#one of my old teachers left to go and be a journalist and reporter in Palestine

[sayruq]

NAHLA AL-ARIAN HAS been living a nightmare for the past seven months, watching from afar as Israel carries out its scorched-earth war against her ancestral homeland in the Gaza Strip. Like many Palestinian Americans, the 63-year-old retired fourth-grade teacher from Tampa Bay, Florida, has endured seven months of a steady trickle of WhatsApp messages about the deaths of her relatives. “You see, my father’s family is originally from Gaza, so they are a big family. And they are not only in Gaza City, but also in Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, other parts,” Al-Arian told me. Recently, the trickle of horrors became a flood: “It started with like 27, and then we lost count until I received this message from my relative who said at least 200 had died.” The catastrophe was the backdrop for Al-Arian’s visit last week to Columbia University in New York City. Al-Arian has five children, four of whom are journalists or filmmakers. On April 25, two of her daughters, Laila and Lama, both award-winning TV journalists, visited the encampment established by Columbia students to oppose the war in Gaza. Laila, an executive producer at Al Jazeera English with Emmys and a George Polk Award to her name, is a graduate of Columbia’s journalism school. Lama was the recipient of the prestigious 2021 Alfred I. duPont–Columbia Award for her reporting for Vice News on the 2020 explosion at the port of Beirut. The two sisters traveled to Columbia as journalists to see the campus, and Nahla joined them. “Of course, I tagged along. You know, why would I sit at the hotel by myself? And I wanted to really see those kids. I felt so down,” she said. “I was crying every day for Gaza, for the children being killed, for the women, the destruction of my father’s city, so I wanted to feel better, you know, to see those kids. I heard a lot about them, how smart they are, how organized, you know? So I said, let’s go along with you. So I went.” Nahla Al-Arian was on the campus for less than an hour. She sat and listened to part of a teach-in, and shared some hummus with her daughters and some students. Then she left, feeling a glimmer of hope that people — at least these students — actually cared about the suffering and deaths being inflicted on her family in Gaza. “I didn’t teach them anything. They are the ones who taught me. They are the ones who gave me hope,” she recalled. “I felt much better when I went there because I felt those kids are really very well informed, very well educated. They are the conscience of America. They care about the Palestinian people who they never saw or got to meet.” Her husband posted a picture of Nahla, sitting on the lawn at the tent city erected by the student protesters, on his Twitter feed. “My wife Nahla in solidarity with the brave and very determined Columbia University students,” he wrote. Nahla left New York, inspired by her visit to Columbia, and returned to Virginia to spend time with her grandchildren. A few days later, that one tweet by her husband would thrust Nahla Al-Arian into the center of a spurious narrative promoted by the mayor of New York City and major media outlets. She became the exemplar of the dangerous “outside agitator” who was training the students at Columbia. It was Nahla’s presence, according to Mayor Eric Adams, that was the “tipping point” in his decision to authorize the military-style raids on the campus.

On February 20, 2003, Nahla’s husband, Sami Al-Arian, a professor at the University of South Florida, was arrested and indicted on 53 counts of supporting the armed resistance group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The PIJ had been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, and the charges against Al-Arian could have put him in prison for multiple life sentences, plus 225 years. It was a centerpiece case of the George W. Bush administration’s domestic “war on terror.” When John Ashcroft, Bush’s notorious attorney general, announced the indictment, he described the Florida-based scholar as “the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian.” Among the charges against him was conspiracy to kill or maim persons abroad, specifically in Israel, yet the prosecutors openly admitted Al-Arian had no connection to any violence. He was a well-known and deeply respected figure in the Tampa community, where he and Nahla raised their family. He was also, like many fellow Palestinians, a tenacious critic of U.S. support for Israel and of the burgeoning “global war on terror.” His arrest came just days before the U.S. invaded Iraq, a war Al-Arian was publicly opposed to. The Al-Arian case was, at its core, a political attack waged by Bush’s Justice Department as part of a wider assault on the rights of Muslims in the U.S. The government launched a campaign, echoed in media outlets, to portray Al-Arian as a terror leader at a time when the Bush administration was ratcheting up its so-called global war on terror abroad, and when Muslims in the U.S. were being subjected to harassment, surveillance, and abuse. The legal case against Al-Arian was flimsy, and prosecutors largely sought to portray his protected First Amendment speech and charitable activities as terrorism. The trial against Al-Arian, a legal permanent resident in the U.S., did not go well for federal prosecutors. In December 2005, following a six-month trial, a jury acquitted him on eight of the most serious counts and deadlocked 10-2 in favor of acquittal on the other nine. The judge made clear he was not pleased with this outcome, and the prosecutors were intent on relitigating the case. Al-Arian had spent two years in jail already without any conviction and was staring down the prospect of years more. In the face of this reality and the toll the trial against him had taken on his family, Al-Arian agreed to take a plea deal. In 2006, he pleaded guilty to one count of providing nonviolent support to people the government alleged were affiliated with the PIJ. As part of the deal, Al-Arian would serve a short sentence and, with his residency revoked, get an expedited deportation. At no point during the government’s trial against Al-Arian did the prosecution provide evidence he was connected to any acts of violence. For the next eight years following his release from prison in 2008, Al-Arian was kept under house arrest and effectively subjected to prosecutorial harassment as the government sought to place him in what his lawyers characterized as a judicial trap by compelling him to testify in a separate case. His defense lawyers alleged the federal prosecutor in the case, who had a penchant for pursuing high-profile, political cases, held an anti-Palestinian bias. Amnesty International raised concerns that Al-Arian had been abused in prison and he faced the prospect of yet another lengthy, costly court battle. The saga would stretch on for several more years before prosecutors ended the case and Al-Arian was deported from the United States.

“This case remains one of the most troubling chapters in this nation’s crackdown after 9-11,” Al-Arian’s lawyer, Jonathan Turley, wrote in 2014 when the case was officially dropped. “Despite the jury verdict and the agreement reached to allow Dr. Al-Arian to leave the country, the Justice Department continued to fight for his incarceration and for a trial in this case. It will remain one of the most disturbing cases of my career in terms of the actions taken by our government.” That federal prosecutors approved Al-Arian’s plea deal gave a clear indication that the U.S. government knew Al-Arian was not an actual terrorist, terrorist facilitator, or any kind of threat; the Bush administration, after all, was not in the habit of letting suspected terrorists walk. Al-Arian and his family have always maintained his innocence and say that he was being targeted for his political beliefs and activism on behalf of Palestinians. He resisted the deal, Nahla Al-Arian said. “He didn’t even want to accept it. He wanted to move on with another trial,” Nahla said. “But because of our pressure on him, let’s just get done with it [because] in the end, we’re going leave anyway. So that’s why.” Sami and Nahla Al-Arian now live in Turkey. Sami is not allowed to visit his children and grandchildren stateside, but Nahla visits often.

[mariacallous]

In a video address in honor of Victory in Europe Day on May 8, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “everyone who remembers World War II and has survived to this day is experiencing déjà vu.” As The Beet has reported previously, for some elderly Ukrainians, Russia’s full-scale invasion has indeed stirred childhood memories of another war — one in which Germany was the enemy rather than an ally. Meanwhile, in Germany, Russia’s aggression has reignited the issue of historical war guilt, prompted a reckoning with decades of foreign policy, and helped fuel Berlin’s current support for Ukraine. This sense of collective responsibility also undergirds the work of the Aid Network for Survivors of Nazi Persecution in Ukraine, an organization formed in response to Russia’s 2022 invasion. Journalist Anna Conkling reports from Berlin. 

This story first appeared in The Beet, a weekly email dispatch from Meduza covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Sign up here to get the next issue delivered directly to your inbox.

Zinaida Safronova was one and a half years old when Nazi German soldiers invaded her village in western Russia. It was June 1943, and her father had long since gone to the front to serve in the Red Army, leaving her mother Yulia, then 27, to care for Safronova, her seven-year-old brother Vyacheslav, and her four-year-old sister Tamara. 

The soldiers loaded Yulia, her children, and all their neighbors onto carts and transported them to a concentration camp in Gomel, Belarus. The Nazis were rounding up civilians throughout Eastern Europe and taking them to concentration and work camps that were killing millions. Safronova is one of the survivors, but she has no memories of her time in the camp; she was far too young to remember the torturous conditions, which left her family on the brink of starvation. But stories from her family members offer glimpses of that period in her life. 

Prisoners leave a Nazi concentration camp in the Gomel region of Belarus after its liberation in March 1944

Semyon Alperin / Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War Archive

According to one story, Yulia had been allowed to go to a nearby village to get milk for her family when an air raid hit the camp. She ran back to her children but only found Tamara and Vyacheslav. After two weeks of searching, Yulia feared her youngest child “had died or been lost among the corpses.” But then a German soldier brought Safronova back to her mother. 

The Red Army liberated the camp in October 1943, and Yulia and her children returned home to their village. By that time, Vyacheslav had lost sight in one of his eyes due to an injury sustained during the air strike. Safronova never met her father, who died at the front. And Yulia avoided talking about the war for the rest of her life. 

“My mom always said that we didn’t appreciate the food we had or the fact that bombs weren’t falling and there was no war going on,” Safronova said, recalling how the absence of war defined the rest of her childhood. 

Safronova studied to become a math teacher, and in 1964, she moved to Odesa, Ukraine, to be with the man who would become her husband. They had two children together and, as the decades passed, Safronova came to think of herself as Ukrainian. “I lived there for almost 60 years and in Russia for less than 20,” she explained. 

Safronova had no desire to leave her home in this city on the Black Sea. But everything changed after February 24, 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At 82 years old, Safronova was thrown back into a life of war, and she and her daughter Hanna, 51,soon decided they had to leave Ukraine. Like more than one million Ukrainians, they fled to Germany. In the very country that had stolen the earliest years of Safronova’s life, she became a refugee. 

Church personnel inspect the damages inside the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odesa, Ukraine, following Russian missile attacks. July 23, 2023.

Jae C. Hong / AP / Scanpix / LETA

People walk over rubble that carpets the ground at a residential complex following a massive Russian missile and drone attack on Odesa. December 29, 2023.

Ukrinform / SIPA / Scanpix / LETA

‘They told me it’s déjà vu’

Relations with Germany have long been a source of pain for Ukraine and other countries that once made up the Soviet Union. By some estimates, the USSR lost around 27 million people in World War II, including both civilians and soldiers. According to historian Stephen Cohen, at least 60 percent of Soviet households lost a member of their nuclear family in the war. Of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, more than 1.5 million were shot to death in Ukraine, Belarus, and other Soviet republics. 

In turn, most Germans have had to grapple with the topics of responsibility and guilt for Nazi-era crimes. History classes in grade schools focus heavily on World War II, and most Germans have some ties to the country’s Nazi past, whether that be through parents, grandparents, or distant relatives who were involved in the Third Reich. In confronting this history, Germany has turned many sites of suffering and pain into historical landmarks where tourists and locals can engage with and learn from the country’s dark past. And the administrators of many of these memorials have also mobilized their resources to do good in the present.

The German NGO Kontakte-Kontakty (stylized as “KONTAKTE-KOНTAKTbI” in Cyrillic script) counts the children of committed National Socialists among its founders. For the last 21 years, the NGO has been working with survivors of Nazi persecution in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, in an effort to make reparations. Through education, historical documentation, and financial and humanitarian support for survivors, they have played a crucial role in supporting these aging people in their final years. And since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, they have directed all of their attention towards helping elderly Ukrainians, like Zinaida Safronova, who found themselves living in a wartorn country once again.

Coordinator Ragna Vogel at the Kontakte-Kontakty office. On the wall behind her are portraits of people who survived German captivity during World War II. 

The Beet

Beginning in March 2022, Kontakte-Kontakty partnered with 50 organizations and historical sites in Germany to form the Aid Network for Survivors of Nazi Persecution in Ukraine. “We met via Zoom with memorials and museums in Germany who work on this topic — persecution during the time of National Socialism — [and] we decided we want to support [survivors] in this very hard and special situation, during the second war in their life[time],” said Ragna Vogel, the Aid Network’s coordinator. 

Vogel estimates that the network raised 40,000 euros (nearly $43,000) to help Ukrainian survivors and their families in its first three weeks alone. In total, these organizations have managed to raise 680,000 euros (roughly $726,000). Part of that money has been delivered directly to 160 survivors still in Ukraine, providing each with a monthly stipend of 40 euros ($43). Some of the aid recipients are Jewish Holocaust survivors, while others are former Soviet citizens who were taken to camps as children or were born to imprisoned mothers. 

With the youngest survivors in their eighties, it’s nearly impossible for those still in Ukraine to rush to basement shelters when Russia launches attacks, and many have been re-traumatized by air raid sirens — a sound that evokes memories of their wartime childhoods. “They are very old or too weak and cannot go downstairs [to] the basements; some are confined to bed. Some of them told me it’s déjà vu from their young years,” said Vogel. 

Ragna Vogel at the Kontakte-Kontakty office

The Beet

Inside Kontakte-Kontakty’s archive

The Beet

According to the coordinator, some elderly survivors aren’t so much concerned about their own safety as stressed about the prospect of losing their children and grandchildren. So far, most have decided to stay in Ukraine rather than move abroad. The money from the network has helped them afford medications and food, as well as electricity and heating during the cold winter months. Though 40 euros may not seem like much, a payment they can rely on gives the survivors a small sense of security in times of immense uncertainty, Vogel said. 

“This is money from private persons who give very small donations. It’s really a collection from normal people in Germany who donate something like 50 [or] 100 euros,” she told The Beet. “We have so [many opportunities] to help because of these small donations. It’s really good to know a big part of society is supporting this.”

Guilt about the past

Vogel believes that a sense of collective responsibility drives many Germans to help people who suffered under the Nazis. “When we were youngsters, it was a feeling of guilt. But then, later, it left [us] a bit. It’s a feeling of responsibility, the feeling that there are things [that need to be done] to make up for the sins of the past,” she explained. 

The House of the Wannsee Conference, where high-ranking members of the Nazi Party and the Schutzstaffel (the Nazi paramilitary organization better known as the SS) met to discuss the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” is one of the Aid Network’s members. Located just outside of Berlin, the mansion has changed hands throughout its history. After the end of World War II, it served as a summer camp for a Berlin school district, and in 1989, it was declared a memorial and educational site. 

The House of the Wannsee Conference

The Beet

Inside the Wannsee House’s memorial center

The Beet

Nazi leader Hermann Göring’s 1941 order to SS General Reinhard Heydrich concerning the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”

The Beet

When Moscow’s full-scale invasion began, The Wannsee House issued a statement condemning Russia’s aggression and expressing solidarity with Ukraine. The memorial center had worked with Ukrainian partner organizations for years, and the staff immediately began looking for ways to support their colleagues in Ukraine, said Eike Stegen, the Wannsee House’s public relations officer. 

“I think we were all quite surprised by the violence. I think most of us never could have imagined that there would be a war in our neighboring country and that rockets would be [raining] down on our colleagues in Kyiv. [It seemed] impossible, unimaginable. And I think we all felt that shock,” Stegen told The Beet. 

Eike Stegen in the Wannsee House’s library

The Beet

Two weeks into the full-scale war, on March 8, Berlin had a public holiday in honor of International Women’s Day. Normally, the Wannsee House would have closed for the day, but it remained open and put out a donation box to raise money for Ukraine. All of the money made from audio guide sales was also put toward this fundraising effort. That day, the Wannsee House collected 2,000 euros ($2,171) to send to Ukraine. 

“We knew there was so much more to do and that we cannot deal with that all on our own. So, we joined the [Aid] Network,” Stegen explained. 

The Wannsee House has collected donations from visitors ever since and worked to secure government funding for the network. But as the war has raged on over the last two years, they’ve seen a dip in the number of donations. At the beginning of the war, Stegen said, Wannsee House could collect around 500 euros ($537) a month, but now it takes two months to reach that goal. (Vogel has noticed a decrease in donations to the Aid Network, too.) 

The history of the Nazi regime is personal for Stegen. His grandfather was a member of the Nazi party’s original paramilitary wing, the Sturmabteilung or SA, and during the war, forced laborers from Eastern Europe worked on the family’s farm. Stegen’s father, who was seven when the war ended, told his son that he doesn’t remember much from that time. The family hardly spoke about the people who were forced to work their land; they referred to them as “The Russians,” though Stegen suspects that at least some of them were likely from Belarus and Ukraine. 

Eike Stegen stands next to an educational display in the Wannsee House’s memorial center

The Beet

“There was no critical reflection on that situation. So, in that sense, [they were] a very typical German family. ‘We had to. We couldn’t do anything else,’” said Stegen, describing his family’s attitude towards life under the Third Reich.

Stegen’s work with the Aid Network over the past two years has brought him into direct contact with the survivors of Nazi persecution in Ukraine. He says that sometimes, when survivors thank him and his colleagues for their work, he feels a sense of shame, knowing how much Nazi Germany took from them. “There is so little that we can do as historians [and] as memorial sites. We wish the government would do more and that the support would be stronger. So, for me, it was always a little shameful,” he explained. 

‘It’s impossible to go back’

Originally, Safronova and her daughter planned to stay in Odesa despite the full-scale war unfolding around them. During the first two months of the invasion, Russia launched airstrikes on cities across Ukraine daily, and Russian warships also targeted Odesa from the Black Sea. Hanna could hardly believe her eyes. “My aunts and uncles live in Russia, and suddenly they were attacking us. How? This [was] completely impossible to understand,” she recalled.

On April 23, Easter Sunday, the house opposite Safronova was destroyed in an explosion, and the blast seriously damaged the 82-year-old’s already poor hearing. She and Hanna decided to leave Odesa that very day. 

A stormy sky over the Black Sea. Odesa, March 2024.

Yulii Zozulia / Ukrinform / Future Publishing / Getty Images

As Hanna set about making plans, she remembered that a German foundation had helped her mother once before. Back in 2000, Safronova obtained documents from Russia confirming that she had been a “juvenile prisoner” in a Nazi concentration camp. At the time, Germany was offering financial compensation to former forced laborers and “other victims of National Socialism.” (Berlin formally concluded this initiative in 2007 but continues to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to support Holocaust survivors every year.) 

With the help of the Ukrainian courts, Safronova applied and received compensation payments in 2001–2002. And although 20 years had passed, she still had the paperwork. Hanna looked up the foundation online and sent a letter to the “many, many email addresses” listed on its website. A few days later, she received a response from Kontakte-Kontakty’s Ragna Vogel, who immediately offered them assistance. 

The pair arrived in Germany one month later. They moved to Augsburg, one of the country’s oldest cities, where they set about rebuilding their lives as refugees. Neither spoke German or English, and they were at a loss for understanding Germany’s strenuous bureaucracy, but the Aid Network was there to help. “Frau Vogel told us that if we had any problems, if we needed any help, we could turn to her,” Hanna said, adding that the organization even helped pay for her mother’s hearing aids. “I started to cry when I put in my hearing aids, and I could hear everything again,” Safronova recalled. 

Hanna said she and her mother never could have imagined that their lives would be so connected to Germany. And she’s been pleasantly surprised by the support the country has offered to Ukrainian refugees. Germany has taken in more than 1.15 million Ukrainians over the last two years and provided ample support, including migration counseling, language classes, automatic welfare payments, and long-term residency rights. 

“I used to think of Germany and fascism, Nazis, but today I am ready to say to the entire German people and the German state: Thank you,” Hanna said. 

Today, Hanna focuses mainly on learning German and caring for her elderly mother, who has struggled to adjust to their new life. “I was born into a war [and] war found me again,” Safronova lamented. “It is absolutely impossible to go back [to Ukraine] now. But time will put everything in its place,” she added. “Right now, it’s not a question of whether I want to go back or not. It’s dangerous.”

[thoughtlessarse]

Nahla Al-Arian has been living a nightmare for the past seven months, watching from afar as Israel carries out its scorched-earth war against her ancestral homeland in the Gaza Strip. Like many Palestinian Americans, the 63-year-old retired fourth-grade teacher from Tampa Bay, Florida, has endured seven months of a steady trickle of WhatsApp messages about the deaths of her relatives. “You see, my father’s family is originally from Gaza, so they are a big family. And they are not only in Gaza City, but also in Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, other parts,” Al-Arian told me. Recently, the trickle of horrors became a flood: “It started with like 27, and then we lost count until I received this message from my relative who said at least 200 had died.” The catastrophe was the backdrop for Al-Arian’s visit last week to Columbia University in New York City. Al-Arian has five children, four of whom are journalists or filmmakers. On April 25, two of her daughters, Laila and Lama, both award-winning TV journalists, visited the encampment established by Columbia students to oppose the war in Gaza. Laila, an executive producer at Al Jazeera English with Emmys and a George Polk Award to her name, is a graduate of Columbia’s journalism school. Lama was the recipient of the prestigious 2021 Alfred I. duPont–Columbia Award for her reporting for Vice News on the 2020 explosion at the port of Beirut. The two sisters traveled to Columbia as journalists to see the campus, and Nahla joined them. “Of course, I tagged along. You know, why would I sit at the hotel by myself? And I wanted to really see those kids. I felt so down,” she said. “I was crying every day for Gaza, for the children being killed, for the women, the destruction of my father’s city, so I wanted to feel better, you know, to see those kids. I heard a lot about them, how smart they are, how organized, you know? So I said, let’s go along with you. So I went.” Nahla Al-Arian was on the campus for less than an hour. She sat and listened to part of a teach-in, and shared some hummus with her daughters and some students. Then she left, feeling a glimmer of hope that people — at least these students — actually cared about the suffering and deaths being inflicted on her family in Gaza. “I didn’t teach them anything. They are the ones who taught me. They are the ones who gave me hope,” she recalled. “I felt much better when I went there because I felt those kids are really very well informed, very well educated. They are the conscience of America. They care about the Palestinian people who they never saw or got to meet.” Her husband posted a picture of Nahla, sitting on the lawn at the tent city erected by the student protesters, on his Twitter feed. “My wife Nahla in solidarity with the brave and very determined Columbia University students,” he wrote. Nahla left New York, inspired by her visit to Columbia, and returned to Virginia to spend time with her grandchildren. A few days later, that one tweet by her husband would thrust Nahla Al-Arian into the center of a spurious narrative promoted by the mayor of New York City and major media outlets. She became the exemplar of the dangerous “outside agitator” who was training the students at Columbia. It was Nahla’s presence, according to Mayor Eric Adams, that was the “tipping point” in his decision to authorize the military-style raids on the campus.

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[daemosghost]

It's genuinely crazy how the high school I went to was just successfully able to just cover shit without the press questioning them cause why did I come across a news article that essentially says high school students were "allegedly" brutalized by cops in 2007 with mace and batons for trying to break up a fight and there were no further updates also I looked into the article for the lockdown we were under in 2018, its damn near bare bones

To preface, I redacted some stuff cause I know for a fact that they didn't like people talking about incidents whether it was recent or old and I have a feeling that they'd find some way to get this deleted lmao.

[ID: [REDACTED], AL (WTVM) - A [REDACTED] high school has been placed on lockdown after officers received an "unconfirmed report" of a firearm on campus.

[REDACTED] Sheriff [*] Jones has confirmed that a school resource officer at [REDACTED] High School received an unconfirmed report that a student may have brought a firearm to school.

Sheriff Jones says there has been no incident indicating an attempt to do harm.

Deputy sheriffs and resource officers are currently at the school attempting to confirm whether or not a firearm is on campus.

Sheriff Jones says that despite social media concern that other schools are involved, on [REDACTED] High school is involved in the situation. /End of ID]

Like why is there NOTHING here? Like I can literally confirm what happened pre-lockdown and also confirm there was 100% malicious intent behind this, while they were out here claiming that whoever had the weapon intended no harm. Here's what happened.

Passed 6:30 in the morning on the school bus, I sat in the wrong seat because sometimes the guy who sat in front of me on the bus changed where he sat and that would get my already muddled brain confused that early in the morning. That same morning, the guy who was a senior at the time that rarely every got on the bus in the morning, got on the bus that morning and was mad because I "took his seat". Later on when we got to the elementary school, we usually sat there until 7:15 because the kids who rode the bus couldn't be released until that time hit, the guy started talking about shit, and it switch to violence real quick. He said if he'd bring a gun on the bus, shoot me first, everyone in the back of the bus, the bus driver and the literal children. Later on that day it was lunch time, while eating, me and my friend literally witnessed two football players standing next to our table, "discreetly" dealing a bag of weed to the other. One of them left to go to their car and came back saying something about some stolen guns, and went to the principal and resource officer. Me and my friend watched them discuss something and a few other teachers had got up whispering about something after whatever was said being spread to them, and next thing we knew, lunch was abruptly cut short. Teachers kept rushing all of us to hurry up and get to class, we knew something was up then, but not exactly what. I got to my math class, she got to hers, I sat in my desk, my math teacher didn't know what happened yet and was confused at what was happening. She checked her email and then called the office, and also ushering us inside. Someone asked what happened and she said we were under lockdown and it was not a drill. After everyone got inside, blinds were closed, lights were shut off, some people went behind her desk, doors were locked and the window of the door was covered over. We were all just on our phones the whole time and still talking, then we saw one of the journalists go live on facebook standing outside the school, many concerned parents in the chat and also students complaining about being hungry and/or needing to piss. At some point we heard footsteps in the hall which made everyone dive under stuff and hide behind the teacher's desk, the teacher had still been at the door so she flattened herself against the wall hoping not to be seen like Shaq hiding behind a pole. It was nearly 3pm or was 3pm before we could leave the school, they had us leaving in chronological order like "if you're a car rider/or car rider whose last name starts with A to G, you can leave now" and that took a while. Some of the guns were found in a bathroom stall, but some were still missing. The guy that stole them had booked it into the woods hid out there for a while before going home and being found there. It was the same guy who threatened to kill me and all these other people on my bus earlier on the day of the lockdown. He ended up being expelled, yet this article doesn't say shit at all, not even a name released since he was literally an adult and had already failed senior year once already.

[goggles-mcgee]

Too Late: Alya & Nino (commission for miner249er)

Fourth chapter of @miner249er ‘s commission

Chapter Summary: The truth is harsh. Teens are harsher.

Previous Work

Last Chapter                          Next Chapter

Truth.

As an aspiring journalist it was something Alya strived for. It was the most important thing she could give the people who followed her so diligently. She thought she had been giving them that. She had been so good about giving them the truth, her truth, and Ladybug’s truth in the past, she foolheartedly believed she was continuing to do so despite taking shortcuts later on in the road. Why didn’t she fact check herself? Why did she throw that very thing in Marinette’s face? What kind of reporter was she? What kind of friend was she? The answers were all around her and yet she still wasn’t ready to face them head on. There was still that voice in her head that was telling her that this was all Lila Rossi’s fault. 

But is it? Alya thought as her and Nino ate together at her house, the TV on in the background. At first it had been on the news but Alya was done with the news for a long while, all it had been was coverage of The Protector and Nino had immediately taken the remote and changed it to cartoons. This was hitting him hard, harder than Alya had expected if she was being honest. When they found out Ladybug and Chat Noir had, in fact, not defeated The Protector and instead the akuma, that Marinette had gone missing, it hit the class hard. Hard because they learned the truth about Lila in that time and that had been rough to work through. Then they had to come to the realization that they believed Lila over Marinette, the sweet, kind, selfless girl that had all at one point been friends with. 

Then the lies got to them. It poisoned them. That’s what Alya had written on her blog anyways. They were victims of a silver-tongue and they had paid the price, one they had not been prepared to pay for. Their friend was missing, had been missing and they couldn’t do anything. Alya had been searching through as many local papers and news around the world for any clues if Marinette had possibly gone to those places. Everything was coming up empty. She had even made a separate website along with Max all about Marinette and what had happened, she left ways to reach her and her classmates in case anyone had any info. Nino said they should have added Tom and Sabine’s information as well but Alya was too scared to ask them if they would be okay with it, last time they had all been at the bakery the tension had been palpable. 

They weren’t banned like Nathaniel had worried they would be but every time they went in with their families, because that was the only time they went in there, it was always awkward. Tom and Sabine were much too nice to ban them even if they felt like they deserved it. How did everything go so wrong? Even school wasn’t as fun as it had been. Walking into their classroom was like taking a walk of shame, people from other classes, even teachers just stared at them. Some even glared. Then there were the whispers, Dieu the whispers, they followed them everywhere not just school, but they were the most prominent there. Her, Nino, and their classmates would find notes in their lockers, none were really threatening but they tore at her heart all the same. Things like, ‘You’re the reason she’s gone,’ or, ‘Are you guys proud of yourselves now?’ ‘Were the lies worth it?’ ‘You traded in a gem for fool’s gold.’ ‘What a reporter you turned out to be.’

All the notes hurt. That was the truth. That last one? She had found it in her locker this morning and it burned. Alya had been bullied before, she never liked to think about it, who would? But she was and she had to acknowledge it because she had told herself she would never allow herself to be bullied again, and most importantly, she would never turn into a bully. Wrong. She was wrong, and it wasn’t the first time she had been made aware of this since everything happened. Since everything changed. It was a blessing that Nino and her were still together, he never partook in the “tough love” the class had been giving Marinette before she...before she had been akumatized. Sure he didn’t stop them, and that was bad, but he didn’t go out of his way to not invite her to things until she stopped being “jealous” and started acting like the bigger person. Nino wasn’t the one who ignored her text messages, which now that Alya read them, were pretty telling that her friend had been hurting and she had only made that worse. 

“What are you thinking about babe?”

Alya looked up from her half eaten bowl of soup to see Nino gazing at her in concern. “Marinette.”

“Oh…” He breathed out as he put his spoon down and looked down at the table before placing one of his hands on hers and giving her a small smile. “Everything will be okay Alya. Someone will find her and then she’ll be back home.”

Empty words. Empty words fed to him too much from adults who didn’t have any updates on anything. “You don’t believe that. And even if she did...who's to say she would even want to talk to us!? What’s to say that anything would be better? We would still be seen as the bad guys! We will still all have to eat lunch at our houses or the park just to avoid the stares and the whispers and the tossed trash our way and the “accidentally” spilled drinks!”

Alya had never understood just how much their class had been living in its own little world. Not to say they were completely unattached to the rest of the school, Alix, Nathaniel, Rose, Chloe, and Sabrina were in the art club (the art teacher and the rest of the club had made a mural of Marinette without notifying them or asking for their help. Everyone is encouraged to leave notes about Marinette on the mural. The art room even has a chair decorated in honor of Marinette that no one else can use. That was announced very pointedly Alix later shared.), Rose was in the scrapbooking club (no one asked to use her materials anymore like they used to), and Max was in the gaming club which Marinette had helped him set up (people weren’t showing up lately.) They weren’t kicked out, but they were reminded of Marinette all the time,it was like everyone’s way of punishing them. It had never occurred to any of them how popular Marinette was.

So popular that the whole school seemed to hate them. Even Mlle Mendeleiev seemed to be harsher than normal and that was really saying something, it would seem like she had a soft spot for Marinette. In their class everyone avoided Marinette’s seats in class, Alya had to step up as class representative but the silver lining was that Nino had stepped up to be her deputy. Though another negative was the fact Nino had stopped making his music and taking DJ gigs. At first he hadn’t said anything to her or their friends, Alya found out because of Chris actually, but then her and Adrien confronted him and he broke down. He cried and he didn’t stop for a long time, but when he had calmed enough to talk he pulled out old pictures of him and Marinette, told them stories about how they had grown up together. It had made the pit in Alya’s stomach grow, she had just been thinking about her and how much she blamed herself and how much she missed her best friend, she hadn’t even thought how this was affecting Nino.

“I...I need to believe it Alya. I need to. Because if I don’t I will break apart. Mari...Marinette and I were best friends in l'école primaire. I never thought she would ever not be a part of my life. Then the whole Lila thing happened and I turned into a coward again, like I had with Chloe! No, worse than a coward! I don’t even know what I would call myself but I know I can’t call myself her friend.” His voice rose the more he spoke and near the end it cracked. 

“Nino…”

“No. I know that’s the truth! And I know, I know that things at school have been rough. Hell, they’ve been awful, everyone sees us as these villains in some trashy young teen novel when all we’ve done is make a mistake! Yes. It was a big mistake but it was a mistake nonetheless but we’re...we’re kids dammit. We’re just kids.” Alya felt tears race down her cheeks as she saw her boyfriend break yet again, his cheeks wet with his tears, his voice choked with his guilt. 

“I know. I just...I just want her back. I want everything back. I don’t know how many times we have to apologize to the school, but they’re not even the ones that need to hear the apologies! The one we need to have hear us isn’t here and…” Alya could feel herself breaking but she tried to hold on. Nino needed her to be strong. Her class needed her to be strong. Her family needed her to be strong.

“I can’t take the stares! Or, or hear Rose’s cries that she tries to hide from us. Mylene hasn’t been eating and I know she thinks we don’t notice and Adrien, god Adrien. I’m trying to hold it together because my bro is falling apart at the seams! First Marinette gets...gets fucking akumatized, then his dad and Nathalie get taken to the hospital from some supposedly random attack but it’s pretty obvious it was Mar-the akuma’s doing, his mom freaking pops out of nowhere but of course that can’t just be a good thing because everyone has to talk about how his dad and Nathalie were probably Hawkmoth and Mayura! And I’m over here trying not to think too much about all that because it makes actually too much sense, but then we find out that Marinette was most likely Ladybug! LADYBUG!” He lamented, not bothering to hide the fact he was crying, more like sobbing. It just made Alya cry more.

“I...I wanted the truth for so long, but not like this. Not like this. I...I know this makes me sound like the worst person on the planet but I kind of wish stupid Gabriel Agreste wasn’t Hawkmoth because then I could be akumatized and maybe I could be some kind of time-travelling akuma and we could go back and fix everything and school wouldn’t be hell and the twins wouldn’t act like they had to walk on eggshells around me all the time and my dad wouldn’t look like he’s always so disappointed in me and my mom wouldn’t look at my with only pity in her eyes and Nora would talk to me and Marinette would be back!” Alya sobbed out. At this point her and Nino had moved from their seats to the kitchen floor and were huddled together hugging each other for comfort. 

The two just sat there soaking up whatever comfort they could and dreaded the time that passed. For each minute that passed, was a minute that brought them closer to having to go back to school. Alya didn’t know if she had the strength to go back and deal with everything, she didn’t know if Nino could handle it either, but she knew her mother would be by any minute to give them a lift back to school. If there was a way she could just finish school online, Alya was willing to do it, but her father wouldn’t ever allow it. He had put his foot down, Otis Césaire was mad, then he was disappointed and he thought it only fair that Alya face her peers and continue on at Françoise Dupont. It didn’t feel fair, it didn’t feel fair at all, it felt like punishment. Hadn’t she been punished enough? Even in sleep she wasn’t safe, all she dreamed of was Lila and her making her act like a puppet. She would see puppet her do all these things to Marinette and she would wake up in sweat and tears.

“Okay I’m here, I hope you two are ready to head ba-” Alya looked up to see her mom standing there staring at her and Nino, her mouth agape. “Oh Alya...Nino...How about I call the school and tell them you’re not feeling good? And I’ll call your parents Nino.”

Alya was going to respond, she really was, but when she opened her mouth nothing came out but a choked off cry and nod. Nino nodded as well as he took in a shaky breath. “Th-Thanks, Mme C.”

“Nino, you know I told you to call me Marlena. Now you two go rest in Alya’s room while I make those calls. Then maybe I can get the rest of the day off and-” 

“No manman. Things...things are already bad enough, don’t make it worse by not going back to work. I don’t...I don’t want to be the reason why you get fired.” Alya mumbled as she and Nino got up off the floor.

“Oh...Oh my little one, that won’t happen. And if it did, not because of you. Never. Don’t you think that.” Alya’s mother breathed out as she pulled her daughter into a hug before taking her daughter’s face in her hands and doing her best to wipe her tears. 

“Papa and Nora would! Nora still won’t talk to me and Papa only looks at me like he’s disappointed he ever had me!” Alya cried out before she could stop the words from coming out. Her mind completely forgot that Nino was standing right beside her until she felt him hold her hand and give it a squeeze. 

“Your Papa is just being stubborn, but you listen to me, he could never ever be disappointed in having you. You are our daughter. You made a mistake yes, but I know you know you made a mistake and that you are sorry. Your Papa will realize that. He just needs time. And Nora...she just needs time too. I just think she doesn’t know how to handle everything and that she’s mad that she couldn’t protect you sweetie. She’s always been the protective older sister, and this was something she couldn’t protect you from herself. They’ll come around. I’m sure.” 

“If you’re sure manman…”

“I am. Now you kids go relax. I’m going to take the rest of the day off and go to the store for dinner ingredients, I’ll be back soon. I know things are hard my little Melusine but they won’t always be like this.” With a kiss to her forehead and a swift hug to Nino, Alya’s mom left the two teens in the family apartment.

At first they just stood there in silence and sniffles, but Nino made the move to put their plates in the sink and rinse them out while Alya gathered their schoolwork back into their bookbags. Then they  made their way to Alya’s room and kicked off their shoes before sitting on the bed. Nino nudged Alya who looked at him in confusion until she saw him give her a crooked smile and open his arms which she fell easily into. She took off her glasses and placed them on her bedside table while she felt more than saw Nino take off his cap. For a while they just sat there in the quiet of the moment and Alya was content to do just that, to just have a moment of peace, but she slowly pushed away and reached for her remote to turn on the TV and quickly pulled up Netflix. Her mom wanted them to relax so why not fry their brains with some television. 

“Anything in particular you want to watch?” She asked as she settled back against Nino.

“As long as it has nothing to do with school or superheroes...I’m good.” Nino responded with a hollow chuckle. 

“I’m glad we don’t have to go back too…” She murmured, “Should we...tell the others?”

“Probably. But if I’m being honest I don’t really feel like talking to them and them asking how we are and if we’re okay when they know we’re not. I just. I don’t think I could handle that. Not today.” 

“I get it. Sometimes I feel like everyone else even blames me for what happened. Like... Like it was my responsibility to not fall for the lies and to warn them. Like my word would have made a difference! Mari...Marinette’s didn’t so why would mine?” Alya huffed as she scrolled through all the movie and show choices and tried her best not to cry again. 

“If they blame you then they need to blame me too and blame the people in the mirror. We all fell for the lies. Sure you’re the budding reporter, but the blame could just as easily be pushed onto Max who is so smart he created a living AI. But we have no one to be mad at but ourselves and we can only do that for so long.” Nino sighed as he held her closer and kissed her temple. Alya relished in the warmth of it all. 

“When did you get so wise?” Alya teased softly.

“When I decided to rewatch Star Wars. But no seriously. If anyone in class bothers you please tell me because we should be sticking together not at each other’s throats.” Nino stuck out one hand and Alya slid her hand into his.

“Cross my heart and hope to die. I will. And you’re right, we do need each other, especially now, especially at that school.”

“Especially at that school, yeah.” He laughed out. “We’re going to get through this. I don’t know how, but, we are and we’re going to do it together.”

Alya smiled wryly before she looked up at Nino and it slipped into a real small smile. “Together.” She agreed softly.

Last Chapter                             Next Chapter

l'école primaire - elementaryschool

manman - Haitian Creole for Mother

[babyspiderling]

Love Undercover   one

“Leiman! I got a story for you! Go undercover as a high school student, do a piece on teen culture or whatever the parents need to hear about their kids. This could be your shot kid!” Flashes of my own high school career three years ago plague my mind. “Sir, are you sure this is a good story? I mean, there are harder hitting stories than a piece on teen culture.” Mr. Edward's eyebrow simply raises in response, and I slink back to my desk. I raise my desk phone to my ear and ring my older brother, Anthony. “Tony, they’re making me go back to school. I thought I would never have to go back. It was hell.” I hear him chuckle through the phone. “Why are they making you go back? You lose your diploma or something?” I scoff into the phone. “No, Tony. They want me to go undercover since I’m the only one who can pass for a child here. I start on Monday. Shit, I gotta attempt to dress like a high school girl again. Thank god I’ve been the same dress size since my junior year. See you tonight Tony, we still on for dinner?” I hear him confirm for me into the microphone and I click the phone off. Standing and gathering my things I peek my head into my editor's office. “Mr. Edwards, I’m headed out to get ready for my assignment. I’ll see you soon.” He nods at me, letting me know he’ll enroll me this afternoon for Monday’s classes and I take my leave. 

Monday arrives sooner than later. I feel like a freshman again, out of my element and out of my comfort zone. My hair had been trimmed to a popular cut and I had been trained on how to style it. My journalist instincts took over at the mall, taking in what teens were wearing and how they were wearing it. For my first day I bought a striped blouse with a longer skirt to seem neutral. The end of winter chill caused me to grab a cardigan on my way out and I climbed into the front seat of my old “Mystery Machine” ready to go back to high school. 

“Well, three new students in a month, must be a new record. Tom and Doug McQuaid and now Y/N Leiman. This way.” The balding principal tosses my schedule at me and walks off in large, commanding strides. “Tell me Miss Leiman, are you a troublemaker like the other newcomers?” My eyebrows pull together in confusion. “No, no sir. I’m not a troublemaker.” He pulls to a stop in front of a door. “This is your first class. I’m sure someone will show you around. Prove yourself to be on your best behavior Miss Leiman. Wouldn’t want you to be labeled as a hoodlum.” He turns to walk away but is distracted by a skipping student roaming the halls. I tuck my hair behind my ear and fix my appearance. I take one last breath of confidence and open the creaking door. The click of my heels only adds to the attention as the entire class watches me with curious eyes. I feel the girls sizing me up, the boys appraising my value, and the teacher annoyed at the interruption. “This is Mrs. Dustin’s class right? I’m new here.” The woman takes the papers from my hands and catches herself up. “Yes, you’re in the right place. Please take a seat.” I nod and take one of the only seats left open, next to a boy dressed in leather and an earring in his ear. I struggle to remind myself that I’m at least three to four years older than these students, too intimidated by their stares to fill with confidence. I tuck my hair away from my face as I pull out my pen and notebook from my bag. I start to write a mixture of notes for the class and notes for my story when something sharp stabs into my thigh. Turning my head with pinched eyebrows I look at the boy reeking of trouble. “You got any gum? Teach made me swallow my last piece last period.” I nod and rummage through my bag. “Mint, cinnamon, or bubble?” He looks at me in a bit of shock at the number of choices. “Bubble.” I nod and hand him a piece, pulling a lollipop for myself. In my years of studying and writing and taking notes, I know that if somewhere else on my body is moving, focusing is easier. With my mouth occupied with the sugar, my brain is on a roll. Trouble leans in once more, the sugary smell from his mouth fills my nostrils. “You got anything else in that bag of yours? I could use a coke too.” I roll my eyes and smile a bit. “Oh, hush. I have a sugar addiction.” At the sound of our whispers, Mrs. Dustin clears her throat loudly. “Mr. McQuaid, Miss Leiman, is there something you’d like to share with the class?” I shake my head and duck my head back to my notes. McQuaid lifts his chin and smirks at the teacher. “Just Miss Leimans sugar addiction, teach. Probably why she’s so sweet.” My cheeks heat at his comment and I don’t know how to react. My brain berates me for my flustered appearance. He is sixteen, maybe seventeen! You are old enough to drink! Get your head together girl! I keep my head down until the bell rings, no matter how many pokes to the thigh I earn. 

I glance down at my schedule and attempt to find my way around the giant high school. An arm drops itself over my shoulder as I look up to find Trouble staring right back at me. “Can I help you? Need more gum already?” He chuckles a bit and pops his gum. “Nah sweets, my brother and I were wanting to invite you to sit with us for lunch. Unless you’ve got somewhere better to be?” His eyebrows raise at his question and my face heats. “Oh! Uh, no. I don’t have anywhere better to be. I guess I can eat with you guys?” McQuaid smirks around his gum and leads me to a table occupied by another boy who is dressed similarly to trouble. With a steady hand on the small of my back, trouble eases me into my seat. I unpack my bag and come to a realization. “I just realized we haven’t Introduced ourselves! I’m Y/N, I just moved here, and I’m a senior.” Trouble and the other boy smirk at each other. Trouble turns his body to me. “I’m Tom McQuaid. This here’s my big brother Doug. He would've graduated last year, or the year before that, but he just can’t seem to pass classes.” Doug gives a shout of defense, tossing a French fry at his brother, who catches it in his mouth, grinning triumphantly. I roll my eyes and give a small smile to their antics. “So you’re the McQuaid brothers. You’re new here too. And troublemakers from what I’ve heard.” They look at each other and laugh. “Well, sugar, what can we say? It’s much more fun to break the rules than to follow them.” After fishing out my lunch I pull another sucker from my bag, strawberry flavored as opposed to the cotton candy flavored from earlier. “Damn sweets, not gonna share with us? I’m hurt.” I roll my eyes and toss the older boy the bag of sweets. “Leave me the mango flavors. Those are my favorites.” Doug chuckles under his breath and tosses the bag to his brother. Tom rifles through the pouch of candy, and just hands it back to me. “I’ll just take another piece of gum when I’m finished eating.” I look from my salad at his burger and fries. “How can you eat that all the time and still look like that? I’m just looking at it and I think I gained ten pounds.” Tom shakes his head as he gives a once over to my figure. “Nah, you look the same. You look fine the way you are. Promise.” I giggle and play with my fingers in my lap. The line of playing the part and enjoying the attention continues to blur at my embarrassed reaction. I swallow my bite of rabbit food down and smile. “So, McQuaid brothers, tell me a bit about yourselves.” Almost evil smirks cross their faces. “Sweets, lets just say we’re not the kind of guy you take home to mom and dad. You’re too sweet and naive to know guys like us. Sugary thing like you’d get eaten alive with us. Too pure for the dark things we’ve done.” I hear the teasing in Tom’s voice. “You’re making fun of me. I know I’m not the “baddest” out there, but I know about the world. I want to be a  reporter. I’ll appreciate it if you don’t underestimate me.” I look back at my hands. “And if I’m too sweet and naive to be here, to be involved with you, why was I invited to have lunch with you two? I’m sure there are plenty of defectives like yourselves to hang out with.” I move to leave the table to sit anywhere else. A hand latches onto my wrist. I follow the hand up to Tom's face. His eyebrows are furrowed and his lips are twisted into a pout. “Look, sweets, I’m sorry. You seemed lonely and everything. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” I sigh and gently pull my hand from his hold. “I accept your apology.” 

I move to sit back down and hear my beeper go off. I fish it out of my bag and read the message from my editor. Both boys crane their necks to read the message. I shove it back down into my bag in defense, thinking up a quick excuse for the interruption. “Oh, it was my brother. I’ll give him a call later.” I swipe a fry from Doug's plate. “What about you guys. You do anything after school? Besides the Dark stuff of course. What kind of records do you listen to?” Looks I don’t understand continue to pass between them. “Well, Doug here is his own entrepreneur. Me, I’m more of a car guy. I’ve got the blue mustang out there.” My eyes widen. “That one’s yours? She’s a beauty. I’ve got the old yellow mystery machine out there. She’s a great road trip car.” Both boys nod. “Our dads a bit of a hippie. He’d love you, flower power. What music you listen to?” I think for a bit, attempting to decide between my true likes and what a teenager would like. “Well, I’ve always loved Bowie. Ziggy Stardust is an absolute masterpiece, and one of the first records I ever got. Prince is pretty good too, but I love a nice mix of rock and funk. Something with a heavy drum beat I can move to.” They nod along, taking in my answer. The bell rings, signifying the end of the lunch period. 

I begin my journey to my next class, and choose a seat near the middle. Once I watch the class, looking around at the students and everything about them. And just my luck, Tom McQuaid walks in with his gum popping and a smirk painted on his face. As the student body shuffles into their seats, the teacher has us stand right back up. “I am your History teacher for this semester, Mr. Devo. I will be choosing your seats for my class, please let me know if you need to be seated at the front end of the room.” Two kids with glasses raise their hands and they are seated in the first two rows. 

“Anyone else? No? Alright let’s get started. When I point to you, I want to hear your name, your grade, and hmmmm, your favorite record.” He points at several people, pointing at their desks. He points to me pretty early on surprisingly. “Oh! Y/N Leiman, senior, and hmmmm, give me a second. Prince’s Sign ‘O’ The Times. It cost me a bit to get the four disks, but it’s an amazing album.” Mr. Devo nods a bit. “I haven’t heard the entire thing yet, but I do enjoy Prince. Here.” He points to the desk front and center. As if the whole thing was planned, Tom is pointed at next. “Tom McQuaid, teach. Senior like Sweets here, and I like Bowie's Young Americans. If you don’t mind, Sugar here fuels my gum addiction, so if I could sit near her, I’d appreciate it.” Mr. Devo gets a strange look on his face. The journalist in me would describe it as a cross of frustration and possibly… jealousy? But I don’t understand the jealousy part. I shake it off and get myself prepared for class. McQuaid gets sent to the classroom, possibly the farthest seat from me. With a smile, Mr. Devo starts his class.

I walk out the front doors of the school with a slight limp. “I made a mistake today. I can not believe I made the decision to actually wear heels to school. What was I thinking?” Two arms snake around my shoulders. “Well, Flower Power, if you’re hurting so bad, how bout we carry you to our car. We can get you home and drive your car for you.” I look at Doug and roll my eyes. “I’ll be fine. It wouldn’t be the first time I drove barefoot. I appreciate the offer boys, but I should probably head home. See you both tomorrow?” They nod and head to their Mustang. I climb into my mystery machine and kick off my shoes, heading home.

[dessarious]

Guilt and Consequences Pt7

AO3   Beginning   Previous   Next

They were about halfway through breakfast and Lila had started to let her guard down. She was still on guard for any repercussions from the incident in the bakery but that left her open to interrogation on other matters.

“So Lila, I’d like you to write down the names of the three therapists you actually saw.” Mme. Cheng’s voice was friendly, cheerful even. Lila glanced at Marinette to see if she would react but there was nothing. It seemed like an innocuous enough request.

“Okay, though I don’t see the point.” The woman didn’t respond and Lila went back to her food, not really thinking about it further. As she finished a paper and pen appeared almost out of nowhere and she wrote the information almost on instinct. Mme. Cheng took the paper as soon as the third name was finished and she honestly would have thought she imagined it if the pen wasn’t still in her hand.

“Now why don’t you girls go up and finish up any homework you have. And I mean homework Mari. I want all of it done before you get distracted.”  Marinette had a sheepish look on her face but Mme. Cheng turned her attention to Lila immediately. “You do have your school things with you?”

“I don’t do homework.” The look on Mme. Cheng’s face said plainly that wasn’t the right answer. Marinette was looking at her like she’d lost her mind.

“And why is that?” The woman’s tone was strange, almost soothing. That was odd.

“It’s an inefficient learning strategy at the best of times for one. I’ve already learned the material previously for another. It also seems rather pointless given that I normally am only in a school for a few weeks at most.” They were both frowning at her now and she still didn’t know why.

“It’s a way for the teacher to measure students' progress in the material.” Lila hadn’t considered that. Given how illogical everything at that school was it sort of made sense though.

“But it doesn’t. For the most part it just shows how well you can find answers in books or how much their friends and family know since a lot of people do homework as a group activity. If that is why they do it, it would be far more efficient and accurate to just have daily or weekly quizzes on the material. It would also be far more beneficial for students since trying to force the recall actually helps with memory far more than simply reviewing the same material over and over.” Now Mme. Cheng looked exasperated more than anything else. Marinette looked thoughtful though. Was that not common knowledge? Maybe she should show them the research she’d found on learning and memory.

“I have to go help Tom. Please just go do your homework.”

------------------------------------------------------

When Lila returned home she found a note from her mother saying she would be out of Paris for a week for work. No details, but that was normal. Under regular circumstances she would use it as an excuse to call herself off from school, but if she did that Marinette would be facing the class alone and she couldn’t allow that. Tomorrow was going to be a nightmare. Lila’s phone let out the notification for an Akuma and she pulled it from her pocket to find over three dozen messages from Alya, each one getting more hysterical. Well, shit.

“Hello Lila.” She spun around to see an Akumatized Alya at the open window. Her outfit was some weird bastardization of the way old time reporters looked in movies but the color scheme was neon green and violet. It honestly made her eyes water. “I am Journalist, and I’ll get the truth no matter the cost.” It took everything in her not to roll her eyes at both the name and what she actually said. This should be entertaining. Journalist pointed a pen at her and Lila tensed up just as the beam hit her. Well she didn’t feel any different.

“And what exactly was that supposed to do?” The least she could do was stall her to give the heroes time to get here so she didn’t go after Marinette.

“Where is your mother?” What kind of question was that?

“On a wine tour in the south of France.” Lila blinked and tried to keep her expression neutral. She had no idea where her mother was; why did she say that?

“What about your father?”

“He’s dead.” She didn’t know that either. What the hell did her powers do?

“How did he die?”

“He ran into a burning building to rescue my sister and me and ended up dying from his injuries.” Sister? Well that made the dream make a lot more sense but… oh no. If Alya’s powers did what she thought she needed to get out of here before the girl realized it.

“And what did Marinette do to you to make you say you were lying?” She felt her rage boil up at the question and completely forgot why she needed to find a way to escape.

“Marinette didn’t make me do anything! I told you I was lying because I was and the only one who made me do that was you and the rest of the morons when you decided that ‘punishing’ Marinette for things she didn’t do was a valid option.” She probably would have kept going but at the moment Ladybug appeared behind Journalist and used her Yo-Yo to heave the Akuma halfway across the city.

“Come on, let’s get you somewhere safe.” Lila didn’t even have time to respond as Ladybug grabbed her and threw her over her shoulders. The were on a rooftop somewhere Lila didn’t recognize before she recovered enough to think properly and Ladybug was about to swing back towards Journalist.

“Wait!” The heroine turned to raise an eyebrow at her and Lila suddenly felt very self conscious. Her interactions with the heroes so far had been… less than optimal, but she had to do this. “Alya’s beam makes you tell the truth.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Her tone was dry and Lila frowned at her.

“No, I really don’t think you do. Even if you don’t actually know the truth it will still come out of your mouth. I don’t think she or Hawkmoth realize that though.” Ladybug was studying her and Lila shifted uncomfortably. Getting combative was instinctive but she really needed to stop doing this.

“If you don’t know the answer then how do you know that what you say is the truth rather than just what Journalist wants to hear?” She blinked at that question. If not for the last thing she’d asked Lila wouldn’t have been certain.

“No, if that was the case I would have told her that Marinette threatened me or some other form of ridiculousness. But like I said, they don’t know that. If Hawkmoth had any idea that her powers were functioning that way he would have made her ask me for your and Chat Noir’s civilian identities. At least I would assume so. You need to be careful.” The heroine just kept staring at her for a moment before nodding and heading back to the fight. Once she was gone, Lila’s legs gave out and she sat there trying to process what had just happened.

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[boxoftheskyking]

Pick Up Every Piece, Part Four

Ugh this took forevvvvver

I know that the MDZS map is like based on actual China, so my apologies to whatever Yiling is based on. I need a shithole for this story, and Yiling’s it.

In which Lan Zhan follows A Story

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

----

Early November 2000

Lan Zhan is headed back to Moling. It’s not a trip that he particularly enjoys, anymore. He takes the train these days, since he got rid of his car.

He used to drive the 45 minutes there twice a week when he and Liu Shirong were first dating, before they moved in together in Caiyi. There used to be a sense of anticipation, enjoyment, each landmark and familiar turning a step closer to someone he wanted to see. An arm across his back, a kiss to his jaw, Shirong reaching up on tiptoe to greet him. He’d pick up Shirong at school and they’d wave out the window at the little kids in the schoolyard. Bye, Teacher Liu! Moling was an escape, an innocent place, somewhere far away from the darkness and dirt he spent his days sifting through.

Dear Shirong. He’s a good man. Short, kind, a silly gasping laugh. Desperate for children. He has two now, and a husband. Lan Zhan has lunch with him occasionally.

Now that he thinks about it, their last lunch was over a year ago. He supposes that doesn’t count as “occasionally” anymore. He could reach out first, if he wanted to. But he’s never been the type to reach out. Shirong has a life, a family, all the things he always wanted. All the things Lan Zhan couldn’t give him.

“I cannot imagine myself with a child,” he’d said when they broke up. He hadn’t intended for it to actually be a breakup—he hadn’t really thought that far ahead. But Shirong had visited an actual agency the day before and handed him a brochure, and Lan Zhan had left the apartment and driven into the mountains in a blind panic. He’d ended up stopped outside someone’s cabin, all the way up their driveway, and parked outside this stranger’s house until he’d gotten his breathing under control. That’s one of the reasons he’d sold the car. He’d never done that before, taken off like that, trespassed on private property, so getting rid of the car was the safest option. 

Precept 45 of the Lan Clan: Do not act impulsively.

Precept 213: Be strict with yourself.

Precept 341: When faced with temptation away from the righteous path, remove the source of temptation.

His brother finds his interest in the old clan rules an amusing idiosyncrasy. Even his uncle, strict as he is, finds the rules nothing more than an heirloom, evidence of some kind of hereditary virtue but nothing relevant to the modern day.

It’s not that he follows them. He just likes to know them, to turn them over in his mind. As options. When faced with a decision, there’s a comfort in turning to generations of dead Lans for guidance. Some people like astrology.

There are a lot of Lans, these days, enough that he’s never met a good number of cousins. There’s plenty of Lans he’s barely related to at all, at this point, but the name still has a good reputation. It’s the opposite of what the Wens have to deal with, those who weren’t involved in the insurrection. Everyone knows the old clans are ancient history and you can’t judge someone on their family name. But still, no one named Wen is going to find work in Lanling anytime soon. 

The point is, the Lans have survived and multiplied, so whatever kept them going in the old days can’t be completely useless.

His original interest in the rules was mostly as a journalist, which he’d hoped his uncle might understand. Every rule implies a story. A reason. Thousands of them mean you can triangulate an entire context. Who were we? How did we get here? What did we lose, and how?

Precept 9: Do not speak dishonestly.

Precept 77: Do not make promises that you cannot honor.

“I cannot imagine myself with a child,” he’d said.

Don’t worry, Lan Zhan, we’ll figure it out together. “I’m not sure I want to imagine myself with a child.” It will be different when it’s ours. You’ll see. “The more you talk about it, the less sure I am.” That’s okay, Lan Zhan, I can be sure enough for the both of us.

“I don’t want this. I don’t want this with you.”

Precept 424: Do not be needlessly cruel.

Lan Zhan had killed men during the war. Cultivation was useful for long-range attacks, but he still found himself in the situation of killing up close, of watching the light leave an enemy’s eyes.

He saw the light leave Liu Shirong’s eyes. For a moment his instincts had jolted, shocking through his nervous system. You’ve killed him. You activated your core, by accident, and you’ve killed him.

But it wasn’t the end of Liu Shirong’s life, of course, just the end of his love for Lan Zhan, the end of their life together, the end of whatever future he’d imagined for them. Lan Zhan had meant to release him gently, like a small rabbit with a newly-healed leg, back out into the world he came from. But he’d crushed him instead, under his clumsy feet.

Do not be needlessly cruel.

There are pools of guilt around Moling. Every place that he recognizes, everywhere they went together, even if the memories themselves are good. The guilt gathers on his clothes, soaks through to the skin, makes him cold.

It’s not that he misses Shirong. Perhaps he should miss him more than he does. It’s been nearly three years since they split up. It should perhaps hurt more than it does. It’s embarrassing that it took longer for him to get over Wei Ying—a relationship that never happened. 

The worst part of the breakup didn’t even have to do with Shirong himself. He hadn’t made a special call after Shirong left, or even after he officially moved out a week later, but he had mentioned it when Lan Huan called him as usual on the second Tuesday of the month.

“Oh, I’m sorry, didi,” Lan Huan had said. “I know you did love him, in your own way.”

In your own way.

Is he not— Did he not—

Had he never—

He is nearly to Moling. The train track curves here, about fifteen minutes out, and the rails were laid in crooked. It’s a jolt, every time. It’s easy to see who the regular commuters are, whose coffee sloshes over, who widens their stance in time, who looks suddenly out the window, worried. Sabotage on the tracks, maybe, or someone under the cars. The younger people don’t look worried, only bored. 

The landscape is odd, he realizes suddenly. He’s been staring vaguely out the window, letting his mind wander, but where he’s used to a few farms, a man-made lake, and mostly open country there is torn up ground, heavy machinery, and miles of chain-link fence. Did he not notice this on his last trip? Had he been reading?

Out the window he sees a large sign on the fence announcing, “Future home of Jin Industries Moling Satellite Campus.” Typical.

In your own way.

He never asked what Lan Huan meant by that. Lan Zhan has won multiple awards for his reporting, for his ability to encourage others to talk. The right facial expression at the right time. A direct, polite question with just the right emphasis. Merciless is what they say about him, sometimes. He’s like a swordsman in an old movie, Nie Mingue used to say, in a way that sounded like a compliment. He moves so quick and so sharp, you don’t even know he’s cut you until you’re around the corner and your head falls off.

He’s poking at it like a sore tooth, needlessly. His golden core makes itself known, just a little sense, a small awakening. It’s always ready to defend him, even so many years later. He does nothing with the awareness, of course. No cultivation is authorized outside of combat. But his core was never removed, never shut down. Can’t put the hot sauce back in that bottle, Jiang Cheng had said once.

The train slows, stops. 

“Moling station. Depart here—” The pleasant voice is cut off by a beeping. Lan Zhan stands and shoulders his bag.

“Attention passengers,” a crackled voice comes over the loudspeaker, far less pleasant than the recording. “Due to a security concern all passengers must depart the train at car fourteen. Doors will not open except for car fourteen. Departing passengers, please make your way to car fourteen.”

Lan Zhan looks around the car, then sees a “3” on the far wall. He sighs and follows the few people who are struggling with the connecting door to car four. The chimes that gently demand Get off the damn train are going. He has to speedwalk down the aisle, which is undignified, and everyone looks up at him with that poor bastard expression reserved for torn grocery bags and flat tires. 

He makes it off the train a second before the door closes and it pulls away.

“Close one!” an old man grins at him, more humor than teeth.

The police have roped off most of the platform, everyone standing around looking at each other. A few are smoking. Lan Zhan goes over to the rope, coming up next to a kid with one of those handheld electronic games. The kid’s staring around at the cops while his game beeps vaguely in a lonely sort of way.

“What’s happened?” Lan Zhan asks him.

The kid answers without looking at him. “Abandoned bag. Nothing’s happening.” He sounds disappointed.

“Hm.” Sure enough, there’s a nondescript green backpack slumped on a bench.

“They always say it might blow up, but it never does.”

“Not so much these days,” Lan Zhan agrees.

“Like, if it was gonna blow up they wouldn’t be smoking near it, right?”

Lan Zhan smiles despite himself. “Good eye,” he says. His golden core is settled within him, curling beneath his breastbone like a sleeping cat, uninterested and unconcerned. No danger.

There had been a certain amount of withdrawal, after the war. And grief, and nightmares, and a limp for a while. But the end of regular cultivation, of relying on his golden core as a seventh sense, a second consciousness, a second self, the end of healing himself from the inside, of Wangji at his back and power at his fingertips . . .

It’s not entirely the government’s fault, if he’s being fair. Governments have always thrown away veterans, no matter who is in power. Always have, always will. Use you up and spit you out with maybe some benefits and the number of some overtaxed and underpaid case worker. And cultivation, being both new and more ancient than anything, was an unknown since the beginning. There are no peer-reviewed studies on the long-term effects of using a golden core. If Jin Guangyao hadn’t been doing his own research with the Wens for all those years, only to defect back to his father’s side when the tide began to turn, there wouldn’t have been a cultivator corps at all. So Lan Zhan can’t put the responsibility on any one person’s shoulders.

But it still claws at him, sometimes. His core wants out, wants to stretch, to strike, to light something up. It’s like wrapping his head in blankets, sometimes, stifling and muffled and hard to breathe.

Jin Zixuan likes to talk about it, how it feels. Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng do not.

He checks his watch and picks up his pace, passing by another building down the block under renovation with a Jin Industries sign. The logo is close enough to the Sunshot flag that the government connection is implied, but different enough for plausible deniability. 

Lan Qiaolian is leaning on her car a few blocks away, exactly where she said she’d be. Lan Zhan appreciates it—they’ve met only once, and he doesn’t trust his ability to pick her out in a crowd. She’s a short woman, but solidly built. Doesn’t look like a Lan, is what his uncle would say.

“Lan Zhan!” she waves to him and drops her cigarette on the pavement. “Thanks for coming.”

He nods and takes his place in the passenger seat. The drive to the Moling Children’s Center is quiet for a while. The Center is near Yilong’s old gym; he remembers the road.

“You had a meeting with the detective?” he asks, though he knows the answer.

“Yeah. Still stonewalling me. Everything’s fucking confidential. They say they’ve canvassed the neighborhood, everywhere between the school and the bus stop and home. But it’s like everyone saw him walking home with his cousin, his cousin turns around for a minute to chase a damn neighborhood cat up a tree, and Sizhui is just . . . gone. How does a kid just disappear like that?”

“But this lead?”

“The administrator I talked to at the Center said they might have something, some record of where he was born. Maybe someone from his birth family has been looking for him, would take him? There’s just— Even if the records do exist, if they weren’t destroyed, I don’t know who has access. And he’s just a kid, you know? I’m not special. We’re not special. So I can’t think of anything but the worst. You know what happens to kids, especially if they take them West, I know they sell—”

“You don’t know,” Lan Zhan cuts her off, gently. “No one knows. No reason to go down that road unless the evidence points there.”

Lan Qiaolian rubs her face. “I just don’t know what the evidence is.”

“We’ll find something. I have a hunch.”

He does not have a hunch. He doesn’t believe in hunches. Or, rather, he didn’t before he started cultivating. Now he believes in the extra-sensory perception of his golden core, which he has been ordered—and signed pages of documents agreeing—to never use it again.

Either way, he’s learned that the general public like hunches. It’s comforting, apparently, someone taking the lead off of no information. It doesn’t make much sense, but most reassuring things don’t.

“I can’t help thinking—” Lan Qiaolian trails off, tapping her thumb on the steering wheel. “Maybe he left because of me.”

This is not a comfortable situation. Lan Zhan should respond with Of course not, don’t think like that. But for all he knows it could be true. He doesn’t really know Lan Qiaolian, and he certainly doesn’t know Lan Sizhui.

All he knows are the facts. Lan Qiaolian began fostering Lan Sizhui a year ago, when he was eight. It was just the two of them until a few weeks ago when Lan Sizhui went missing. It’s not his job to find missing children, but they are technically family, and if there’s some kidnapping or a dangerous part of Moling where children are falling into holes in the ground, that’s a story.

“Why would you think that?” It’s not as gentle, maybe, but it’s useful.

“I got laid off a few years ago. A lot of us did, mass layoffs.”

“Construction?”

“Yeah. Everyone from site managers to the detailers to— well, everyone. One whole firm shut down. So I thought, you know, I’d be home for a while, I got some unemployment, so maybe it would be a good time to finally start fostering. You know? I could stay home until he got adjusted, then when he started school I’d have found something new.”

“And he was happy?”

Lan Qiaolian smiles. “He’s always happy. He’s a real happy kid. Whatever he went through when he was little, he doesn’t seem to remember. Makes friends easily, fine by himself. He’s a dream. But maybe he was just good at showing me what I wanted to see. You know? Coming from a traumatic background like that, being in the system. You know, kids learn how to survive.”

“If he seemed happy, I’m sure he was.”

She sighs. “I just— The work never came back. The last six, seven months I’ve been calling everywhere I can think of. Even considered moving. Nothing. And so it’s been tight, even though it’s just the two of us. I figured with my husband’s life insurance we’d be fine until I found something, but I didn’t anticipate it taking this long. I’ve got some unemployment, but the support payments from fostering messed with my benefits. And so it’s been tight. And maybe he— You know, the secondhand clothes, no takeout, no games. Not getting to go on the school trips because I can’t pay the— I can’t help thinking, maybe all that time in the system, he must’ve been dreaming about a home, you know, what it would be like. And then when it wasn’t—”

“That’s a lot of conjecture.”

She laughs. “True. I just— The brain, it spins. You know?”

“Hm.” Lan Zhan looks out the window at the familiar neighborhood, then startles a bit. “Did they tear down the market?”

Qiaolian glances over. “Oh, yeah. Couple months ago. No more independent groceries in this part of town anymore. Not that most people could afford it at the end. They tried to stick it out, but the big chains moved in after the war, got those tax breaks.”

“Ah. ‘Economic revitalization.’”

She laughs again. 

“So, if I can ask,” he starts, glancing out of the corner of his eye to gauge her response. “On the train I noticed building sites. Jin Industries?”

Her jaw clenches. “They’re not hiring.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“We’ve all tried. They’ve bought up half of Moling, and whoever’s running the construction’s not hiring local. Union’s totally shut out.”

“Really?”

“I’ve tried, okay? I’ve called so many—” she cuts off with a frustrated noise.

“Forgive me. It wasn’t a criticism. I’m just curious.”

She nods curtly. “We’re here.”

The administrator who has agreed to meet with them has black toner smudged up the inside of her left forearm and a framed picture of a cat on her desk. She offers Lan Zhan room temperature water in a cracked coffee mug.

“So you’re my eleven o’clock, right? Okay, right.”

“That’s an old flag,” Lan Zhan says, nodding up at the wall behind her. “I haven’t seen that design for a while.”

For the most part, it’s a standard Sunshot, but in addition to the golden hand and red sun, thin black lines reach up the palm like branches.

The administrator looks surprised, turning around to it. “Oh. Yeah, I guess. I don’t know, I don’t have time to keep up with all that. We have to pay for our own, you know. We’re required to hang a flag in every room but the bathroom, but it comes out of our general operating budget. The official ones aren’t cheap.”

Lan Qiaolian chuckles. “My cousin got it tattooed right after he got discharged. He was pissed when they got rid of the black squiggles in the update. I told him, that’s why you gotta think for more than a week before you make a permanent decision, you know?”

The administrator smiles politely. “Anyway. Let me see here.” She starts digging through her pile of folders. “Lai, Lai—”

“Lan,” Lan Zhan corrects.

“Sorry?”

“The name, it’s Lan.”

“Right! Right, okay, Lan. Lan . . . Here we go. Lan . . . Qiaolian. Foster mother. Yes?”

Qiaolian nods.

“And you are?”

“Family,” Lan Zhan says.

“Right. Okay, let’s see. Lan Sizhui, age nine.”

Lan Zhan leans forward. “Anything you can tell us about where he came from, his life before Lan Qiaolian met him?”

She clicks her tongue and runs a finger down the page. “War orphan, typical story. Moved around, a bit once he got to Gusu. No injuries or disabilities. Hearing and sight all good, average height. Slightly underweight, but that’s not unusual.”

“When did he arrive here?” 

“At our facility? Looks like ‘98.”

“So he wasn’t here long before you got him,” Lan Zhan looks to Lan Qiaolian.

“Yeah, I guess. We don’t really talk about his past. That’s what the counselors recommend. You’re supposed to wait until they volunteer, you know? You don’t ask first.”

“Any idea where he came from? Birth family?”

The administrator clicks her tongue again, flips a few pages. Lan Zhan catches a sight of a grainy printed photograph, a kid looking around six, big chubby cheeks and shaggy long hair.

“Came in through law enforcement. No note of any charges or juvenile detention, so likely if he had surviving family they lost custody due to a criminal conviction. Looks like the child didn’t offer any details to counselors or placement. Um, looks like Sizhui was the name he got here.”

Lan Qiaolian frowns. “You named him? That’s not his birth name?”

“Common practice, especially if we have multiple kids with the same given name. He never gave a family name—Likely he either didn’t know his parents or forgot after being in the system for a while. A-Yuan is what he was called when he got here.”

“Yuan,” Lan Zhan turns it over in his mouth. “Something Yuan. Any record of where he was born?”

“Mmm, can’t be sure. But he entered the system in Yiling.”

“Yiling?”

“Yep. First registered into care in Yiling, 1995.”

Lan Zhan looks back up at the flag. The others must be thinking the same thing. Yiling in 1995, the Sunshot Massacre. But that’s a ridiculous thought—there were no survivors then, and plenty of other battles, bombings, one-off murders in the area at the end of the war.

“No family names though?” Lan Qiaolian asks. “Any record of someone who might be looking for him, might want him back?”

The administrator suddenly yawns hugely, covering her mouth with both hands. “I’m so sorry. No, no siblings, no recorded birth family. I’m so sorry, I haven’t been sleeping.”

“It’s all right,” Qiaolian says.

“I live over on the East side. They’re building some new damn complex, pounding in pilings at all hours of the night.”

“At night?” Qiaolian asks. “Why?”

The woman sighs. “I don’t know. Lights coming in the windows at one in the morning. I had to dig out my old curtains, thank goodness I still have them. Wake up in the middle of the night thinking the bombing’s started up again, ha, the banging and the lights. We’ve been complaining, but the company offered all the neighbors a settlement stop reporting it. Two months’ rent, we couldn’t turn it down.”

“Lots of construction,” Lan Zhan says, carefully. “Unusual construction.”

“I wouldn’t know,” the administrator shrugs. “I just hope they finish up quickly. My cats are getting stressed to death.”

“Have you noticed— Never mind.” Qiaolian chews her lip.

“Noticed what?”

“The site over by me, there’s a lot of trailers.”

“Like trailers you live in?”

“They look similar—usually there’s a double-wide or two for an on-site office, break area, you know. The site by us there’s a dozen at least. I just find that odd.”

“I haven’t noticed. Maybe. I don’t know, I try to ignore it. Whatever office complex or hotel or whatever it is, I don’t need it.”

The administrator flips through the file again. “I’m afraid that’s about all I can give you. Yiling might have more information—I think the children’s home there moved a couple years ago so files might have been lost, but it’s worth an ask. Signature on the transfer form looks like a Xie Ling. It’s not a huge town, anyway, could be someone remembers the kid, or the family. Local police or courts maybe, if they keep decent records.”

Lan Zhan and Lan Qiaolian exchange a glance.

“Sounds like I’m going to Yiling,” Lan Zhan says.

“You don’t have to—”

He shakes his head, then hands his card to the administrator. “If you think of anything, or hear anything.”

She takes it. “Gusu Herald? You’re not going to mention the flag thing, right? We’re compliant with everything, this one’s just a mistake.”

“I doubt you’ll even be mentioned. I’m just following the story.”

She looks doubtful. “Okay. We’re compliant, though.”

“I work for a newspaper, not the government.”

She snorts. “Yeah. Okay. ”

It twists a little in his stomach, but he nods at her politely as they leave.

The hallway takes them past a large window showing some kind of playroom. Three adults huddle around a low table, arguing in hushed tones, while a child who looks around four plays by himself with a few scratched up toy cars. The child has a cast on one arm, rolling one car at a time solemnly around on the carpet. He looks up as they pass him and tracks them all the way down the hallway. Lan Zhan can feel his eyes on the back of his neck even as they go out into the sunshine.

“Did Sizhui talk about anybody here?” Lan Zhan asks as they get back in the car. “Any friends at the group home, or children he knew when he was younger?”

“Not really. I was worried he’d have a hard time making friends, because he always seemed so content playing by himself. It’s why I was so glad he had Jingyi, his cousin. He’s the same age. He’s the one who was with—” Qiaolian breaks off, blinking hard. “Sorry. Long day.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” he says. He should say something else like It’s okay. It will be fine. We will find him. But he doesn’t, because that would probably be a lie. His silence rises like water in the car, over his mouth, his nose, stifling.

Do not be needlessly cruel.

“Yiling,” Lan Zhan says, to fill the space. 

“Fucking Yiling,” Qiaolian agrees.

“I’ll go this weekend.”

“What? You can’t just take off across the country.”

“I haven’t taken vacation in three years. I can go.”

“Lan Zhan—”

“I will go. I’m not saying I will find him, but I will go.”

Lan Qiaolian doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the ride. When she drops him at the station, she just nods, lips pressed tight together.

“I will call you,” he says. She nods again and he gets out.

He stops by the payphone on the way in to the station to call the office.

“Can I talk to Lan Shu? Yes, thank you.” He waits while the call is transferred down to the basement. “Hi, Lan Shu. Have we got anything from Yiling? Anything we’ve covered. Is there a local paper there? I haven’t—”

Lan Shu snaps her gum on the other end of the line. He pulls the receiver away from his ear, wincing. It’s a very wet sound. “Yeah, I got some. I’ll check our clippings, but they’ve got some shitty local rag. A weekly, I think.”

“Please pull that for me. I’m looking for 1995, don’t know what month.”

“Eh, looks like it’s only been running a couple years. First edition I have is April ‘98.”

Lan Zhan taps his finger, thinking. “I’ll take everything you’ve got. Any of our coverage from ‘95.”

“So, Sunshot.”

“And anything else we covered.”

Lan Shu laughs around her gum, “What else is there? No one gave a shit about Yiling before Sunshot, and nobody’s given a shit since.”

Lan Zhan sighs. “Just pull what you can find. Please. I’ll be by in an hour and a half.”

He hangs up before she can snap her gum again. It gives him a headache, the wet sound. 

He grabs a copy of the Herald for the train ride back. Instead of reading, he flips through the entire paper looking for one word: Yiling. He finds three mentions: once as the birthplace of a soccer player (a rags-to-riches story), once as the site of a hailstorm in the weather section, and once, as expected, in reference to the Sunshot Massacre. 

He hasn’t thought about it much before. He’s never been to Yiling, but there’s never really been a reason. Even before the war it was a small, poor, middle of nowhere town with low property values, high crime rates, and the worst literacy numbers in the country. It was shitty, but not in an interesting way. Qinghe was always shitty but exciting—drug kingpins and porn producers and a famous red light district. It’s become more respectable since the war, though it’s kept some of it’s sleazy veneer. Lan Huan likes to visit, says there’s a good arts scene, but Lan Zhan has never been tempted. He traveled a lot during the war, but since returning home he’s never really felt the urge. For a while it was justified. Recovery. But five years? Maybe he’s more than comfortable, now. Maybe he’s stagnating.

Lan Shu gives him two-and-a-half years of weekly papers in a brown paper bag and slim folder of photocopied clipping from the Herald’s own files. He hauls it all home on the bus piles them neatly by year on the coffee table, then settles in with a cup of tea to read. There are empty gum wrappers in the bottom of the bag.

The Yiling Observer is a quick read, only eight pages in its first edition. There are no bylines, oddly, no editors listed, no photographs, just one phone number and a street address in the masthead. The stories are . . . not quite what he expected. No gruesome crimes or depressing statistics. Just coverage of a local amateur basketball tournament, a car accident that took out a storefront, an interview with a grandmother about her vegetable garden. Small stories, almost defiantly local, but clearly and concisely written. Professional. A recipe for xiao long bao attributed to a Mrs. Yi.

He flips to the back page, under the fold. Whatever it says in bold. 

This is your humble author’s own column, where our fearless and frightening editor has given me these few inches to write whatever I like. Hence the name, Whatever. Today we’re going to talk about the Sunshot Flag, or as I like to call it, “Hey, let’s slap reminders of a war crime up on every building in the country, that’s a great idea.” 

Lan Zhan snorts. Whoever the writer is, they’re not wrong. He gets up to heat more water and adds to his list of things to do on the kitchen counter. Read all of the newspapers. Call the HR department and schedule a few days of vacation, maybe a week. Wait until his uncle sees it on the out of office calendar and calls him in a huff to explain the story. Book a train ticket to Yiling. Make an appointment at children’s services. Find a hotel. Ask Lan Huan to water his plants. Do laundry. 

He feels better with a list, like all of the static of potential responsibilities has focused into a clearly intelligible sound inside his skull. 

He goes back to the paper.

And before you complain—and I know some of you will—you’re the one reading my paper. Maybe someday you’ll have better options and can use this only for lining your bird cages, but for now I’m the best you got. That’s Yiling, baby.

Part Five

[maximinnieandme]

Save America Again. © 2021, Meri Aaron Walker, iPhoneArtGirl. Talent, OR. All rights reserved. 

August 22, 2021

By the age of three or four years old, I started my lifelong training in telling stories with words and pictures and then sharing them.

Both of my Washington, DC professional parents were so busy with their jobs that they really didn’t have much time to spend experiencing my life with me. So they gave me the job of reporting to them about my day at the dinner table any time we ate together - which wasn’t actually very often.

But I was supposed to be ready all the time.

Is it any wonder I grew up to be a journalist? A teacher? A lonely girl? Obviously not, but it’s only recently that I have really begun to understand my life experiences as having created a value totally separate from equipping me to tell stories or make media for other people’s consumption or to delight them enough to make them want to spend some time having shared experiences with me.

One of the primary reasons I am not sharing my thoughts or little stories or pictures on my Facebook or Instagram (besides my personal safety) is that those platforms are set up for consumption and entertainment. I really got to see this after the fire left me all by myself in an experience of my own private Idaho. I have continued to make photographs and mobile artworks since last fall but I haven’t posted many of them because they are anything but entertaining. And they pale in the face of my attempts to come to terms with the personal experience of losing everything that ever proved to anyone - including me - that I had the experiences I called “my life.”

So, I’ve come back into Tumblr where I began, long before I shared any of the evidence of my experience on Facebook or Instagram. It’s private here unless I tell somebody about my posts. And my sole intention, as it was when I first limited my photography process to my iPhone, is to log some pictures and some words to help me process the meaning that I’m making out of what happens around me.

Those of you who have expressed an interest in my “journey“ this fall in Maxi mostly seem to be people who have been as interested in my process of making meaning out of my experiences as you have been in my images. Many of you have told me this explicitly.

I continue to marvel at people like you. Where I came from, there wasn’t any of the engagement you offer me. I am unfathomably grateful for your interest and your love. You have been teaching me what love is for years now.

It’s in this context that I shared a little bit of the story from yesterday (using email) about meeting my next-door neighbor here at Saratoga Lake - Jeremy, a cowboy from Nebraska.

Jeremy and his girlfriend and her 14-year-old daughter packed up their fifth wheel this morning and took off about 11 AM to get back to Nebraska. I really hated to see them go. I have so much more to learn from Jeremy. But Shannon’s teenage girl has school tomorrow and Jeremy is set to receive 25 to 40 cows from his peers on Tuesday because they can’t feed them in this relentless heat and drought and Jeremy can. At some point I will try to write more about what I learned from Jeremy yesterday. But it’s not today. In about 30 minutes I need to go get in the Hot Springs for my own well-being.

The photo at the top if this post was taken about two hours ago, after Jeremy had left. The space between me and the next neighbor looked just like the photo when I went out to take a walk through the campground. The truck had been riding through the campground in the evening yesterday and then from about 11 o’clock on today. But apparently the driver knew the people in the trailer in the background so he pulled up - sic - for a visit.

There really is no way for me to share my experience of the wind howling through the space here in southern Wyoming. It’s a symphony that is native to Wyoming. It’s the background for the lives of people who live here. It fills the huge spaces between everyone. It blows all the time. Of course it stops a little bit, but the wind articulates how huge this space is and how far separated individuals and families are from each other. And it keeps things that way. You have to fight the wind to move closer to someone. 

Living in it for the last few weeks (in rural Idaho and now here) makes it easy for me to understand how the pickuptruck driver just wants to be free. Just wants to do things his own way. Just identifies with Trump’s toxic teenage rhetoric about not being told what to do by people who don’t know you. Just wants space to be.

The west is full of people who don’t want to be told what to do by people who don’t understand space the way they do. Who don’t understand nature the way they do. Who don’t understand autonomy the way they do. People who live on the east and west coast and even in the Midwest, in cities. 

Trump’s 2024 flag says just what Westerners want to hear: Save America Again.

If those of us who haven’t experienced this kind of space - day in and day out - treat Westerners with disrespect, in our ignorance, in the same ways my parents treated me with disrespect, out of their ignorance about my actual child life experiences, we’re going to have another round with Trump in DC.

We have a lot to learn in a very short time about respect if we-the-people are going to “Save America Again.” And real learning happens ONLY by having personal experience, not by watching video on network TV or YouTube, much less reading endless social media posts. Watching media about someone else’s experience only gives you fantasies and opinions. 

I am honored to be able to share pieces of my thinking and my pictures with all of you. And what I want most for all of you is that you get the hell outside your homes and experience new things directly as much as you can. Covid or no Covid, right in the midst of climate change, our real lives depend on each of us having new experiences not consuming new digital media.

I love you.

[swanlake1998]

Pointe Magazine Article: Chloé Lopes Gomes Speaks Out About Racial Harassment at Staatsballett Berlin

By: Chloé Lopes Gomes As Told To Laura Cappelle

Date: December 1, 2020

(tw: racism, anti black racism, abuse)

In November, the French dancer Chloé Lopes Gomes went public with accusations of institutional racism against Staatsballett Berlin, first reported by the German magazine Der Spiegel. In the article, several anonymous dancers confirm her account. Lopes Gomes, 29, who trained in Marseille and at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, danced for the Ballet de l'Opéra de Nice and Béjart Ballet Lausanne before joining Staatsballett Berlin as a corps de ballet member in 2018, under then co-directors Johannes Öhman and Sasha Waltz. After the company told her in October that her contract, which ends in July, would not be renewed, she shared her story with Pointe.

I didn't know I was the first Black female dancer at Staatsballett Berlin when I joined the company in 2018. I learned that from German journalists who came to interview me almost immediately. I grew up in a mixed-race family—my mother was French, my father from Cape Verde—and I was educated to believe that we all have the same opportunities.

My brother and my sister also went to prestigious dance schools [her brother, Isaac Lopes Gomes, is now a dancer with the Paris Opéra Ballet], and I didn't really think about my skin color while I was training. I spent four years at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. I didn't necessarily feel safe in the streets in Russia because people stared at me, but I was still awarded scholarships and my teacher loved me.

I quickly realized that auditions and company life were a different story. The day after my audition in Berlin, in early 2018, one particular ballet mistress told a colleague of mine in the company that she didn't think the Staatsballett should hire me because a Black woman in a corps de ballet isn't aesthetically pleasing. This ballet mistress was in charge of the corps, and for over two years, she discriminated against me because of my skin color.

That colleague warned me before I started, but I was hopeful I would also work with other ballet masters. No such luck: I was under her supervision 90 percent of the time, and we started with Swan Lake. I was one of six new women, and the ballet mistress immediately took a dislike to me. She bombarded me with corrections, and when the premiere arrived, she told me that all the women needed to color their skin with white powder. I told her that I would never look white, and she replied: "You'll just put on more powder than the others."

I spoke to Johannes [Öhman, co-artistic director at the time], who decided I should stay as I was. The ballet mistress took the fact that I went to him as an affront, as if I'd undermined her authority, and she started saying overtly racist things.

Since I didn't speak German and she didn't speak English, we communicated in Russian initially, so my colleagues didn't understand when she would say casually: "You're not in line and that's all we see because you're Black." And then, when she was handing out the Shades' veils for La Bayadère, she got to me and laughed, in front of other dancers: "I can't give you one: The veil is white and you're Black."

I again told Johannes, who said it was unacceptable but explained to me that she had a lifetime contract, which means you're untouchable in Germany. Johannes asked if I wanted him to talk to her, and I said no, because I was worried it would get even worse.

I was so anxious and unwell that I ended up with a metatarsal fracture. I should have been back after two months, but six months later, I was still in pain, and the doctors didn't know why—until a neurologist told me it was linked to stress and prescribed antidepressants. Suddenly, the pain went away completely.

Johannes left Staatsballett Berlin abruptly last January. On the day he announced it, the ballet mistress told me that now I was going to have to use white powder. I ran into the current interim director, Christiane Theobald, in a hallway while in makeup for Swan Lake. She asked why I had whitened my skin and said that I wasn't supposed to do it, but the ballet mistress was in charge of rehearsals and didn't leave me much choice. I felt like the company's ugly little duckling.

This ballet mistress also had me and a few colleagues re-create a painting of a Black dancer surrounded by white dancers. When I asked what the photo was for, she said she wanted to show her friends that they had "one of those" too in the company, as if I were a zoo animal.

My colleagues didn't want to take the picture, but there is an atmosphere of fear in the dance world. The ballet masters are the ones who are in the studio with us all the time, who hold the keys to our evolution. If you're on a one-year or two-year contract, it's very easy for the company not to renew it, whereas some ballet masters are employed for life. They're more privileged than even some directors, and that creates a power imbalance: We should be on an equal footing contract-wise.

The Staatsballett doesn't have a safe way to report discrimination or harassment, and there was still blackface in the repertoire when I joined. In Nutcracker, some children were required to paint their faces black, while I stood in the corps behind them.

I was called to a pre-dismissal meeting with Christiane Theobald in October. She did not dance professionally, so she said she relied on the ballet masters' advice. I was told that they needed to let some dancers go due to COVID, and that I would be happier in a smaller company, because I hadn't been onstage much. I explained why that was, and what had happened to me. She admitted it was terrible but said my race wasn't the reason they were firing me.

I know I was fired because I'm Black. From the beginning, I didn't stand a chance. Christiane Theobald is part of an old-fashioned system: She has worked for the company's administration since 2004, and she let me go even after I told her about the racism I encountered. My contract runs through July 31: I've been cast in reduced, COVID-friendly versions of Giselle and Swan Lake and I still want to work.

There is still this idea in the ballet world that you have to suffer to make it. We—the younger generation—can't accept that anymore. Ballet must reflect society. I don't want to be abused just to be able to dance. I want to be happy in my life, not just when I step onstage.

Editor's note: In a statement to Pointe, Theobald, who cannot comment on personnel matters, says that an internal investigation into Lopes Gomes' allegations is underway, and that the company plans to conduct antiracism training and workshops for all employees. "I am sorry to see that there is an employee at the Staatsballett Berlin who had to endure a very stressful situation for a long time and that the situation could not be resolved beforehand. Discrimination and racism is a highly sensitive issue that is of importance to society as a whole, including the Staatsballett Berlin. It is very important to me to live a discrimination-free corporate culture and to implement it where it does not yet exist 100 percent."

[thewangxianlibrary]

Wangxian Fic Recs - Modern Setting AU

Plant a little happiness (let the roots run deep) | Words: 47,638 | E

After thirteen years away, Dr. Wei Wuxian is back in Gusu. A car accident near his apartment brings someone unexpected back into his life and everything changes for the better.

and so my heart beats wildly | Words: 106,435 | E

“You know, you’re the one to beat this year,” Jiang Cheng offers helpfully, having seen the glare from right next to him. “Hanguang-jun’s been through juniors with the rest of us, he knows all of our tics. You’re an unknown variable, since he’s never competed against you before.” 

“Thanks,” says Wei Wuxian drily. “That’s very comforting.” 

Or: five nighthunting competitions where Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were rivals, and one where they weren't.

Unstrictly Ballroom | Words: 47522  | T

Thirteen years ago, Wei Wuxian brought scandal and shame down upon his head and was thrown out of the competitive ballroom dance circuit. He vanished, never to be heard from again.

Lan Wangji aches when he remembers the way Wei Ying danced--like a laugh given movement and form. He has never stopped searching for him.

Let You Love Me (Always) | Words: 14853 | E

“I can't even imagine what kind of person Lan Wangji fell in love with,” Wei Wuxian admitted.

He felt his stomach being tied in knots, and it almost felt painful and definitely unpleasant, just trying to imagine the person that probably had Lan Wangji on his knees.

Or the story where Wei Wuxian was a bully and Lan Wangji was patiently waiting.

Some of You | Words: 60,640 | M

It can’t be that bad, he thinks. There’s no way he would have done that. But the doubt still lingers, turning into full-blown anxiety as he scrolls down his twitter feed, finally arriving on his latest tweet.

Lan WangJi ✔ @lan_wangji

Some of you have never fallen in love with a boy only for him to go missing after his parents die and pine away for three years waiting for him to come back, then continue to pine when he’s back after you realize you’re too scared to confess, and it shows.

23,043 retweets | 73,328 likes

Lan Zhan’s face pales and he buries his head in his hands, letting his phone drop on the table.

This is bad.

This is very, very bad.

-

Or, Lan Wangji gets drunk and tweets a love confession, Wei Wuxian panics, and all of twitter decides to matchmake Lan Wangji and his mystery guy.

Out of the Bin and Into Your Heart | Words: 27,675 | T

"Lan Zhan!” Wuxian exclaims as soon as the door to Lan Wangji's apartment opens. 

“Fake-date me!” The door slams shut in his face. 

or, The Best Laid Plans of Wei Wuxian.

nginal Equivalents | Words: 23,444 | E

He always gets the feeling there is something there, beyond the occasional jabs and the mostly one-sided banter and the way Lan Wangji has tolerated his rambles and teasing all these years and how he has caught him looking at him sometimes with his eyes softer than he has ever seen them. 

But whatever that is makes his heart clench painfully and beat a million miles an hour, and that can’t be good for you, can it? As a self-respecting neurosurgery resident he can’t ignore the symptoms of an imminent heart attack, can he? 

Or: How Wei Wuxian learnt to stop worrying and love his co-resident.

the moon lives in the lining of your skin | Words: 9,143 | M

“Let go,” Lan Wangji says.

“Huh?” Wei Wuxian tightens his hold on Lan Wangji. “Why?”

“If you don’t let go,” Lan Wangji tells him, reaching up to cover one of Wei Wuxian’s hands with his own, squeezing lightly, “then I can’t get up.”

“And what will you do once you get up?” Wei Wuxian asks. “Will er-gege punish me for being shameless?”

(Or, oh my god, they were roommates.)

boyfriend material | Words: 41,689 | M

Lan Xichen would do anything if it meant his brother was happy, which is what lead him to eavesdropping on the Jiang brothers as they discussed their requirements for a partner. 

Or; Lan Wangji attempts to woo an already infatuated Wei Ying using bad pickup lines, and a few more things.

Love wakes me | Words: 42,812 | E

It starts with a bet. All mistakes, Wei Wuxian thinks, start with a bet. 

It’s starts with a bet and ends with Wei Wuxian losing everything. 

Nine years ago, Wei Wuxian made a bet with disastrous consequences. Now, he is part-owner of the popular and eclectic Yiling Cafe, years and miles away from his old life, making the best of things and trying to leave the past where it belongs. When Lan Wangji walks into his cafe by accident, Wei Wuxian finds himself doing what he thought he'd never do again; reclaiming some small part of his past, and hoping for a future he'd given up as lost.

These Things Stay the Same | Words: 29,937 | E

After a career covering news across the world, journalist Wei Wuxian is unexpectedly on his way home with a child in tow. Unfortunately, the path home isn't without obstacles.

your heartbeat, across the grass | Words: 44,278 | E

To his unbridled horror, Wei Wuxian sees his face up on the giant screen in real time for the entire stadium to see. Still laughing as his face takes a moment to catch up with the sheer mortification he’s feeling, A-Yuan perched on his shoulders as the Lan Wangji cape drapes over them. 

There’s also commentary. 

“—scenes from the stands here, this dad and his son making for an adorable twosome all decked out in support for local hero Lan Wangji—” 

“—Speaking of, our man seems to have taken a little tumble—” 

Wei Wuxian finds Lan Wangji on the field. The ball is nowhere near him but he seems to have fallen inexplicably backwards, sitting on the grass as he looks up at the giant screen. 

Right up at the footage of him. 

(AU where A-Yuan is professional footballer Lan Wangji's biggest fan, and his babysitter Wei Wuxian wants nothing more than to forget his days as the photographer of their school football team, calling out to the captain from the stands just so he'd look around at him.)

with you, I am home | Words: 47,049 | M

“I can’t go back home alone, Lan Zhan.”

Wei Wuxian gets a summons to return to Lotus Pier for marriage proposals. To avoid this, he convinces Lan Zhan to come with him and pretend to be his cultivation partner.

it's the little things, you see? | Words: 30024 | T

Hot Stuff’s lips part and his voice— God, his voice —flows past his lips like honey dripping from its jar.

“Are you—”

“Will you marry me?”

Nailed it.

Where single parent Wei Ying greets his son’s preschool teacher— on the first day they meet —with a marriage proposal.

Wei Ying spends the changing seasons wooing said preschool teacher in full-force, no holds barred.

Lan Zhan’s life does a full 360 degree turn when two balls of unrestrained energy land themselves in front of his classroom.

And as the seasons change, so do they.

The Simplest Way Forward | Words: 71,008 | E

It’s a really unfortunate thing, developing a crush on your husband. Wei Ying had assumed this would be easy. Lan Zhan had been so icy and unpleasant to him, it had never occurred to him that he might end up spending the next however many years with this dumb, burning feeling in his chest whenever he looks at him. 

“Okay,” says Wei Ying. “But tell me if I…if the pretending gets to be too hard, okay?” 

“It will not,” says Lan Zhan, quietly certain.

Pretty Things | Words: 25,520 | T

The thing was...Wei WuXian was right. It did suit him. Jiang Cheng took in everything—from the lively red of his nails, to the way he had braided and wrapped his hair in twin buns, leaving his bangs to curl becomingly over his cheeks, to the red silk of his calf-length silk cheongsam with black chrysanthemums blooming over his right shoulder and down the split on the left side of the skirt, to his shapely, shaved legs. And what tied it all together was the way he carried himself. Wei WuXian smiled impishly, pleased to know he was right, that he looked good, and that others would agree. Doubtless, he would be out drinking until the early hours as patrons vied to buy him drinks after the end of his shift.

Operation Old Men | Words: 37645 | NR

An ill-fated parent teacher conference reunites Jin Ling's wayward uncle with Sizhui's father. AKA: A matchmaking disaster as told by Jin Ling, Sizhui, and Jingyi.

Jin Ling knows he’s in deep trouble even before reporting to Headmaster Lan’s office, but the words “your uncle will be here soon” still strike the fear of God in him. His only consolation is that Jingyi and Sizhui’s guardians are also in the office, Jingyi’s mom already lecturing her sheepish-looking son. Lan-ayi only stops when Sizhui’s father, a quiet and tall man in white, clears his throat, causing her to engage him in one-sided smalltalk.

This is a disaster. Jin Ling had spent such a nice break at home for Mid-Autumn Festival, and Fairy’s presence had soothed his homesickness after returning to boarding school in Gusu. He knows pets aren’t allowed, but who is going to report Jin Ling when his father pays good money for a private suite in the dorms? Then there was the incident with Jingyi, a box of mooncakes, and a door left ajar. Long story short, he spent an hour chasing Fairy down the halls with Sizhui and Jingyi before finding his dog nosing up to a very angry Headmaster Lan.

[princessanneftw]

How Princess Anne became the shining light of the beleaguered monarchy

Once seen as haughty and aloof, today her old-school approach has never been more in demand

By Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor of the Telegraph.

Visitors to the Princess Royal’s house, Gatcombe Park, are often surprised to be greeted with antique-display cases groaning with ornaments, bookshelves overflowing with hardbacks and piles of magazines dating back to the 1970s. According to one friend, the 18th-century Grade II-listed Gloucestershire stately has a ‘homely’ feel, thanks to the frugal Princess’s reluctance to throw anything out.

‘It’s quite a nice thing really,’ they said. ‘There’s barely a place you can sit down in her house. Every time the staff go in there they try to take something away.’ A surprising revelation, perhaps, about the Royal family’s resident stickler, whose decadesold ‘updo’ and penchant for wearing white gloves on royal engagements suggest a somewhat starchier outlook. But as the Queen’s only daughter prepares to celebrate her 70th birthday this month, it seems that appearances can be rather deceiving.

Now more valuable than ever to an institution not only trying to reposition itself in the wake of a global pandemic, but still smarting from the fallout of Megxit and the Duke of York’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, Anne’s old-school approach has never been more in demand. Despite describing herself as ‘the boring old fuddy-duddy at the back’, who keeps reminding the younger royals not to forgo ‘the basics’, the Princess Royal, who has always put duty first, is finally getting the recognition she deserves.

Her appearance in June alongside the 94-year-old monarch for Her Majesty’s first ever video call shows how much the Queen is coming to rely on the Princess. And the public response to her appearing to snub Donald Trump during a Nato leaders’ reception at Buckingham Palace last December suggests the nation is finally warming to her modus operandi.

Where once Anne was regarded as haughty and standoffish, she is now hailed as one of the great English eccentrics whose unparalleled royal work ethic, carrying out more than 500 engagements a year, has rightly earned her national treasure status.

And having allowed a film crew to shadow her for the past year, the Princess, who is usually reluctant to blow her own trumpet, has never appeared more at ease with herself. She was persuaded to take part in last week’s ITV documentary Princess Royal: Anne at 70 because its makers, Oxford Films, had successfully produced Our Queen and Our Queen at 90 about her mother. Shadowing Anne on her dusk-to-dawn engagements – and featuring interviews with her children Peter, 42, and Zara, 39 – the documentary revealed just how much the Princess is cut from the Queen’s ‘keep calm and carry on’ cloth.

Having been regarded as a bit of a royal renegade as a teenager – and chosen to forgo titles for her own children, despite her own HRH pedigree as a ‘spare to the heir’ – Anne’s life story is a contradiction of both protocol taskmaster and occasional rule-breaker. As one insider who knows the Princess well put it: ‘She can turn from laughing and joking one minute to being an absolute stickler for the rules the next. She’s extremely dutiful and would hate to be regarded as being on the wrong side of protocol. You’d never dream of asking her a political question and she’s not at all gossipy.’

Erin Doherty’s portrayal of Anne in The Crown, as the deadpan princess with the permanently raised eyebrow, certainly sums up her teenage years when the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were apparently so concerned about their daughter’s lack of direction, they asked the late Dame Vera Lynn for advice. Prince Philip, who famously joked of his daughter, ‘If it doesn’t fart or eat hay then she isn’t interested,’ allegedly confided in the Forces’ sweetheart: ‘We are concerned about Anne at the moment, trying to get her to make up her mind about what she wants to do.’

According to her school friend, Sandra de Laszlo, who boarded with Anne at Benenden: ‘She was a very normal teenager – sensible and fun.’ Leaving school with six O levels and two A levels in 1968, Anne had already resolved to follow in her parents’ duteous footsteps. Less than a year later, she made her official debut on 1 March – St David’s Day – when she handed out leeks to the Welsh Guards at Pirbright Camp in Surrey. It was to be the start of one of the most industrious royal careers in modern memory – with more than 20,000 engagements clocked up since.

Soon after she started work, she began dating – and in 1970, Anne’s first boyfriend was Andrew Parker Bowles, the dashing young adjutant of the Blues and Royals, who went on to marry Camilla Shand – later to become her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Cornwall. The Princess and the brigadier – described as her ‘horsey husband’ – remain close and accompany each other to Royal Ascot and other race meetings every year.

Anne is also on good terms with her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips. A Sandhurst graduate with an equestrian streak, like Parker Bowles, Phillips met the Princess at a party for horse lovers in 1968 and reconnected at the Munich Olympics four years later, when he won team Olympic gold in the three-day eventing. They married in 1973. He was at the then 23-year-old Anne’s side a year later when she was threatened at gunpoint in an attempted kidnapping. The couple were returning to Buckingham Palace following a charity event when their limousine was forced to stop on the Mall by another car. When the driver, Ian Ball, jumped out and began shooting, Anne’s bodyguard, Inspector James Beaton, was injured, along with her chauffeur Alex Callender, and journalist Brian McConnell and Michael Hills, a police constable, who happened upon the scene.

But the attempt to hold Anne to ransom for at least £2 million is even more memorable thanks to the impervious Princess’s refusal to obey Ball’s order to get out of the car, replying with a trademark: ‘Not bloody likely!’ Eventually, she exited the other side of the limousine, as had her lady-in-waiting, Rowena Brassey (who is still with her to this day). A passing pedestrian, a former boxer named Ron Russell, punched Ball in the back of the head and led Anne away from the scene. Anne later told officers: ‘It was all so infuriating; I kept saying I didn’t want to get out of the car, and I was not going to get out of the car,’ according to files later released by the National Archives. ‘I nearly lost my temper with him, but I knew that if I did, I should hit him and he would shoot me.’

She was similarly sanguine about becoming the first member of the Royal family to have a criminal conviction after one of her dogs, a three-year-old English bull terrier called Dotty, attacked two children in Windsor Great Park in 2002. Pleading guilty to being in charge of a dog that was out of control in a public area, she insisted on no special treatment and took the £500 fine and £500 compensation on the chin.

The incident followed a number of brushes with the law for motoring offences, with Anne having twice been caught speeding on the M1 in the 1970s. She was also fined £100 and banned for one month in 1990 for two speeding offences and fined another £400 in 2000. On both occasions she pleaded guilty immediately, insisting she was late for an engagement.

As she said in the documentary, mistakes do happen when there is no ‘training’ for the job of being royal. ‘It’s just learning by experience. But hardly ever does anything go quite according to plan. You have to learn that.’ It wasn’t as if she didn’t feel the pressure of being the sovereign’s second-born, either – once describing the fly-on-the-wall Royal Family film, which followed the Windsors for a year in the late 1960s, as ‘a rotten idea’.

‘The attention that had been brought on one ever since one was a child, you just didn’t want any more. The last thing you needed was greater access.’

Famed for telling reporters to ‘naff orf ’, much of Anne’s mistrust of the media appears to stem from its rather uncomfortable coverage of Phillips fathering a love child, Felicity, with New Zealand art teacher Heather Tonkin in 1985. The Princess didn’t emerge unblemished either, having been revealed by The Sun to have received love letters from Tim Laurence, then the Queen’s equerry, in 1989, when she was separated – although still married to Phillips.

Anne and Mark finally divorced in 1992 and the Princess remarried eight months later, choosing Crathie Kirk in Scotland, as the Church of England did not at that time allow divorced persons whose former spouses were still living to remarry in its churches. The Prince of Wales had nicknamed Phillips ‘Fog’ on the grounds that he was ‘thick and wet’; but with his Royal Navy pedigree and impeccable manners, ‘quiet man’ Laurence fitted into the Royal family perfectly. One friend described the vice admiral as ‘a thoroughly decent man who never forgets a face’, before adding that ‘some may regard him as a little bit boring, but he’s a much safer bet than Mark ever was.’

Ever the pragmatist, Anne allowed Phillips to remain living on the Gatcombe estate, even after he married Sandy Pflueger, an American Olympic dressage rider, with whom he has a daughter, Stephanie, 22. As one equestrian insider put it: ‘The horsey set has always been very incestuous. Yes, Mark was serially unfaithful but there’s a lot of that going on – Anne just turned a blind eye.’

Now divorced from Pflueger, Phillips, 71, has vacated Aston Farm on the 730-acre estate, to make way for Zara, her rugbyplayer husband Mike Tindall, 41, and their daughters Mia, six, and Lena, two.

Peter also lives on the estate with his estranged wife Autumn, 42, and their daughters Savannah, nine, and Isla, eight. The couple are still living together despite announcing their divorce in January – an unexpected development that has left the Princess ‘sad and disappointed’, according to insiders.

One source said: ‘One thing about the Royal family is they are incredibly close. They are the most dysfunctional family there is, but the Princess and her children and grandchildren are as tight as anything.’

As ever, horse riding remains the tie that binds, with Anne – a former European eventing champion, BBC Sports Personality of the Year and competitor at the 1976 Montreal Olympics – passing on her enthusiasm for the sport to Zara. In recent years, Peter has taken over the running of the Festival of British Eventing at Gatcombe.

By her own admission, breaking with royal tradition by insisting that her children were called Mr and Miss ‘probably’ made life ‘easier for them’. ‘I think most people would argue that there are downsides to having titles,’ Anne said recently. Having initially been brought up, Downton Abbey-style, on the ‘nursery floor’, with her parents often away for months on end on royal tours, it was Anne who insisted she go to a ‘proper’ school – the first daughter of a monarch to do so – rather than be home-taught.

Both Peter and Zara were sent to Port Regis, a co-educational prep school in Dorset, before following in their uncle Charles’s footsteps to board at Gordonstoun in Scotland. Unlike the heir to the throne, who described it as ‘Colditz in kilts’, they thrived in the outdoorsiness of it all, excelled at sport and both ended up at Exeter University – Peter to study sports science and Zara, physiotherapy – despite university having eluded both their parents.

Zara also surpassed her mother’s equestrian achievements by winning the Eventing World Championships in 2006 and a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics – all while Anne was watching proudly from the sidelines.

One friend recalls how the Princess would think nothing of queuing up for the Portaloos at competitions like any other parent, much to the horror of Zara, who would tell her: ‘Mum, you can’t do that!’

Inconspicuous in her trademark Barbour jacket, tweed hat and sunglasses, Anne would regularly be stopped at events on her own estate by police not realising who she was. ‘I remember it happening a couple of times,’ said one source. ‘She was very good about it – she said: “Don’t worry, you weren’t to know.”’

After Zara collected individual and team gold medals at the 2005 European Eventing Championship in Blenheim, Anne invited the entire team, grooms and all, back to Gatcombe to celebrate, serving up ‘sandwiches and scampi in a basket’, in the courtyard. Very much a hands-on mother and grandmother, the Princess has a number of long-serving aides – but no large entourage. Along with Rowena Brassey (now Feilden), Lady Carew Pole has also been the Princess’s lady-in-waiting since 1970.

Unfussy Anne still insists on doing her own make-up and hair – which hasn’t been let down publicly in decades. Although according to one source who once witnessed the rare sight of her unclipping her bun and redoing it during an equestrian event: ‘It really is quite something. It’s still as long as it was when she was in her 20s.’

Part of Anne’s agelessness is down to genes. ‘She always says she doesn’t have very good role models for slowing down,’ Peter told the documentary. As Countryfile presenter John Craven found out when he dared to ask if Anne still rode, only to be rebuked: ‘Her Majesty is still riding, so come on!’ But as well as inheriting her mother’s DNA she shares HM’s strict adherence to style codes – and her aversion to profligacy.

Guests at the 2008 wedding of Lady Rose Windsor, the daughter of the Duke of Gloucester, were astonished when Anne arrived in the outfit she had worn to her brother’s wedding to Lady Diana Spencer, 27 years earlier. The size-10 Maureen Baker floral-print frock still fitted perfectly.

Quite what Anne must have made of Diana and Fergie’s wardrobe expenditure in the 1980s has never been disclosed – although it has long been reported that the Princess never thought too highly of either sister-in-law, regarding Diana particularly as ‘hogging the limelight’.

There were even reports that she viewed the pair as ‘lessening the stature’ of the Royal family, describing them behind the scenes as ‘those girls’. As royal biographer Penny Junor put it: ‘There was Diana on the one hand, who was incredibly touchy-feely, who hugged children, who put children on her lap, who even kissed people in public. And there was Anne, not touching anyone, not playing up to the cameras at all.’

As far removed from the suburban housewife as you can get, when Anne was once spotted mending fences at Gatcombe, she apparently retorted: ‘Somebody’s got to do it!’ ‘She’s never shirked anything in her life,’ said a friend. ‘She’s a real grafter.’

Weekends will invariably be spent with her four grandchildren. Revealing a surprising knowledge of popular culture – despite her dislike of indoor pursuits – the Princess revealed her familiarity with Catherine Tate’s stroppy schoolgirl character Lauren when she commented that Mia’s attitude to equestrianism was, ‘Am I bovvered?’

‘She’s superb with the kids,’ said a friend. ‘She’ll often be in the stables with the grandchildren. She’s got a tremendous sense of humour and is very likeable and kind. She loves Mike [Tindall, Zara’s husband]. He makes them all laugh.

The friend also pointed to Anne’s ‘surprisingly fruity’ sense of humour, adding: ‘And the Princess can swear all right. I’ve heard her use some quite colourful language.’

If the Queen instilled in Anne a love of horses then it was her father who encouraged her other great passion in life: sailing. Anne would regularly accompany the former Royal Navy commander to Cowes Week, and it is a testament to Philip’s infectious love of seafaring that Anne and Tim have kept their yacht Ballochbuie on Loch Craignish in Argyll, since 2012. The couple enjoy nothing more than cruising around the Inner Hebrides, where Anne indulges her passion of visiting lighthouses. She is patron of the Northern Lighthouse Board and is understood to have ‘bagged’ more than half of the UK’s 206.

But it hasn’t always been so easy combining work and pleasure. Anne was put to the diplomatic test when she became the first member of the Royal family to visit the USSR, at the invitation of the then-leader Gorbachev in 1990. In typical style, the Princess didn’t shirk the responsibility – and stayed for two whole weeks. Visits to war zones including Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Bosnia have been similarly taxing – with Anne once insisting after a particularly gruelling tour of Africa: ‘I don’t come here looking for trouble. I come to see if I can help.’

Her association with Save the Children, which dates back to 1970, has seen her slum it on camp beds and visit disease-ravaged Mozambique refugee camps. Once urged by photographers to hug an emaciated child, she refused, saying, ‘I don’t do stunts.’ And in response to a comment on her supposed lack of the maternal instinct, she said: ‘You don’t have to like children particularly to want to give them a decent chance in life.’

Yet her reputation as one of the most diligent royals ever has also been honed by her dedication to little-known domestic causes, like the Wetwheels Foundation, which provides ‘barrier-free boating’ for the disabled. One of more than 300 charities the Princess is involved with, its founder Geoff Holt, a paraplegic who was the first disabled person to sail solo around Britain in 2007, and then across the Atlantic in 2010, has known Anne for over 30 years. ‘I’ve got photos of us going back decades. I’ve got older and older and she’s stayed the same,’ he joked.

‘She’s got to be one of the most hard-working people I know. I’ve never known anything like it – the amount of engagements she packs in. She doesn’t do sycophancy, though.

Michele Jennings, chief executive of Hearing Dogs for the Deaf, of which the Princess has been patron since 1992, also tells staff ‘not to fawn’ when the Princess visits. ‘She hates that,’ she said. ‘We’re a pretty down-to-earth charity and when she comes she’ll have dogs jumping at her shins and crawling all over her, but she doesn’t mind one bit. There’s no awkwardness.’

Another source revealed how during one royal visit, Anne had joked about missing out on all the posh canapés – royals are discouraged from eating in public. ‘I’ll just have to put up with Great Western’s finest,’ she quipped, referring to her train journey home.

Although a ‘daddy’s girl’ growing up, since the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret died in 2002, Anne has become ever more devoted to her mother. Having helped to counsel the Queen through many royal crises over the years, the Princess has been HM’s first port of call when discussing recent tumultuous royal events. Although one can only guess what stalwart Anne makes of Harry and Meghan’s behaviour, she has made no secret of her opposition to royals trying to modernise the institution, seemingly referring to the Sussexes when she remarked recently: ‘I don’t think this younger generation probably understands what I was doing in the past and it’s often true, isn’t it? You don’t necessarily look at the previous generation and say, “Oh, you did that?” Or, “You went there?” Nowadays, they’re much more looking for, “Oh, let’s do it a new way.” I’m already at the stage [of ], please do not reinvent that particular wheel. We’ve been there, done that. Some of these things don’t work. You may need to go back to basics.’

When she turned 60, the Queen elevated Anne to the Order of the Thistle and there was a joint birthday party with Andrew, who was 50 that year. But Covid-19 – not to mention Andrew’s fall from grace – mean this year’s celebrations will be more muted. Indeed, she is not thought to have had much contact with her brother, with whom she shares a love of country pursuits, but little else.

With the Queen having been self-isolating at Windsor Castle since March, it is thought Anne will be reunited with her parents at Balmoral this summer, where she and Tim will once again take in Scotland’s sights by sea.

At a time when the monarchy finds itself somewhat cast adrift, it is the indefatigable Princess Royal who is proving to be its trustiest anchor. As she prepares to turn 70, showing no sign of slowing down after half a century of engagements, lighthouse-lover Anne has become the Royal family’s beacon of good, old-fashioned public service.

[bloodbendingbabe]

au where enji gets his quirk taken away shortly before shouto is born. results? the best thing i can see for everyone is divorce.

I didn’t mean to treat this like a prompt, it just wouldn't go away. 

TDLR: I think Enji would have more free time to train Shouto, A.K.A I think he would be worst. But thats not what I ended up writing about because I’m optimistic 💕

CW // alluded abuse/domestic violence, small emotional manipulation with Hawks, Toshi thinks that Enji is going to commit suicide its small but there, ambiguous ending

tiny synopsis: Enji loses his quirk while Rei is pregnant with Shouto, the world reacts with a special appearance by my favorite Number One hero. 

It got a little long so it will probably be crossposted at ao3 ~

The Number Two hero retired at 30 years old, never gave a reason, bruised his way through a press conference, his flames off, and then flickered out of public life. Despite being a high ranking Pro-Hero, people could count on one hand the amount of personal information they knew about Endeavor.

“I think his wife wanted him to retire.” A journalist said as they left the press conference. “I heard she was pregnant. It must have been hard on her. Maybe a villain attack scared her. Imagine being all alone, raising four kids. It couldn’t be me.” 

“You’re speculating.” Her friend said. “Everyone knows that he dropped out because he realized he couldn’t beat All Might.” 

“Being a hero is not about the rankings!” 

“That’s all Endeavor ever cared about. You think he cares about saving people?” Their speculations did not make it into their articles. They focused on actual stories like All Might saving 20 people from a burning building (the perfect job for his former number two) 

There was a little boy with blonde hair and red wings who has to be ripped away from the television where the press conference played over and over, the news reporters speculating more and more ridiculous theories. 

“That’s impossible.” He told his handlers. “Endeavor would never give up! He’s the only one who could even come close!” 

His teacher gripped his tiny chin in her hand and said, “Well, good thing we have you. You’ll fill in where he’s left a gap, isn’t that right my little one?” And Hawks nodded, squared his shoulders, flapped his wings. 

“I’ll be the fastest hero that ever lived.” 

“That’s my boy.” She said.

And then there was a family who walked on eggshells. The Estate was cold and Rei Todoroki tucked Natsuo (her youngest at the time) against her side as he sucked on his thumb. The frost coming off of her was too strong for her other children, but Natsuo reveled in it. 

Fuyumi gripped her older brother’s hand. With his red hair and blue eyes, Touya looked the most like their father, and every time little wisps of blue flames flickered across his fingers, Fuyumi put them out. She’s eight but already knew how to take weight onto herself, knew that flames were the last thing her father wanted to see. 

“It could kill him.” The Commission official told them, didn’t seem to notice the strange chill in the air or the anxiety packed in their little bodies. “He’s been powered by flames his entire life, without it, there is no telling the effects on his body.” 

“He can’t be a hero anymore.” And Natsuo, who had already seen the way his father arrived late from work, how he ignored them, and pressed his hand against his mother’s pregnant stomach, and the way she flinched away from him. Who had seen the way the house tiptoed around each other whenever six months past and their father tore through the training room. He’d seen his oldest brother, who he looked up to, cry as their father tried to push him into something he couldn’t become, his quirk too out of control. And a part of him thought good. His father didn’t deserve to be a hero, anyway.

And then there was a man, sitting in his training room, no char covering the wall. It’s cold. And he sat in the middle of it, his hands bloody from where he ripped them open on the punching bag. His face was wet, sweat, or tears? He’s breathing hard. 

“What are you going to do?” Yagi Toshinori asked. He’s All Might, had been for so long that when people call him Toshinori he flinched. 

He leaned against the wall and watched Enji tear open his hands on his punching back, and now he walked forward and was there when Enji spun around to meet him.

Enji had an ugly sneer across his face, his hands still balled into fists. It’s easy for Toshinori to see that Enji’s entire body would be alight in flames if he could make them. He didn’t budge when Enji shoved at him. That made Enji angrier. “I’ve spoken with U.A” Toshinori kept speaking as if Enji wasn’t glaring up at him. 

“This isn’t something you can fix All Might.” 

“And they’re comfortable with you teaching without your quirk,” Enji yelled, the sound full of anguish and frustration, and Toshinori didn’t even flinch when the other man lashed out, swinging to hit him. Enji didn’t want to be a teacher, had wanted to be the number one hero since he was a small boy and he failed. Had his quirk ripped away, was nothing. 

“Get out!” And there was no one else here. No one else had rushed to be at Enji’s side at the news. All Might was here. All Might’s whole thing was that he would be there when people needed him, Enji never imagined he would be one of those people, didn’t want to be.

“Don’t you have someone to go save?” And that was a valid question. All Might was too busy to build relationships, to worry about his Number Two hero, to care about other people’s troubles. But when he heard the news, he got over to the Estate as fast as he could. Maybe it’s because he knew what it was like to be quirkless, maybe it’s because Enji has been a solid presence underneath him for years and he didn’t know what he’s going to do without the man. Maybe Toshinori just cared about the man and that was stupid. They weren’t friends.  

“What are you going to do?” Toshinori asked again and Enji swung again, All Might didn’t let it connect. He just reached out and gripped Enji by the back of his neck, moved quicker than he should, and pressed him into the wall and Enji struggled in his grip. All Might had always been stronger, faster, better than him and without his quirk, there wasn’t anything that Enji could do, but struggle, curse Toshinori’s name. “I never took my number two as one to give up.” 

And that was unfair. Toshinori had only ever cared about saving innocent people, about being a pillar on which society stood upon. He had only ever treated Enji with a patronizing tone, as if the other man never grew up from being the furious little first year that always wanted to beat him. Yagi always acting amused as if it was a valiant effort on Enji’s part but would never be good enough and standing before Toshinori now, quirkless, defenseless, it made Enji want to scream. 

This was the very last thing he ever wanted to happen to him (didn’t matter if he deserved it, didn’t matter if he had it coming to him with the way he used others to achieve his own power, he didn’t want this to happen to him and it happened anyway). 

“They took my quirk.” He bit out. A bullet right in his side had erased like it never been there at all. And he wasn’t even the initial target. It was a random act of fate that the villains’ first experiment was on the Number Two Hero, and he couldn’t even tell anyone. Couldn’t cause a panic. Toshinori pressed his hand to the wound and Enji struggled to get away. Toshinori was the only person who could ever make him feel small.

“We’ll find them, we’ll fix it.” Enji thought All Might felt guilty because he knew they meant the bullet for him. It wasn’t the first or last time when All Might would not be there, where his booming voice would not appear to save the day. “But don’t give up Todoroki.” And that stung, was far too familiar.

“Don’t call me that,” Enji grumbled, Toshi pushed a little harder on the back of his neck, grip like iron holding Enji in place.  

“Enji,” Toshinori said instead, and that was worse. “Promise me you’ll keep fighting, don’t do something you can’t take back.” The anger that flared through Enji was how he got out of All Might’s hold. Paced in front of the man, wanted to flare up, wanted to destroy, and there was nothing there for him to use.  

“Why do you care? You know nothing about me!” All Might knew about the anger but had never paid more attention beyond that, had just thought his Number Two far too focused on numbers, had never seen the man smile.

“I was a late bloomer.” He said like it mattered. “I know how it feels.” The Number One hero was an idiot. 

“No, you don’t.” And Enji roared, pushing at All Might, had wetness seeping down his cheek. “You get nothing, you don’t understand what I’ve done trying to defeat you, to be better than you.” There are three children in the living room, Rei pregnant with another and he didn’t think any of them would ever be good enough and now that he was quirkless he would be nothing at all. 

In a different universe, sixteen years from now, he would realize he should have never been trying to beat All Might at all. 

“I have to be better.” He told All Might now, in this universe. “They have to be better.”

“Then you have to be patient.” Enji could strangle him. “Let’s work together, let me help you,” Enji saw red, lunged at All Might, wanted to kill him and he just ended up on the ground, All Might’s knee in his back, Toshinori’s hand in his hair. 

“I’m here,” Toshinori said, not in his All Might voice, just saying it so Enji would hear him. “I’m not going away, so fight all you want, get it out.” The Number One Hero was a busy man, always threw too much into his work, had no one he was fighting to live for (yet) and yet a part of him worried that without his quirk that Enji would do something that he would regret, hadn’t hesitated to be here to stop it. “But just let me help you.” And Enji didn’t want his help, Enji hated every second, but no matter how he moved All Might was still there. 

Enji did not deserve him. He deserved to be alone, deserved to be nothing, had fought his entire life, had manipulated and used others trying to get over him and he still ended just like this, under the very man he wanted to defeat and All Might was offering to save him, it left a terrible taste in his mouth. 

“Come on,” Toshinori said. “You’re right I don’t get you, I don’t get why you have to beat me bad, but don’t shut me out.” 

Yagi Toshinori didn’t have many constants in his life, He had a sidekick obsessed with him, an evil villain that was always lurking in the background waiting for him to miss up, an empty lonely apartment, and a number two that hated him, that had always been there despite it. A number two he wanted to support. Other heroes had come and gone but he didn’t want that for Enji, had been comforted more than once at the thought if he was gone, Enji would be strong enough to sustain his world.

“Get off of me.” Enji bit out, angry, so angry, and Toshinori relaxed his hold. He immediately shoved his shoulder back to dislodge Toshinori, rolled to his feet. It was a stand-off. The Number One and former Number Two were stubborn men, selfish men, and the Symbol of Peace had never been told no before. Enji was so angry, there would be steam coming through his nose. There was none now, and it made him livid. It was hard to even form sentences around the red haze in his brain. Tried to speak anyway.

“I can’t,” Blew out a breath of frustration. Without his flames on his face, he’s looked painfully young to Toshinori, his face bare save for a little mustache above his lips. “You don’t know who I am.” He said, thought about Rei and the children, thought about the way she flinched back from him when he entered. “I need time, I don’t,” He didn’t know who he was outside of Endeavor, outside of chasing All Might, didn’t know what to do with all the anger inside of him and no flames to use.

“I know,” Toshinori said, his blue eyes wide as if he was seeing Enji for the very first time, Enji wanted to ruin him, crushed the feeling. “I’ll still be here, I’ll learn with time.”

They both knew that when the world needed All Might he would leave, that he would eventually be too busy to think about a quirkless fallen hero hardly anyone liked. And Enji knew that without Endeavor there was a life he had to fix, wrongs he had to make right, thought fleetingly that he had a son coming who would never meet Endeavor if he never got his quirk back, would only know who his father used to be through stories.

Maybe that would be a good thing.

Toshinori reached out and put his hand on Enji’s shoulder, Enji didn’t shrug him off. He considered it a win.

-

Shouto was six when he burned his bowl in one hand and froze his spoon with another. Enji didn’t kill the flicker of hope in his heart as he watched the fire flare. (He should have, definitely should have).

[lorei-writes]

Hello, friends.

I’m writing a short personal update, because well, it’s good to say some things out sometimes and it’s bothering me a lot. 

The conclusion is, I’m not cancelling anything or going on hiatus, but I will be very slow. The details are below the cut.

Warnings: covid

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but in case I didn’t: I started uni this year. So far it’s not terrible, although I would have lied if I said it wasn’t stressful. It’s a pretty big change, after all. So far, due to the corona situation, we are working in hybrid mode - lectures are held online, the rest of the classes: in person. 

However, the number of daily cases is growing. Sure, 5k cases may seem like nothing much... Except our healthcare system is barely holding up already. A little over 40% and around 30% of all physicians are of retirement age, which puts them in the risk group. As far as I know, some wards are turned into makeshift covid wards... Which doesn’t help the fact that, as reported by local journalists, there was less than 10 free beds in covid ward here, in the capital city of the voivodeship I currently live in.

We’re in the red zone, meaning that the increase of cases is pretty prominent here. Today, there were roughly 900 cases in my voivodeship, 400 in my city alone (in the entire country: 5k). We already had first patients who died because there was no room for them in any hospital around.

The government refuses to switch schools to online learning. Schools are overcrowded (to put this in perspective: when I was still in high school, we had 35 people in a classroom for some classes. However, after education “reform” it happened that people born in two different years were introduced to high schools and other schools of such kind - meaning that the number of people for one particular year has at least doubled. Again, to say how bad it was: some people actually couldn’t get into any school after finishing primary schools, because there were no spots left free). Experts believe they do contribute to spread of covid.

Here’s another problem: plenty of our teachers, due to how terrible the pay is, are rather old, at the verge of being in the risk group even (there are little young teachers, as this job is really paying barely enough to live, at least in most places). Several teachers had already died due to covid (note: teachers in their 30s and 40s), we also had a first student death.

Chronically ill students aren’t protected. Teachers aren’t protected. As of now, students were protesting for two days.

If the number of cases rises one day, I already expect it to drop the next one - and to see the number of conducted tests fall too, as this is something that happens frequently. (Although it’s worse when they go down from 28k tests to 18k tests and the number of cases refuses to drop).

And it’s all still leaving out the “stop plandemic” protests which happened in some major cities, when large groups of people without masks gathered to... to... I’m not sure what they even wanted to do.

I’m scared. Terrified, even. Honestly, past few days I was overwhelmed with stress almost daily. I’m chronically ill, although it shouldn’t land me in the risk group - at least technically. From my experience, a flu was enough to put me out for two weeks (with 39-40C fever for almost entire first week). And then my immune system got confused and it took me three months to get my autoimmune disorder back in check. 

My uni is planning to switch to online learning only. When? I don’t know. I hope they do realise there’s nothing to wait for.

So, I’ll be slow. I’m furious. I’m scared. There are too many emotions, so many that they all turn to nothing, as it’s too much to process.

Stay safe, wash your hands, wear your mask, keep your distance. Please.

Lorei

[thinkingthingsthrough]

For several days this week the veteran Swedish journalist Malou von Sivers will cover the same topic in every episode of her nightly TV chat show: the extraordinary rise in diagnoses of gender dysphoria among teenage girls.

Lukas Romson, one of the country’s leading trans activists, is prepared for the worst. “There will be no serious trans activists in the show, because none of us trusts Malou at all,” he says. “I’m afraid she’ll just use us.”

But the fact that a mainstream programme is devoting so much time to the issue demonstrates just how much the debate has shifted in Sweden over the past year. “It’s been a very big change and very sudden,” Romson adds. “Everyone – but especially young people – feels worse because of what they perceive as the media’s hatred of them.”

The immediate trigger for Von Sivers’s themed week is a report from Sweden’s Board of Health and Welfare which confirmed a 1,500% rise between 2008 and 2018 in gender dysphoria diagnoses among 13- to 17-year-olds born as girls .

But it also reflects a rapid change in public opinion. Just a year ago, there seemed few official obstacles left in the way of young people who wanted gender reassignment treatment.

In the autumn of 2018, the Social Democrat-led government, under pressure from the gay, lesbian and transgender group RFSL, proposed a new law which would reduce the minimum age for sex reassignment medical care from 18 to 15, remove all need for parental consent, and allow children as young as 12 to change their legal gender.

Then in March last year, the backlash started. Christopher Gillberg, a psychiatrist at Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska Academy, wrote an article in the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper warning that hormone treatment and surgery on children was “a big experiment” which risked becoming one of the country’s worst medical scandals.

In April, Uppdrag Granskning, an investigative TV programme, followed up with a documentary profiling a former trans man, Sametti, who regretted her irreversible treatment.

In October, the programme turned its fire on the team at Stockholm’s Karolinska University hospital, which specialises in treating minors with gender dysphoria. The unit has been criticised for carrying out double mastectomies on children as young as 14, and accused of rushing through treatment and failing to consider adequately whether patients’ other psychiatric or developmental issues might better explain their unhappiness with their bodies. The Karolinska disputed the claim, saying it carefully assessed each case.

At the same time, Filter magazine profiled the case of Jennifer Ring, a 32-year-old trans woman who hanged herself four years after her surgery. An expert on psychosis who was shown her medical journal by her father, Avi Ring, was quoted as saying that she had shown clear signs of psychosis at the time she first sought treatment for gender dysphoria.

Indeed, the first clinic she approached refused to treat her, citing signs of schizotypal symptoms and lack of a history of gender dysphoria. But the team at Karolinska went ahead. “Karolinska don’t stop anyone; virtually 100% get sex reassignment,” says Ring.

Sweden’s authorities are starting to respond. Shortly before the bill that would have lowered the sex reassignment minimum age was due to be debated in parliament in September, it was shelved, and the Board of Health and Welfare was ordered to reassess the evidence. Its report is due on 31 March.

After being interviewed on Uppdrag Granskning, Sweden’s health minister, Lena Hallengren, asked the programme to include a text addendum to remind viewers that it had been her predecessor, and not her, who had drafted the controversial law.

On 20 December, the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment, which the government had asked to review the scientific research into the recent surge in teenagers reporting gender dysphoria, reported that there was very little research either into the reason for the increase or the risks or benefits of hormone treatment and surgery.

For Romson this is a worrying turn of events. He blames Gender Identity Challenge Scandinavia (Genid), a parents’ group set up by Ring, a retired professor of neurophysiology, the Swedish toxicologist Karin Svens and the Norwegian teacher Marit Rønstad, for the change in the debate, contrasting these “so-called parents” with “real parents” who affirm their children’s chosen identities. Svens was the only Swedish parent to speak openly on Uppdrag Granskning about how her trans son announced he was a boy when he was 17, started going to Karolinska’s adult clinic when he turned 18, and now identifies as male. When asked about Jennifer Ring, he says that friends of hers have told him she found it difficult that her family were unwilling to accept her as a trans woman.

“When I started questioning this some years ago, I thought I was alone,” says Svens. “They tried to scare me by repeatedly implying that there is a high risk of suicide, especially if the parents don’t agree. Now more and more parents have found the courage to question what the doctors say.”

The recent report from the Board of Health and Welfare also found that 32.4 percent of 13 to 17-year-olds with gender dysphoria registered at birth as women also had diagnoses for anxiety disorder, 28.9 percent had depression, 19.4 percent had ADHD, and 15.2 percent had autism.

Trans people often explain the higher levels of depression and anxiety by pointing to the difficult experience living in a body that clashes with their gender identity, particularly when many in society, often including parents and friends, do not accept their identity.

One of the most surprising changes has been the growing divisions between trans activists. While Romson warns that children will have even more anxiety because of the change in the debate, Aleksa Lundberg, a trans woman and longstanding activist, is backing the call for more research.

Last October she apologised for not having been sufficiently open about the depression she had felt after her operation. “I would probably not undergo corrective surgery if I had the same choice today,” she wrote. “And I want to apologise to those who perhaps needed to hear that story earlier.”

*the bold is my emphasis, not the original source*

anyways this is so so fucked. how did we get to a place where literal children, many of whom have co-morbid mental health issues, are being given under-researched medication (with life-long effects) and even surgery!

i just can’t get over the thought of the removal of the healthy breasts of a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL. this is truly awful stuff and my heart aches for these kids and to some extent, the parents too. there is way too little information made available to them and way too much pressure to just affirm affirm affirm with the hidden (or explicit) or else. affirm or else you’re a bad parent, you’re a bigot, your child will suffer, your child will commit suicide. under those conditions, it’s easy to see how many just go along with it. 

these irresponsible clinics will have TONS of lawsuits on the way in the next few years. but so much damage will already have been done.

[adevotedappraisal]

The Carter Trilogy, part five of five

Conclusion: We know the pain is real, but you can’t heal what you never reveal

"Marriage,” Joseph Campbell, Professor of Literature at Sarah Lawrence College, once said in an interview with former White House Press Secretary and journalist Bill Moyers, “is not a love affair, it is an ordeal, the sacrifice of the ego to the twoness, which becomes the one,” and anyone can see that sobering, bone-dry realization in the mahogany roots of any failed marriage.

But that realization can come hot and stinging from a reckoning within the marriage too, one that comes out usually some mournful evening, with a mumbled greeting and then slow, prowling questions, until a lie justifying a confession comes, and then shaking hands and voices would report, hitting on shoulders in the same tempo as the judge's gavel one dodged all those years.

In our grandparents time, they got about three or so reckonings before the thing was up and done with, some of them ol' union-man unions kept on after that, but they got all heavy and colossal the more wet transgressions were uncovered. Nowadays, who knows how many you get, so everyone I know is walking around with their nose all clean, and their fist all balled up.

Well, here we had presented to us in real time, a marriage of black royalty that survived such a reckoning. An under-reported yet typical three act play for marriages that usually played out in hushed, violently whispered conversations behind closed doors.

But remember, these aren’t diary entries, this is a years-spanning narrative, told over numerous time zones and of course, numerous UPC bar codes. These aren’t your friends, but instead are black entertainers that slotted themselves into the black consciousness as the couple of note, the way Nat King and Maria Cole, Ozzie and Ruby Davis, or Will and Jada Pinket-Smith did over the generations. They presented themselves as something larger and blacker than they themselves were, the same way we have to continually present ourselves to the eternal pyre of our own marriages.

Meaning, they won’t always get that expression out right in the studio, the same way we won’t always get the words out right during the anniversary night at the island hotel or whatever. Because that feeling you feel in the song is a feeling they took take after take to get right, that beat after beat was forded towards.

Jay Z and Beyonce ultimately monetized their best talents, and created a national conversation on the nature and shape of American marriages, but at the same time left some of their wisened observations and most iconic moments ensconced in dated production, like with 4:44s “Moonlight,” and Lemonade's “Sorry." And let’s not forget that Love Is Everything is as mid as their Bonnie and Clyde collaborations throughout the years promised it would've been.

That’s said, I like how pro-black the two first singles from their albums were. “Formation" got your black noses and fists raised, and commanded you into a shucking, trap jive, while “Story of OJ" was a downbeat groove, a chopped-up, Nina Simone-led basement afterparty to Queen Bey's Black Broadway parade.

And I like the duo on the foot-stomping testimony of “Family Feud,” where Jay reaches across hip-hop generations over Beyonce’s swaying harmonies, Jay accenting his “and old niggas, let’s stop acting brand new/ like Tupac ain’t had a nose ring too,” among the ringing piano.

Later on the song, Jay not only struggles with his household crown, he relates his troubles to Michael Corleone in the opening scene of 1974s The Godfather Part II. “My consciousness was Michael’s common sense, I missed the karma that came as a consequence/ niggas bussing off in the curtain cuz she hurtin', Kay losing the baby with the future’s uncertain,” he says, with unencumbered eyes, while Bey's recurring “higher, higher” swirl around him like curling affirmations. They reconcile the song at the end, reminding you of this black cultural wonder they are, the thing we wanted Whitney and Bobby to be throughout the nineties, these stewards to a possible black renaissance if we can all keep the weight up.

But there’s something that’s missing here across this trilogy. There’s this lack of clarity in the narrative, and that lies mostly with the mercurial Beyoncé. Jay Z is baring his guts here, confessing to affairs, neglect and a lack of empathy from his cold, cold heart, while on the songs across Lemonade and Everything Is Love, there’s a lightness in the confession department, a lack of that one softly thrown line from her that could bare all on the floor.

But you know, maybe I’m being too hard on the Queen, after all, this is just some story being played out of a box by characters that we treat as a couple in the family. When the glowing screen shows me other scenes from a marriage I don't get all constructive and demanding, I just sit back and take it all in. I mean I never really demanded any of this clarity or confession from The Godfather’s Kay Adams, so I shouldn’t from Beyonce Knowles-Carter either.

Although, come to think of it, in those first scenes of The Godfather I always thought it was strange that Kay still fell for Michael after he told her that Johnny Fontane story at the table all calm-like while sipping his drink. She knew he wasn’t gonna go straight right? She knew she was going for a cool ride with this Mafioso didn’t she? I mean why wasn’t she dating one of the other teachers at that school she taught at when he showed up all of a sudden? What was her whole deal in this game? What was she steering Michael to become? Wouldn’t it have been cool to get a couple scenes of her whole side of the plot? I’m just saying though, wouldn’t that have made that classic drama even more grand, even more ill?