him feel about twelve fucking years old. At least she’s not openly judgmental about it. “Hey, Oracle. One last thing.”

“Oh? I’m listening.”

“Can you do some digging into the Viti family? I feel like there’s gotta be a reason Romina came back to Gotham now, when she could’ve made a play for the city years ago. If she’s been in Chicago all this time, it’s probably something to do with them.”

“…Yes,” Barbara says, slowly. Jason hears a flurry of typing. “Since they trade over state lines, that data will be with the Feds…it’ll take me a little while, I’ve got my hands full with some more urgent things right now. But it’s a good idea, Hood. You’ll know more as soon as I do.”

“Okay,” Jason agrees. “Thanks,” he adds, lamely.

She lets out a short huff of amusement, and Jason’s past self cringes at him in embarrassment. “Oracle out.”

Right. Tiberius. Jason’s been waiting for a chance to take on this ostentatiously-named asshole. From his own observations that night with Dick, and from Tim’s reports, the guy is a particularly sleazy type of hired muscle. Fantastic. Jason needs the workout.

He gives himself a shake, and then takes off towards the police impound lot. Within ten minutes, he’s found a suitable bike and is on his way to the East End, changing comm channels in his helmet to call Roy. “Arsenal, are you good to finish up my patrol? I got a lead on somebody in this mob case I need to handle.”

“Wow, Hood. And here I thought we were having a boy’s night.”

“Hey, if nothing’s going on over there, you’re welcome to join.”

“Yeah? Hey asshole, stay down,” he snarls. “Maybe I’ll meet you after I finish up.”

Jason hears a moan and a thud on Roy’s end. “Anybody interesting?”

“Just some model citizen I found trying to drag a passed-out woman into his car. Said she was his girlfriend, but he neglected to mention she dumped his ass two months ago.”

“Break his legs,” Jason proposes, feeling a mild rage rising in his chest.

“Red Hood says I should break your legs,” Roy tells the guy. “It’s not really my style, but I’m just temping over here. You’d better leave town, because if he finds you doing this shit again, you’re gonna wish I took him up on it.”

Please, man, Jason hears in the background. He hadn’t honestly expected Roy to take his suggestion. Turning onto a side street, he hears an alarm start to go off somewhere close by. Robbery, sounds like. Exactly what he’s looking for.

“Alright, I’m starting my manhunt,” he says to Roy. “You’ve got my coordinates if you need to find me.”

Roy makes some kind of hooting sound that Jason takes to be acknowledgment. “Make me proud.”

Jason kills the bike in an alley and parks it under a staircase, slipping a loop of electrified wire over the handlebars. Easy enough to disarm, but he’s not planning to be gone long. The store being robbed is a liquor store, and the goons smashing it up aren’t criminals so hardened that they’ll take any effort on his part to crack. He storms in the front, grabs the first guy, and throws him over the counter. The second pulls a gun on him - he shoots it out of his hand a split second later, then fires three more shots into a glass case of upscale liquor, to fairly spectacular effect. The remaining guys all hit the floor, visibly terrified. Jason holsters his gun.

“Hope you guys don’t mind me crashing this little party you’re having,” he calls, kicking the fallen gun to the side. “I need to find a guy by the name of Tiberius. First one to talk gets to walk away.”

They all goggle at him. “Did he say Tiberius?” one of them whispers.

“We don’t know anybody called that,” the one he tossed behind the counter says.

Jason clicks his tongue. “Wrong answer.” He fires a rubber bullet into the guy’s shoulder, and he goes down. By the time they realize it’s not a live round, he’ll be in the wind.

He holsters the gun again, and turns his attention on the one he’d disarmed. “Your turn.”

“We don’t know where he is,” the guy says quickly. “I only met the guy once. He doesn’t give us orders.”

“Who does he give orders to,” Jason counters, advancing on him menacingly.

“Dealers, mostly? My cousin Zion reports to him, he slings down by the Wharfside Pool Hall. Swear to God, man, I haven’t seen Tiberius since he moved us all off the docks.”

Jason looks around at the wreckage of the store, realizing something. “You guys aren’t robbing this place, are you.”

They don’t say anything. Jason doesn’t need them to - their silence is confirmation enough. They’ve been tasked by Romina and her lackeys to trash this place and force the owners to sell. And now he’s helped them do it. Fuck, this is why he hates mob cases.

Nothing to be done about it now. Once he puts a bullet in Romina’s skull, maybe he can come back and see that these people get their store back. First, he’s gotta find her.

“Be seeing you, gentlemen,” he says, tossing out a couple smoke pellets. “Don’t expect it to be as painless next time.”

It’s a quick ride to the Wharfside Pool Hall, and Oracle sends him a photo of Zion Lee on the way. He finds him immediately, parked on the corner by the emergency exit. It’s a short conversation. Zion doesn’t know where to find Tiberius either, but he does tell Jason where to find his supplier, and once Jason takes a look at the supplier’s rap sheet, he decides there’s not going to be a conversation at all. Kidnapping, trafficking, sexual battery - hell, if Jason can’t find Tiberius tonight, at least he can take his aggression out on this piece of garbage.

He roars up to the supplier’s house on the stolen bike and throws a smoke bomb through the window, the rush of impending violence like fire in his veins. Then, as luck would have it, he sees a familiar muscular figure rushing out the back door towards a Jaguar that’s parked in the shadows at the end of a driveway.

Tiberius, in the flesh. Looks like Jason’s date with this supplier will have to be postponed.

Quickly, he considers his options. The adrenaline junkie in him is tempted by the prospect of a good old-fashioned car chase, but this area is just a bit too residential for him to be strictly comfortable with it. Too bad. He lets Tiberius get to the end of the driveway, and then he shoots out the Jag’s tires. Tiberius returns fire immediately, which, again, is not the most desirable outcome in a residential neighborhood. Jason aims a shot at his firing hand, but the guy is already ducked down and reloading.

Fine. Jason will just have to throw something bigger at him, he supposes. He revs the bike’s engine, kicks off and guns it towards the Jaguar, bailing off to the side when Tiberius stands up to shoot at him some more. The bike keeps going, propelled by momentum, and crashes beautifully into the driver's side of the Jag, knocking Tiberius hard to the pavement when the open door that he’s been using as a shield swings violently sideways with the rest of the car.

He doesn’t stay down, of course. Before the impact is even finished reverberating through both vehicles, he’s hopping back up, more nimbly than Jason would’ve expected, given his size, and taken off running down the street. Jason pushes himself up and hightails after him, the thrill of the hunt making him practically giddy, his heart accelerating with the pace of his boots against the concrete.

Damn, but it feels good to exert himself. Jason’s been cooped up for too fucking long. Tiberius is seriously in shape, and fast, almost as fast as Dick, too fast for Jason to catch without playing dirty. He’s running too hard to aim with any real accuracy at a moving target, but he squeezes off a half dozen shots at the car windows Tiberius is running past, and the resulting spray of breakaway glass slows him just enough that Jason is able to launch a kick at the back of his knees and tackle him to the ground. They tussle - Tiberius pulls a knife and manages to wedge the blade under Jason’s chestplate, but luckily the tip of it catches on the kevlar, and Jason is able to knock it away before it does any real damage. He headbutts Tiberius savagely, breaking his nose and sending him sprawling out over the basement landing of a boarded-up tattoo parlor.

Before Jason can get up and draw his weapon, Tiberius is on him again, fists coming in like hammer blows and seeking out all the soft spots of his suit with frankly impressive accuracy. Jason’s pulse is pounding in his ears, he’s always gotten a kick out of fighting guys that are bigger than him - though, admittedly, most guys he went up against as Robin met that qualification. Fighting Tiberius is a little nostalgic, in that sense.

How did he used to do it? Bruce had taught him all the fastest ways to incapacitate someone, and Jason’s lived enough by now that he can admit that more often than not, Bruce’s way works just fine. Maybe with a few embellishments, depending on the perp. He’d need better footing, but he could do that here. He could snap Tiberius’s collarbone with the flat of his hand, knee him in the balls, and finish him off with a punch to the throat. But before Bruce, before he’d had his street fighting skills polished and streamlined, a younger, scrappier Jason would’ve had a different strategy. Back then he’d had to be patient, had to last out his enemies and watch for the moment they overextended themselves, the moment they let their defenses slip because they were sure they had him. A school bully, taking his attention off Jason long enough to call to his friends. His mother’s heroin dealer, pausing at the top of the long brick staircase to tell Jason not to bother checking on her. Batman, parking the Batmobile in an alley and just leaving it there.

Nostalgia wins, and Jason waits. He takes the punches and waits until Tiberius gets cocky, having landed a few well-placed blows to his ribs under the thickest parts of his armor. He rears up over Jason, sneering, hand going to Jason’s throat, arm fully extended and vulnerable - and Jason moves. He rocks up into a crouch, catches Tiberius’s wrist in his hand and wrenches, shattering the bones in it easily and dislocating his shoulder in the process. Within a couple of seconds, they’re back on their feet, but Tiberius is unsteady, his breathing thick and labored, and Jason takes the opportunity to kick him square in the chest, sending him crashing down into the walk-out landing and through the building’s flimsy door.

Then he follows Tiberius into the basement, and before he can dodge, a bullet catches him right in the thigh. Shit. He’d assumed the gun had been lost back at the car, but he hadn’t actually checked - an embarrassingly rookie mistake, Jesus. His armor stops it, but it still hurts like a motherfucker. “Real cute,” he snarls, stomping on his opponent’s broken wrist and picking up the gun. He debates shooting him in a few non-lethal places, but Dick’s face suddenly pops into his head, and then Dani’s, and the worst of his anger ebbs away. He empties the clip instead, pocketing the gun. “Now that that’s out of the way, you and me, we’ve got a few things to discuss.”

“Fuck you,” Tiberius seethes, curled up and clutching his wrist in pain. There’s blood all over his face, dripping onto the floor.

“Better men than you have tried, Tiberius.” Jason rubs his hands together. “Here, I’ll make it easier for you. I know you’re working for Romina Falcone. I know she’s back in Gotham, and I know she ordered the hits on your old boss, and most of your old coworkers. I know you sprung her cousin Susie out of jail earlier today, and I know she’s got you running the drug trade down here. So don’t bother telling me any of that shit. I just want to know two things: what her endgame is, and where I can find her.” He steps on Tiberius’s knee, puts just enough pressure to make him cry out. “Talk. Now.”

“Get the fuck off me,” Tiberius gasps, kicking out uselessly with his other leg. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, just let me up.”

Jason stands back, ready to kneecap the guy permanently if he goes on the offensive again.

Tiberius sits up, panting. “Shit. Fuck, I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming.”

“Hood, I lost your GPS signal,” Roy says in his ear. “Fortunately, the trail of destruction was pretty easy to follow. I’m on the warehouse roof outside, across the street.”

“She set me up,” Tiberius goes on. “She fucking set me up, that bitch.” He looks up at Jason, shaking his head. “Yeah, Romina asked me to bail Susie out of jail today. Probably so one of you fuckers would come after me. She’ll be pissed as hell that she didn’t get Batman.”

Jason grinds his teeth. “Arsenal, we’re gonna have incoming soon,” he barks into his comm.

“Thank God, I’d hate to get bored up here,” Roy replies easily.

“Whatever backup you have, it’s not gonna be enough,” Tiberius says. “Romina doesn’t take chances. I can’t tell you where she is, couldn’t even tell you the neighborhood. I’ve had two meetings with her at her office, they had me drugged and blindfolded coming and going. Drove for a long-ass time, too, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Fine,” Jason snaps. “So you’ve had meetings with her. Tell me what she’s after.”

“What she’s after? She’s after everything,” Tiberius says bluntly. “The whole goddamn city. Thinks it’s hers by right, because of who her grandpa was. She’s fucking nuts, even for Gotham.”

Everything. Jason turns it over in his head. She’s not just seizing control of the East End, not just the canal, but everything. They’ve got an overachieving mob boss on their hands. Out-fucking-standing.

“I’ve got twenty guys coming in hot, Hood.” Roy sounds tense. “More trucks pulling in. I can take down most of them, but I think they’re just the first wave. We don’t have enough ammo for this.”

“She hates you guys,” Tiberius laughs bitterly. “If you get away, she’s gonna lose her shit. Sucks I won’t be around to see it.”

“A real shame,” Jason agrees, distracted. He can hear the sound of fighting outside. Time to bail. “Who else is - “

“Hood, we have to go, now.”

Jason pulls the gun from his shoulder holster. “If you survive, I’ll be seeing you soon,” he promises, voice low and deadly. The look on Tiberius’s face tells him just how likely he thinks that is, and Jason can’t help but agree. The blindfolds, the errands, the lack of family connection all add up to one thing: disposable. Tiberius is no made man, he’s just a hired hand, and it’s clear Romina has decided to terminate his employment. Jason remembers Tim’s story about Tiberius passing around photos of murdered kids to the grunts at Intergang, and he feels no sudden impulse to drag the guy to safety.

Outside, he and Roy shoot their way through the dozen or so remaining mobsters, Jason aiming as non-lethally as possible. Roy’s taser arrows cut the last few down, and then they hit the street running, down the block, through a boarded up ice cream shop, down an alley, and up to the rooftops. Jason hears a few gunshots below them when they make the jump over a particularly wide gap, but he keeps them running north, away from the harbor and towards the river, hoping to lose their pursuers on unfamiliar turf. It works. Romina may have her sights set on all of Gotham, but most of her henchmen have seldom ventured more than a few blocks out of the territory they grew up in.

After about half a mile, they stop to catch their breath, and Jason sits down to massage his thigh where the bullet had struck earlier.

“How’d you get over here, anyways?” Jason asks. They’d left their bikes in Jason’s storage unit on the west side of Crime Alley, Roy’s borrowed from Dick for the evening. If Roy left the bike next to a shootout, Dick’s going to be mad as hell.

“Helicopter arrow,” Roy deadpans. Jason looks for something to throw at him. “No, I just took an Uber. Grand theft auto’s not really my thing, these days.”

Jason stares at him. “Since when?”

Roy shrugs. “Since Lian started asking questions about it, I guess. It’s just like...whenever she hears about a crime, like finding out why we lock the car doors when we leave it, she asks me all these details about it. Sometimes she asks if I’ve ever done it, and I can’t lie to her, you know? I want to be able to tell her what she wants to hear, which is ‘no, Daddy hasn’t stolen any cars lately’.” He points at Jason accusingly. “Whatever. Don’t judge me. You’re just lucky yours can’t talk yet.”

“I didn’t even say anything,” Jason protests. He objects strongly to Roy referring to Dani as his, too, but that’s probably exactly why Roy did it, so there’s no point bringing it up. “I’ve got a safe house not too far from here, next to a chop shop. Does it count as stealing to Lian if the car is already stolen?”

Roy laughs. “Not sure she can parse the nuance there. How about you do the stealing, and that’s the technicality I can skate on.”

“Fine.” Jason gets to his feet, wincing slightly as his thigh burns.

“You all good?”

“Yeah, just got a lucky shot in. My fault for not checking to see if he still had the damn gun.”

“Hey, at least in the Manor you’ve got all the whole Bat Hospital at your disposal,” Roy grins. “Among other perks, of course.”

Jason is very glad Roy can’t see him blush under the helmet. He was just thinking about how he wants to get back and see Dani - how he’ll need to take his armor off to check out the damage to his leg - how taking his armor off always wakes her up, so he’ll have to do it in Dick’s room - how the offer is on the table for him to sleep in Dick’s bed -

Business appears to be booming at the chop shop, and Jason decides on stealing a flashy little Lexus coupe that makes Roy whistle in appreciation. They drive back through the Bowery, stopping once so Jason can beat the crap out of a bouncer-turned-wannabe-pimp trying to sell girls outside of a gentlemen’s club. Then they get back to the bikes, and he checks in with Oracle to see if there’s any other action they need to investigate before they call it a night.

“I think you boys have stirred up enough trouble tonight,” she tells him firmly. “There’s been surprisingly little action in your neck of the woods, actually. Bludhaven is the hot zone tonight, I sent Black Bat and Spoiler over there earlier to help Robin out.”

“Fingerstripes will be sorry he missed it,” Jason says. “Russians again?”

“Arsonists, this time. At least five of them.”

“Shit. Sounds more like a Gotham thing than ‘Haven.”

“It does,” she agrees. “It feels choreographed, somehow. I’m going to keep looking into it, along with the Viti family. Oracle out.”

Roy raises his eyebrows. “Arsonists, huh?”

Jason snorts in surprise. “You hacked my comm line?”

“Let’s put it this way: Babs let me hack your comm line.”

True enough. “Sounds like they’ve got everything in hand, at least,” Jason says. “Don’t really feel like dragging ass all the way to Jersey’s armpit. You sleeping at the Manor tonight?”

Roy scratches the back of his head. “Thought about it, but I think I’m gonna text Donna and quietly crash girl’s night. Whenever I get shot at, or almost blown up or whatever, I just kind of need to see Lian. Tell Dick I’ll bring the bike back tomorrow.”

Jason nods. “I’ll catch you later, then.” In truth, he knows exactly how Roy feels. He’s dying to get back to Dani as quickly as possible, to see her and touch her and make sure she’s okay. It doesn’t make sense - he’s the one who got shot at, she’s been in arguably the most secure location in the whole tri-state area. But somehow, in spite of his bruised ribs and what’s sure to be a wicked hematoma on his thigh, all he can think about is keeping her safe. He’d walk through fire to make sure of it, he knows without a doubt. Fortunately, all he has to do tonight is make the trek back over the Robert Kane bridge.

Roy gives his shoulder a friendly squeeze, and then takes off in the direction of the old Titans bunker in Robbinsville. Jason parks the Lexus in his storage unit, arms the security system, and then kicks his bike into gear, making a beeline for the highway and the bridge, which will take him back to the Manor, and back to Dani.

***

[comrade-meow]

March 1 – Marx’s Theory of Alienation

The alienation of labour that takes place specifically in capitalist society is sometimes mistakenly described as four distinct types or forms of alienation. It is, on the contrary, a single total reality that can be analyzed from a number of different points of view. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx discusses four aspects of the alienation of labour, as it takes place in capitalist society: one is alienation from the product of labour; another is alienation from the activity of labour; a third is alienation from one’s own specific humanity; and a fourth is alienation from others, from society. There is nothing mysterious about this fourfold breakdown of alienation. It follows from the idea that all acts of labour involve an activity of some sort that produces an object of some sort, performed by a human being (not a work animal or a machine) in some sort of social context.

Alienation in general, at the most abstract level, can be thought of as a surrender of control through separation from an essential attribute of the self, and, more specifically, separation of an actor or agent from the conditions of meaningful agency. In capitalist society the most important such separation, the one that ultimately underlies many, if not most other forms, is the separation of most of the producers from the means of production. Most people do not themselves own the means necessary to produce things. That is, they do not own the means that are necessary to produce and reproduce their lives. The means of production are, instead owned by a relatively few. Most people only have access to the means of production when they are employed by the owners of the means of production to produce under conditions that the producers themselves do not determine.

So alienation is not meant by Marx to indicate merely an attitude, a subjective feeling of being without control. Although alienation may be felt and even understood, fled from and even resisted, it is not simply as a subjective condition that Marx is interested in it. Alienation is the objective structure of experience and activity in capitalist society. Capitalist society cannot exist without it. Capitalist society, in its very essence, requires that people be placed into such a structure and, even better, that they come to believe and accept that it is natural and just. The only way to get rid of alienation would be to get rid of the basic structure of separation of the producers from the means of production. So alienation has both its objective and subjective sides. One can undergo it without being aware of it, just as one can undergo alcoholism or schizophrenia without being aware of it. But no one in capitalist society can escape this condition (without escaping capitalist society). Even the capitalist, according to Marx, experiences alienation, but as a “state”, differently from the worker, who experiences it as an “activity”. Marx, however, pays little attention to the capitalist’s experience of alienation, since his experience is not of the sort which is likely to bring into question the institutions that underpin that experience.

The first aspect of alienation is alienation from the product of labour. In capitalist society, that which is produced, the objectification of labour, is lost to the producer. In Marx’s words, “objectification becomes the loss of the object”. The object is a loss, in the very mundane and human sense, that the act of producing it is the same act in which it becomes the property of another. Alienation here, takes on the very specific historical form of the separation of worker and owner. That which I produced, or we produced, immediately becomes the possession of another and is therefore out of our control. Since it is out of my control, it can and does become an external and autonomous power on its own.

In making a commodity as a commodity (for the owner of the means of production) I not only lose control over the product I make, I produce something which is hostile to me. We produce it; he possesses it. His possession of what we produce gives him power over us. Not only are we talking here about the things that are produced for direct consumption. More basically, we are talking about the production of the means of production themselves. The means of production are produced by workers, but completely controlled by owners. The more we, the workers, produce, the more productive power there is for someone else to own and control. We produce someone else’s power over us. He uses what we have produced in order to wield his power over us. The more we produce, the more they have and the less we have. If I make a wage, I can work for forty or fifty years, and at the end of my life have not much more than I had at the beginning, and none of my fellow workers do either. Where has all this work gone? Some has gone into sustaining us so that we can go on working, but a great deal has gone into the expanded reproduction of the means of production, on behalf of the owners and their power. “Society” gets wealthier, but the individuals themselves do not. They do not own or control a greater proportion of the wealth.

The hostility of the product over which I relinquish my control in selling my labour – this also refers to the inhuman power of the impersonal laws of production . The laws of capitalist production have power over me. The boss, the capitalist owner himself, may simply be regarded as merely the representative of more remote, hidden, and inscrutable forces. His excuse, when he informs me that I am no longer needed, that he would have to close up the place or go broke if he didn’t do this, is no mere excuse. The capitalist himself is merely a priest who lives well off the service of capital, and not a god. When the god speaks, he too must jump, or he will find himself in my place, where god knows, no one wants to be. So, between him and me, it’s “nothing personal”. But this is exactly the problem, not an excuse.

The second aspect of alienation, alienation from the activity of labour, means that in labouring I lose control over my life-activity. Not only do I lose control over the thing I produce, I lose control over the activity of producing it. My activity is not self-expression. My activity has no relation to my desires about what I want to do, no relation with the ways I might choose to express myself, no relation with the person I am or might try to become. The only relation that the activity has with me is that it is a way of filling my belly and keeping a roof over my head. My life activity is not life-activity. It is merely the means of self-preservation and survival. In alienated labour, Marx claims, humans are reduced to the level of an animal, working only for the purpose of filling a physical gap, producing under the compulsion of direct physical need.

Alienation from my life-activity also means that my life-activity is directed by another. Somebody else, the foreman, the engineer, the head office, the board of directors, foreign competition, the world-market, the very machinery I am operating, it/they decide what and how and how long and with whom I am going to act. Somebody else also decides what will be done with my product. And I must do this for the vast majority of my waking hours on earth. What could and should be free conscious activity, and what they tell me I have contracted to do as a free worker, becomes forced labour. It is imposed by my need and by the other’s possession of the means of satisfying all needs. As a result I relate to my own activity as though it were something alien to me, as though it were not really mine, which it isn’t. I do not truly belong in this place, doing this thing over and over and over again, until I cannot even think or feel anything but the minutes ticking over until quitting time. The real me wants to be doing something.

My activity becomes the activity of another. Life comes to be split between alien work and escape from working, which for us is “leisure”. Because our own life activity becomes an alien power over our lives, activity itself gets a bad name. and we tend to avoid it when we are on our own, in our “free time”. Free time itself tends to become equated with freedom from activity, because activity is compulsion. Freedom is equated with the opposite of action and production; freedom is consumption, or just passive, mindless “fun”, or just blowing off steam. Only in class society is there such an equation of activity with pain and of leisure with inactivity or sloth, for activity under alienated labour is not self-expression but self-denial. All our capacities are parceled out into marketable skills. We talk about “human resources” or youth as “our most precious resource”, all of which pseudo-humanist jargon expresses the same reality, that human labour is turned into a commodity to be bought and sold like any other.

As this civilization moves on we get, of course, an ever finer and more detailed separation of hand and brain, of sense and intelligence, manifested in the truncated capacities of both masters and wage-slaves. Some people are likely to spend their entire lives developing the capacity to locate defects in the ends of cans. This becomes their forced contribution to the human species. And it is in this sense that we are not without cause, in the latest stages of capitalism, of thinking of ourselves as appendages of a machine. In a sense, capitalism involves a devolution even behind the work-animal. At least the work-animal is an enslaved total organism. Even a tool or a slave can be used to carry out many different things. But by the time you get to the highest stage of capitalism, human functions can be more dehumanized than that of a tool: you become the appendage of a machine, just part of a tool, a cog in the vast machine of production.

By many routes, then, alienation from the product and from the activity of labour lead up to and involve alienation in its third aspect, alienation from the self or from the human essence. It is not only the product that becomes an alien power. It is not only that self-development becomes self-denial. Internally related to these others is a loss of self. To alienate my labour-power, to be forced to sell it as a commodity on the market, is to lose my life-activity, which is my very self. It is to become other than myself. Sometimes we speak innocently enough of being beside ourselves or feeling remote from ourselves; or sometimes we use the language of the search for identity and authenticity, of not knowing who we are or not recognizing who we’ve become. From a Marxian point of view, we are talking about something social and historical rather than something metaphysical or existential. At a deeper level still, the sense of loss of identity or loss of meaning is an expression, but one still alienated itself, of our real loss of humanity, alienation from the human “species-being”, as Marx sometimes calls it. This is one thing Marxists mean when they talk about de-humanization.

There is a further aspect of alienation from self which Marx pays little attention to in his later work, but which receives some mention in the Manuscripts and remains important at an implicit level. And it is perhaps most appropriate to discuss it in relation to alienation from self. This further aspect is alienation from sensuousness. Marx conceives of the history of human labour as, among other things, a formation of the human senses themselves. The human senses are not passive mechanisms, a blank slate on which the world leaves its mark more or less clearly and strongly. Marx understands sense perception itself to be the outcome of a process of the labour of a historical subject. The sensuous forms in which we perceive things and their relations is therefore the product of the history of an active subject. The sense themselves are not given, once and for all, but open to education, broadening, refining, formation and re-formation.

If the senses themselves are a product of the process of human collective self-constitution, it is meaningful to speak of an alienation of sensuousness. In capitalist society, our life activity is alienated. As a result we engage in inherently sensuous activities, but in an alienated fashion, almost exclusively, that is, for non-sensuous, extrinsic, extraneous purposes. In order to satisfy virtually any need, we must in capitalist society, work through the medium of money. Most of the things we do, we do in order to make money or to put ourselves in the position to make money, or improve our capacities to make money. There is very little, if anything that a human being could imagine wanting, that is not offered to us as a possible object of a cash transaction. Thus the things with which we are engaged are never approached with an eye to either their own intrinsic value or to their human value in a broader sense. We do not relate most of the time to most things in terms of their intrinsically sensuous and aesthetic reality. The imperatives of capitalist society thus enter into our conscious and semi-conscious experience even at the level of sense and perception itself. We are taught to literally see and feel things as utilities, as abstract counters in the process of making still more money. We become alienated from what Marx calls our subjective human sensibilities. Our senses are not so much animalized or brutalized as they are mechanized. If our life-activity were our own, this would necessarily involve the intensive cultivation of our capacity for aesthetic appreciation of sensuous reality. Humans are, after all, according to Marx, the only species that can produce in conscious appreciation of the laws of beauty. Under alienated labour, sense experience becomes a modifiable sign for things and relations that can be turned into money, the sign of all things. Because our activity is degraded to the level of mechanical subservience to crude needs, or, in reaction to that we perhaps become aesthetes, we regard everything only from the standpoint of the use it can be put. Or we come to attach a perception of beauty or aesthetic value to that which commands a high price. We can be impressed with the supposed aesthetic value of something because it is expensive.

This relation to everything, even the objects of sense and beauty, in terms of its usefulness to the expanded reproduction of capital means we no longer have an eye for the thing itself. Oriented mainly to pieces of the world whose monetary value means that they are essentially interchangeable, we are brought that much more easily to relate to ourselves and each other in this way. We begin to evaluate ourselves and each other in terms of the amount of money we can make. Or parts of ourselves can be ranked in such terms. We are less able, if still able, to perceive and appreciate the intrinsic qualities of anything, even including ourselves. This dehumanization of the senses, and of perception and of judgement, is not something accidental to the dehumanization of humans.

We are thus led to the fourth aspect, alienation from other people, or from society. Once the traditional community (which understood itself as natural) is broken down, human beings become essentially potentially useful or threatening objects. One can now have enemies in a new sense. Only with the breakdown of primitive communism does man become a wolf to man. “Man is a wolf to man” (homo homini lupus ) was one of Hobbes’s favourite sayings. “Wolflike” behaviour can and does occur in “primitive” societies and between such societies, but it is not the principle of those societies. It does become the central and organizing principle of class societies. In the market it is hard to say that the antagonism of classes becomes more severe, but the antagonism among individuals certainly increases. Now, according to Marx, “human nature” must be grasped as “the ensemble of social relations”. It is not simply our neuro-physiological constitution or our DNA that makes us behave or act selfishly. We live, according to Marx, in a society in which each individual must see in every other, not the possibility of his liberty, but its limitation. Every other becomes an obstacle to me, but – and this is important too – a needed obstacle, a customer, a client, a creditor, a debtor, an employer or employee. (We haven’t even come up with a better replacement for patriarchalist terms such as husband and wife than “partner” – which suggests nothing so much as a boardroom full of lawyers). The other is a rival. It is not that cooperation here is impossible. In fact we learn to coordinate our activities on an ever more grand scale and complex level. It is that this cooperation can only take place as the coincidence of separate and competing “enlightened” self-interests.

In feudal society, or in Aristotle’s polis, one’s life-activity was directly determined by one’s pre-ordained social status. Along with this, however, came a solidary bond integrating the occupants of the various strata. The lord-peasant relationship was a direct, personal bond of two-way loyalty and duty (and even affection). The exploitation of the peasant was an integral part of a patriarchal relation. Even though the solidarity of such societies was a pseudo-solidarity, a solidarity based upon exploitation, it was still a solidarity. What the market society does is to relentlessly smash the patriarchal links between lord and peasant. Each individual is to be thrown upon his own resources in order to make his fortune or not, as the case may be. The market society severs the patriarchal link between lord and peasant, lord and lord, peasant and peasant, and substitutes for it the cash nexus. For the personal relationship is substituted one of personal indifference. The bottom line of the contractual relationship is cash. Previously the worker worked for the community either directly or in personal subservience to his superior, and the subservience of labour was an essential feature of a community felt to have the unity of an organism. Previously it was assumed that community was only possible as the subordination of one social organ to another.

Now, however, my work is not service. Now I work for money, which I will spend any damn way I feel like. As a result, for Marx, although this is in one way a less illusory of living, since it doesn’t need to depend on religious or mythical foundations to justify an explicit and clear hierarchy, in another way it is more illusory. My freedom is largely only in appearance. In reality my life-activity is still given up to a superior who is a superior, even though he is formally and by law my equal. In his later work, Marx will especially concentrate on the fact that everything is translated into money terms, and that all relations are mediated by money. In capitalist society, he says, “everyone carries the social bond in his pocket.”

Although Marx does not in the 1844 Manuscripts make the point directly and explicitly, there is a direct connection between Marx’s thoughts on alienation from society and his critique of the state. Those who wish to follow this theme further should read On the Jewish Question. For Marx, the existence of the state implies what we could call a political alienation. Often the Marxian notion of the abolition or the withering away of the state is met by the sort of puzzled reaction one might reserve for the abolition of the sun, moon and stars. But Marx would not call the operation of something like Rousseau’s general will a state. The form of direct self-government comprised in the idea of the sovereignty of the general will would not be considered a state form. The state, according to Marx, is the set of institutions that arises in order to hold together a society that is continually falling apart. The state is a function of other, deeper social antagonisms that are in principle corrigible. It is a function of the universal individual antagonisms of class societies, but especially a function of class division itself, and of the possibility of open class antagonism. The state is a necessary means of coercion and coordination once society can no longer hold itself together by other means, or before it has learned how to do so once again.

The state is an integral part of class society, not something apart from or beyond it; not something neutral and capable of standing disinterestedly above all particular interests. Whereas theorists like Hegel would argue that in the modern state individuals were in actual reality reconciled and unified, Marx maintains that the state is necessary only because of the real antagonisms class societies generate and sustain among individuals. Nor do individuals in the modern, liberal or even democratic-capitalist state really find a community of equals. Instead, in the state, they come together to deny the inequality and separateness that is their real existence in social and economic life. Their coming together in the political community of the state is thus an illusion, because they are separated in fact. The solidarity of earlier, more organic forms of society is supposedly recovered, in bourgeois society, in the political relationship of free and equal citizens. But this is a pseudo-solidarity, given the lie by the many substantial inequalities outside the formal equality established by constitutional law, and by the fact that the powerful within the private sphere have the power to reach out and have the state work primarily in their fundamental interests. As the French writer, Anatole France once said, “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike from begging alms, stealing bread and sleeping under bridges.” It is only because in real life people are alienated from one another through the cash nexus that is increasingly the only thing that connects them, that they must solidarize in an ideal and false unity a formally equal citizens.

Here the notion of an “inverted” or “double” world appears that will become important later on in Marx’s notion of “commodity fetishism”. As a corrective to, and also as a mystification of, a contradictory reality, a supplementary but illusory reality is invented and, as it were, laid on top of the first. What is illusory is not the actual power of the state, but the notions that the state is the only thing that can hold a society of human beings together, and that it can do this while sustaining and expressing the freedom and equality of all its citizens. The state is just such an illusory reality, existing by virtue of the misperception that the antagonisms of bourgeois society are the natural and inevitable, eternal and essential antagonisms of human beings as such. And, in truth, it is a necessary and real illusion – to bourgeois society. Thus, the state cannot be abolished, as some anarchists would have it, by the fiat of individuals. The abolition of the state depends on the prior transformation and abolition of class society. The state functions essentially to maintain society in its present form, as a society based upon class divisions rooted in the way material life is produced and reproduced. But the abolition of class society and its state would not mean the disappearance of differences or of the need for politics. If anything politics would be more prevalent than ever (as opposed to the administration of a subject population) – if what we mean by politics is something like individuals communicating and acting together to resolve conflicts between human needs and social conditions. The existence of processes through which individuals decide upon common policies and common action is not what Marx would call the state.

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 150

Chapter Summary - A new arrival for the Hiddleston clan.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously.

I have no idea if Emma Hiddleston plans to even have kids, it's not my business, but hey, this is fiction, so here she does.

Copyright for the photo is the owners, not mine. All image rights belong to their owners

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog​ @jessibelle-nerdy-mum​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ @damalseer​ @hiddlesbitch1​ @winterisakiller​ @fairlightswiftly​ @salempoe​ @wolfsmom1​ @black-ninja-blade

Danielle looked at the small sleeping bundle in her arms and smiled lovingly. Her niece was only six hours old and already she adored her.

Lucy Blakiston Houston was born after what Sarah called an enviable labour, Emma barely had time to get from lunch with Tom and Danielle to the hospital before she was ready to be brought to the birthing suite. She, Danielle and Jack tried to calculate if she had been in labour at the house, but going by her pleasant demeanour and lack of pain, they ascertained that no, it was only four hours of actual painful contractions.

*

Danielle had spent much of the past month juggling training, work and being effectively Emma's minder since Jack still had to work and Emma was on maternity leave and did not want to be by herself all day. Diana was in London with them more than she was at home in Suffolk but Danielle was the one that Emma could depend on most.

Danielle confessed her slight “issue”, so to speak, with Emma only for her friend to actually confess that there was a girl at work feeling the same way. She used the fact that she could help Emma to prepare for her baby as a distraction from her minds ridiculous idea that she should have her own. She and Emma prepared everything that was small and meticulous outside of such things like cots, cradles and other such things. She even went to the birthing class with Emma that Jack could not make and acted as chauffeur to doctors appointments. Having the ability to help her friend so much made Danielle feel as though she was of some use and able to make up for being such a terrible friend when she was dealing, badly, with her own madness.

“What else do we need?” She asked as she insisted on holding Emma's purchases.

“Steriliser and I was going to look at breast pumps,” Emma explained.

“Scratch them.”

“What?”

“Tom got you a steriliser and I got you a breast pump, that really good Medela electric one.”

“Wait, you and Tom went buying baby stuff?” Emma couldn't help laughing at the idea of her brother's fans seeing him purchasing baby items.

“No, he just gave me the money to get you stuff and I went and bought them online because if I was seen doing that, people would lose their little-warped minds and poor Luke would have to be signed into a lunatic asylum.” Danielle laughed. “Not to mention, I would probably be reported to Social Services for risking an unborn child with all my training.”

“Why would anyone choose to do what you do?”

“Why do people choose to do anything? Jack has run marathons, so has Tom.”

“And I called them mad before, during and after such. You are doing a marathon after doing two other acts of madness first.”

“Well, you're consistent if nothing else.” Danielle joked. “So anything else?”

“Bed?”

“That can be arranged.” Danielle smiled. “How about I cook you a nice lunch and give you some frozen dinners first?”

��Best sister-in-law/best friend ever.”

“I am not your sister-in-law.” Danielle pointed out.

“You and Tom are together long enough to call you that,” Emma argued.

“If it gets me auntie status, I'll bear it.” She joked.

“You already had that status.”

“Good to know.”

With a text to Tom and Jack, they arranged a lunch at Tom and Danielle's home and had food there. Halfway through the meal, Emma felt small twinges of pain that quickly became more painful. Taking note of the length of time of each pain and the time between them, Danielle was able to inform her friend that it was regular and consistent enough to be classed as labour.

She drove them to the hospital as she was most likely the one that would remain calm. Tom had the duty of going to their home to retrieve the hospital bag, as at thirty-seven weeks, they thought she would go over like so many first time mothers would, but the baby clearly did not take after her uncle, Danielle joked to a bemused look from Tom. She also gave him the last of their purchases from the day to drop off to the house for when Emma got out of the hospital.

A mere four hours later, Lucy had arrived in the world.

Tom and Danielle waited patiently as both sets of grandparents met their grandchild first, then, after they went in. Tom looked at his niece fondly, joking that the family had yet another woman in it, and with the women in the family being so independent and strong-willed, Lucy was no doubt going to join a proud tradition.

“Of course she will, and with you two as one set of her Godparents, how could she not be?” Emma smiled.

For a moment, Danielle and Tom didn't really react, having not really heard the words used fully, but as they replayed in both of their minds, they paused and looked at each other before looking to Emma and Tom, who were both smiling at them. “Sorry?” Tom was adamant that he had heard them incorrectly.

“Well, she has a set of godparents on both sides and we were hoping that you two would be the ones from the Hiddleston side,” Emma explained with a large grin.

“I...really?” Tom looked at his little sister and then to the small little girl that she created. “I am not sure I am suitable for such a duty.”

“Hence why we asked Danielle too, to balance it out.” Emma joked.

“Oh, ha-ha.”

“I thought it was funny.” Danielle laughed. She looked at the small baby. “Who were you in a past life to say you're getting stuck with us? What crimes did you commit for such a penance? Poor Mammy and Daddy are never allowed to do anything reckless or stupid for the rest of their lives now.” Danielle gave Emma a playful look. “Don't worry, I'll live it on your behalf.”

“You can do whatever you want and you choose to do some stupid length thing?” Emma scoffed.

“Yep, because I can.”

“I rather my baby. Can I have her back, by the way?”

“When she's a teenager.” Danielle joked as she walked back over to the bed and gave Lucy to her mother. “I love the hair, it must be said.”

“She had no hope with both sides.” Jack shook his head, indicating to both his and Tom's auburn hair before looking at his daughter's own auburn tufts.

“It's gorgeous, and I see a risk of curls. She is just gorgeous.” Danielle smiled rubbing her little fingers with the back of Lucy's hand. “But of course she is, just like her Mammy.”

“Best friend ever.” Emma smiled.

Tom looked at his phone. “Em, Sarah and Yakov are here. We'll go and give you a chance to talk to them for a few minutes, visiting hours are over in twenty minutes.”

“Okay, I am supposed to be out in the morning.”

“I can bring some food to yours to help you?” Danielle offered.

“Please. I have none of that ready. I thought she'd be longer.”

“Well, she decided to be early, so just text me whatever you need to be done, I will sort it and that will allow you two to deal with family, yourselves and Lucy okay?’ Danielle offered.

“Best friend ever.” Emma smiled. “Thank you.” She gave Danielle a small hug before Danielle gave another finger rub goodbye to Lucy.

Tom came over, having given Jack a hug and gave his sister a kiss on the cheek. “Congratulations Emma, Elle is right, she is beautiful, like you, with a little bit of Jack.”

“She has good genes.” Danielle smiled as she gave Jack a kiss on the cheek. “If you need anything from, let me know, okay? Taxi service, laundry, whatever.”

“Thank you, Elle.” Jack hugged her close. “By the way, your lasagne…”

Danielle laughed. “I will do one just for ye.” She promised as they said goodbye and walked to the lobby.

Tom had his arm around her. “How are you?”

“I want to steal Lucy, she is too cute.”

“Don't steal our niece. She's at the eat, sleep and poop-only stage.”

They quickly met Sarah and Yakov in the hallway. “How cute is she?” Sarah asked excitedly.

“Ovary hurting,” Danielle warned. “Wait until you see her.”

Sarah smiled and urged Yakov on. “Come on.”

“We'll see you tomorrow.” Tom beamed as they went one direction and his sister and her husband went the other.

Danielle and Tom drove their cars home at a reasonable speed before Danielle began tidying up after their earlier meal, whose plates had to be left on the countertop as they dealt with the impending arrival of Lucy.

“Are you alright?” She looked at Tom curiously. “With how your mind is at the moment and seeing Emma's baby?”

Danielle gave a small smile. “I am working on it. She doesn't help though, being the cutest little munchkin.” Tom wrapped his arms around her. “I get to dote on her something terrible now. Hopefully, helping with her will make my silly head see how much work they are and realise we're too busy for that at present.”

“We have so much to do first.” Tom smiled. “How was your swim this morning?”

“I broke my personal best.”

“You're incredible.” He kissed her neck. “It's late, Elle, do that tomorrow.” His kisses continued.

“I think you mean that you don't want to wait for me to finish tidying to see if you can get some.” She laughed, leaning into his kisses.

In the time since she confessed to her issue, Danielle was not particularly amorous, a mixture of her training and her hormones making her want to avoid it but she was slowly getting back to herself.

“Is it working?” He smiled.

“Maybe….” She gave a sly smirk.

“Go upstairs, I'm going to put the dogs out for a moment and then I am going to show you how much I adore you.”

“Naughty boy.” She smirked over her shoulder, opening the blouse she was wearing to reveal her bra strap to him.

“That's new.” He declared. “That is definitely new.”

“Mhmm… and I think it is high time that you get acquainted with it.” She showed him a little more. Tom's eyes widened. “Hurry up.”

“Bobby, Mac, out now.” Tom urged the dogs to the back door. “Come on.”

The dogs were quickly ushered out the door and as soon as they completed their business, they were even more swiftly ushered back in before Tom rushed up the stairs to where Danielle was wearing nothing but her new underwear and one of his shirts open to reveal it. “Well?”

“I think it best if I show you rather than say it.” He walked swiftly over to her and kissed her passionately. “I don't know if I said it to you previously, my beautiful Elle, but you have exquisite taste in lingerie.”

“I think I have too many, how do you even remember whether or not you have seen them before?”

“No such thing as too many. And I love getting to be the one with the honour of seeing them on you. I remember them because I get to remember how incredibly sexy you are in them.” He smiled before lifting her to straddle her legs around him before bringing them both to the bed and placing her on it. “And don't think that my shirt escaped my notice and of all the shirts, that one.”

The baby blue shirt was unbuttoned, revealing her body to him. She loved that shirt on him and how he rolled up the sleeves on it when he was doing things around the house. “I am smitten with it.”

“Evidently.” He smiled wickedly. He looked over her body. With her intense training and even with increasing her food intake to assist it, her physique was altering slightly. If he had not been there when she returned from a nutritionist who increased her calorie intake by a thousand extra calories a day, he would be worried but seeing her stick to her meal plan to ensure she was looking after herself properly, he was not concerned. She looked as beautiful as ever to him and in such lingerie, she looked incredibly sexy. “God, I love you.” He declared leaning down to kiss her, which she reciprocated immediately.

[fallish]

bird is the word (the witness, actually)

Pairing: Connor/Gavin Reed

Summary: Connor gets an animal companion, and Gavin claims that gives him disney princess privileges. Connor has no idea what Gavin is talking about. They solve a case.

AO3

As the detective arrived at the scene, Gavin noticed that despite the call for backup being just a mere two minutes ago, the precinct android detective had already made it to the scene. Connor appeared to be cupping his hands to create a two toned bird call. He put his hands down, frustrated as none of the birds seemed inclined to come near the investigation, a few seeming hesitant in the presence of all the humans.

Gavin stepped out of his car to approach the scene. “Hey, anyone wanna tell me what the emergency was here?” He approached the detective who appeared to be crouching near the front of the floral arrangements boutique. “How about you, Snow White? Wanna tell me why you need the birds? Can you do that with all the little forest creatures?” he snickered.

“No, but I can imitate many animal noises,” Connor declared as he studied the tracks in the wet soil scattered over the sidewalk again. “I am certain I can identify the person who stole your arrangements, Miss Ozwell. I need to  find the birds who were here when the perpetrator was here.” He stood, turning to face the owner of the shop before walking a few feet away from the police tape, his LED cycling yellow. “I am never going to have a chance with all the people here, though.”

Gavin raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh, tin can. What exactly are the birds going to tell you? They gonna tweet the name of our perps in your ear?” He laughed at his vision of the scenario playing out, Connor calling out for the birds and then one just squawking in his face, flying away, taking a shit somewhere inconvenient, leaving the detective android humiliated and disappointed.

“Very funny Detective Reed, however, unlike you, I have some animal handling knowledge. Also, what you just stepped over,” He gestured to the spilt soil, “is evidence, with which I can say with 98% certainty, the bird that was here when the store was robbed was hurt by whoever committed the crime. That bird is a witness, believe it or not. We can get evidence from the cameras in the store, but we can get positive identification of the criminal from the bird. It will, at minimum, buy us time to find hard evidence that whoever it was did it actually did do it.”

As he spoke, Connor already appeared to be distracted, ducking under the police tape surrounding the shop and stepping out further away from the main roads, towards the minimal tree line of a nearby park. “Detective Reed, I will meet you back at the station if you would like to stay and collect statements. Otherwise, I invite you to come find the birds with me.” He turned and began to walk away, leaving Gavin to scramble together his belongings.

He turned to the uniforms at the scene, noting that two remained. “You guys can finish up here right?” He waited for them to nod before taking off after Connor. “Take Connor’s car back, leave mine here. Wait up, princess!”

Connor was well into the area where the birds appeared to be gathering. He sat down in the grass and cupped his hands to let out a whistling tone. Delightfully, a bird landed on a branch near his spot and echoed his tune. Gavin caught up and had to stop in his tracks. The birds flocked Connor, landing on his legs, on nearby branches, and even in his hair. The incredible picture they all made was enough to keep him from interrupting and to pull out his phone to start recording.

“I can help, but I can’t until I know who’s hurt. Can you help me find them?” Connor whispered at the birds. There’s no fucking way, Gavin thought. The birds fluttered up and surrounded an uneven patch of leaves. Uncovering the small creature, Connor sighed with relief. “Thank you, little birds! Detective, we can return to the station now.”

An hour later and he still couldn’t fathom what was happening before his eyes. Gavin let his jaw open in awe. That did not happen. No way! He thought rewatching the clip on his phone while observing the crowd of uniforms peeking over at Connor’s desk. Connor literally tweeted at birds until he found the damaged one and was now nursing it back to health in the middle of their office.

“I suspect that the man who robbed the store we were looking at is the same man who has been robbing stores run by androids from the original Jericho. We have been looking into this man for a month at least.” Connor pulled up a middle aged man with patches on his head and light, but bloodshot eyes. “According to our system, he was only arrested once, a possession charge for red ice, and his sister-in-law posted his bail. DPD lost track of him. I put a notification out to all police on patrol and our friends in New Jericho. All we have to do is wait.” He smirked at Gavin and took a seat. “Case almost closed.”

Gavin rolled his eyes, “You’re allowed to say that once the guy is in jail. You said you could make that bird a witness, but I’m gonna see if we can get a warrant for wherever this guy’s is staying, if he’s even staying anywhere.” He turned to his terminal to fill out the required work. “Until this comes back, you can work on fixing that bird.”

Quite frankly, Connor had become somewhat of an attraction. In the three days it took to find the man, Connor had been carrying around a little bird in a sling around his neck. Despite the obvious difference in species, the office seemed endeared by the duo. Pictures were floating around, and even Hank was softer around the little bird by the third day.

The nickname “princess” was also catching on, but Connor seemed completely oblivious as to why it was catching on. Gavin seemed especially exasperated, having coined the name for the android. “Have you never seen a disney movie? Did CyberLife not equip you with disney movies?” Connor just shrugged. Gavin let it go for the time being.

The bird, being well enough to cause a small ruckus with its version of chirping but not well enough to fly, was given entry to the suspect lineup from beyond the mirror. For the first fifteen candidates, the bird showed little to no reaction, besides turning to Connor or Gavin and chirping curiously here and there.

Then the last five men walked in. Immediately, the bird screeched and tried to fly out of its sling. Gavin just barely managed to catch the bird before it hurt itself even worse. “Which one, little bird?” He held the bird to just the first man. Nothing. The second. Same again. The third. A shrill, piercing shriek came from between his fingers. “Okay, yep that’s our guy. ID match?”

Connor looked over his notes. “Number 562375 is indeed our primary suspect.” His little grin took up his face, “I believe I can now say, case closed.” Carefully, he took the bird back from Gavin and put it back in his sling. “I will hold on to little bird until he is fully healed.” His LED lit up yellow as he communicated the identity of the man to Jericho. “We should be covered until then. Nice work, Detective.”

Gavin shrugged, “You’re weird animal powers helped too, I guess. Speaking of animal powers, do you wanna come over some time? I can show you what I mean by disney movies. There’s a shitton of animal companions, pretty much the exact same as little bird, trust me you’ll love it. Or not. Whatever.” He rushed through the last bit. Connor was thrilled to say the least.

“Hank tells me about those all the time. Especially this week. I don’t really get it, but I would love to!” His excitement was infectious.

“Great, so Saturday?” Gavin ventured.

“It’s a date!”

End A/N: Gavin is wondering what in the world he just got himself into and it is great.

[barnestruck]

The Divinity of Notre Dame (II)

(gif creds to owner)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (Medieval!AU)

Summary: All of the officials of Paris are in pursuit of the g*ps* Y/N. She finds a safe haven in an unlikely place where she encounters both the ominous archdeacon and the charming Captain of the Guard.

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: Use of the term “g*ps*”, more Womanizer!Bucky, Pierce being creepy, not a warning but the reader is a badass!, fluff ensues when the soldier and the g*ps* meet!, mention of religious things

*UPDATE* it has recently been brought to my attention that the word “g*ps*” is used as a slur, and that the people of the descent prefer to be referred to as Roma/Romani. i’m really sorry for not doing my research and just going off of the content of the movie/musical to help me with my writing.

A/N: wow! so soon! idk man, I just really wanted to write about these two meeting :) and happy birthday to the loml, a one mr. james buchanan barnes! i swear, that man owns my ass heart <33

Part I

-

Y/N tiredly rested her head against the doors of Notre Dame, doors she had never been through before. The first thing she noticed as she walked in the cathedral was the light. She stopped and beheld all the beauty, like a beggar receiving an alms. Each window, pillar, and arch seemed to fill her with the light of Notre Dame. The light that shone through the immaculate rose window. Y/N felt at peace, safe for once in her life. A calming feeling settled in her subconscious, compelling her to close her eyes as she basked in the light. Though, her serenity was short lived as the archdeacon’s voice pierced through her ears.

“So a g*ps* dares to enter this holy place,” he said. Y/N’s eyes snapped open with a sense of alarm, pushing her to get as far away from that voice as she could. Y/N felt panic creep its way through her mind and morphing her expression. She wouldn’t let it. She wouldn’t let him see her fear.

“Why shouldn’t I? The cathedral is open to the public,” Y/N replied, masking her vulnerability with confidence.

“Because your kind isn’t allowed here,” the Judge snapped back.

Y/N furrowed her brows in confusion. “Why do you hate us so much? What did we ever do to you?”

The g*ps*’s words struck a chord in Pierce’s mind. Her words brought him back to the moment where his brother lied, as a cold lifeless body, in the archdeacon’s arms. And all because he decided to run away with...Sarah. “Your kind has done more than you know. What are you doing here?”

The girl put her shoulders back as she spoke to him, just as she had earlier in the town square where she publicly defied him. “I came here looking for the bellringer. Someone had to help him.”

“That boy doesn’t need your help,” Pierce retorted. “He is my responsibility. God loves even a monster.”

A look of distaste washed over the g*ps*’s face. “That boy is no less human than the rest of us!”

“Well some of us are less human in the moral sense.”

Y/N scoffed, the Judge was so close-minded not even a guillotine could cut through it. “Do you mean me?”

Pierce grew more agitated and defensive. “You dance in public without shame.”

“I dance because I enjoy it! Others...enjoy it too.” Y/N interrupted.

“You use your beauty to mesmerize.”

“My beauty is none of your concern. It is mine to utilize it as I please,” she shot back.

“It is a beauty given to you by God. A God who certainly did not intend you to use it in such a...licentious way,” spat Pierce as he turned, back facing the girl.

The way he said that word...licentious. It disturbed her. She didn’t want to keep arguing with Pierce, acting like this was the reason why their world was still plagued with so much conflict. Y/N took it upon herself to be the bigger person, to propose a compromise. If only she could get him to see…

“Your Grace,” she began. “There must be...some charity within you. If you were willing to help the bellringer, then surely you can extend that kindness to others...almost as unfortunate.”

The archdeacon still did not face her. Y/N had to push harder.

She sighed. “How you would wish others to treat you, could you not treat them?”

That seemed to do it. The Judge waveringly looked over his shoulder to look at her. He spoke his words with hesitation, “Our Lord Jesus said...something very similar.” Just then, the bells rang through the cathedral, signaling the beginning of the midday mass.

“Midday mass is starting. I must go,” the archdeacon said with his head down, trying to escape the g*ps*’s presence. He hesitated for a moment before turning to her saying, “My child, though you people are lost, there could be something in you that can be saved. Stay. Perhaps you will see the meaning of true beauty.” With that, he left. Y/N was now alone to her own devices. She was met again with the grand divinity before in the form of the cathedral.

As a young girl, Y/N had not been in touch with the Savior everyone around her seemed so close to. Judge Pierce was already named archdeacon during her childhood and under him, gypsies were shunned from the church. She never got the chance to seek comfort through prayer, despite having a curiosity towards it. She watched those lining the pews before her, nobles decked in neat clothing, and decided to join them, indulging her interest. She knelt, brought her hands together and whispered:

“I don't know if you can hear me, or if you're even there. I don't know if you would listen to a g*ps*’s prayer. Yes, I know I'm just an outcast, I shouldn't speak to you. Still, I see your face and wonder, were you once an outcast too? God help the outcasts, or nobody will.”

Y/N didn’t know what it was, but something had changed in the atmosphere, allowing her to hear what those surrounding her were praying for as well.

“I ask for wealth.” “I ask for fame.” “I ask for glory to shine on my name.”

Y/N didn’t hold anything against those in her company. Everyone had the right to their own desires and hopes. If they asked to be indulged with more materialism than they were already exposed to, she wouldn’t fault them for that. However, that’s not what Y/N wanted. She didn’t care about being blessed with all the riches available to humankind; she could care less about drowning in the world’s finest jewelry. In fact, she didn’t really think about asking for anything. She could get by with what she had, despite it really not being that much. But Y/N knew that there were people living around her with nothing. All she really desired was having those less fortunate than her cared for; blessed. Were they not all children of God?

As Y/N finished her prayer, she heard shuffling and whispering from behind her. She recognized the voice belonging to that of the Captain, the one who attempted to carry out her arrest earlier that day.

Bucky and Sam had been searching for the g*ps* girl for what seemed like hours. They were surprised to find her praying in a church. Bucky gestured Sam towards the exit. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.”

Bucky proceeded to greet the girl with caution. “I...thought you disappeared into a puff of smoke.”

Y/N was suspicious of the Captain, unclear of where his loyalties lie. She noticed his hesitation in carrying out the orders given to him by the archdeacon. Still, that was no reason to trust him. She pulled out the knife from under her skirt and concealed it by keeping it low. “Don’t believe everything you see.”

Y/N rose from her kneeling position on the pew. Bucky approached her to halt her escape. “And where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

The g*ps* girl could hear the Captain’s breaths behind her. She backed up and turned around to face him, just in time to hold her dagger to his throat. He held up his hands in surrender.

“Oh, easy! I just shaved this morning,” he said in an attempt to charm her and buy himself enough time to free himself from her knife’s hold.

“Oh really?” She asked, humoring him, his remark clearly not working. “You missed a spot,” she said adding a little more pressure to her knife against his skin.

“Hey, hey, calm down. Just give me a chance to apologize,” said Bucky.

Y/N furrowed her brows in confusion. “For what?”

“This.” Bucky knocked the dagger out of her hand by striking her wrist and he shoved her, forcing her to the ground.

A fire burned behind her eyes as she spat, “You sneaky son of a–”

“Hey, watch it. We’re in a church,” he quipped with a smirk.

She rested a hand on her hip, replying sassily, “Are you always this charming or am I just lucky?” She ended her phrase with a slight laugh. 

Well, damn him, if that wasn’t the most melodious thing Bucky had ever heard. But he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted, he was assigned to take her into custody (despite not wanting to). He wasn’t about to let the sound of her voice be the reason he was kicked off the Cathedral Guard. That excuse wouldn’t hold up well in his defense. Unless...he could use the fact that he was in the church with her as his defense. She was protected by the law of sanctuary.

His moment of hesitation bought the girl just enough time to grab the tall candelabra by her side and swing it at him. Bucky regained attention to the situation just in time for him to block her blow with his sword. That wasn’t all she had up her sleeve though. She took another chance to strike him with the other end of the candlelight, but he was still fast enough to defend himself.

“I’m impressed. You fight almost as well as a man,” he noted.

That evoked another laugh from her. Dammit, she’s making this way harder than it needs to be, thought Bucky.

“Funny,” the girl began. “I was gonna say the same thing about you.” With her last word, she forced the candlelight to hit Bucky’s side, the power pushing him back.

“That’s hitting it a little below the belt, don’t you think?” he asked.

“No,” she said with a smile. “This is.” With that, she struck him between the legs, sending him to the floor with a groan.

“Touché,” he let out, pain evident in his voice. After composing himself, Bucky decided to go about the situation in a more civil matter.

“Permit me,” he offered his hand to the girl. “I’m James, but you can call me Bucky. The rest of the ladies do.”

The girl remained defensive in her stance but her expression was passive. She rolled her eyes.

“And you are?” Bucky asked, trying to hear more of her voice. He wanted to put a name to the most gorgeous face he had seen. God knows her name could only be as beautiful as she looked.

“Is this an interrogation?” She quipped. Not exactly what he was hoping for...but it would do.

“I believe it’s called an introduction,” he said as he withdrew his sword back to its holder.

“You’re not arresting me?” She questioned with confusion on her face.

“Not as long as you’re in here, I can’t.”

The girl seemed to relax at that. “You’re not at all like the other soldiers.”

Bucky bowed his head in acknowledgment. “Why thank you.”

The g*ps* set the candelabra down and hesitantly walked toward him. “If you’re not here to arrest me, what do you want?”

She wasn’t close enough. Bucky stepped nearer. “I’d settle for your name.”

The end of her lips tugged up a bit at that. “Y/N,” she said.

Beautiful, Bucky thought. “I thought you were called La Esmeralda.”

“Oh, that’s just a stage name. The girl who dances for money isn’t really me, so I didn’t want to give her my name.”

Bucky’s curiosity peaked. “So who are you, really? If not the girl who loves to dance?”

“Oh I love to dance alright,” Y/N began. “But not for the reasons one would think. It makes me happy and I know it does the same for others. I do it to bring smiles to people’s faces; to bring small moments of joy in an ocean of memories of suffering.”

If Bucky wasn’t convinced of his infatuation for her then, he was now. He stepped even nearer, the desire to be closer to her overwhelming him. Not only did she appear as a work of art, sculpted by Donatello himself, but it seemed her heart and soul had been crafted by God as well. Just then, the sound of a thump, perhaps something being knocked over echoed from above them. That snapped the soldier and the g*ps* out of their reverie. Y/N turned away from and Bucky and toward the sound.

He tried to grab a hold of her wrist to keep her with him just a moment longer. “Where are you going?”

She looked back at the Captain with a determined look on her face. “To see that boy.”

Bucky shook his head. “B-But you can’t.” He didn’t really have a reason for her, he just didn’t want her to leave. He felt...something whenever they were in the same company. Something...different. A good different.

“Of course I can,” she said with a smirk lingering on her red lips. “You just can’t say anything.”

At that, she bolted in the direction at which the thump came from. She called out to the bellringer but was met with no response. Bucky followed the sound of her footsteps with his ears as she moved through the upper levels of the cathedral.

Just like that, she was out of his grasp again; leaving him to anticipate their next meeting.

-

Any type of feedback is greatly appreciated!

-

Tag “List”

@a-crowd-of-newsies

[mmazzeroo]

Jonerys Advent Calendar 2018

@helloimnotawesome 

Dear Val! I’m so excited (and nervous) and honoured to be your Jonerys Secret Santa!

Just a real quick shoutout to Val’s story ‘I Chose You’ - go read it if you haven’t already! *hearteyes*

Never done anything like this before, but got this crazy idea in my head and just couldn’t get it out. So I thought why the heck not?! Why advent calendar you ask. Because they are a vital piece of Christmas celebrations in my part of the world, and as a child I loved them so hoped you might too. Beginning your day with a small piece of chocolate what’s not to like, right? (I still do sometimes even when it isn’t Christmas, please don’t tell my mom). There are advent tv-series where children (usually) somehow end up saving Santa or Christmas or both. So I thought I’d try to transfer the concept into writing by giving you a little drabble-ish sized bite each day from Dec. 1st to 25th.

Fair warning: Virgin fanfic writer (written non-fic pieces though). Un-beta’ed, so apologies for that. English isn’t my native tongue. Any and all grammatical and spelling errors, plot-holes and messed up timelines are entirely mine, and I own them proudly. Since this is based on fiction I’m not trying to make it realistic, just plausible enough to be believable. Totally ball-parking everyone’s ages! Also, because it’s Christmas time I’ve tried to keep the story light and cheery despite the underlying current of heartbreak. (Did I give too much away now?)

Hope you’ll enjoy the story - and the ride! Can be read here below or on AO3.

NB: All rights belong to George RR Martin and HBO. Also, all lines and quotes from various movies, tv series and songs belong to their respective writers / producers / owners. I own none of the content.

ARYA I - What A Shit day!

"Sir! Sir! You need to lay still! We're here to help you, ok?"

She was looking into steel grey eyes as wide as saucers. Like a deer caught in the headlights. Wide with fear and pain. Always the same mix only the degree of either varied. The grey eyed man unfortunately seemed to learn towards fear. Damn it! Fear only made her job more complicated. Fear was only a few steps away from panic and panic was lethal. Panic shut down the brain and prevented her from reaching or reasoning with the patients.

"My wife!" He grabbed her collar and pulled her closer to his face. "Save my wife! She's 8 months pregnant! Please!!" His voice broke at the last word and he loosened his grip on her jacket. Yup, definitely need to calm him down. Shit! She took a quick look towards the tree-line feeling like she was being watched.

"Sir, your wife is being tended to as we speak, ok? She's in good hands. Now can you please tell me your names?"

His lips moved but she couldn't hear a thing over the helicopter taking off just then. Brilliant! Thanks Rakharo! She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. By the old gods and the new please keep the woman and her child safe. Brienne was an amazing paramedic and always did everything within her power to keep everyone alive. She had to have faith, yet she could never help herself to say a little prayer whenever she was on a scene. Especially one like this.

Detective Bronn from King's Landing City Watch had already arrested the drunken sod who'd caused this mayhem. SUV hit in the side, pushed off the road, rolled down a hill and burst into flames. Metal pieces, glass and blood spread heavily all the way down. Pools of blood where the bodies of the driver and passenger had landed. Strange how being thrown out of a vehicle could suddenly be looked at as 'lucky', but it had prevented them from being trapped in a burning car. The blood was all too easy to see in the snow even though the only light available was that from the flames of the burning car - which the firefighters were working on putting out - and her own headlight strapped to her forehead. Both bodies had appeared unresponsive until she and Brienne had managed to get close enough. The drunken driver had gotten off with a broken nose and a busted eyebrow. Fucking asshole! If any lives were lost this evening he'd have a much worse hangover than he could possibly imagine. DA Martell would make sure of that!

A couple of decades ago the Starks and Targaryens had entered an unprecedented partnership. While the Tyrells and Martells were battling over who should reign supreme over Westeros, the wolves and dragons set out on a different mission: They united their medical skills for both humans and animals alike. Under one roof. Together. So today when an emergency call was made they sent out paramedics and a tracker for the hurt and scared animal. To help all injured beings. At first there was the usual scepticism when someone does something new, but gradually people began to understand. Her dad and the late Commander Targaryen both believed the idea of 'leaving no one behind' must include ALL family members regardless of number of legs or wings or scales etc. President Tyrell had successfully managed to get a law past about a decade ago which clearly stated that 'a life is a life' and 'any life taken by outside forces will henceforth be considered a criminal offence and proper authorities shall investigate as such'. So if Tormund and his bloodhounds didn't find and come back with a living breathing dog belonging to the grey eyed man...well then mr. drunk-with-a-busted-eyebrow would be waking up to murder charges tomorrow morning.

"Can you tell me your name, sir?"

She had leaned closer to try to maintain eye contact with him. His eyes blinked once, twice, then closed, she felt his breath on her face and felt his hands slip from her jacket, fall and landed limply in the snow. There was a cry from the woods sounding almost like a wolf, but there were no wolves this far South.

"Clegane! CLEGANE!! Get your arse over here! We need to get him out of this godsdamned snow!"

Sandor Clegane was by her side in a few big strides. He helped strapping the man to the board and helped pull him uphill. He hopped in the driver's seat while she went to work in the back of the ambulance.

"Don't you dare die on me now, buddy! C'mon!" Still no reaction. "C'mon damn it! Wake up!!" Fuck! Cutting his clothes to get to his torso she was met by a sight she'd never seen before. His upper body was covered in scars. Some clearly old while some looked to be pretty resent. Seven hells! What's happened to you?! If only she knew his name. People tend to respond well to hearing their name. She kept working on the man while listening to a symphony of Sandor cursing the King's Landing late night traffic. There was a strong pulse again. Good.

"Yes! He's stable again. ETA?"

"5 mins"

"Roger that."

She searched his pockets for any ID's or papers of any kind but came up empty handed.

"Sir, can you tell me where you are?" She gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

"We, we just..." His breathing was shallow and laboured. "We just wanted to find our family." Tears started to pool in his eyes and he was visibly shaking now from trying to keep himself together. "And now," he took a deep shaking breathe, "it's all gone to shit." Tears rolled down his cheeks as he closed his eyes. Once again crashing.

"Damnit man! Stop doing this shit, it's getting real old! You hear me?!" We're so close to the hospital, just hold on a little longer. Leaning in she whispered in this ear, "Your family needs you."

When they arrived at the emergency entrance at the Lyanna Stark Memorial Hospital, Dr. Lannister was already waiting for them.

"Male, injured in vehicle accident. In and out of consciousness, but stable for now. Seemingly superficial wounds to left side of the head. Broken ribs and possible punctured lung on the left side of the chest."

"Has he said anything, Stark?" Dr. Lannister lifted his eye from his notes and looked straight at her. He didn't mean to she knew that, but the fact that he was so tall he literally looked down at her tend to make her feel like a child being scolded whenever he spoke to her. She did not like that feeling. Despite being one of the best surgeons Dr. Lannister wasn't arrogant though. Sure he would often state the fact that he's better than most, but does telling the truth make you arrogant? She wasn't sure.

She lifted her chin towards him and said, "Only few words here and there about his wife and family, doctor."

"Alright. I'll take it from here then. Time to go fix this daddy!"

He started pushing the gurney down to the lift. She took a few steps down the hall.

"Know anything about his wife?"

"Dr. Martell and Dr. Stark are working on her and the babies as we speak. They're in good hands, Arya." His kind green eyes met her own concerned grey ones.

She nodded.

"Wait! Babies? Plural?"

"Twins!", he shouted before the lift doors closed and he disappeared up to the OR.

Twins! Now she hoped even more that Robb and Dr. Martell could work their magic. She knew her brother was a skilful paediatric surgeon, but rumours had it that he was particularly skilled in neonatal care including surgery. Had to be why else would someone like Dr. Martell pick him as resident? Not known for doing favours she wouldn't give two fucks who his dad was if he didn't have any knowledge and skills of his own. Deep breathe. Ok, so overall the country's top surgeons were busy working on her grey eyed patient and his family. That had to be enough. It had to be!

Normally she'd go check the status of the affected animals over at the vet wing, however not expecting Tormund and his hounds to be back already and since technically her shift had ended while out on the call, she went straight to 'Hot Pies & Ale'. Not exactly the most inventive of names, but as Davos said 'we do what it says on the tin.'

Much to her surprise she heard the rambunctious wildling's voice the second she set foot in the pub.

"For fuck sake Bobby, stop licking Bessie's tits! At least buy her dinner first, you dog!" Tormund shook his head as he took a sip of his beer.

"Well, he is a dog so what did you expect?"

"Ha! Little Stark! Smart as always. Bobby B's a dog, aye, but does that mean I want to listen to him licking his girlfriend's tits all night? Tell me that!" He said challengingly, his eyebrows up and chin raised.

"I'm not 'little Stark'—", she said through clenched teeth

"Only because Bran's sitting in a chair!" he bellowed.

"—and 2nd, I don't know what the hells you like listening to!"

Turning towards the bar she hopped onto one of the stools and nodded to Tyrion and Viserys sitting side by side chuckling, probably at her and Tormund's little exchange.

Giving them an annoyed side glare, idiots, she turned around slightly to face the red-haired man. "Didn't expect you back this early. Is that good or bad news?"

"Good. Found it not too far off in the woods. Growling like a motherfucker though, had to sedate the poor thing. Must've taken some hits in that tumble down the hill. Had a few burns as well not too bad all things considered."

She remembered all too well the sound of the growling coming from the car as she had manoeuvred around the vehicle to get to the man. When the firefighters had managed to cut the lock to the crate open all she saw was a flash of white fur, and it was gone between the trees.

"Dr. Tyrell and Sansa was with him when I left."

Giving him a puzzled look he clarified, "Dr. Targaryen isn't expected back until tomorrow. Anyway, Dr. Tyrell says the dog should be back up and running in a jiffy." Giving her a reassuring smile he continued with a wistful look in his eyes, "Could swear it looked like a winter dog. Albino one at that. White as snow. Big gorgeous beast!" He ended with one of his signature big grins.

"Do winter dogs howl?" she asked while taking a sip of the soda Davos had placed before her.

"This one did that's what led me straight to him. Up North they do and the wolves will reply. Can keep you up all night with their howling banter", he laughed out loud and shaking his head as if remembering something. "We'll know for sure tomorrow when Dr. Stark comes."

"Dad's coming??", she asked perhaps a little too excited.

"Aye, Dr. Tyrell called him down for a consult to make sure. If it is a winter dog then he's more wolf than the huskies she's used to."

"Speaking of howling", Viserys interrupted and looked at Tyrion, "your sister was causing quite a ruckus this evening," he chuckled.

Sighing deeply Tyrion asked, "Do I even want to know what she did this time?"

"She kept yelling for more wine", Viserys laughed trying to immitate Cersei "More wine! MORE WINE! MOOOORREEEE WIIIINNNEEEE!!" Leaning back on the barstool, hand on his stomach laughing out loud he continued, "she almost couldn't sound more looney even if she tried!"

Everyone laughed out loud at that including, and especially, Tyrion.

"I swear rubber cells were invented for the likes of my sister."

"Tyrion!", she slapped him on his arm, "she may be crazy but she's still your sister."

"That's exactly why I say it! If set free she'd be a menace to society." He took a big gulp of his beer. "Speaking of menace, have I ever told you the story of the jackass, honeycomb and brothel?" he asked with a grin wiggling his eye brows.

Leaning closer to him with a big smile on her face she answered "Ooh do tell Mr. Lannister!"

"Well, I once brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel—"

He was interrupted when the pub door was ripped open and the voice of a furious woman yelled, "Hey! Watch where you're going fuckface!!"

Stepping through the door she practically threw her bag to the side as she stomped straight to the bar.

"Dany! Good to see you again, sis", Viserys leaned in to kiss her on the temple, "Flight catch some disturbance did it?" he chuckled.

"Oh if only it was the flight", she growled, "Davos, give me a shot of your Dothraki booze."

"As m'lady wishes", Davos poured a shot while exchanging a look with both Vis and Tyrion. "Here you go."

Dany put the glass to her mouth and threw her neck back taking it in one shot. Resulting in heavy coughing and wheezing. "Gods! I hate that stuff! Give me another one. Now, Davos!"

"Hey, why can't I have any of that by the way?", she suddenly asked pointing her index fingers at everyone's drinks.

"Because Arya," Gendry, having been quiet this entire time, said and raised his hand to point at the sign hanging at eye-level clearly saying '21', "you must be this high to ride this ride." Everyone around her laughed out loud with him. A smug look on his face indicating he was very pleased with himself.

"Fuck you! I'll be 21 in just a few months!"

"Few months isn't 21 today, sorry Arya", Davos said sympathetically.

"Whatever!" She left 5 dragons on the bar and jumped off the stool marching to the door.

Gendry called out to her, "A soda's only 4 dragons."

As she swung the door open she looked back and said, "Keep the change...you filthy animal!"

She heard a choir of laugher as the door closed behind her. What a shit day!

[bee-kathony]

McTavish & Beauchamp  Chapter 3: On the Road

Claire leaves Leoch to collect rent with the men, she feels her chances of returning to Craig Na Dun slipping away.... is that a bad thing?

Chapter 1: Firsts Chapter 2: Decisions Chapter 3: On the Road

CHAPTER 3 | ON THE ROAD

The next few days I was busy attending to people with injuries or illnesses that didn’t live near a healer. I also accompanied the men while they hunted and chased a wild boar in the woods. One man was not so lucky and the boar ended up killing him, the only thing I was able to do for the poor man was offer him comfort in his last few moments.

I was in the surgery now and that’s what Dougal was thanking me for.

“I wanted to thank you, personally for uh what you did for poor Geordie up there on the hunt.” Dougal said, holding a small glass bottle in his hands across the room.

“In truth I did nothing,” I said honestly, “I wish I could have helped him.”

“Ye did. You took him to a peaceful place. And that’s all any of us can ask when we pass. So… thank you.” He said quite genuinely and I was surprised by the tenderness that Dougal was exhibiting towards me.

“You’re welcome.” I replied and waited for him to say something else, when he didn’t I said, “Well if there’s nothing else, you’ll have to excuse me I have a lot to do here in my dungeon.” I said rather sarcastically.

“Well, that’s why I’m here lass.” Dougal said, turning now to face me. “To set ye free from this dank room.

I shook my head, confused. “What do you mean?”

“You’re comin’ on the road.” He said.

“On the road?” What the hell?

“I’m leavin’ tomorrow and I’m takin’ you wi’ me.” Dougal said.

“Taking me where?” I crossed my arms in front of me.

He looked down at his feet, “Travelin’ through Mackenzie lands, collecting rents. Colum doesn’t travel so… visiting the tenants and tax men that can’t come to the gathering, that falls to me. And… attending to a wee bit of business here and there.” He looked from side to side, something in the way he said “business” struck me as odd.

“But why me?”

“I think it would be wise,” Dougal stood and walked over to where I was standing, “to have a healer along. Specially one that does well under strain. And there’s a lot of that on the road.” Dougal crossed the room and made to leave, “So, that’s the business settled. Mrs. Fitz will have suppa ready and you don’t want to incur her wrath by comin’ late…. We leave at first light.” He left me there, wondering what I was to do next.

I didn’t know where this journey out of the castle and on the road would take me. What opportunities would arise. Would I be able to return to Craig Na Dun and go back to Frank?

Did I want to anymore?

I only hoped that wherever we were going… that Jamie was going to.

The next morning I was delighted to see Jamie in the group of men. He came over to me to help saddle my horse and strap my bag down.

“Mistress Beauchamp.” He smiled and gave the horse a pat, his hand brushing against mine. Why was I suddenly so nervous?

“Good morning Mr. McTavish, I hope you slept well.” I said loud enough for the rest of the group to hear and then leaned in and whispered, “I’m glad to see you Jamie. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”

He grinned and looked around at the other men, too busy saddling their own horses and then slipped his hand around my waist, “Perhaps we can find time to…” he raised his eyebrows and then I assumed he tried to wink but it was more of a blink really.

“Oh yes. Perhaps we can.” I smirked; would this give us an opportunity to do what we both had been longing for since we came together those many nights ago? Jamie looked down at me, his eyes lingering on my lips and I brought my hand up to my mouth. I heard him grunt deep in his throat and then someone was calling his name.

“Aye, I’m comin’.” He sighed and squeezed my waist, helping me onto my horse.

Everyone climbed on their horse and we were off. I looked behind me at Leoch, I didn’t know if I would ever return to see it and if I did would it be back in my own time?

_______________________________________________________________________

Jamie rode ahead of me for most of the journey that day so I spent most of my time talking with Ned Gowan, a man who studied law at the University of Edinburgh and was coming along to help with the rent collecting. He had two bags to hold the money in, one I assumed for the actual rent we would be collecting from Colum’s tenants and the other one he didn’t explain what it was for but I had my suspicions.

It was actually quite nice to be out, riding a horse in the Highlands. A welcome change from the stuffy dank walls of Castle Leoch.

With every kilometre we traveled I felt my chance of finding my way back to Craig Na Dun slipping away. I had no idea where I was and I knew I would never find it on my own.

After a few hours of traveling we made camp for the night. The men set up tents, bridled the horses and began to cook what looked like a skinned rabbit.

I sat off to the side on my own as they told lewd jokes around the fire which didn’t offend me at all but what did hurt was when they began to speak in Gaelic, making me feel rather ostracised. I was a “Sassenach” after all, I couldn’t expect them to include me in their conversations but it didn’t help me feel like I belonged.

Jamie must have noticed how uncomfortable I felt and he came over and handed me a bannock, “Dinna worry what they’re saying lass.”

I took it and picked off a small piece, “They hate me.”

“Och, they don’t trust ye,” He crouched down to his knee beside me, “Well, maybe Angus hates ye, but he hates everyone.” He smiled and did his best to cheer me up which managed to lift my spirits a little.

“And what about you? Do you think I’m a spy for the British?” I asked him. We had been intimate physically within a matter of weeks but we were still strangers, unknown to one another in so many ways.

“Nah, but I do think there are things ye’re not tellin’ us and I know you thought about leavin’, during the gathering.” I opened my mouth to protest but he raised his hand stopping me, “Lass I know ye didna go to the stables just to find me, as much as I want to believe that.” He smiled and I blushed.

“Well I suppose you could be right.” I met his gaze, those blue eyes burning daggers into my heart. “But I was never actually going to leave.” Why didn’t I want to tell him the truth? That I had actually thought of leaving on that horse, leaving him, Jamie, behind.

“Although it still weighs on me… out here in the open. I could leave anytime I wanted to and none of you would ever know until morning.” I crossed my arms over my legs.

“Aye, weel, I wouldna wish to see ye go, ye know that Mistress.” Jamie placed his hand over mine, “I know ye are keepin’ things from me but what ye’ve given me…” He leaned in and whispered into my ear, “Ye’re body. I know I can trust ye, I canna believe ye would go around doing that wi’ just anyone ye ken?” A mischievous glint caught in his eye and I turned my face to hide my smile.

“Thank you for trusting me Jamie.” I smiled, “It’s been a rather long day.” I said and set the food I could not eat on the ground and stood, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders tightly. “Goodnight Mr. McTavish.” I squeezed his hand, still holding onto mine.

“Goodnight Mistress Beauchamp.” Jamie let go of my hand, and I left him to find my tent.

We rose early the next morning and continued to the next town to collect the rents. We accepted bags of grain, animals ranging from pigs to goats and whatever anyone else could manage to pay. Some people were giving all they had, surely we could give them some grace?

It weighed heavy on me to see these hard working people give up their livestock which they needed to survive on, to feed their own children.

To be honest I was a little bit fed up with the eighteenth century life and the way people were treated here. Perhaps that’s what drove me to walk over to our cart and untie the goat someone had paid their rent in.

Rupert immediately chased after me, “Hey, hey, where do ye think ye’re takin’ that.”

“Back to her owners, the family needs her.” I tugged at the rope now caught between me and Rupert.

“The goats ours, we’re takin’ her wi’ us.” Rupert shouted, causing a crowd of people to stop and look at us. “The hell you are.” I shouted right back.

“Ye’ll be givin’ me the goat.” He demanded. “Let go! There’s a baby that needs milk.” I huffed and pulled on the goat’s leash.

Dougal walked over then, “Stop ye’re bletherin’ woman, the beast is payment for rent. Fair and square.”

I had also had enough of Dougal just now, “So you’d let a child go hungry?”

“The goat goes wi’ us.” Dougal turned the crowd of observers, “A Sassenach” and motioned drinking with his hand, making everyone laugh.

Just then a man walked over to us, he seemed to be a Smith in the village, “Madame is everything alright?” He was also British, just like me.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, almost taken aback to hear such a familiar accent after all these weeks.

“May I be of service?” He asked again.

“Aye,” Angus said, “Ye’ll keep ye’re nose out of our business.”

“I was speaking to the lady.” The man replied.

Dougal stepped in, “The lady is a guest of Clan Mackenzie.”

“Do you treat all your guests this way?” The man looked from Dougal to me, unsure whether to take me away from them by force.

“Eh, bugga off.” Angus chimed in, always the charmer, “Go home laddie, and suckle on ye’re ma’s tit.”

The man looked at me once again, still deciding whether to continue in this little altercation but turned and went back where he came from.

“That’s it. We’re leaving.” Dougal said.

_______________________________________________________________________

That night we ate in a tavern in the village. Dougal spoke the people there in Gaelic, he was speaking with such passion, a speech and cause he obviously cared very much about. But I didn’t know what he was saying.

From what it looked like though, Dougal was taking money from these people and keeping it for himself. Money I’m sure Colum would never see a penny of. This only deepened my dislike for Dougal. What made me grow to hate him further was when he walked over to Jamie and suddenly ripped his shirt, exposing the scars on his back for everyone to see.

It took everything in me to not get up out of my chair and spit in Dougal’s face. How dare he do that to Jamie? Expose what is a private and painful memory to complete strangers.

I barely talked to the rest of the men as we continued on our journey. Jamie kept to himself after Dougal had exposed him like that. A few small smiles throughout the day but I could tell something was eating him up.

Jamie was right however… we didn’t know much about one another, whatever we had shared between our bodies was still there but with every passing day that I could not touch or kiss him I wondered if it was just lust, a passing emotion or something more.

Dougal’s shady business was enough to make me want to leave and tough it out finding my way back. I couldn’t admit I had feelings for Jamie but he was the only reason I stayed now.

One night however, as I sat in yet another tavern and watched Dougal give the same passionate speech, I heard a word I recognized.

Dougal had said “Jacobite”. Frank was a historian which meant by association I had heard a lot about certain time periods that Frank would obsess about. The Jacobite Rebellions being one of them, his direct ancestor, the nasty Black Jack Randall having fought in the battle of Culloden in 1746.

Suddenly my perspective changed, I was beginning to realise that the activities Dougal and his men were involved in, weren’t criminal. They were political, he was using the shocking display of Jamie’s scars, not to frighten his audience but to stir outrage against the British. Dougal was raising money for a Jacobite army.

I contemplated this newfound information as I sat by the fire one night. Everyone had fallen asleep but I heard voices rise out in the darkness. I looked over but couldn’t see anyone and so I walked over to where the voices were coming from.

“Kinsmen or no’, I dinna owe ye this.” I heard Jamie say to Dougal.

“I seem to recall a certain oath of obedience as long as my feet rest on the lands of Clan Mackenzie.” Dougal replied across the way from Jamie.

“I gave my word to Colum, not to you.” Jamie huffed back at him. I crept closer, peering through brush.

“It’s one and the same lad, and you ken it well. Outside of Leoch, I am Colum’s hands, head as well as his legs.”

“A case of the right hand not knowin’ what the left was up to.” Jamie almost spit out. I had to agree there with Jamie. I was almost positive Colum knew nothing about Dougal’s political affiliations.

“The Mackenzies, the Mcbjorns… no one can force them to give against their will. But we have somethin’ in common. We want our King back where he belongs. Don’t you?” Dougal asked Jamie.

“You have more to gain from a Stuart throne than I do. If you don’t want to save your own silly neck-“ Dougal said, his voice rising.

“My neck is my own concern!… and so is my back.” Jamie said angrily, rushing towards Dougal. I could tell from his posture it took everything in him not to strike Dougal.

“Not while ye travel with me sweet lad.” Dougal said and no other heated words were exchanged. He turned and left Jamie there, steaming with rage.

Jamie turned to the nearest thing and punched a tree several times. He only stopped when he heard the sound of my footsteps come closer.

“He’ll do that again. Use you like that” I said to him.

“Aye, it gets him what he wants ye see.” Jamie faced me and covered his hand with his other, his fingers brushing his now bruised knuckles.

“And you let him.” I walked closer and sat down on a log near the fire, pushing my skirts behind my legs to conceal more warmth.

“He’s my uncle. A man has to choose… what’s worth fightin’ for. As ye ken well.” Jamie said, closing the distance between us and sitting beside me.

I smiled and reached for his hand, I raised it to my lips and kissed each injured knuckle gently. He winced slightly but didn’t pull away.

“I understand now… I think.” I ran my fingers over his hand and held it in my lap. “What Dougal is trying to do… for the Jacobites.”

“Aye, I didna think ye understood before but I didna want to drag ye in this mess, that’s why I didna tell ye…” He stared at his hand in mine.

“I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you. After that first night Dougal ripped your shirt. I should have gone to you, but-“ I looked up as Jamie brought his other hand under my chin.

“Nah, lass, it’s fine ye ken. I was too angry with Dougal myself. I’m afraid I woulda been more of a burden to ye had ye come to me then.” His thumb traced along my jaw.

“When do you think we can be alone?” I asked, the feel of his touch sparked that pull I had felt towards him.

He smirked, his thumb now tracing along my bottom lip. “We’re alone now Sassenach.”

I flicked my tongue out and licked the pad of his thumb and bit it gently. He laughed and pulled it quickly away, shaking it like I had hurt him badly.

“I want you Jamie…” I grinned, “But I can’t do that with you out here in the woods… with ten other men only feet away.” I stared at him, almost afraid he would say damn the men and push me to the ground and take me right then. That thought did arouse me more than I wanted to allow myself to believe.

“Och, ye’re right. I think in a few days we’ll stop at a tavern in one of the towns and stay there. Instead of sleepin’ outside like we have been.” Jamie now pulled my hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Then, Sassenach.”

“Best get some sleep.” Jamie placed my hand in my lap and stood, helping me to my feet.

“Well try not to hit any more trees.” I laughed and rubbed his arm.

“Dinna worry… trees are safe, Sassenach.” Jamie smiled and leaned in to kiss my cheek and left to his own tent.

How could we be this formal when he had already been inside of me?

I told myself that while he had not be able to control himself that night at Leoch, and neither had I, he had managed to regain some of his restrain. It was sweet really, how kind he was, not at all how I pictured men of the eighteenth century to act towards women.

I had experienced the attentions of eighteenth century highlanders and Jamie’s attentions were far more flattering.

While I wished we had waited, that our first time had been more stretched out, there was something to be said in our heated joining. All the tension from our time spent together, wedged tightly on the horse, our kiss by the fire that first night at Leoch, it had led to a combustion we could not contain any longer. Soon we would be able to appreciate our coming together.

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ. Here I was thinking about appreciating Jamie’s body, it had been almost two months since I had arrived and the amount of time I spent thinking about Frank and returning to him was dwindling with every stolen glance at Jamie. Every brush of his fingers against mine, and with every thought of his body joined together again with mine. I slept fitfully that night. Eager for what was to come.

_______________________________________________________________________

I saw the men in a different light the next day, not criminals but rebels. I wished I could tell them that they were on the losing side of history. That it was all a pipe dream. The Stuarts would never unseat the Protestant King George the Second but how could I tell them that? These proud passionate men, who lived and breathed for a flag of blue and white.

It was another day of travelling to the next village. But this journey was different, we came across two men who had been hung up with a “T” carved into their chests for “traitor”. Even I knew this was the work of the redcoats.

Dougal told us to take them down and wrap the bodies. We couldn’t leave them like this. We buried them as they should’ve been and a few men spoke a final parting word. That night Dougal was filled with a new sense of passion when he spoke and to be honest I felt my self wanting to see a change.

After supper I said goodnight to the men, I felt Jamie’s eyes on me the entire time as I walked up the stairs to my room. How long would it be before he came to my room? My heart was pounding as I laid in bed, waiting. Perhaps Jamie was waiting for all the other men with us to go to sleep.

I heard thuds against my door and decided to get out of bed and investigate.

I nearly tripped on a large body sitting right outside my door as I kicked it, “What on earth!” I shouted and loud Gaelic curses came from the large mass.

“What are you doing outside my door?” I said, trying to hold back giggles.

“I was waiting ye see, I wanted to make sure know one came to ye’re room…” I raise my eyebrows at him. “Besides me” He said quietly.

“Why not just come in? Why lay in front of my door?” I asked him. If he wanted to sleep with me again he had a funny way of showing it. After all that talk of being alone again.

“The taproom’s full with townsmen half gone wi’ drink. I was worried some of them might venture up here in search of…well, I didn’t think ye’d care all that much for such attentions from them.”

“After the events of today, I doubt any of them are feeling any kindness towards and Englishwoman.” Jamie really was the kindest man I had ever met. Trying to protect me from the very thing I hoped to be doing with him in my room and hopefully soon. “I’m sorry I stepped on you.” I stifled a laugh, “Well come in Mr. McTavish, you can at least sleep in my room and if anyone tries to come in, you’ll already be there to protect me.” I stepped aside to let him in.

“Sleep in ye’re room? Wi’ you? But Sassenach, you’re reputation…” He smirked, walking through the door and shut it gently behind him.

[wrong-wand]

You’re all I need.

Ship: George Weasley x Reader, Percy Weasley x Reader (platonic), ft Ron, MJ, & Lucy w/ mentions of other Weasleys

Warning: Angst-ish? I don't know, it’s my first time.

AN: Oh my god, shocker, i have no requests. jk i have 1. 

TIS A 100 FOLLOWER CELEBRATION ! ! MY FIRST TRY AT SLIGHTLY ANGST.

Following media belongs to creator and owner - I take no responsibility, right or recognition of any sort! :-)

Walking through the third floor of your four story house - well, four stories and magically enlarged basement ( courtesy of Arthur and his muggle collection that, and i quote, ‘Molly doesn’t need to know about yet’ ) - you continued to scope out a particular room in an attempt to decide what colour you would use to paint the new walls and thus colour coordinate with the furniture you were soon to buy, or build if the Weasley men weren’t too busy.

‘I’m sure Arthur would love to learn how to work a hand sander’ a chuckle slipped past your lips, the sound being smother by your wrist since your hands were speckled with varying paint colours. “What’s funny Auntie [y/n]?” Your niece, Lucy, ran into the room, the little ginger pigtails you’d put into her hair this morning bouncing as she ran into your arms - her little sock clad feet making tiny thumps as she ran. You lifted the tiny four year old with ease as you explained to her that you wanted her grandfather to help you build furniture with muggle tools.

“Grandpa would have so much fun! Let’s do it, mummy could help too!” You gazed down at her happy face as she bounced in your arms, sparks of excitement visible around her - you were being literal, with her uncontrollable magical tendencies it was a wonder something hadn’t caught fire  yet. “Maybe, but we’ll have to do it another time -” you spoke to her lightly as she groaned in protest grabbing her face with a look of utter disapproval and leaning back out of your arms. Rustling the plastic tarp that covered the floor as you moved towards the many cans of different coloured paint that littered the floor, you placed her back on the ground by your pile of painting brushes and you kneeled down to be as close to her height as possible. “- cause right now I need your help to decide what colour we’re gonna paint this new room,” Another loud gasp resounded from your niece’s lips as she started to bounce in excitement once again, her hair bouncing with her. “Really?!” “Yup, you get to decide what col-“ “ORANGE!” “O-orange?” you looked at the little ginger-ette with a furrowed brow as she immediately ran over to the red and yellow cans of paint. You glanced around the room worriedly as you were hoping at least one niece or nephew would give a lighter, more subtle colour to paint your house. Victoire having asked you to paint a room bright purple, Dominique requesting a shocking blue, Louis making your bathroom lime green, and your bedroom was currently a rather odd shade of yellow thanks to a 4 year old MJ (Molly Junior / Molly II). At this rate you were worried for the rest of your house - oh merlin, your new kitchen. “Are you sure you don’t want like a soft grey? Or maybe a nice beige?” You chewed on your lip, falling to sit back on the floor as you watched your niece attempt to lug over the red paint can. “No! Orange! Like my hair! And daddy’s and Uncle Charlie’s and Uncle Bill’s and Uncle Ron’s and Aunt -” “Okay okay, understood,” you closed your eyes and rubbed at your temples as a sigh of defeat escaped your lips “If the husband is gonna be ginger, I guess so is everything else.” ‘This is gonna bring a whole new meaning to making sure the carpet matches the drapes’ rolling your eyes at your thoughts, you picked up your niece in one arm and the can of paint in the other as you turned to head into the hallway and down the many flights of stairs that your house had. So maybe making enough room for the entire Weasley family to stay the night seemed a little … much, but hey, with all these stairs your glutes and hamstrings have never looked better! .“Where are we going? The yellow is up stairs!” your niece wiggled in your arms, her silent plea to be put down. “That can is empty, we can’t make orange paint without yellow paint, Lulu.” “Oh - ok.” Setting her down on the landing of the 2nd floor staircase, you watched as she sprinted down the stairs and into the kitchen where she was no doubt getting up to no good with your Kneazle wandering around the house. Following your niece into the kitchen, you found her standing on one of the kitchen chairs and trying to coax one of the Bowtruckles out of the floating indoor garden you had placed in the corner, while Grimmur; your white spotted kneazle, watched her from the kitchen counter. “Darling, you know the bowtruckles don’t like it when you poke at them,” “I know, but this one is making silly faces at me!” “Still, Lulu, you shouldn’t-“ POP Turning your head to glance behind you, you spotted your fiancé as well as his brothers - Percy and Ronald - all holding immense amounts of bags and boxes. “UNCLE GEORGE!” “Merlin George, not even my kid has me as her first priority,” Percy’s voice travelled through your family room as he watched your fiancé pick up his daughter. You rolled your eyes crossing your arms as you leaned on the doorjamb that connected your family room to your kitchen, watching as your brother-in-law pouted in disappointment as he plucked his wand from his back pocket, levitating the grocery bags your lover had placed on the ground, and attempting to walk past you into the kitchen. ahem. Percy stopped walking, making a quick turn back to kiss you on the cheek in greeting before continuing on his way into the kitchen, walking slowly as to not upset Grimmur who eyed him from his place on the counter. The kneazle never liked him very much. “Evening [y/n]” “Evening Percival, how was work?” you replied as you glanced back at him before going back to watching your niece excitedly explain her day to your fiancé - she went out to chase a flock of diricawls early this morning while you went around cleaning the multiple gardens Molly insisted be around the house - that and the many beasts enjoyed munching on your plants every now and again; they have absolutely no regard for the consumption of your daisies. “Stressful” he sighed out in a weak voice “Audrey still staying at her mother’s?” you watched from the corner of your eye as he nodded while leaning against the counter, running his hands through his hair, showing how stressed he truly was - I mean, Percy Weasley was playing with his hair while in a kitchen; if Molly could see him now. “Well,” you turned fully towards him as you approached to stand by his side, wrapping your arm around his waist to bring him some comfort. “She’s supposed to be coming by later to pick up Lucy, but I’m sure I could drop by the house and persuade her to let me take MJ for the rest of the weekend before she has the chance.” Percy shifted to gaze down at you in astonishment as Ron and George listened to your conversation from outside the kitchen. “and maybe you can stay over this weekend; you know, just to keep an eye on them while I work on the garden - wouldn’t want them running around without supervision with all of those beasts outside and all.” your rambling continued as all the Weasleys in the house just listened. “With George working on the weekends i would need some help with watching the girls and finishing all the chores i have to do since the property is just massive, you know? Plus i could use the company and none of the older Weasley’s really come over too often so I’m awfully lonely in the days and - ” You were cut off by Percy clinging to you in a tight hug as the feel of a tear hitting your shoulder caused you to freeze. “Oh Percy,” Hugging him back, your fingers ran over his back attempting to calm him down as best as you could in your position. You could hear him whimper and mumble as his tears continued to fall, but you couldn’t make out enough to understand what he had said - whispering softly, you urged him to repeat his phrase. “Its all my fault, I drove her off” his fingers shook as his hands pulled you closer, his arms winding tighter around your waist. “Percy, no you didn’t, we all know how Audrey is - she just can’t handle… uh, well anything for that matter - especially with the tension between Molly and Fleur, and now her” You feel Percy nodding his head against your statement. “Percy, listen to me - everything will turn out as it should, but for now, I’m sure Lucy is driving Ron mad out there or trying to braid George’s hair again” Percy sniffled lightly, a small laugh escaping his lips as his arms loosened around you, quickly squeezing you tightly once more before backing off and rubbing at his eyes and dishevelled hair. “Thank you [y/n],” his voice was low and still a bit warbled, but at least it was discernible. “You don’t need to thank me for that Percy, anybody would’ve done the same,” Percy smiled at you sadly before turning to exit the kitchen, most likely to spend some time with Lucy before Audrey popped in and he had to pop out. A slight whisper escaped him as he exited the kitchen, one that shattered your heart, one that you knew you weren’t supposed to hear. “Maybe in your family, [y/n]. Not in mine.” Raising a hand to cover your mouth, you smothered a gasp, a small whimper escaping the barrier at the absolutely broken look that flickered over Percy’s features. The amount of pain Percy must have been. He’d already gone through so much of his own guilt after Fred passed away, blaming himself for what happened, allowing himself to feel happy again after the war had been nearly impossible - even after he found Aubrey; to see him in such pain again was heart wrenching. George swung open your kitchen door almost immediately after Percy walked out, causing you to turn and lean over the countertop in hopes of him not seeing the tears that had proceeded to slide down your cheeks. “[y/n]? Love?” George’s arms encircled you from behind, his head lowering to press tender kisses along your temple down to your neck, his efforts only getting a meek sigh. listening to your shaky breaths he could easily identify that something had upset you, and you would most likely take a bit of time by yourself to gain some willpower to come to him about it. “That Demiguise canopy you ordered came in,” giggling at your ridiculous husband, you turned in his arms to finally look at him. His hands came up to cup your cheeks, wiping away the few tears that had fallen and pulling you into a soft hug as you sniffled. “Georgie, we need to talk about this,” you whispered as you shuffled into him, his warmth bringing you the slightest bit of comfort. “There’s nothing to talk about love,” your head snapped up to look at him with an incredulous expression as your voice grew louder. “There’s nothing to talk about?! ” using your hands to push away from George’s chest, your shocked expression stayed the same. “Love, thats not-” “What do you mean there’s nothing to talk about!” “[y/n], it’s not-” “How can you even say something li-” “[Y/N]!” you gazed up at him with large eyes, watching as he inhaled and exhaled deeply to calm himself. “George…” “That’s not what i meant, love…” you reached up to turn his head towards you as you tried to catch his gaze. “Me and Bill have already talked with everybody; theres still quite a bit of tension from everything that happened before the war with the ministry stuff and during the war…” Silence enveloped the room as your fiancé waited for you to say something; same as you expected of him, not used to being the one to normally fill the void. “…Lucy got into a spot of trouble earlier this afternoon,” you murmured softly after several minutes as more silence washed over the room. George’s body slowly relaxed in your embrace, his breathing levelling off and his gaze finally meeting yours, his voice low and quiet. “What happened?” “Lucy found one of the old firecrackers this morning.” You watched as the corner of his lips twitched; he took a deep breath before leaning back on the counter and pulling you closer by your hips. “And…?” you giggled at the obvious humour and curiosity hidden in your fiancé’s eyes “Grimmur needs a new cat bed…and a trip to the groomer’s,” a massive boisterous laugh escaped your husband as he realized why the cat seemed so hesitant to be around the little girl now. “Is he okay?” George continued to snicker at the obvious distress your kneazle was in this morning. laughing along with your fiancé, you watched as your fiancé smiled and laughed - his mind no longer occupied by the dark thoughts that swirled like fog. “Honestly, i don’t even know,” you leaned your forehead onto your husbands shoulder as you giggled. “i sure hope he’s not too scared - Lucy comes over quite often, and if he doesn’t trust any children, then the Weasley family is gonna have to stop having children!” Taking your chin in-between his thumb and pointer finger, your fiancé raised your head as he studied your face - a smirk building on his face in the process. “I don’t think thats gonna work,” “i - i don’t understand” George rolling his eyes at your oblivious nature and bringing your face even closer to his “Grimmur is gonna have to learn to like kids, cause you’re gonna be stuck in this family and the Weasley line never truly stops,” your fiancé’s gaze was bright and mischievous as his eyes remained locked with yours. “plus, we haven’t even started yet.” “George, we’ve got enough nieces and nephews as it is, right now may not be best time to get pregnant,” “Well, i don’t personally think pregnancy will suit me, maternity clothes and all; that’s why i’ll be the one getting you pregnant.” A smirk on a Weasley’s face was grounds for no good, you knew that personally; especially with George, Ron, or Charlie. “Thats not -“ “Yay! New cousin!” Lucy burst in through the kitchen door running to squeeze herself in-between you and George so that someone would eventually have to lift her up to get her to move. As you looked away from your niece, you caught a glimpse of the only gingers left outside of the kitchen, trying to sneak away- as to not be caught eavesdropping. “Uncle Ron, there’s gonna be another one!” You glanced back at your niece, coddled in George’s arms as she called for her uncle - obviously giving away where they were and what they were doing (though you already knew). Your brother(s)-in-law’s loud whispers carried through the door as they attempted what they thought was being a sneaky conversation. “Merlin’s beard, can’t you teach your kid what a secret is?” “We don’t keep secrets on our side of the family, Ron! It builds bad character,” “Oh ho ho, well you might wanna take a look at the queen of bad character and secretism with Aubrey, Perce!” “RONALD WEASLEY! That is quite enough!” you shouted into the living room, covering Lucy’s ears. Ron’s head peeped around the corner of the kitchen door, looking like a kicked puppy, you could see Percy behind him leaning against the couch with his arms folded across his chest. “But (Y/n)-” “Ron, you take that ‘but’ and drown it in the toilet where it belongs, i don’t wanna hear it,” You were livid, absolutely livid - the sneer across your face would do Professor Snape proud. “I will not have that type of conversation under this roof or so help me, i will remove you from under it myself.” “Sorry, (y/n).” You turned away from your brother-in-law taking Lucy away from George and heading out the kitchen side door into the yard. Sitting on now of the many chairs placed around the yard, you released Lucy from your grip and proceeded to sit and watch as she ran off into the yard, chasing gnomes and fleeing when they decidedly chased back. — You hadn’t known how long you had been out in the yard for, but it was long enough for the sun to start setting and Lucy to curl up in your lap after wearing herself out. Shifting her more comfortably into your arms, you apparated to Aubrey’s temporary residence, convincing her to allow you to take MJ back with you - along with a fresh set of clothes for both girls - before apparating both the girls back to the house. You settled both the girls into one of the many guest rooms - this one specifically for when the kids came over, furnished with an extra thick carpet for accidental tumbles, a bunk bed by the window, and a chest filled with an unimaginable amount of toys for all the weasley kids - no matter the age range. Walking back down the hallways of your own house had never made you feel so tired. Your head pounded as the wood creaked, and your entire body just felt stiff and sluggish. Opening the door to your master bedroom, you immediately took some clothes out of your dresser, dressing quickly before curling up in your bed. You slowly drifted into sleep, the quiet atmosphere soothing the pulsing ache in your head and easing your frustrations. You were startled out of your thoughts when the opposite side of the bed sunk down slowly, the feel of the covers shifting and being tugged away from you making you whine in tired discomfort. No sooner had the sound left your lips, did George stop tugging on the comforter before sliding in behind you. Yet again, you and George were plunged into silence. “I talked to Ron,” Glancing back in his general direction out of the corner of your eyes, you waited for him to continue speaking; when it became obvious he hadn’t planned to continue, you grunted lightly. “He says he won’t say anything around you or in the house; but thats all i could get him to agree to.” Rolling over, your eyes gazed over him, taking in his tired appearance; knowing it was partially your fault that George seemed so stressed. Reaching out, you ran your thumb over the back of his hand, coaxing him to look down at you. “you’re doing all you can to keep your family together, and keep me happy at the same time,” your grip tightened as you pulled him down on the bed, closer to you, “don’t think for a single second that you aren’t doing enough; because you being here is already more than I could I ever ask of you.” Leaning up towards George, you met half way, lightly brushing your lips against his. “You are all I want Georgie, don’t ever think otherwise.”

[newmayhem]

Katama’s Line

Disclaimer: None of this is mine, everything was collected from Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ old websites, the wiki, and the old message boards. Anything written in the first person is a direct quote from Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. For all the entries in the The Den of Shadows Reference series, check the tag or this page.

Katama is Siete's seventh fledgling. Her only direct fledgling is Jeshickah, from whom the rest of the line is descended. Jeshickah and her sisters were responsible for founding Midnight. Jeshickah and all of her descendents are dreamwalkers due to a connection to a k'jait (earth elemental) named Leshan.

Katama’s line was the first ruling line of Nyeusigrube. Katama changed her sisters Jeshickah and Acise, and the second generation (the trainers) was entirely hand-picked and changed by Jeshickah herself. You can refer to Midnight Predator for further discussion on how she chose them. This group of eight individuals founded Midnight, the empire that ruled Nyeusigrube- the vampires, shapeshifters and witches - with a set laws that revolves around the concepts of ownership and free trade, property and territory. 

Katama’s line only grew larger after the fall of Midnight, when another group rose from the ashes of the empire, restrained and hence partially defined by a new set of laws (Mayhem’s). This younger group is often referred to as the Market Circuit, though some very brave few dare to call it Xeke’s line... though even the bravest wouldn’t do so in front of any of Midnight’s trainers. 

Members of Katama's line have appeared in:

Midnight Predator

All Just Glass 

Poison Tree

Promises to Keep

Background

Much of this information is going to center around Jeshickah, as well as Midnight. This is because Jeshickah, while not the founder of the line, has made enough impact on the vampiric society in general that the line is half considered hers, and Midnight has played too large a part in their lives to be ignored. Katama, Jeshickah and Acise (Katama's second fledgling) were sisters while alive; the former two were twins. Jeshickah and Katama were born in 1136 and changed in 1152, at the age of 16 (granted, 16 in 1152 was a good deal older than 16 is today). Acise's physical age is currently unknown. Though Siete and Katama had been in a relationship for several months, she had no desire to become a vampire. Jeshickah was the first to learn what Siete was. She asked him to change her, tried to deal with him, and he turned her down on the basis of the fact that he thought she was crazy and he would regret changing her because she might do something like try to rule the world and dominate everyone -- and what do you know, he was right! Katama 'allowed' him to change her only after she learned that Jeshickah would probably be dead in a few months. Siete changed her on the provision that she would absolutely not change Jeshickah, which is why she did so within hours of when she was changed, while he was away and she was supposed to be sleeping. Siete was furious that Katama changed her, but most of the energy of that anger was directed at Jeshickah, since the process nearly killed Katama.

Acise, the last sister, wasn't changed for any pressing reason (like health), but simply to stay with her family-- her only 'surviving' family. Siete had no strong feelings either way about her change. The three sisters acquired a mansion which they titled Liadan, or Twilight. This, while being Midnight's predecessor, was nothing like the later slave empire. If anything, it was comparable to any noble's mansion. The ladies of the manor ruled firmly but fairly, treating their serfs better than most did at that time. Later, Liadan became home to a pride of lions, who acted as bailiffs, police, and knights. In the fifteenth century, the Inquisition came to Liadan. One of the lions, hoping to protect himself and his pride, betrayed the vampiresses, giving their names to inquisitors and detailing how they could be killed. He was immediately arrested, and tortured until he also revealed the names (and weaknesses) of the others of his kind. As the lions were systematically wiped out from the area, Katama and Jeshickah abandoned Liadan and founded a less-friendly empire. Enter Midnight. Midnight quickly became a force to be reckoned with, and by the sixteen hundreds, Midnight had physical, political and economic control over the other vampires, the witches, and all but a very few shapeshifters (the shm'Ahnmik, the Azteka and the Shantel, to be precise). In addition to controlling all trade routes, Midnight also became the heart of the vampiric slave-trade, where humans, witches and shapeshifters were bought and sold. Many people from Mayhem blamed its destruction in 1704 on Midnight (they were wrong, but since when does that matter in terms of wars and policy?). Even those who knew what really happened, which was a very small handful of people, recognized that it was time to strike back at Midnight before Mayhem weakened any further. It is not a coincidence that Midnight burned in 1804, exactly one century later, in an assault on its primary building. However, that assault would never have worked if it just destroyed property. The empire was weakened from within first, though power-plays from Mayhem and defection by Kendra's line. When the central building, the symbol, of Midnight burned, it spurned all the shapeshifters and witches to fight back, as well. It destroyed the image, the fear. Jeshickah's personal manor was hit that day, as well. Jeshickah and her trainers may have escaped, but all of Jeshickah's property, including all her slaves, burned. Even so, Midnight might have pulled power back. Jeshickah simply didn't have the heart for it. Thus it was in the early 1900's that Jaguar was approached by his brother Nathaniel, and told that a number of Kendra vampires had plans to organize Midnight's resurrection, and that they had the political power to succeed. Unwilling to allow this to happen, Jaguar stepped in and recreated Midnight himself, with a few minor adjustments to suit his own rebuilt personality. Since he was a direct fledgling of Jeshickah's, no one argued with his right to do so, and he ruled as the Master of Midnight for almost a century before Jeshickah put in an appearance.

Social traits

Jeshickah chose her fledglings with fairly specific traits in mind. Apart from picking handsome men -- and men only, as she has no greater love for women -- she also picked men with the same talent she had: being able to see and exploit human weaknesses. Also, Jeshickah broke almost all her fledglings, essentially making them her slaves, her property. However, if Jeshickah is going to spend the rest of eternity with them, they need to be relatively independent so they aren't constantly hanging off her and needing her to tell them what to do. It would be nice if the people who live forever with you can engage in interesting conversation. It would also be bad if they ceded their will to any person who happened to get authoritative with them. So Jeshickah's trainers were broken such that they would never challenge her outright, but they retained their ability even to argue with her -- as counsel and such is necessary to the successful running of an empire.

Midnight’s trainers include Taro, Varick, Gabriel and Jaguar -- and of course Jeshickah. Taro, Varick and Jaguar belong to Jeshickah. Gabriel, as a vampire, does not. If you change a free human (and in this case I mean not broken, not just unclaimed by law) he becomes a free vampire. As broken is considered a permanent condition, if you change a human who has been broken, you still own him post-change, as well as anything he owns and hence all fledglings he later creates. Nathaniel and Gabriel were both mistakes -- though they were made in different ways. Nathaniel was easily tamed; he was a slave before she bought him, and knew it was in his best interests not to fight too much. Yes, he was scared of her, but he was never broken. Long story short, Jeshickah lost her temper and nearly killed him; after being teased by Acise over not being able to break him, she changed him instead of letting him die. Gabriel was a very different scenario. From the start, their relationship, while not quite between equals, was less of an owner-slave setup. He challenged her; he wasn’t afraid of her. Repeatedly, he refused her. If Jeshickah were capable of falling in love with a man, one might say she fell for him. They were for a while each other’s obsessions, still are in a way, despite the fact that they hate each other. Either way, Jeshickah wasn’t about to give him up by killing him. However, later generations weren't necessarily chosen for the same qualities, so it's not really possible to generalize like that.

Jeshickah put a ban on her fledglings creating fledglings of their own, although there are some of her fledglings who have disobeyed her -- either they created fledglings before the ban was put in place, or they simply do not feel bound to do exactly as they're told. The lower ranks, especially Xeke, are quite prolific.

The majority of Midnight's subjects have always been from Kendra's line. Katama's line was simply the ruling class.

Special talents

Katama's line is another of the lines who has special talents above the standard vampiric powers. While Jeshickah was still alive, she managed to gain some power over an earth elemental, Leshan, by naming him. Later, after Midnight's destruction and before Jeshickah's return to it, she bound this elemental to her fully, strengthening her ties to him. Due to Jeshickah's bond with the elemental, all vampires coming from her -- as well as her twin sister Katama -- have the ability to dreamwalk. Neither higher nyeusi nor Zadre's descendents dream- that means lunar and solar vampires and Tristes. They remember; they relive. However, a vampire of Katama's line can share a mortal's dreams or, if she's strong enough, manipulate or change the dream to suit her fancy. Once you get past the first level of fledglings (Jeshickah's direct fledglings) the ability to control dreams changes, but even the weaker fledglings can share them. The bond with Leshan also gave Jeshickah and her offspring the ability to feed by touching their victim -- without needing to bite them. This talent, however, is mostly used subconsciously; weaker vampires or those of younger generations might not even be aware that they can do so.

A fairly unique trait of Jeshickah's line, the trainers of Katama's lines have the ability to form mental links with people they work with. It isn't quite as strong as a bloodbond, and can be broken through psychic training, etc, but it's still pretty powerful, and not only enables the trainer to find those he owns, but also works like a back door, providing a pathway past any mental defenses the other person has.

Family Tree

Katama

Jeshickah

Acise

Taro (deceased)

Varick (deceased)

Quinn*

Xeke*

Maya*

Jason 

Olivia*

Nathaniel

Jega (?) 

Gabriel

Jared**

Jaguar

*Quinn may be directly or indirectly responsible for Xeke, Maya, and Olivia.

**"Semi-canon" relationship.

[call-of-the-v0id]

This was a drabble I wrote back in 2009 for my mom after finding out she enjoyed reading stories about her favorite show, Johnny Lancer. This isn’t overwatch, it’s just that I found an old flash drive of mine from many years ago and have been finding all kinds of weird things. This is dramatic/comedy in case you lose the context of the story lol! xD

A Johnny Lancer drabble.

"The Journey to- Where Again?"

      Lately I've been catching myself staring at the sky. The vastness up above intrigues me to no end and somehow I wish I could be apart of that infinite escape. I do long for a retreat beyond these dimensions of the human world, to be apart of something greater and less frightening. To be away from the blood shed and leave the past far behind in the deep reaches of my subconscious, left to be forgotten and erased from my memory. It's plain today I haven't been myself. I was watching the clouds creep by in that infinite sky and the patterns that emerged from them dissipated to something completely different, unlike the everyday stern looks and stares a person holds with them till death. Ah yes, the sky is ever changing and it's will to do so is unstoppable by any human hand. My father was talking to me about the ranch and bringing up such topics as his will and how me and Scott will become the land owners when he finally passes. I secretly prayed to myself that that the reaper could spare my father, at least for another 10 years or more. I've grown attached to the man and Scott as well. There is this spot on my belly that has been bothering me for days now! It itches like hell and no matter what I put on it it doesn't seem to make it any better. Teresa took a look and I knew for sure she'd pull something out her ass and fix it right up but she suddenly disappeared about a week ago and we haven't seen her since. I just don't want anyone finding out about this, it's annoying but I'll live. I also found another spot on my -

"John! Get out here!" A shout from the door startled the man and he hastily shut a small notebook and slid it beneath a pile of paperwork on his work area. He rose quickly and stumbled to the door, but regained himself before Scott could have a chance to notice his odd behavior or at least he hoped so.

"What is it Scott? What's the problem?" Johnny managed to breath out before he was shoved outside. The sun hit him like a train. His eyes narrowed instinctively as he felt the sun burn into them. He had been inside all day and barely realized it was day time. In fact, it was early morning. Murdoch stood a few feet away,  a solemn scowl crossed his face as he regarded the blue eyed man who returned with a slightly more bewildered expression.

"Whats the problem?" He repeated his last and unanswered question to his father who merely shook his head lightly and closed his eyes. "Well son, I've got some terrible news. " He began, his eyes darting to Scott who seemed a tad on the nervous side.

"Yea?" It was all he could manage to get out. He eyed both his father and Scott and tried to gauge their behavior on the situation. It must have been real bad for them to be gathered like this in such a rush and on such short notice. Murdoch continued, letting his folded arms fall to his side. He raised a hand and held it above his eyebrows, scanning the horizon as he chose his next choice of words carefully. "There was a fight in town between some young boys and it got nasty. You see, Teresa was up there gathering some supplies and found herself in the middle of it all. Well, poor girl got herself caught up in a knife fight and was..." He couldn't finish the last sentence. He breathed in slowly and turned to Johnny, knowing the rest could go on without being said.

Judging from the man's reaction, he was right. Johnny's body slumped slightly as he tried to take in the information and shook his head in disbelief. "Well god damn..." He cursed a few more times under his breath and paced about, kicking at the ground beneath his feet. Scott swallowed hard and took a step forward. "That's not all." He added, his eyes nervously darting between his father and his brother. Johnny instantly ceased movement and raised his head at Scott, interest imprinted in his scowl. "W-well... I did a little investigating of my own. I went to town and talked to a few of the people that witnessed it and it appears it was more than just a fight between two men." He paused for a moment, trying to hold eye contact with his brother whose glare was shooting daggers through him. It wasn't anger towards him but none the less he didn't like those eyes staring at him like that.

"It appears they were fine before Teresa arrived but when she did come they noticed her satchel and obviously saw something they wanted. She... She didn't have a chance." As he finished his last statement, Johnny let out a grunt and rubbed the back of his head rather harshly out of frustration. "Those damn kids. Where they'd get off to?" His voice was hoarse, low and void of question, rather he was demanding an answer. Scott lowered his head at this and fumbled with his holster. "The law never got 'em. They got out of there just in the nick of time. I heard from a man he saw them riding west of here, toward some canyon. But that's at least a 2 week ride from here." He stated. He kept his head lowered but raised his eyes to Johnny, noting the subtle difference in his brother. He could tell the gunslinger was plotting.

Murdoch approached the door and rested a hand on Johnny's shoulder. "You two boys should know what you have to do. The funeral will be a week or 2, so that should give you enough time to be gone and back again in time. Don't worry about anything here, I'll take care of it." He declared, patting Scott on the back as he stepped by him. The two brothers didn't need to acknowledge this. It went without saying what they were about to do.

It took them only an hour or two to saddle up and bring only what they needed to be there and back again within the week. The trail was cooling off, and time was off the essence. They had to be hasty if they were going to take of the murderers and retrieve any of Teresa's belongings. Within the morning they managed to get everything and prepared and set off.

They hit the town and asked around a little more, trying not to waste too much time on the same old clues. The only hit they were able to dig up was names, ages, and possible hide outs. "Cori Benkston and Jessie Escaban. Cori's 33 and Jessie's 28. " Johnny recited from his mental notes. Scott followed closely behind as they sped off deep into the west. They had learned the two boys were gun fighters themselves, but rogue fighters that used dirty tricks and stole what they wanted, rather than earning it. They fought dirty and didn't care who died in their wake.

It took them 3 days to reach a sliver of a river, flowing gently due south of them. The clear crisp water waved at them, as if inviting them to a break. However time could not be wasted. They refilled their water supply and continued throughout the day, camping at small little concealed sites so it would be much harder to be spotted when they awoke in the morning to pack up and leave.

It was hard to believe it had already been a week. Off in the distance, at the very farthest reach for the human eye to see visibly was a small protruding piece of earth. It was the makings of a canyon. They were traveling in the right direction but it would be at least another few days before they got there. That night they spent most the time relating tales to each other and gossiping about past events and the dumb antics of the drunks at their favorite local bar. Scott had noticed Johnny had become much calmer than he was when they first started their journey. But something was bothering Scott tremendously. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but he was best if he didn't worry Johnny with his petty self-issues.

The next day a small town laid across an equally small patch of land. It was surrounded by cliffs, hanging several hundred feet above. It was good to finally see some kind of civilization after almost a week and a half of nothing but the vast desert and your brother to keep you company. But within the town, there was no one. The streets howled a lonely tune as gusts of wind stirred layers of sand and dust from not only the streets but from the buildings themselves. "It's empty." Scott relayed the obvious information to Johnny, but it was good to hear it at least. It confirmed his suspicions.

"Well I'll be damned." Johnny let out a sigh and approached the last building of the town. "There's not a trail out of here. We'll have to head back and go around." Judging from the distance of the cliffs and the terrain amidst all of the bouldered rock, Scott was able to safely estimate the time of arrival. "That will be another day or two added to our litle trek, and that's if we can safely get our horses over those rocks safely. " He stated, his brow lines pinching together in concern. Johnny didn't offer any words, he simply turned his horse around and left the town.

As Scott predicted, it took them longer than usual. The horse had problems manipulating their way through the tough terrain but after 2 days of careful footing, everyone made it out okay. But as the horizon came into view again, both of them noticed something very daunting. The protruding rock that called to them previously was suddenly gone and westward only promised a vast and endless desert that seemed to lead to no where. Johnny, almost breathless at this realization, jumped off his horse and immediately set up camp. He was too frustration to weigh his options or even discuss it.

Quietly the two sat by the fire, watching the flames lick the open air and dance wildly in it's confined spot on the ground. For a while Scott had been wanting to mention something to Johnny but couldn't find the courage to do so. Finally, he gulped hard and opened his mouth to speak. "John, I got something I gotta get off my chest." He said, though his voice was quiet. Johnny heard him however and raised his head. "Yea, what is it?" His response was calm and showed none of the previous frustration whatsoever. This made Scott relax and he sighed inwardly. "Well, we've been out here for almost 2 weeks now, and lately I've been catching myself asking this one question. But I didn't want to bring it up because for some reason I felt guilty. So I just followed you, thinking you knew where we are going. But I gotta ask... What are we doing out here?" He finally asked, sincere confusion in his tone.

Johnny was startled by this question and froze for a moment. He didn't want to admit it himself but he was in the same boat as Scott. "You know what Scott, I'm not too sure myself. I've completely forgot why we're here too." He conveyed honest confusion as well that complimented his brother's. Together they sat for a long while, juggling reasons in each other's thoughts. "Well, I think we were following some trail to a canyon. But for the life of me I can't recall why." Scott finally said. It seemed both of them were unable to remember why they were there, which left them with only thing to do. "I suppose it's time to saddle up and head home Scott." Johnny stated. Scott nodded and could think of no other thing to do.

The next morning they awoke, packed up and spent the next week heading home. It was drizzling when they finally arrived and Murdoch was at the door already, watching the rain. He waved to his sons and offered a warm smile. "Where you boys been??" He asked through the light padding of the rain against the buildings and earth. Both of the men got off their horses and hurried inside. They sat down in the kitchen and shared a pot of coffee. Murdoch sat down across from them and nodded slightly. "A canyon? Why were you two headed off that way? I've been wondering where you two went off too. Well just glad you're back. We got some ranch business to take off tomorrow morning. Get some rest and we'll talk then." With that he raised his glass and retreated to his study.

Johnny decided he'd do the same. He said his good byes and closed himself into the safety of his room. From beneath a pile of paperwork he dug out a small notebook and pulled a pen out of a drawer next to him. He opened it up, dated it and began writing.

        About that thing on my belly--

The End.