#so even if they read the whole thing and objectively understand that what the headline implied was false

[singwhenyoucantspeak]

inflammatory headlines that imply something that is not true should be illegal. i dont care if the article itself sets the record straight. that is dishonest and irresponsible journalism.

[sneezefiction]

untouchable | vii

Atsumu x Reader

desc: in which an accidental run-in with pro volleyball player, Atsumu Miya, at a 7/11 leads to a strangers-to-lovers situation… but the catch is, you have no idea that he’s famous.

warnings: slight language, anxiety

wc: 3.2k

part 6 ⚬ part 7 ⚬ part 8 (coming soon)

untouchable m.list

—

“Here ya go.”

Osamu sets down a small cup of water, letting it clink against the bar’s granite surface. There’s no ice in it, but you can tell by the condensation on the glass that it’s cold. Osamu tosses a plastic straw toward you and it lands conveniently right next to your cup.

Throwing him a quick smile, you reach to take a sip but pause when you hear the click and gentle hiss of a drink can.

You’d know that sound anywhere.

It’s a reminder of street vending machines and roadside shops. Of summer walks on hot pebbled pathways and after-class escapades with old high-school friends. 

But, just to be sure, you glance over to study the object in the hands of the man next to you.

Yes, you confirm, Miya Atsumu has indeed brought a can of green tea into his brother’s restaurant. And, yes, you are quite amused.

You choke down the rising laughter in your chest, though you can’t hide the small smile creeping onto your lips. This is the dorkiest thing you think you’ve ever seen on a not-date before.

 “Where the hell were you hiding that?” You tilt your head, leaning toward him to get a closer look at the drink.

“You’ll see.” Completely unfazed, he reaches for his coat, which hangs on the back of the chair, and digs into the pocket…

And, if what you’re seeing is true, he’s just fished out a second can. The paper covering the aluminum has a pink, floral print and reads, “Matcha-” but his thumb covers the rest of the lettering.

“What? Did you want one?” Atsumu tilts his head and places the can next to your water glass.

You stare at it, curious about two things. 

The first thing being his massive fucking pockets. They must be something of a void for him to fit two whole cans in the same pouch. Well, it’s more like you assume they were contained in a single pocket. Otherwise, you would’ve noticed a sloshing, aluminum object bumping up against your side as you two walked arm-in-arm.

The second thing that struck you is that he actually thought to bring two. Did he plan on drinking both? Was it originally for his brother? Or did he intend to offer you one right from the start? 

You do happen to like this brand of tea.

Atsumu leans back into his chair, tossing an arm over the back of the seat. “My friend tells me it’s good for digestion,” he explains and takes a sip.

“My digestion is just fine, thanks. You can keep it.” 

Your eyes crease in mirth. He has some interesting friends, that’s for sure. And why does he care about digestion? He’s fit and muscular and... is he constipated or something?

Yeah, that’s not something you should ask about.

“I’m gonna try not to imagine what else you could be hiding in those pockets,” you say, twisting your face in concern and pinching your eyebrows together.

Atsumu grimaces, shifting in his seat. “Did ya have to say it like that?” 

“I think I have every right to say it like that. You could be a freak for all I know.”

“Um, I think it’s entirely possible that you’re the freak here.” He shoots right back at you through mock-judgmental eyes.

Your jaw drops in amused surprise. You shove his arm playfully, but his balance hardly wavers. He grins in response, golden eyes glimmering. Your hand lingers briefly as you mimic his smile, but you notice and drop it quickly.

“Gettin’ comfortable now aren’t we?”

A faint flush dances across your skin. Maybe you were being a little touchy… but flirting hasn’t been this fun in so long. Anyway, he was the one who had you walking arm-in-arm with him earlier.

That thought alone makes your heart jump.

You look away, grasping the straw in your glass and twirling it around. “You got all comfy first,” is all you can huff out.

“Well, yeah.” Atsumu places an elbow on the table and props his chin up with his hand, “I mean, this is a date isn’t it?” He takes another sip of his drink, acting as though what he said wasn’t headline news.

Huh?

So apparently this whole not-a-date but possibly-a-date situation had an obvious answer… to Atsumu that is. It still felt about as clear as rocket science to you though.

“Is it?” The words flow from your lips before you can stop them.

He blinks. “Hm.” 

You swallow, “Is this a date?” 

He gestures a hand at the two of you, “I mean... I thought it was.”

Well, yes. You’re both sitting across from each other. Neither of you knows the other well. Atsumu had taken you to his brother’s restaurant.

Everything that’s happened in the past hour screams, “date.”

And, yet, it’s all too strange.

Suddenly the wooden barstool is much less comfortable. You readjust, crossing your dangling legs. You can hear every uneven as it leaves your body - hopefully his ears aren’t too keen.

Did you really change the atmosphere with just a few words?

Should you have assumed that this was a date from the beginning? But you were protecting yourself… 

Thank God Osamu is in the back right now. You don’t think you could handle someone else (especially your date’s brother) hearing this conversation. The embarrassment would be way too real.

“But if you’re not okay with it bein’ a date, then that’s okay.” Atsumu is quick to speak, straightening up in his chair. “I probably forgot to clarify…” He searches your gaze for any change in reaction.

Yeah, he’s probably not adept at these sorts of situations. But neither are you.

There’s a noticeable tint to his cheeks. You’re sure it must burn because your own face has already burst into flames. Great, you’ve made him feel like he’s screwed up. 

Atsumu mumbles a quiet “shit” under his breath, which would’ve found funny if it weren’t for your own pounding heartbeat.

Dammit, how can you salvage this? You might as well be fanning a flame at this point. If you weren’t careful, you could burn this entire opportunity to the ground. 

“Ah, that’s not what I mean,” You respond, waving your hands out in front of you, “I just- I don’t know, you never said anything about it being a date over text, so I just assumed it wasn’t. Not that I would mind it being one...”

If you keep talking, the words will only get more muddled. You clamp your mouth shut so as to not say anything ridiculous.

Suddenly, the blank wall opposite the blonde is very interesting. Maybe if you survive the next 5 minutes you’ll suggest that ‘Samu add some art pieces to soften the stark white paint. It might also make avoiding eye-contact a little easier.

Despite not wanting to face him, you can’t exactly ignore the man sitting an arm��s length away from you. You glance back to him, bracing yourself for a face wrought with confusion.

But Atsumu looks… amused? Relieved? The lines of worry on his forehead have smoothed back out.

Well, whatever emotion he’s conveying, it’s better than the ones you saw earlier.

“Alright, then how about you tell me whether you want this to be a date or not?”

You bite your lip in thought. Partly because a male has just respectfully asked you if you’d like to go on a date (a date you’re already on.) That, in itself, is a rare sight indeed. 

But mostly because he actually wants to go on a date with you.

Did you really meet him only a month ago? Was he ever a stranger to you?

He’s a little too friendly for that. But friendly isn’t the right word. Atsumu is understanding. And simple… but in a good way. Things are smooth like velvet when you’re around him.

You, who’s been shit out of luck over the past few years. You, who had to frantically accept a less than ideal job after moving away from your entire support system. You, who tried to abate loneliness with blind dates and Tinder matches... but only ever ended up shoving breadsticks in a bag before escaping through the backdoor of a mediocre restaurant.

After all the tears and life changes and dating apps and heartbreak, you finally have a choice that you can make by yourself without any serious repercussions.

And it’s a simple yes or no question.

“I’m gonna say, yeah. This is a date.”

A grin that could light up the city of Tokyo spreads across his face. You don’t know why he’s so happy, but it’s making your heart do somersaults in your chest.

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.” He grabs his drink, taking another sip.

Even you can feel the earnest smile on your face reaching your eyes. 

“So, can I ask ya somethin’?”

You sit up in silent anticipation. “Uh… sure.”

Atsumu clears his throat, looks away from you and runs a hand through the waves of his hair. Given Atsumu’s display of nerves, someone watching from the outside might think that this man was either about to break up with you or propose marriage.

Thank God it couldn’t be either of those things. But your hands clasp at your thighs anxiously anyway.

“Why’d you want to see me again?”

You find yourself holding your breath, letting his question sink in. 

It’s a good question. An important question. Why exactly are you here? With him?

You’re usually better about setting your intentions before you dive into something new. Plotting out big decisions has saved your ass a multitude of times.

But this opportunity fell into your lap at the most peculiar of times.

In all honesty, you didn’t give his request too much thought. Hell, you didn’t even ask him if he’d give you time to think about your decision. 

Thinking back, you really should’ve been way more careful… but you’re already here.

You lean back into your chair and meet his gaze head-on. 

“Do you want an honest answer? Or would you rather me make something up?” You ask, a glimmer in your eye.

“Oh, yeah I love bein’ lied to, go right ahead.” He throws you a look through squinted eyes.

You laugh, “I’m assuming that’s sarcasm.”

“And you’d be right.” Atsumu’s chin sinks back into his hand, awaiting your honest answer.

You give yourself a moment to breathe, leaning back into your chair and relaxing your body.

It’s best to keep things brief - you’d hate to overwhelm him with your own life. And something tells you he has his own complicated shit to deal with. 

“I’ve had a rough few years here and my social life is about as interesting as a brick right now.” You glance over to him, “Plus you seemed a little weird. But fun.”

This is all true. But there’s so much more you’d like to say.

Stuff like, 

“You’re so easy to be around.”

“Your voice is comforting.”

“I’ve felt like shit but you’ve given me something good to think about.”

“I feel a little less lonely lately and I think it’s because of you.”

But you know that would be overstepping some major boundaries. You’d play it cool and keep your thoughts to yourself for now.

“A bit blunt, but I’ll take it.” He quirks an eyebrow.

“Hey, you’re pretty blunt yourself.” You fake a frown, but can’t suppress your smile for long.

“Okay, sure, I’m not the most tactful… but you should’ve seen me in high school.” He sighs, eyes growing fuzzy with memories. 

But he’s quick to snap back to the present.

You snort. “I bet you were a hoot.”

Osamu’s voice rings from the back, “He was a lot more than that.”

So he was listening in, your cheeks burn a little at the thought. 

“Oi, shaddup, ‘Samu.” He lifts his head, calling back with a playful growl in his voice.

“I have video evidence, don’t tempt me to share it,” Osamu warns, but he gets back to business.

Your eyebrows raise. Now that’d be fun to see.

He notices your curiosity but is quick to furrow his brows. “Oh, no, no. I want you to get to know me, but not that well,” Atsumu says, slightly perturbed. 

“Not yet, at least.” He adds, after a few seconds.

Your eyes soften. 

That makes sense. 

Although, you hadn’t even expected him to show you the videos. You’d just wanted to tease him a little since that seems to be something he’s very comfortable with. You like that it’s a “not yet” instead of a “never,” though.

But instead of continuing this part of the conversation, you divert to asking his question back to him.

“Well, I think it’s your turn to tell me why you asked me out.”

And you swear you must’ve just said something ridiculous because he looks hilariously surprised. Like a deer in headlights. A jammed highway of car-headlights with the brights on full blast.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d guess that he hadn’t even thought about it. That or he didn’t want to tell you.

Either way, you deserve to know at least this much. You wait with your hands placed patiently in your lap and a trained indifference in your eyes.

—

Okay, so maybe he’s not the sharpest crayon in the box.

Atsumu knows he has a good reason for asking you out… he really does. 

But it wasn’t the kind of reason one could eloquently verbalize. I mean, shit, what does Atsumu do that is eloquent?

It was more of a gut feeling than anything else. 

But he’s sure if he told you that he wanted to date you based on “instinct” that you’d laugh and promptly flee the restaurant like a prison escapee jumping the walls holding them captive.

He pulls himself together because he’s sure you can sense his discomfort. He’s never been great at disguising his emotions - he’d only ever learned to mask them with nonchalance and angry outbursts… and that’s a no-go when it comes to the press. Atsumu had to drop those reactions like a hotcake.

“I…” he swallows but gives a wry smile, “Y’see… I live a bit of a complicated life.”

He scans your face like he’s searching for his next words within your eyes. But you’re must be a blank page because they don’t come to him.

“Okay, now, don’t go telling me you’re wanted for some sort of federal crime.” You tease him as your lips brush against your straw, lightening the atmosphere in the process.

Atsumu’s lips open to let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding in. “Ah, ya got me. That’s exactly what I was gonna say.” He responds dryly.

“That’s so sad. And I really thought this was going well, too.” You hum and take a sip of water.

He clears his throat, loosening his shoulder with a stretch. For someone who’s lived most of his adult life in the limelight, he hasn’t had to talk about it much. People either know he’s famous or they don’t.

You’re so kind. You listen well. There’s something about you that he’s magnetized by. Something that continuously draws him back in.

So if you were to learn about his life and see him differently? It would be a door slamming into his face, sealing his fate to be a really fucking lonesome bachelor. Which is a funny concept until you are the lonely bachelor.

So what exactly is he supposed to tell you?

Out of habit, his hand reaches for his hair… but he freezes before he can run his fingers through it.

Because the words are coming to him like a lone flower petal drifting to the ground. Soft and solemn.

He asked you out because his chest hasn’t ached like this in so long.

The warmth you’ve brought him in such a short time flares inside of him; why should those flames to die down anytime soon?

Because when’s the last time he spoke with somebody new and felt so normal? He’d never craved simple conversation back in high school. Even in his early 20’s, he’d just been searching for quick flings and easy getaways - those were easy to manage and feelings almost never got involved.

But being with you is like honey to hot, bitter tea. Like chowing down on a hot meal when he’s hungry.

No, it’s not easy to explain, but your presence is somehow satiating to his soul. Osamu even said that he’s been “less of a dick” since he started talking with you, so that must count for something.

You don’t need to know all of that. That’d be really weird. But if you were already being honest with him (even if you hadn’t spilled your entire life’s story) then he can be honest with you. 

But with this groundbreaking realization comes the hard part. Saying it out loud. And while he’s sometimes smooth in terms of flirting, he’s absolute shit at explaining himself.

The words come out slow and awkward. “I’ve been havin’ a hard time with… people.” 

Okay, that’s not at all what he meant to say. 

There are a million things you could’ve gleaned from that useless sentence. ‘I have a hard time with people?’ I mean, if that didn’t sound like a red flag, then what does?

“Oh, really?” Your eyes are wide and thoughtful and he swears he sees a glint of amusement flash through them. 

Shit, this would be harder than he thought. 

“Well, dating in particular, but that’s because my life is out of wack.” He presses on, but it only comes out worse.

Maybe he should’ve taken that communications class back in high school. It would’ve saved his ass in his interviews and, more importantly, here.

You nod along, folding your arms. “Mhmm.”

It’s both unfair and such a relief that you’re finding his verbal blunders funny. 

“Okay, gimme a minute, this is comin’ out all wrong.”

“Take your time,” you smile and your eyes crinkle. “I’ll be here all night.” 

But is it possible to soften what he’s about to say? To give you something to chew on rather than a bunch of information to choke on?

Being candid with you is the only fair way to do this. If he isn’t straightforward with you, you could end up getting hurt. Even being with you here at his brother’s restaurant is a risk — he should’ve thought through that decision better too. Not that he visits his brother there in person much, but it’s still not a gamble he likes to make.

Anyway, what’s done is done. He’s just got to tell you.

Atsumu sits up, resting his clenched fists on his thighs and knitting his brows together.

“Listen, I’m not sure how to tell you this…”

You shift in your seat, mouth closed and eyes fixed on his. There’s a tension in your posture, but he tries not to let it deter him.

“But I’m...”

—

[theclockworkmonk]

Out of the Mouths of Babes — Chapter 4

Read on AO3

Read on FFNet

Chapter 1 on Tumblr

Chapter 2 on Tumblr

Chapter 3 on Tumblr

Written for Hinny Ficfest 2021

Prompt: “Uncle Ron said something about Harry knocking Ginny up, but I don’t know what he means,” Teddy said.

*******

Ginny had disappeared, dragged through the kitchen door, before Harry could come up with an excuse to keep her by his side. He sighed and took a long gulp from his glass of firewhiskey, welcoming the burning sensation down his throat. Whatever his family was so wound up about, Harry knew he wasn't in danger here, so he hoped the drink would dull his overactive auror instincts so he could enjoy the evening.

"So...how's the shop?" asked Harry, choosing to focus on George, "any accidental new body parts I can't see?"

"Harry, I'll have you know that we ascribe to only the highest of safety standards at Weasley Wizard Wheezes," said George with his nose in the air, "We strictly adhere to a dual-fault system to make sure a trained wizard is on-site to intervene in case of emergency."

"By that he means that he doesn't try any weird shit on himself without me there to rush him to St. Mungo's," said Ron with his mouth full, wincing as his mother smacked him in the back of the head with a wooden spoon for his language.

Harry's eyes narrowed at his best friend. "So you two are already partners now? Really wasting no time on bailing on me, aren't you?"

"Don't be a prat!" grumbled Ron. "No, like I said, it was just a thought that I had. You know, the kind of thought you would hope you could share with your best mate without him jumping down your throat?"

"Well I think it's a marvelous idea," Mrs. Weasley announced loudly from her place at the stove."

George's eyebrows shot up. "Who are you and what have you done with my mother? You're glad that another one of your sons is considering wasting his life at this silly business, instead of a respectable job at the Ministry?"

"Well, if said Ministry job involves chasing after Death Eaters every day," huffed Mrs. Weasley, "Then I suppose my nerves will take any alternative."

She sent a stern look towards Harry and pointed a threatening spoon at him, making him jump back. "You could do well to learn from Ron in that regard, Harry."

Ron was grinning ear to ear, bouncing in his seat from being the favorite child of the moment.

"There's nothing wrong with Ron doing the responsible thing." she lowered her voice to a grumble so Harry barely heard, "at least someone is."

Harry surveyed the tense atmosphere in the room again.

"Okay, what's got everyone in such a mood?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

"No one's in a mood!" said Mrs. Weasley quickly.

"Harry," Mr. Weasley spoke up for the first time, and his voice too was less assuring than Harry usually found it. "I'm having trouble with a fascinating new muggle device I've discovered, would you mind giving me a hand out in the shed?"

"Oh. Sure," said Harry easily. Mr. Weasley got up from the table and led Harry outside. They entered the man's infamous tool shed, and Harry noticed new mechanical and electronic devices in various states of disassembly. Mr. Weasley gestured to his work table, where a VCR sat.

"I've heard that muggles use this to see recorded images, like a pensieve, but I've put in those black blocks, and nothing happens."

"Oh, well," said Harry, trying not to laugh, "You need to attach it to a television. It can't just work on its—"

He was interrupted by the door opening again, and Harry was surprised to see Mrs. Weasley entering the shed which he always knew her to avoid, wanting nothing to do with her husband's "nonsense" tinkering.

"Molly, what are you doing here?" Mr. Weasley asked crossly, "We agreed we wouldn't. The boys—"

"I told them I was getting apples from the orchard," his wife said dismissively. She crossed the shed and looked beseechingly at a very surprised Harry.

"Harry, dear, you know how we think of you as a part of this family. We've been wanting to say….we hope that you don't think that has changed because of you and Ginny's relationship. We know young men have trepidation about 'the girlfriend's parents,' but you're not just our daughter's boyfriend to us, you're one of our own."

Harry was as touched as he was confused. "Th-Thank you, Mrs. Weasley," he said softly. "I can't tell you how much that means to me."

"And one reason we had no objection to you and Ginny dating," Mr. Weasley continued, "is that we trust you to always do right by Ginny. To always do what's best for her."

Harry looked back and forth between them, their expressions pointed and expecting.

"Well — ehem — I'll remember that. I promise to never do anything to hurt her." He meant it.

There was another moment of silence before Mrs. Weasley spoke up again.

"Sooooo…." she prompted. "We just want you to be aware that….should you decide to propose…you wouldn't have to worry—"

"What!?" Harry's heart leapt into his throat and he knew his face had turned scarlet. "Oh, no no," he said, putting his hands up. "I'm glad to have your blessing, but we're not ready to think about that yet."

Harry rubbed his neck nervously. It was only a half-lie. In truth, Harry was ready to think about that. He thought about proposing to Ginny damn near every day, in fact. But he was fairly certain that Ginny was still years away from being ready. She was fiercely proud of her independence and she was still dealing with the papers referring to her as "Harry Potter's girlfriend" before "star Harpies Chaser," even without marriage.

Mr. Weasley sighed in what seemed like disappointment and Mrs. Weasley's mouth thinned and her expression turned sour.

"Well...the roast should be done, we should all head back inside."

The Weasleys led the way out of the shed and Harry cautiously followed them. When they arrived back in the kitchen, Harry saw Bill shoot his father a stern, questioning look, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Mr. Weasley shake his head grimly, and Bill and Charlie gave Harry a glare that would make Mad-Eye Moody quake in his boots.

Harry froze and all the breath left his body. It suddenly all made sense. He was the thing that the Weasleys were so on edge about. Ginny's parents inquiring about him marrying her.

They had somehow found out that he and Ginny were living together.

Harry suddenly felt like a sheep in a cage with several wolves.

"Hey mum," said Charlie, "while you were outside, Aunt Muriel floo-called and said that the gnomes are in her attic again. Apparently she's upset at the way dad tried to take care of it last time."

"Is she sure it's actually the gnomes, or is it the doxies nesting in her hair?" Mr. Weasley grumbled as his wife shooed him into their sitting room and through their fireplace. Harry's heart was thudding in his chest as the few Weasleys he could count on to not murder him due to this secret getting out abandoned him with the curse breaker, dragon tamer, master prankster, and Ministry power-broker.

Several murderous eyes turned towards Harry.

"Look...er…" Harry stammered. "I really thought that, after everything, we had all moved past the whole 'overprotective big brothers' routine."

"Yeah, we thought we had too," said Charlie darkly, "but mum and dad's diplomatic approach clearly didn't work, so the gloves are off. I guess we never figured that the savior of the bloody wizarding world would do this to our sister."

George snorted, still finding this whole thing quite amusing. "Sorry, do this to her? Harry's the real victim here. Ginny's a nightmare already, can you imagine what living with her will be like now?"

"What the hell are you lot talking about?" Ron cut in, looking around the room in confusion.

"I think your brothers have become aware of me and Ginny's...status change," said Harry.

"Oh, that is just so typical!" huffed Hermione, crossing her arms and adopting her lecturing pose. "Ginny is perfectly capable of handling her own life and she doesn't need a bunch of chest-beating men to defend an outdated notion of her 'honour!' I still can't believe how sexist magical society can be sometimes."

"Yes, Hermione, our world is sexist, whether we like it or not" said Bill, not backing down. "You can pontificate all you want about how it's not right, or a double standard, but once the public finds out about this — and sooner or later, they will," he shot another glare at Harry, as if he wrote to the papers about it himself, "then it will change how people see her. And since she's a Quidditch star, the way people see her matters."

"Yup, can see the headlines now," George sighed dramatically, "the ambitious social climber Ginevra Weasley, raised in a pauper's home, so she used her feminine wiles to land herself this sweet gig."

"Look, ultimately, it's none of our business — no, I'm serious!" Ron finished in response to his brothers' looks of betrayal. "Look, Bill, Charlie, you two were only around when Ginny was a little girl. You didn't go to school with her. You never saw first-hand what happens when you try to meddle in her life to defend her virtue, trust me." He shivered a bit, as he remembered the traumatic memory.

"I don't even understand why we have to meddle," said Percy, "I just don't understand your logic, Harry. There's no question you would be willing to throw yourself into mortal danger all over again to protect Ginny. What you're hesitating to do is comparatively easy."

"His reasons don't matter, he should have thought of that earlier," said Charlie, pointing a threatening finger at Harry. "I don't care if this makes me a hypocrite, but you're going to do the right thing and—"

Ginny suddenly burst into the room, causing every word to fall silent. Harry knew that Ginny always hated it when people were obviously talking about her, but as he started towards her, he was surprised when he saw that her eyes were watery with tears. Ignoring all of the eyes on her, she ran straight towards Hermione, throwing her arms around her friend.

"Erm, is something wrong?" asked Hermione. She threw a questioning look to Fleur as she followed Ginny into the kitchen, but the young mother looked just as confused as anyone as she took Victoire back from Bill.

Instead of answering Hermione's question, Ginny withdrew from the hug and smacked Ron upside the head.

"Ah! What the shit!" Ron cried, rubbing the back of his head.

"Ronald, language!" scolded Mrs. Weasley, re-entering the kitchen along with her husband, making the room quite crowded.

"That's your main concern?" asked Ron, "Not the unwarranted physical assault?"

"It's not unwarranted, it's for being a stupid, forgetful git!" barked Ginny

She walked up to Harry and took his glass of firewhiskey, still mostly intact.

"I need this more than you," she informed him, and began to raise the glass to her lips.

"GINEVRA MOLLY WEASLEY!"

Mrs. Weasley's ear-piercing shriek caused everyone in the room to wince, and Ginny momentarily jumped behind Harry for protection. "Merlin's balls, WHAT!?"

"Molly…" Mr. Weasley cautioned.

"DO NOT 'MOLLY' ME, ARTHUR!" his wife shouted back. She had a crazed look in her eye and she was pulling at her hair. She rounded on Harry and Ginny.

"We have tried to be respectful, but you two are clearly not ready for this kind of responsibility! I am so disappointed in you both for not taking this more seriously! You haven't even given a thought to how this will affect your careers!"

"Our careers?" asked Harry, confused. "How would that possibly—"

Suddenly, everything clicked into place. He had gotten it completely wrong about what the Weasleys were talking about. The talk about responsibility, their careers, affects to Ginny's public image.

Somehow, the family had gotten word about the "honour" bestowed upon Harry by the Wizengamot, and all the implications that had for his and Ginny's future together. He supposed it wasn't too surprising that Arthur or Percy had heard about it through their Ministry connections.

He looked sideways at Ginny, and from one look he knew that she had come to the same realization. Both their faces split into wide grins as relief flooded through them that all of this drama was over something so silly. Apparently, the family somehow had the absurd idea that Harry would keep the title and actually take the status, power, and responsibilities being offered to him.

Harry and Ginny cracked up into delirious laughter, leaning on each other for support, which did nothing to help the livid look on Mrs. Weasley's face.

"Oh Merlin's beard, is that what has you all concerned? Don't worry about that," laughed Harry, waving one hand dismissively and wrapping the other around Ginny's shoulder.

"I mean, come on, we're obviously not keeping it!"

There was a moment of silence, then the entire kitchen exploded.

[whitehotharlots]

Things really are this bad

Yesterday, Freddie posted an excellent piece titled “People of Color Have Agency.” It’s free and I encourage you to read it all the way through, but its gist is found in the title: contemporary anti-racism regards non-white people as having no control of their actions, nor any moral culpability for anything they themselves do. Why? Because white supremacy is such an all-encompassing causal force that it prevents non-white people from having human agency. Freddie points out, correctly, that far from being liberating, this conceptualization of race and racism flatly dehumanizes non-white people, and, in doing so, centers the actions and experiences of white people as having determined the entirety of human existence.

From the piece:

I suspect that placing all of the blame for historical crimes on white people is strangely comforting for white leftists: it advances a vision of the world where only white people matter. It says that the sun rises and sets with white people. It suggests that white people wrote history. It assures white people that, no matter what else is true, they are the masters of the world. That all of this is framed in terms of judgment against the abstraction “white people” is incidental. I think if you could strip people down to their most naked self-interest and ask them, “would you be willing to take all the blame, if it meant you got all the power?,” most would say yes. And of course in this narrative people of color are sad little extras, unable even to commit injustice, manipulated across the chessboard by the omnipotent white masters whose interests they can’t even begin to oppose. All of this to score meaningless political points in debates about inequality and injustice.

I don’t have anything especially poignant to add (you really should read the whole piece). He repeatedly assures his reader that some of the more absurd aspects of anti-racism being described actually are real and quite pervasive. This move is necessary because, although his descriptions are objectively correct and plainly obvious, they cannot be articulated with appropriate harshness without it sounding like the writer is exaggerating (a poisonous rhetorical milieu made all the worse by conservative critics who could have a field day simply describing wokeness as it actually exists, but instead understand it in the most idiotic manner imaginable.)

But no, Freddie was not exaggerating. Everything he describes I have seen in person and in print multiple times. There exists, believe it or a not, a sizeable faction of the left that does not believe Imperial Japan was an imperialist power, that expecting non-white people to adhere to basic standards of decency is akin to slavery or genocide, and that black people are so inimically traumatized by historical racism (that such trauma is even literally embedded into their genes) that they cannot follow rules or obey laws. This is the state of liberal antiracism in the early twenty-twenties, and it doesn’t become any less ugly by us pretending that it’s not as bleak than it actually is.

Basically, people belong to two groups: Non-whites are non-entities and therefore sympathetic, blameless victims. Whites, conversely, are all-powerful and therefore the horrors faced by most people all across this blighted planet are caused by the very existence of whites. This understanding is racist, chauvinistic, narcissistic, and dehumanizing. And it’s utterly dominant in anti-racist discourses right now.

I have made this point before, but it bears repeating: whiteness and white supremacy have become conceptually indistinguishable. The former was previously understood as a description of a people’s racial markings and was therefore fluid and inchoate and, progressives once believed, a complete social construct, a fabrication, something that we faced an imperative to stop taking seriously. The latter concept, white supremacy, was used to describe myriad aspects of a pervasive system of racial inequality. A small child can suss out how weakening the conceptual status of the former is an absolutely necessary prerequisite for addressing the urgent concerns posed by the latter. 

Instead, however, the contemporary anti-racist left (call them what you want: corporate anti-racists, wokes, neoracists... it’s all the same stuff) has done the exact opposite. Racialization is calcified to the extent that we consider the presence of racial markers to be the sole driving force behind all human interactions. This makes malignancies unchangeable, but that’s beside the point. We’re not actually looking to reform systems and improve the lives of everyday people of color: we are, instead, concerned with burnishing the image of the Democratic party, helping dull grad students get their PhDs, and assisting the book sales of a small handful of the most cynical authors the human race has ever seen. 

But this is just all so incredibly absurd. Like... Jesus fucking Christ people, fucking think about this shit for a second or two. Take this piece for instance. It’s not from everydayfeminism or some random tumblr: it’s from the New York Times. It describes an incident in which two black middle school girls were very badly harassed--even urinated upon--by 4 middle school boys. The headline reads “A Racist Attack Shows How Whiteness Evolves.” The catch? The perpetrators of the attack were not white.

Just because the boys weren’t white doesn’t mean they weren’t doin’ some whiteness. Oh no. As the author explains:

While it’s tempting to see the reported ethnicity of the boys suspected in the assault as complicating the story and raising questions about whether the assault should be thought of as racist, I look at it through a different lens. Instead of asking what the boys’ reported racial identity tells us about the nature of the attack, we should see the boys as enacting American whiteness through anti-black assault in a very traditional way. In doing so, the assailants are demonstrating how race is a social construct that people make through their actions. They show race in the making, and show how race is something we perform, not just something we are in our blood or in the color of our skin.

Herein, race is not only real but inevitable, all-pervasive, and unchangeable. And race does not correlate with traditional markings like dialect, place of birth, or skin color. Nosir. Race is behavioral. The stuff this writer dislikes (rightly or wrongly) are what constitute whiteness. The stuff this writer loves (victimhood, and also presumably the Marvel Cinematic Universe) are what constitute non-whiteness. 

This idiotic conceptualization leads inevitably to all matter of malignancies--from petty inconveniences to world-historic atrocities--to be understood under the same umbrella, and emanating from the same magical force--a force which, it just so happens, we’ve already established cannot be altered or changed or even understood in a coherent manner. Whoops, sorry. But, hey, this is why it’s good that we don’t want to reform anything even though all we talk about is how bad everything is. Biden 2024, y’all: Keep America Entropic.

If this understanding of anti-racism had been explicitly designed to worsen and perpetuate racism, it could not have done a better job. But it wasn’t--maybe in the upper corridors of the liberal political and NGO sphere some people realized this was a great way to pretend to care about racism without actually changing anything, sure, but a vast majority of the people peddling and accepting this bullshit are earnest in their desire combat racism. They just can’t conceive of doing so in a manner that hasn’t fully internalized the deranged, neurotic mysticism that’s drilled into our heads from birth in order to make us accept the brutal inhumanities of neoliberalism. 

[hotchley]

strawberry cheesecake

BAM! IT’S HERE!!! BEFORE MIDNIGHT AS WELL!! It was 23:14 when I hit publish on ao3 and I really do need to go to sleep, but it’s here, with some level of accuracy because I googled what happened when someone has an allergic reaction.

Finally, I, the pioneer of Aaron Hotchner’s strawberry allergy, has written the fic where he eats strawberry cheesecake at an FBI function and has a reaction. It got unexpectedly dark, but we’re going with it.

As usual, I have not proofread it, and I kinda need you to suspend all belief about how the FBI works/is run because the function kinda doesn’t make much sense and yeah... you’ll see what I mean when you read... I’m really hoping this doesn’t suck because you guys actually looked forward to it??

Trigger/Content Warnings; food, referenced child death (most recent case), alcohol consumption, anaphylactic shock/allergic reactions, child abuse, hospitals and I think that’s everything

Word Count: 7669 (it got really out of hand...)

read on ao3!

If there was one thing David Rossi hated more than local press giving unsubs ridiculous names because they believed it would make a good headline, it would be FBI functions. And not just any type of FBI function. The FBI function where the Behavioural Analysis Unit- which nobody had believed in- would be mentioned so frequently that it felt like they were on a case.

It was just his luck that one was being held on the same day that he was supposed to be going to the ballet with one of the lovely women that worked in the White-Collar unit. Because despite the rumours that went flying around about him and his dating habits, he was not going to take advantage of his position and make rookies or anyone else uncomfortable. The woman he was supposed to be meeting had approached him and asked if he’d liked to go.

Hotchner had been watching him, looking slightly scandalised as she had placed her hand on his tie, and so Rossi had said yes. He’d even leant in slightly and asked if she would have a problem with him giving her a kiss on the cheek. When she said that she wouldn't, and would actually quite like that, he did and Hotchner had fallen off his chair.

Rossi had smirked, the lady had laughed and Hotchner had hit his head trying to get back up, gone an even brighter red and made something up about dropping his pen and needing to grab it. Rossi’s date had snickered, whilst Rossi had just raised an eyebrow.

Hotchner had excused himself to the bathroom.

As he ran out of their area, closely followed by Anya- she’d slipped Rossi a piece of paper with her name and number, Erin Strauss had walked in, holding two envelopes.

Rossi didn’t need to be a profiler to know what was in there.

“No,” was the first thing he said.

“David,” Strauss warned.

“Erin,” he mocked.

Strauss sighed. “Look, I know you hate these things, but the entire bureau is founded on politics and people-pleasing. If you come to this, then there may be less questions about what exactly it is you do all day, apart from ogling the other agents.”

“I do not ogle. And I guess it’s too much to hope that the other invitation is for Anya, isn’t it?”

Strauss nodded. “It’s for Aaron. Do try and get him to come, it’ll give us all something pleasant to look at whilst we slowly die inside.”

Dave stared at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m not saying that I want to ruin his marriage or sleep with him, I’m just saying he’s objectively attractive. And I don’t know why you look so surprised, Jason told me about the women that flirt with him. And that you started calling him pretty boy, which hasn’t exactly gone unnoticed.”

“Right.”

“Just make an effort to actually attend. And please get Agent Hotchner there too,” she said.

Dave just nodded.

Aaron had returned from the bathroom.

“Agent Hotchner. I hope Dave hasn’t been making you feel too awkward with all of his comments,” she said. It was clear that she was just trying to see whether any had been made.

Aaron’s cheeks flushed again. “Not at all ma’am,” he said, holding the door open for her. She nodded and left, but not before turning to Dave one last time as she gave him an extremely pointed glare. He made a face at her, which caused her to laugh.

When Hotch had sat back down again, Dave finally acknowledged him.

“That trip to the bathroom seemed rather urgent,” he joked.

“I- well, so,” Hotch stuttered.

Dave shook his head. “It’s fine. And it doesn’t look like that date will be happening anyways, so it’s not a big deal.”

“Wait why won’t it be happening? You both seemed… excited at the prospect of going.”

In response, Dave threw the second envelope at his head. Aaron’s reflexes weren’t fast enough, so it just bounced off and landed on the floor. As he bent down to pick it up, Dave began to understand why Erin and the other agents thought of him as being something pleasant to look at. As in, Aaron had pretty eyes. And his hair was constantly falling in his face, which was endearing.

“That envelope is why it won’t be happening.”

Aaron stared at him and then opened it. “Oh.” He seemed even less enthusiastic than Dave did about attending. 

“I thought you would have been thrilled at the thought of going. It’ll be like all those balls you went to when you were just a young boy growing up in the good old South Virginia," Dave said. He knew he was toeing the line.

Aaron's silence about his childhood revealed more than his words ever could.

"First of all, I didn't attend balls when I was a young boy. The only dance I ever went to was my prom, and that was only because Haley basically forced me to go. And South Virginia isn't that good, that's just a stereotype that people have because people live in fancy houses with white picket fences," Aaron snapped. It was uncharacteristically sharp.

"Sorry," Dave said. And he meant it.

Aaron's eyes widened. "Sir, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have lashed out at you. You've not done anything wrong. I just-"

"It's okay. Do you want to talk about it? There's no pressure, it's just if you wanted to. That seemed like quite an extreme reaction to something so trivial." Why was he so bad at this? He could charm any woman he wanted, yet the moment he tried to speak to Hotchner about anything other than work and Haley, he sounded like an idiot.

"I left prosecution because it was always more about politics than actually helping people get justice for the terrible things that had happened to them. And now it just feels like nothing has changed and time that could be spent stopping someone from destroying lives is just going to go on people-pleasing," Aaron confessed. He wouldn't meet Dave's eyes.

Dave wanted to pull him in for a hug, but he knew it would most likely not be well received. He also knew that wasn't the whole truth, but it wasn't his place to push. Aaron felt things, more deeply than the rest of them, but he would never admit to anyone that there were certain cases that got under his skin.

Like the one they had just finished. A child wasn't going to be coming home, but the look on the mother's face when they informed her was not one of sorrow. It was one of relief. Aaron had asked to stay behind to speak to her for just one more moment. And when he returned, there was an anger written in the clench of his jaw that Dave had never seen before.

Jason had told everyone to give the kid space. Against his gut instinct, Dave had listened to him. Which he now very much regretted.

"Kid. We all have limits. Nobody can spend every hour of every day hunting down these guys. At the end of the day, we're all just human. I won't lie to you, it will be a lot of people-pleasing. However, it will also- if you let it- be a bit of fun. You're a good agent Hotchner. And an even better person. Let yourself breathe for once."

Aaron looked down. "Thanks Dave."

Dave just shrugged. It was only when Aaron left the room again did he let himself groan. Now he was going to have to pretend to enjoy himself at the function or else Hotchner would just be upset because of his ruined date.

Depending on how you looked at it, the members of the BAU were either lucky or unlucky when no cases turned up the morning of the event. Dave had been watching the fax machine intently, and Max had been looking through a suspicious number of case files the entire day. But in the end, there was nothing.

Which was how Dave found himself standing around, sipping a glass of champagne he thought tasted horrible, talking to strangers he couldn't care less about and silent seething at Hotch. He wasn't there yet, despite phoning Dave to say he would be there in half an hour about forty five minutes ago. 

The only reason he'd bothered to attend and not faked some form of emergency that would let him go on his date with Anya was because he wanted Hotch to have someone to keep him company and make him laugh as he suffered through conversations about being an ex-prosecutor and the change to the FBI.

He was looking round for a waiter so he could take yet another glass when Aaron appeared in the doorway, fiddling with his cuff links. His cheeks were slightly flushed and his hair was more ruffled than usual. As he entered, awkwardly greeting people and tripping over his own feet, Dave rolled his eyes.

How the kid had managed to pass all of his assessments and be the best shot in the entire building was still completely beyond him.

"Hi," Aaron greeted, a dopey grin on his face.

"It's lovely of you to join us," Dave remarked. He just couldn't help it. When Aaron's face fell slightly, he regretted it. He kept forgetting that Aaron took the things people said a bit too literally sometimes. Especially if it came from someone he looked up to.

"I'm sorry about your date being ruined," Hotch said. He was looking around at all the other people in their perfectly tailored suits and beautiful dresses. It made him- with his slightly too big shirt and undone bow tie- look even younger than he already was.

"Well barring any disasters, this should be over in time for me to make it. Anya said she could wait."

There was a slight silence, broken only by Dave rejecting what would have been his third glass of champagne and Aaron quickly accepting it. And then it became too much for him to bear.

"Kid, why is your tie undone?"

Hotch's eyes widened like he had only just realised. Rossi wouldn't have been surprised if that was true. For someone that was a profiler, he was quite oblivious sometimes. Not realising that if you took your vest off and then someone shot at you, you would suffer more than a few bruises, forgetting that his shirt collar wouldn't cover his entire neck, the list went on.

But this was something entirely different. Aaron Hotchner's tie was never undone.

Rossi raised an eyebrow when an entire minute passed without him explaining himself and the colour rose to his cheeks.

"Well, it took me a really long time to do it the first time and then Haley came into our room to grab her bag. And then she really likes it when I get all dressed up because I normally hate doing it- I mean I always hate it- so then she, you know and then I thought I had tied it properly but clearly I hadn't."

Rossi had never heard so many words spoken in a single breath. He did however, understand what the kid was trying to say. "Well at least one of us got to have some fun tonight," he joked.

"Is that why everyone's been staring at me?" Hotch asked, turning his back to Strauss. The woman simply raised an eyebrow, then raised her glass of champagne at Rossi, who glared at her, just because he could.

"Yes," he lied, because he was not about to be the one that explained to him that people were staring at him because he had been deemed the eye candy of the Quantico and therefore, everyone loved him.

"You're lying to me. I can tell! What's the truth?"

Not for the first time, Dave wondered what he'd been thinking when he saw the lead agent in Seattle run after a suspect without any sort of back-up, slip in poison ivy and then carry on running, even though everyone else had realised it wasn't the killer they were after and decided that he would make them into a profiler.

"Are you sure you want to know?" he said, making his voice as serious as he could in a vain attempt to make him change his mind.

"Yes. Because it's nowhere near as bad or as serious as you're making it out to be."

Damn him.

"Fine. But I did warn you. It's because you are- objectively- attractive. And apparently, your slightly repressed accent makes everyone swoon. Also Strauss thinks you have a nice ass," Dave said, completely nonchalant.

Hotch's cheeks went brighter than ever before and he spun round, searching for Erin. She had rather coincidentally turned her back to the two of them as she engaged in a very serious conversation with another Section Chief.

"I- I don't even want to know how you know that," Aaron muttered, stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets, looking like a petulant child.

"Oh I thought you would love it! You're basically a Southern Belle."

Dave was lucky he was immune to the Hotchner Glare as it came out in full force. "Don't call me a Southern Belle. Do you even know what that is?"

Dave shrugged. "I'm sure I could guess. Look, I'm sorry, I'm just being bitter. Come here."

Aaron regarded him suspiciously. "Why?"

If it had been anyone else, Dave would have told them it was a surprise. Or that they wouldn't know until they stepped forward. But Aaron wasn't anyone else, and Dave needed to remember that. There were certain things he just couldn't say.

"We're going to be here for a while. You can't just stand there with your bow tie undone."

Aaron narrowed his eyes, but stepped forward. When Dave reached forward and grabbed the ends, he tensed. To anyone else, it was too minute a gesture to be noticed. But Dave had spent more time reading people than he had with his second wife. He knew why Aaron was tensing. It was why he took as little time as possible tying it neatly, even though he wanted to take forever.

So that the other agents wouldn't be staring and making him self conscious. That was his only reason. It had nothing to do with the attachment he could feel himself forming, and it most definitely was not linked to his desire to help Aaron associate touch with love and comfort.

When he stepped away, Aaron seemed to relax slightly. "Thank you," he said, ever the gentleman.

Dave just shrugged. "You look better with it done properly. Speaking of, where is Haley?"

"What does Haley have to do with me looking better with my tie done properly?"

"Your tie wasn't done properly because of Haley. Come on Hotch, I thought you were meant to be an ex-prosecutor. And we both know the two of you are inseparable."

Hotch flushed, the way he always did when someone mentioned just how in love with Haley he was. Dave found it adorable, even though he hated himself for that. But he knew how important Haley must have been to Aaron's survival, so even though he wasn't her biggest fan, he begrudgingly respected her.

"She's out with her sister," he mumbled. "They made plans ages ago and they've been so excited for it that I couldn't ask her to cancel just to keep me company."

"That's kind of you. Most men probably wouldn't let their spouse just leave them when there's an event like this going on," Dave said. 

"If you want to go on your date I'll cover for you when Strauss comes calling," Aaron said, rather suddenly. 

Rossi frowned at him. Aaron had seemed excited at the thought of spending the evening together when he first arrived and for him to suddenly seem so willing to spend it apart, just so Dave could go on a date with someone who he was sure was lovely but he couldn't envision a future with, was more than a little unusual.

"Like I said, barring any disasters, I should be able to make it. Are you annoyed at me for bringing up Haley? I know that we had a bit of a rocky start when we first met, but I do respect her. And I like to think she appreciates the fact that I keep you alive."

"I'm not annoyed at you for bringing up Haley," Hotch said, huffing slightly. He was fiddling with his cufflinks. Dave wanted to comment on his behaviour, but did not want to be reminded of the no-profiling rule- which Hotch himself had implemented.

"Well you're annoyed at me for something and I would appreciate you telling me, instead of just bottling it up until we're on a case and something else happens."

"Dave, I am fine," Hotch snapped, tone mitigating his words.

"I'm sure you are," Rossi snapped back, turning away. Strauss was frowning at the two of them and he rolled his eyes. Screw etiquette, and screw the people that thought they were being unprofessional and causing a scene.

They were, but he wasn't going to admit it.

"Do you really think I would forbid my wife to do something as harmless as going out with her sister the same night that I have to attend quite possibly the most boring function known to man?" Hotch suddenly asked, tone laced with malice.

"Of course not Hotshot. I was joking," he said, softening his tone as the problem clicked.

"I wouldn't. I'm not her keeper. And I'm not-" he caught himself, shaking his head. "I just wouldn't."

"I know. I'm sorry, it was wrong of me to joke that like that," Dave said, catching Erin's eye. She nodded, clearly pleased that he had resolved something without resorting to violence or shouting.

He didn't acknowledge her. He wasn't an idiot, and he knew that resorting to violence or even raising his voice would lead to some sort of shut down from Aaron. And he did want the kid to enjoy himself, even though he did agree that playing politics whilst people were dying was stupid.

"The decoration is nice," Aaron commented, a few minutes later.

"It is, isn't it? It reminds me of this opera house I took Carolyn to, for one of our anniversaries. Actually, that opera house seems like the sort of place Haley would enjoy going to. I'll give you the name, you can surprise her," Dave said, deciding he would take the win and prod later.

Aaron choked on his champagne, colour rising to his cheeks when he realised people were watching him cough. He cleared his throat once more before turning to Dave, making absolutely no attempt to hide his shit-eating grin.

"What?" Dave said, hating himself for taking the bait.

"I have to tell Haley that you think she's the kind of person that would go and enjoy herself at an opera house."

"Is she not?"

"Dave, for our last anniversary, I took her to the local theatre because they were putting on Pirates of Penzance because that's what got us together. And the year before that, we both thought it was a week later than what it was, so her sister ended up taking us out."

Maybe Dave wasn't as good a profiler as he thought he was, because in his mind, he had a very specific image of Haley, and none of what had just been said fit with that image. He supposed that was what he got for making assumptions, having never actually met her in person.

"Oh, that's certainly interesting," Dave said.

"She's a very interesting woman," Hotch said, smiling so wide it physically hurt Rossi to see because he knew how the BAU burnt out love, and the strain it put on marriages. Hell, he had lived through it.

"Hold onto her Aaron," he said, without thinking.

Aaron frowned. "Of course I will. Dave, you've been acting weird the whole time we've been here. Are you okay?"

In all honesty, he wasn't. He always said he wasn't like Jason. He had no interest in being a mentor, or finding the next generation of profilers. That was never what he wanted. But there was something about Aaron, and his too large suits and his floppy hair that made him feel things he wasn't ready to confront. 

But if he said any of that, Aaron would probably run for the hills. Hell, he probably would too.

"Of course I am. Now loosen up and enjoy yourself. I can tell you want to," he said, smiling when Aaron's eyes sparkled.

"What do you think Strauss would do if I told her I know what she thinks about my butt?" he asked, the smirk on his face far too mischevious for anyone's comfort.

"You can find out now," Dave said, nodding as Strauss approached them.

"Dave. Aaron, you look very handsome," Erin said, looking him up and down once.

Whatever had possessed Aaron just a few moments before had clearly vanished, as his cheeks flushed and he awkwardly stuttered out something that nobody, not even the person speaking, understood.

"Thank you… Ma'am. You look very nice too," he eventually managed to say, sipping his champagne to distract from his failure at speaking.

"Is there something you need?" Dave said.

"No, just making sure you weren't too bitter about your date being cancelled. And also making sure that Agent Hotchner would save both of us a dance after dinner. I'm sure everyone from Quantico wants to know whether or not our Southern Belle can dance," Erin said.

Hotch downed the rest of his glass. "I'm not- it doesn't work like- I don't- I really don't think- fine. One dance. But that is it, and none of you are allowed to laugh if I mess up, because I'm not the dancer. Haley is."

Haley seemed to be a lot of things that Aaron wasn't. Maybe it was part of the reason they were so well-matched.

Erin nodded, smiled at them both, then went to mingle with different people.

"See, everyone thinks you're a Southern Belle!" Dave said, smirking.

"But why? I've done everything I can to repress my accent, and I have done since the day I started law school," Aaron said. He did not whine, because grown men that worked for the FBI do not whine. But if they did, his sentence would have definitely sounded like whining.

"I know, and most days, it's only the slightest thing. I don't really know how everyone worked it out, but they did. And that's fine!"

Hotch pouted.

"Look, if you really don't want to dance, you could always land yourself in the hospital with some kind of injury. I could take you, sneak off to my date, Haley would affectionately roll her eyes and then give you all the kisses you want…" Rossi said, smirking.

"No it's fine. I'm not going to fake an injury, that would be so embarrassing," Hotch replied.

"Then stop pouting, you look like a child. And go mingle with someone else, if you spend the entire time before dinner with me, what will people say?"

Hotch snorted, then schooled his face into a look of neutrality, before nodding and going off to speak to one of the other higher-ups. Rossi noticed, rather fondly, that it was the one person that actually cared about the people involved in their cases, as opposed to just the politics and the prestige.

About five minutes later, he realised he missed the kid. And then he started to panic. Because he didn't get attached to people. Especially not new agents that had too much hope and faith. Not new agents that were that nice. He didn't. He couldn't.

Him and Aaron ended up seated next to each other at the banquet table, because there genuinely was no other way to describe it. It was long, and grand, and every platter was filled to the brim with food of so many different types. Dave honestly could not remember what the function was actually for, but a part of him was tempted to comment that if part of the budget for these events went to the BAU then they'd probably be able to properly fund the unit.

He refrained, if only because Aaron looked so excited at the prospect of finally eating something. Dave had learnt long ago that you had to eat before you came to these events because people loved talking and more often than not, you'd drink the champagne just to get through their conversations, but clearly Aaron hadn't quite learnt that lesson yet.

"So where is that wife of yours?" Max asked, seemingly out of the blue.

Hotch tensed. "Out with her sister. Why?"

"I've only seen you smile like you are now when Haley is around, but I don't see her anywhere," he said, in that annoyingly patronising tone of his.

Hotch relaxed, but flushed. "I-oh. Yeah. She's out with Jessica because they had made plans a while back and they don't really see each other as much anymore because Haley's busy teaching and doing the school production, and Jessica's getting her Masters so," he trailed off.

"I think it's lovely, how much you love Haley," Erin added.

Dave snorted into his glass, not at the fact that Aaron looked so uncomfortable but at the fact that these people hunted down serial killers and criminals for a living, and yet the thing they got the most joy from was teasing a kid about his marriage.

"Right, that's enough being mean to the newbie. What about dessert?" Dave said.

Aaron flashed him a grateful smile. He just shook his head. He remembered when he’d turned up to his first event, Carolyn in awe of all the decorations and outfits, and everyone else had been ruthless with their teasing. He wasn’t about to let Hotch suffer that same fate. He’d probably faint with embarrassment.

Erin laughed at the two of them, and Jason smiled at Dave’s defensiveness over his new protege. One day. One day Jason would get Dave to admit that the way he felt towards Aaron was nothing short of paternal. Max just rolled his eyes, but the waiters came to clear their plates before he could make another biting comment.

Aaron excused himself to the bathroom, and then the dessert was brought out. Dave, being the saint he was, switched his and Aaron’s plates because he wasn’t getting younger and he knew he was meant to be cutting down on his sugar. So if Aaron had the bigger slice, then it would do them both a favour. And it had a whole strawberry to decorate it, not just the jam.

Erin was giving him one of his looks when their eyes met and he resisted the urge to stick his tongue out. He knew what that look meant. It meant Erin had an opinion on whatever he had just done, and it was one he wouldn’t like or approve of. 

“Look, it’s strawberry cheesecake!” Dave exclaimed, poking his fork in Aaron’s direction in an attempt to distract from Erin’s gaze.

The smile that had been plastered across Aaron’s face since they’d been sat down- and Dave really didn’t want to think that it was as a result of Erin’s comment about his butt, although it was the only thing that made sense- faded, and the colour seemed to drain from his face.

“What is it? Come on, you must love dessert, you’re the kid,” Dave said, slightly teasing.

Aaron opened his mouth, seemingly contemplating saying something that he thought would ruin the entire evening, but then he closed it and gave Dave a forced, tight-lipped smile. He almost pushed, but they had been having fun, so he just grinned back and urged Hotch to eat it.

If anyone noticed him wince as he swallowed each bite, or the fear that flickered in his eyes when he ate the strawberry, they didn’t comment. For that, he was grateful. He still had no idea what he was meant to do when the inevitable happened, but so long as nobody realised, he had time to work it out. All he needed was time.

He did really miss Haley though. If Haley had been there, she would have said something on his behalf because she would have known there was no way he would do it himself. It was too late to turn back now though. There was a tiny part of him that secretly hoped he’d outgrown it, but the moment he felt stomach cramps forming, he knew that was wishful thinking. Still, if he was lucky, nothing too serious would happen until he got home. Haley would panic, take him to the hospital and everything would be fine. Nobody else would have to know.

Or so he thought.

He’d gotten so good at not eating strawberries that he had completely forgotten just how badly, and quickly, the effects would hit him. He had forgotten just how allergic he was to the fruit. And he was aware of how stupid that sounded, but it was just one of those things.

Dave was staring. So was Erin. He cleared his throat, awkwardly looking down. When the waiters came out once more to clear the plates away, he smiled at them, hoping his cheeks didn’t seem flushed, or his palms too clammy.

“You promised me a dance,” Dave said, nudging his elbow.

“I did, didn’t I?” Aaron responded, hoping his voice didn’t sound too strained. When he stood up, his vision went slightly fuzzy and unfocused, and he found himself grabbing the table in order to stay upright.

He was going to be fine. All he had to do was make it through another few hours, and there was always a delay between his vision blurring and breathing becoming difficult, so with just a bit of luck, he could still do it.

Luck had never really been on his side.

Erin was standing, talking to Dave, and he couldn’t remember what he was meant to be doing, or why nobody was dancing. Maybe they had just been teasing him when they said he owed them both a dance. Or maybe they were waiting for him to do something. Either way, the confusion wasn’t helping him function.

“Kid, what’s happened to your hand?” Dave said suddenly. It reminded him of that time his cousin had eaten shellfish, but that didn’t make sense. There was no way Aaron had hit adulthood without realising he was allergic to the things they’d eaten.

Aaron stared at him.

Erin grabbed his wrist, the look that crossed her face one of fear and panic. “Aaron.” 

It couldn’t be. There was no way the ugly red rash forming on his hand as they watched him was being caused by an allergic reaction. It just couldn’t, because Hotchner may have been stupid and irresponsible, but there was no way he was that irresponsible.

He cleared his throat.

“Now would be a terrible time to tell you that I’m allergic to strawberries, wouldn’t it?” he rapsed.

Dave’s jaw dropped. “You’re what?”

Aaron Hotchner’s timing had never been good. It had actually always been abysmal. He was born early, in both senses of the word, met the girl he would end up marrying on the last day before a three month holiday which she would spend out of the state, and was generally just not smooth with the way he did things.

So as if on cue, he fell to the ground, completely losing consciousness. Clearly the delay between his vision growing blurry and his breathing becoming shallow was not the large space of time he thought it would be.

“Aaron!” Dave yelled.

Erin dropped to her knees by her side. “Dave, phone for an ambulance. Now.” 

Dave blinked a few times, then realised what she was asking him to do and ran out the room to find the phone. When he was patched through, he realised he had no idea if what Aaron was experiencing was just a reaction, or anaphylactic shock, but he just explained himself as best he could, only relaxing when they said it was likely everything would be fine and they would be there soon.

He re-entered the room only two minutes later, and Aaron was still in the recovery position.

“The idiot doesn’t have an EpiPen on him. I don’t know why, but he doesn’t, so now we literally have to wait until the ambulance gets here and hope for the best,” Erin said, some strange mix of angry and terrified.

“He doesn’t have his- what kind of- why not?” Dave said.

When he looked around the room, he realised it was suddenly startlingly empty. It was just Erin, him, Aaron- who still hadn’t come around- and Jason. Max was suspiciously absent. He figured that was for the best. If anyone would make the situation more awkward than it already was, it’d be Max.

“He managed to get everyone to go downstairs, then said he would stay with them. We figured the less people around when he woke up, the less embarrassed Hotchner would be,” Jason explained. “And on that note, I’ll go explain to the paramedics what happened,” he added, as sirens filled the air.

“Dave, when did our lives suddenly become co-parenting this mess of an adult if only so he gets home safe to Haley?” Erin suddenly asked.

“We don’t co-parent him. No. We just… look after him the way we would do with any other new agent that was his age,” Dave said, although he wasn’t even convincing himself. Erin didn’t respond, just looked at him with that glint in her eye.

He didn’t get the chance to carry on with his argument because Jason entered with the paramedics, and him and Erin moved away. It seemed like they had already been informed that Aaron didn’t have an EpiPen on him, because the first thing they did was inject him. There was one terrifying moment, in which Erin grabbed his wrist, where Dave thought they were too late, but they weren’t. 

Aaron opened his eyes, obviously disoriented and immediately after lifting his head, let it hit the floor again. He seemed far too pale, but nothing gave the impression that he was going to be sick, so Dave relaxed. When he and Erin were finally able to go over, Aaron was almost done answering their questions, some of the colour returning to his face in the form of flushed cheeks.

If he was capable of embarrassment, then everything was going to be fine.

“We’re going to need to take him to the hospital for observation and to make sure he doesn’t have a secondary reaction, but one of you is welcome to come. In fact, it would be preferred, wouldn’t it Aaron?” one of the paramedics said.

Aaron nodded, not quite meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Dave, you should go. Aaron, I don’t want to see you in the office until you’ve been cleared both by the doctors and by Haley to return. Do you understand me?” Erin chastised, sound every bit the mother Aaron had never had.

He nodded miserably, closing his eyes, and for a few moments, Dave felt terrible for him because so many pieces seemed to be falling into place now. And then he remembered that the whole thing had been caused by Aaron not saying he was allergic. He still felt terrible, but he also wondered what the hell he was meant to say to Haley.

“Come on kiddo,” he said as gently as he could, helping Aaron to his feet and into the elevator.

When he was safely sat in the ambulance, and they were well on their way to the hospital, he raised an eyebrow at Aaron who pulled a face.

“Don’t,” he protested weakly.

“So you’re allergic to strawberries,” Dave said. “How long have you been sitting on that piece of information for?”

“I’ve known since I was four and ended up in the hospital after I went strawberry picking with my mother and ate one of them.”

“Aaron, nobody was going to be offended. You could have just said something, it would have been okay. Really, you can’t judge someone just because they have an allergy, and everyone would have just moved on. You didn’t need to eat it.”

Aaron swallowed. “When I was eight, my father bought strawberry tarts for my mother and I, because he knew she had friends round and he wanted to seem like a dutiful husband. He didn’t- she’d kept the first time a secret from him because he’d been out of town. And when she tried to tell him, he said I was being difficult, then he made me eat it whilst she told her friends everything was fine. I only survived because she snuck in with my EpiPen.”

“Oh kid,” Dave said, chilled to the bone.

He shook his head. “I knew, realistically, that nobody would say anything, but I just couldn’t shake the memory of being told that if I was going to waste food, then I didn’t deserve it.”

“Aaron, that’s not-”

“I know that. Now at least. Thanks for not reacting weirdly. Or thinking less of me.”

“Agent Hotchner- are you still esquire, oh it doesn’t matter, esquire- nothing would ever make me think less of you. Especially not this. It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault, and I know it’s easy for me to see, but I need you to know that.”

Aaron gave him a slight smile, eyes watering. “Thank you Dave.”

“I do have one question though. Where the fuck was your EpiPen?”

He made a sound, one that Dave was not going to dignify by actually naming in his head.

“That didn’t sound like an answer young man,” he teased.

Aaron sighed. “It- okay. My blazer pockets weren’t big enough to fit it, and I figured strawberries isn’t exactly a common thing, so it would be fine if I left it in the car, but then I didn’t want to say anything, and then I passed out before I could- oh.”

“What?”

“Did everyone see me collapse?”

Dave considered lying, but Aaron had bared his soul to him. He owed him this small piece of honesty. “Yes, but they also witnessed me running like a headless chicken to get to the phone and Erin completely freaking out, so it’s all okay. I promise.”

Aaron nodded, not fully convinced. “Thank you. For caring.”

And one day, Dave would teach him that caring was what people did for each other. That it wasn’t something he had to earn, or something that would be snatched away at the smallest transgression. He would teach him that the love he had always deserved but never been shown was going to come from more than just Haley. It was going to come from every single good person he knew.

But in that moment, he just leant over and ruffled his hair. And maybe the gesture was paternal, but he could live with that.

“Mrs Hotchner’s been waiting for you all to arrive,” the receptionist said the moment they came through the doors. Aaron relaxed at the mention of his wife.

“You can send her in as soon as we go in. He’s been treated, we’re just keeping him for observation,” the paramedic said. The receptionist nodded and turned to one of their colleagues, who immediately got up.

Dave hung around as they got him situated, wondering when would be an appropriate time to leave. He didn’t want to step on Haley’s toes, or make her feel like she wasn’t trusted, but he also didn’t really want to leave either of them. Not if the real timeline matched the one he’d created in his head. She would have just been a child too, but children always believed that they needed to save everyone and anything less was a failure. He didn’t know how to say that their job was to be a child, and it was on the adults to keep them safe without patronising the two of them.

So he sat instead, keeping Aaron company until he was no longer needed.

Haley came rushing in the moment she was allowed to, her eyes slightly red. They must have told her how severe the situation was, and Dave felt guilty for making her panic so much, when Aaron was doing much better already.

“Baby, they told me what happened. How are you feeling? Is your heartbeat erratic? Is there anything you need?” she asked, not even acknowledging Dave. He wasn’t offended though. The love Haley had for her husband was the most fierce thing he’d witnessed, and now he understood. She’d spent her entire life defending him and the love she had for him.

He shook his head, then grinned at her. “Kiss me?” he asked, and for a moment, he was just a normal man, so in love with his wife it physically hurt to witness.

“I shouldn’t- me and Jess had strawberry margaritas before we got the phone call. She’s coming round tomorrow to check on you herself by the way,” Haley said, brushing his hair off his head with a smile.

Aaron nodded. “I’d expect nothing less. Oh Haley, this is Dave. And Dave, this is Haley.”

“It’s lovely to meet you,” Dave said. 

“You too. So, what happened? Because you told me it was just a function, and then when I got home, there was a message from the hospital that you were being brought in for anaphylactic shock which doesn’t make any sense because you don’t eat strawberries anymore!” Haley said.

Aaron had the decency to look away. “I didn’t want to cause a scene so I ate this slice of strawberry cheesecake. And I thought it would be fine- well not fine, don’t look at me like that. I thought I’d be able to last till I got home. I’m sorry.”

“Baby, I’m not angry, don’t worry,” Haley said, taking his hand. “Just do what the doctors say, okay? And please don’t eat strawberries anymore just to be polite.”

“I’m afraid I may have made it worse,” Dave confessed, needing them to know, even though it had not been intentional, by any stretch of the imagination.

“What do you mean? How?” Haley asked. Aaron lifted his arm enough to signal that he had the same question.

“I switched our plates when they got given to us so Aaron had the bigger slice. It also had a whole strawberry on it, instead of just half a slice. Maybe if I hadn’t done that, his reaction would have been less severe. I’m sorry.”

Haley, in spite of, or maybe because of that single comment, started laughing. Aaron just watched her laugh with a smile on his face like he had never seen something so beautiful, and he probably never had. Dave watched them, confusion across his features.

“I’m sorry. It’s not funny. It’s just- Dave you have nothing to apologise for. He was always going to have a reaction. And given that he didn’t even have his EpiPen-”

“It was in the car,” Aaron said, not quite whining but definitely getting close.

“Didn’t have his EpiPen,” Haley said, like Aaron hadn’t even spoken, “it was probably always going to end like this. I’m just laughing because you sound like such a parent. Like switching slices is something my dad did for me and Jess when we were little. It’s cute.”

Aaron looked to Dave, fearful and hopeful all at once.

“What can I say? Erin and I need to make sure someone keeps an eye on him,” he said. There were a lot of things in his life he wasn’t proud of. There were lots of mistakes he had made. But this? Being considered Aaron’s parent? It would never be one of them.

Aaron smiled at him, the light in his eyes returning. Haley nodded her approval. When the nurse came in a few minutes later to check Aaron’s vitals, the silence felt comfortable and natural, as though they had already become attuned to the others’ needs.

“Are you two going to be okay?” Dave asked. Someone needed to tell Erin that he was okay, and he really wanted to go to bed. He realised that he hadn’t even considered trying to salvage his date with Anya. He supposed they could always reschedule. Besides, Aaron was more important now.

Haley nodded. “Yeah, I’ll drive us home, make sure he takes a bath and have him back and safe with you on Monday, don’t worry.”

Dave stood up and started heading towards the door. “Oh don’t worry too much about rushing back to us. I’m sure we’ll survive. His cute butt will be missed, but we’ll make it through.”

Haley snorted. “Aaron didn’t I say that there was no way people hadn’t noticed?”

Aaron did not reply, but he did glare at both of them.

Dave smiled. Just before he left, he hesitated for a moment, wondering whether or not it was the time and the place. But he just couldn’t resist. “So are there any other allergies we need to be aware of? Shellfish, pollen, nuts? Pretty ladies that want you to call them back?”

“Dave!” Aaron said, and this time it was definitely a whine.

He just smiled, leaving Aaron and Haley in the hospital room. Had it been a normal event? No. But he wouldn’t trade the night for anything in the world. After all, he had just found a whole new family. And he couldn’t wait for Haley to meet Erin. The two of them would definitely cause Hotcher a whole new level of embarrassment.

It was going to be the messiest and most random family to exist, but a family nonetheless.

[deja-you]

The RMS Titanic (and other ships that pass in the night)

t. jefferson x reader

part ten | the secrets that didn’t go down with the ship

summary: you know your relationship with Thomas will only be a fleeting memory, but you allow your lives to collide nonetheless.

word count: 1.8k

a/n: this chapter is going to be a bit darker than the rest of the series, I’ve added warnings in the tags.

masterlist | series masterlist | previous | next

He knows exactly when to begin.

It was late spring when his father takes him to their house on the ocean. They used to come up more with the whole family when Thomas was younger, but with him studying at Georgetown and his father working in D.C., it’s only the two of them traveling up together.

Most of their relationship has been unspoken, Peter Jefferson is a rather charismatic man, but he doesn’t have much to say to his son. There is the expectation that Thomas does well in school – because heaven forbid he somehow manages to soil the family name, but for the most part, this all goes unspoken.

The drive up is rather pleasant, but things start taking a turn for the worse around dinner. Thomas is eating quietly and flipping through a book he’s read multiple times when his father slams his phone onto the table in an aggravated huff. Cutlery clatters across the table onto the floor, and Thomas’s eyes are pulled away from the pages of his book. Peter gets up from where he is sitting, pushing himself back from the table rather aggressively, and leaves to his own room without another word to his son.

Thomas blinks a few times, processing what just happened. In his fit of anger, Peter has left his phone sitting on the table. Thomas eyes the device for a moment before sliding it closer to himself to read the contents. A headline reads: Senator Peter Jefferson drops further in the polls as the senate race draws closer.

By the way Peter Jefferson acts in public, nobody would suspect that the veteran incumbent was worried about losing his seat at all. Thomas had watched a number of interviews himself where his father had flippantly told a reporter he wasn’t concerned about his opponent. His tone was so calm and light-hearted, Thomas would have believed him if he hadn’t first-hand seen his father’s frustrations in private.

The last time he had visited home, his father hadn’t come to greet him at all. Thomas’s mother welcomed him into the house with a warm meal and the two of them spoke softly of school. When Thomas noted the liquor supply that had been recently drained, his mother avoided his gaze and was quick to change the subject. But his father was doing better now, Thomas had been told. It had been Peter Jefferson’s suggestion, after all, to take the trip to the house by the sea.

Peter Jefferson goes to his room and never reemerges the rest of the evening. Thomas decides he’ll turn in early as well. Thomas pretends he doesn’t hear the glass shattering in his father’s room – it must be the bottle of bourbon Peter Jefferson keeps in his room as a nightcap. This isn’t the first thing he’s heard from his father’s room that he pretends not to hear, Thomas has learned how to be a splendid caretaker of his father’s secrets.

The poll results twist in Thomas’s head all night and he wonders what kind of spiral they will send his father into this time. Because of this, he doesn’t sleep well, and this is probably why he hears his father shuffling around the house in the early hours of the morning. Checking his watch, he sees it’s barely past five in the morning. Thomas quietly slides out of bed, his bare feet pad across the cold floor, and he pulls his door open just enough for him to peek out.

Outside the window, Peter Jefferson comes walking up the dock to the house, his eyebrows furrowed with determination as he slams the garden gate behind him harder than necessary. Peter stalks through the house and Thomas can hear him digging through draws in the study. The sailboat is waiting anxiously at the dock, as if it knows it is going to be put to use. Thomas feels it, too, and maybe curiosity killed the cat, but he knows this won’t kill him. He shrugs a sweater on quickly and silently makes his way out of the house, across the dock, and onto the sailboat. Thomas climbs down the companionway and conceals himself under a large blanket in the cabin of the boat. Then he waits.

It’s only for a few minutes, but Thomas is too tentative to check his watch, so it feels like hours. His legs are beginning to cramp and he decides he should get off the boat, a waste of time, really. Plus, he’s tired. It’s still five in—

He freezes when he hears footsteps on the dock. When the footsteps reach the boat and he hears his father climbing down to the cabin, Thomas throws the blanket over his head again and he thinks it a great stroke of luck the lower deck has always been so dark. Peter Jefferson doesn’t spend much time in the cabin. He places a pistol on the tabletop, climbs up to the top deck, and casts off into open waters.

Thomas can’t do anything but stare at the gun that was placed a few inches away from his hiding spot. He had no idea his father was even in possession of the object, and his mind was racing to find reasons for its use on his father’s spontaneous sailing trip.

They sail for what seems like miles away from the coast until Thomas hears his father pulling the sails down. The boat doesn’t stop rocking against the waves, but they aren’t moving at a breakneck pace like before. A set of footsteps, again, and Peter Jefferson reenters the cabin, grabs the pistol from the counter, and climbs back on deck.

Thomas stares at the spot where the pistol had been placed for a moment too long; he almost feels guilty for hesitating so long. Then there’s a rush of stumbling movements. Thomas untangles himself from his hiding spot and trips up the companionway stairs. His father stands on the other side of the sailboat by the time Thomas gets to the top, examining the pistol in his hands slowly.

“Dad,” Thomas says weakly, but he’s loud enough for Peter to turn and face him.

Peter is hardly shocked when he sees Thomas, merely raising an eyebrow at his son. It’s frightening to Thomas and calm and decided his father is in this moment. “You shouldn’t be here, Thomas. Go back below deck, you don’t need to be involved.”

Thomas ignores this, his hands are shaking at his sides and he doesn’t dare take a step closer. “Can we just go home? Please, you don’t need to do this.”

“I do. You understand that I can’t live with myself anymore, don’t you, Thomas?”

“Please put down the gun.”

Peter smiles sickeningly, looking down at the gun and then pointing it at Thomas. “This one? There are enough bullets for the both of us. If you’re anything like me, you can have a shot at it once I’m through.”

Peter turns the barrel of the gun toward himself and Thomas feels the urgency to speak again. “What about mom? You’re going to do this to her?”

“This is for her, Thomas. At least in part. We both know she’ll be better off without me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Peter clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I hoped you would be smarter than this. You know what I’m referring to, son.”

Thomas swallows thickly and all the things he’s tried to ignore fit into his father’s cryptic little puzzle. The hands that grip the pistol are the same ones that have left black and blue markings along his mother’s neck and face. Thomas is just as observant as his father hopes, and he’s noticed the way his mother flinches when his father places a hand on her back.

“Dad,” Thomas says softly.

Peter’s malicious smile falters. He looks at the gun in his hand, then to the lack of emotion in his son’s eyes. “You want me to do this, don’t you?”

Thomas’s mouth parts and he shakes his head. “No, I—”

“You do. You think this is for the best, you hate me, don’t you?” Peter doesn’t sound hurt, just curious. “What for? For your mother? For making you leave your sweetheart? For controlling your life? For leaving you with my mess?”

Peter watches his son carefully, the way Thomas sets his jaw and stares down at the boat beneath his feet says everything.

“Ah,” Peter says, “for all of it, then.”

Thomas still doesn’t say anything. He would be a horrible person to admit all this in the state his father was in, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie and say that he didn’t harbor any hatred for the crimes his father had committed. He stays silent.

“Tell you what, Thomas, you tell me not to, and I won’t. Say the word, and I’ll hand over the pistol. We can sail home and never talk about this again. Tell me you don’t want me dead, and we go home,” Peter says.

Finally. The easy out Thomas has been looking for. This nightmare can finally come to an end! Thomas opens his mouth to tell his father exactly what he’s been saying before and – …no words come out. In his very last atrocious act, Peter Jefferson has given his son the power to make a decision that he knows his son won’t be able to live with. Peter Jefferson knew the decision Thomas would make when he made the offer; it was never really Thomas’s choice.

“I thought so,” Peter says. His last words to his son aren’t meaningful or poetic, they’re rather instructional. There’s no heartfelt goodbye, just simple directions of what to do with the boat after. Who Thomas needed to call after. What to tell his mom after.

And then after comes.

For the last time ever, Thomas does what his father asks of him. He sails the boat back into the dock, calls a close friend of his father’s, and the whole thing is wrapped up rather quickly. The next morning the “accident” is printed in the papers, and the mourning and the funeral follow quickly after that. A month goes by and then everything returns to normal.

Thomas returns to Georgetown as if nothing has changed. Everyone pretends that nothing has changed; no one even mentions the late Senator. Not until you apologize to Thomas in your own quiet way in the library, and it’s the first time Thomas feels anything since the sailboat.

So he thinks maybe this is something he can tell you. When he takes you to the house on the ocean, you figure out half of it on your own, he thinks maybe he won’t even have to tell you. Thomas realizes he’s wrong when you wait for him out in the rain. It breaks his heart when you ask him not to tell you, because he knows that this must be a goodbye. It is goodbye.

But with all goodbyes between you and Thomas, there is an unspoken for now added to the end, and you show up in his house in Paris years later. This time you want to know the truth.

tag list:

@farihafangirls @drreamhugs @id-do-it-for-free-babe @einfachniemand @sillyteecup @ohsoverykeri @lanaisjefferson @hamildork @veritasnvirtue @exrthangel

[amylillian22]

What If I Never Get Over You (Part 3) - Chris Evans Imagine

Summary: It’s the day of Y/N and Cody’s wedding, and Chris has every intention to stop the love of his life marrying someone else. 

Word Count: 2892

Warnings: Mentions of cheating, mentions of unable to carry children/get pregnant 

Author's Note: Final chapter of the mini-series, and it was NOT easy to write. I wrote two completely different drafts before I decided THIS one was the perfect way to end it. I hope you like it.

[Part 1] /// [Part 2]

Chris sat in the back of the church in his best black suit. His heart ached as he watched Y/N in a beautiful white dress slowly walk down the aisle. A small part of him was hoping Y/N would look back at the crowd and see him sitting in the back row. It killed him knowing it wasn't him at the other end of the aisle. For years, he always knew Y/N was the one he was going to spend the rest of his life with, build a home with, and fill it up with as many kids as possible.

The pastor said, "If anyone can show cause why this couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace."

Chris stood up from his seat and shouted, "I object!"

Except something came out. No one heard him. He tried again, but no one flinched at his words. He realized nothing came out, no matter how many times he opened his mouth and shouted. He got out of the pew and rushed towards Y/N. He literally stood in front of her and Cody, as they continued with the wedding as if he was invisible.

He fell down to his knees, feeling like he can't breathe as tears slowly fell down Chris' cheeks. He knew this was it. It was over for him as Y/N kissed her newly wedded husband.

Chris sat up from his bed, his chest heaving as he panted heavily. A sense of relief washed over him as he realized it was just a nightmare. The clock on his nightstand read 3:05AM. He closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. He swung his legs over and carefully got out of bed.

In the dark, Chris made his way to the kitchen. He turned on the stove light to illuminate the kitchen as he made himself a cup of hot tea. He put a tea bag in his favorite mug before he watched a cup of water go in circles in the microwave. His mind drifted back to a moment he'll never forget three years ago.

The drive to the church wasn't far. Although Chris was speeding down the familiar streets of Boston, it felt like he was never gonna get there. Time was going by so slow and it didn't help that he had a million things running on his mind.

How does he stop a wedding? He's never witnessed one in real life. He's only seen them on movies and tv shows, but those have always been overly dramatic and unrealistic for his liking. His anxiety picked up as he wondered what the guest would say or do, how fast they would put it out on the social media world. For a split second, he worried what the headlines would say and what the whole world had to say.

He shook his head, letting his mind wonder about something more important. He wondered what he would do if she still didn't pick him, what if she goes on with the wedding and forever leaves Chris behind?

He slammed on the brakes in front of the church, not caring about parking in front of a No Parking Zone. He ran up the stairs, two steps at a time, and opened the double wooden doors. The lobby was empty for the most part except for one person who was on the phone. He ignored her and walked to the other set of doors that led to the main church. It wasn't empty, but it wasn't full either. A few people were fixing the decorations. Chris furrowed his eyebrows, he knew the wedding was starting soon. He wasn't early. The church should be filled with people.

Chris stopped a woman who walked towards his direction with a vase of flowers in her hands. "Excuse me, could you tell me where the bride's room is?"

"Sure. Go back out to the lobby, take a left. Then, go down the hall until you reach the fourth door on the right," she instructed.

"Thanks!" Chris quickly said before taking off to the bride's room.

It didn't take long to get there. He opened the door and was surprised to see it empty except for a girl standing in the middle of the room. She wore a black pencil skirt with a matching blazer. She spoke to her headset as she looked down at her clipboard, too focused on what was written while talking to someone on the other line.

Chris took a step towards her, causing her to look up and gasp. She placed a hand on her racing heart. "I'm sorry, there's someone here, I have to go. Chow!" She pressed the end button. "How can I help you, sir?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm looking for the bride," Chris said. "Any chance I can speak to her real quick? It's important."

"There is no bride."

Chris' heart dropped to his stomach. "I'm sorry, what?"

"She called off the wedding about an hour ago. My team and I are trying as quickly as we can to inform the guest. I'm sorry we didn't tell you any sooner to save yourself the trip," she said before she eyed him down. He wore a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a long sleeve, that showed off his very muscular arms. "But I'm guessing you weren't here to see the wedding," she said, knowing this wasn't the first wedding to be stopped by an ex.

"Okay, thanks," Chris pulled out his phone from his pocket as he walked out of the church. Luckily, no one hadn't towed his car or given him a ticket yet. He looked down at his phone, staring at her contact information. He hadn't called her since the break up. He doesn't even know if that's still her number. He dialed, his heart ready to explode out of his chest after each ring.

"Hello?" A guy spoke on the other line.

Chris didn't know who it was. "Is Y/N there?"

"You know, a lot of people ask for her, but you have the wrong number, dude. But I hope you find her, and if you do, can you tell her to tell everyone she knows she changed her number so they can stop calling me," the gentleman hung up, extremely annoyed that someone else had called for a woman he didn't even know.

Chris quickly got in the car and slowly drove off, not knowing where to go. He thought about going to her place, but he figured if he was in her situation, being at home is the last place he would want to be after calling off his own wedding.

She's not getting married, he kept thinking to himself. Tears welled up in his eyes as he was overwhelmed with mixed emotions. He wanted to find her and see what happened. He wanted to know why she called off the wedding. More importantly, he still wanted to tell her how much he still loves her.

Chris let out a high sigh as he pulled up to his driveway. He closed his eyes and rolled his head back on the headrest. He was grateful Scott offered to take Kayla for the day. It was bad enough he knew it was her wedding day, but somehow it felt worse that there was no wedding and he didn't know how to get a hold of her. He didn't know where she could be.

He stepped out of the car and walked around to the side entrance of his house. He stopped on his tracks when he saw Y/N sitting down on the steps, waiting for him. She looked up as she heard his footsteps. Chris immediately noticed her red, puffy eyes. He didn't know what to say, but he knew he wanted to run up to her, wrap his arms around her, kiss her, and never let her go again. Instead, he sat down next to her on the steps, waiting for her to say the first word.

"I called off the wedding," she finally said after a few minutes of silence. She couldn't look at him though. She was too scared to see his reaction.

"I know. I went to the church." She quickly turned her head to see him, her heart stopping at his words. He looked into her tear filled eyes and said, "I wanted to stop you from getting married."

She felt a small weight off her shoulders, a sense of relief that he didn't show up to the wedding to give her his best wishes. But, she still had some questions and she still needed some answers.

"Why did you do it, Chris?" Her voice cracked.

Chris looked away from her, knowing she wasn't asking about why he showed up to the church. She was referring to what happened years ago. He wasn't gonna sugar coat it. He also didn't want to elaborate on the details more than he needed to.

"I was overwhelmed with everything going on at the time. I hadn't seen you in almost a year. That was the longest we had never gone without seeing each other. One night, I was feeling extra lonely and I got drunk at a party with the cast and crew, and then..." Chris stopped, unable to say the next words, but Y/N knew exactly what happened next. Chris closed his eyes and shook his head, mad at himself for what he did.

"I didn't tell you at first when it happened." Chris noticed the shock expression on her face, but continued on with the story. "Because it meant nothing. It didn't mean anything to me. When she told me she was pregnant a couple of months later, I didn't believe her. She agreed to do a DNA test. Turns out, she was right. Kayla is mine."

Y/N noticed his lips forming a smile as he said the last sentence for a few minutes before it vanished.

"But now, I can't say I regret what happened and I wished it had never happened, because then I wouldn't have Kayla."

Y/N heart broke a little bit. Since they dated in high school, she knew how much Chris wanted to be a father and have a big family. It killed her that she couldn't give him that.

"It was easier to break up with you then to tell you the truth. I thought it would hurt less to break up with you than finding out I cheated and having a baby with someone else. I knew the truth wasn't gonna get out there because Abby and I agreed we were going to keep Kayla as quiet as possible. We didn't want the media to constantly be harassing an innocent child. It's worked so far. No one knows I'm a father. People think she's one of my nieces' friends when I take them all out together."

Y/N nodded completely understanding why Chris kept Kayla away from the public. A part of her was really impressed he's managed to keep it a secret this long.

"Y/N," he looked into her eyes. "These are not excuses. It doesn't justify what I did wrong. I know what I did was wrong and completely unforgivable. So unforgivable, I still haven't forgiven myself for it."

Chris buried his face in his hands, unable to look at her. He was too scared about what would happen next. What would she say? He couldn't watch her walk away if she decided she still wants nothing to do with him.

"Chris..." he heard the sadness and brokenness in her small voice. "There's a reason why we didn't see each other that year. That's my fault. I purposely made it impossible not to see you."

He looked up at her. Her eyes welled up with tears. The sad look on her face made his heart race in fear.

"Why?" Was all he could say.

"At the beginning of my tour, I noticed I was late. I thought maybe I was pregnant. I had my assistant set up an appointment in Houston since we had only one extra day off. Turns out, I wasn't pregnant-"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Chris asked. "I would have been there for you-"

"Because you were filming. I knew they wouldn't let you leave and take days off, even if you are Captain America."

"That still doesn't explain why we didn't see each other for a whole year," he said.

Tears fell down her cheek. "The doctor said there was no way I could be pregnant because I didn't have any eggs. She says it's very rare for a young woman to lose all her eggs, but it's possible." Y/N paused for a second as the pain in her heart grew. "I couldn't see you knowing I couldn't give you what you wanted most in life, Chris. I made sure I agreed to any and all new dates added to the tour, which led to having a European tour right after our American tour. It was easier to run away from you than to tell you I can't give you your dream."

She finally let go and sobbed, Chris immediately engulfed her in his arms, crying with her knowing how much this was killing her. As a father now, he can't fathom the idea of not being able to have kids, let alone the love of his life unable to bear his children.

He cried with her as he held her tight. He wanted to take away all the pain she's dealt with since she found out. He wished he had been there for her, to reassure her everything would be fine and they would figure something out together.

"I'm sorry, Chris," she pulled back and looked at his broken blue eyes.

"I'm sorry too," he said.

She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. He had one arm wrapped around her shoulder as he held her hand in his, enjoying this moment together- being able to touch her and hold her.

"Why were you going to stop my wedding?" Y/N asked after a few minutes of silence.

Chris let out a deep breath. "I couldn't let you get married without knowing I never got over you," he said without hesitation. He looked down at her. "Why did you call off the wedding?"

"Chris, I never got over you," she admitted. "No matter how hard I tried, I never stopped loving you."

Chris leaned forward and released the butterflies in her stomach the second he kissed her. She didn't waste a second to kiss him back as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Chris' hands moved to her waist and pulled her closer to his chest. The kiss was deep and passionate, making up for lost time.

They pulled back with their foreheads pressing against each other. Y/N cupped Chris' cheek as she looked deep into his ocean blue eyes. Chris' grip tightened on her waist, too scared to let her go.

"Where do we go from here?" She whispered against his lips.

"Hey." A soft voice pulled Chris out of his memory. He turned around to see Y/N walking towards him in his shirt. "What are you doing up, babe? It's late."

Chris sighed and wrapped his arms around Y/N's waist, pulling her closer to his chest. "Horrible nightmare. I couldn't sleep," he buried his face at the crook of her neck.

"Aww, babe," she cooed as she ran her fingers through his soft hair. Her other hand slowly ran up and down his back, trying to soothe him. "Wanna talk about it?"

He shook his head. "No. I rather focus on right now, my reality, because it's so much better." He licked his lips before gently and softly peppered her neck with soft kisses. His lips trailed up to her jaw before capturing her lips for a deep and passionate kiss. His hands moved down to her butt. He gave it a gentle squeeze before he grabbed her butt firmly as she jumped and wrapped her legs around his hips.

"I love you, so much," he said in between kisses.

She pulled back to look at him. With her left hand, she pushed his hair back, taking in every one of his features for the millionth time. She loved the way his blue eyes sparked and the way they looked when he was in awe with her every time his eyes locked with hers. Her fingertips traced his well structured jaw, his beard tickling her in the process. She smiled at him as she rested her hand above his heart. She felt it thundering against his bare chest. Her smile grew wider as she stared at the silver wedding band on her wedding finger.

Her eyes flickered up, "are you sure you're not nervous about tomorrow?"

"No. I'm ready. I'm actually very excited. Are you nervous?"

"A little bit," she admitted with a smile. "But I'm more excited. We're flying out to pick up a baby. Our baby."

Chris' eyes welled up as the day had finally arrived after years of going through the long and hard process of adopting.

"I love you, so damn much," he said.

"I love you too," she whispered against his lips before she kissed him.

[groovybaybee]

Greener - IV

I, II, III

(4k)

cw: mentions of abuse (nothing too intense but better safe than sorry), alcohol consumption

I am in the ocean. The water is warm and comforting as it hugs up against me with each gentle wave. It is calm and peaceful and in turn I am calm. I am in the ocean and I am calm.

 You’re in your kitchen.

“Fuck off,” I whisper, eyes squeezed tightly shut as if they could shield me from the reality of the voice in my head.

 I am in the ocean.

 BUZZ

 I ignore it.

 I am in—

 BUZZ

 BUZZ

 With a deep exhale, I open my eyes and face the brutal reality that the unkind voice lingering in my brain had been right. I am in my kitchen. The bright smiling faces tacked to the walls seem to mock me as I desperately try to regulate the rise and fall of my chest. My lungs unaware that I am not in the middle of a hundred-metre sprint and can probably relax a little.

 Against my better judgment, I pick up the phone that had caused me to spiral in the first place. Quickly, I close Twitter, wishing I had never let myself fall down the thread of comments. I had known it would only cause me to panic but, almost masochistically, I did it anyway.

 Thought I was supposed to be the one organising collaborations with big artists?? Nice work kiddo. Response to the video is pretty good so I can look into booking some studio sessions…

 My focus falls away from my manager’s message. Of course, he saw this as a positive thing. It is a positive thing, really. Only a crazy person would find discomfort in their dream career being boosted along. This is the kind of thing I have always wanted. I want to make music. I want to have people see me and connect with me. But now that the opportunity is there all that I feel is fear.

 You always were ungrateful.

 For once, I do not try to argue with the bad part of my brain. I am ungrateful. How could someone get what they want and find reasons to still be the victim? I do not deserve any of this. How could I, in the sea of so many, be lucky enough to find traction in this industry? Yet all I want to do is run.

 It is not even as though all of the new feedback is negative. To a degree, it would be understandable to want to run away were that the case. No, people were actually incredibly supportive of Harry and I’s impromptu duet. Complimentary even. I should be jumping for joy, but instead I find myself clutching for the countertop beneath me to tether me to the Earth.

 Instinctively, I reach for my phone again, quickly dialling the first number I can think to.

 “Hello lovely lady,” Lucy answers brightly.

 “Luce,” I gasp, mouth remaining open but unable to find the words as my throat seems to tighten up.

 “What’s wrong?” she asks, suddenly serious and I can picture her sat bolt upright. When I can’t formulate a reply, she speaks for me, “Are you at home? I’ll come over.”

 “Yeah.” I manage to breathe out.

 Time seems to warp as I listen to the background noise of Lucy buckling herself into her car and taking the short trip to my house. Only when I hear her set of keys in the lock do I hang up the call, something about her presence comforting me even through the phone.

 “Let’s sit down, yeah?” Lucy says when she sees my face, undoubtedly wide-eyed as gravely breathes pass quickly between my lips.

 She places a hand on my back and eases me away from the counter until my body meets the soft embrace of the sofa.

 “Count to ten with me?”

 Her voice is gentle and reassuring as she watches me, no doubt assessing how severe my state is and which battleplan she needs to access in order to help me calm down.

 When I nod, she waits for me to utter a shaky and broken, “One,” before repeating it and moving from the sofa.

 “Two,” she encourages.

 She opens a window and moves back to the kitchen, returning with a glass of water as I reach “Four.”

 We count together until we reach ten. Not unlike the other times we have done this, she waits for a moment as she observes if I need to start again, or if I am suitably calm enough for her to move on to the next step in her care plan. Deciding on the latter, she passes me the glass of water.

 Gratefully, I take a slow sip.

 “Want to talk or want distracting?”

 “I feel…” I start quietly, uncertain as a sigh passes my lips, “I feel ungrateful and a bit overwhelmed.”

 Lucy just nods. No judgment in her gaze as she digests my words. They dissipate into the air of the living room, sinking into the furniture and slipping under the tape of the unopened moving box in the corner.

 “Is this about the video? Because if it is I’m so sorry for posting it, I just thought you two sounded so good and fit so great together and maybe you’d get a bit more recognition which you deserve completely and—”

 “Lu,” I sigh with a small smile as she rambles apologetically. I pull her into a hug which neither of us expect. “I love you so much. You always know what’s right and you go out and do it. I’m just a bit batshit at the minute and can’t accept the good in things.”

 “I love you.” Lucy mutters into my hair.

 We sit for a while, arms wrapped tightly around one another, swaying slightly. Neither of us want to be the first to move, simultaneously needing to provide comfort and bathe in it. A smile fixes itself on my lips, one Lucy has always been capable of coaxing from me, even during my worst nights. But that is exactly the reason the smile carves its way on to my cheeks; it’s us. It has always been Lucy and me and it will be Lucy and me until our arms can’t hug and our lungs can’t laugh.

 “I think,” I say softly, resentfully pulling away from our embrace, “it’s time to go through his stuff.”

 Lucy nods, eyes a little watery. She sniffles once and that is enough to settle her.

 “Shall I get wine?”

 I cannot help the small bubble of laughter that bursts between my lips, but I nod, nonetheless. We move to set about our own tasks; Lucy gets a bottle of Shiraz and pours two glasses as I pull the, ever so slightly dusty, cardboard box into the centre of the room and peel away the tape sealing it.

 I wait for her to return before opening the flaps, needing her next to me more than I could ever admit. Not that I would have to. She gives me a reassuring squeeze on the arm when she notices my sharp intake of air.

 No going back. I force myself to believe that and open the box.

 Peering into the box, it is less full than I remember, and that in itself pushes me along. On the top, lay a few t-shirts he did not come to collect. I place them in a pile on the living room floor, mentally noting it as one to donate. Beneath the shirts are a collection of photographs, some loose and some framed. Lucy stills beside me, nervously awaiting my tears. They would not come just yet. I remember placing the most upsetting things at the bottom. My heart clenches at the thought of seeing them again, but I push ahead.

 I flick through the photographs, placing the newly empty frames to the other side of the box. It is not nearly as saddening as I had expected. Being able to pass over a timeline of our relationship is almost cathartic, knowing that I do not have to wait weeks and months between these happy memories captured in film.

 “I loved that jacket.” Lucy says softly as we peer at a picture of my ex-boyfriend and I at the beach one night.

 “So did I,” I smile, fingers running lightly over the glossy image, a bright red faux leather jacket which matched my painted smile. “Will didn’t.”

 Lucy’s body slumps beside me and I feel the angry starting to stir inside of her. I put the stack of photos on the floor, deciding not to keep any, and peak back into the box. I can hardly help the laugh that rises from my chest when I see the next item. Not from joy, but from its sheer ridiculousness. My hands reach into the cardboard and pull from it a bathroom scale.

 “You know,” I start, sadness and amusement mingling in my chest, “he fixed these, so I was always ten pounds heavier.”

 Unable to see the dark humour that I do, Lucy’s eyebrows knit together furiously, teeth biting hard on the inside of her cheek to keep her from screaming obscenities.

 I place the scale down on the ground before reaching in to retrieve the last item in the box. The second my fingertips touch the tape, the smile erases from my face.

 Deep breath in.

 Lifting the final photograph from the box, my heart breaks yet again. The memories from that night flush my mind, my whole body quickly covering in goosebumps in an attempt at defence.

 Lucy is silent next to me, waiting for me to say something or react at all. I bring the image closer, throat drying a little more with each inch it nears. I gulp harshly, desperate for some of the moisture collecting at my eyes to travel to my mouth.

 I stare down at the picture of myself in my parents’ garden, mum and dad on either side of me, the three of us beaming uncontrollably. We were happy and excited, I was moving to Los Angeles in a few weeks, completely uncertain if I would be able to make my dream into my career.

 Turning the photograph over is what send tears falling.

 Our sweet Violet,

Words cannot describe how proud we are of you. You are so brave it makes us question if you were adopted without us knowing. You have always been your own person and that is what makes you so very special. It is also the reason that we know you will succeed no matter what you do. You are a wonder. Go forward and show the world.

So much love,

Your biggest fans xx

 The words are beautiful, so sweet and encouraging that reading them now makes me feel a fraud. Tracing my thumb over the lines of tape holding the fragments of the photo together, a gentle sob erupts from inside me. The torn object makes my heart ache enough to think it were trying to mirror it.

 “This was the day I left him,” I manage to force out between sniffs and sobs. “When he ripped this… I couldn’t do it anymore.”

 Reliving my breaking point is something I often find myself doing, experiencing the extreme high of my first ever headlining show, and subsequent extreme low when Will pointed out how unflattering the stage lights were. He took that night from me, stole its joy and tried to grind me back down to a level beneath him.

 I cry hard into Lucy’s shoulder, not caring right now that I was ruining her t-shirt. She does not seem to care either, instead just rubbing my back soothingly and letting me get out the emotions I have kept locked away for so long.

 It is only when I feel Lucy’s body shaking against mine that I pull myself away. My tears stop the second I see hers falling.

 “I’m so sorry.” She gets out, eyes bloodshot as deep but silent sobs wrack her body.

 “It’s okay.” I coo, hating seeing my best friend cry more than any object in that box.

 “It’s not. I’m supposed to protect you and I didn’t see what he was doing to you.” She is starting to hyperventilate as the tears fall faster and heavier now.

 “Hey,” I whisper, placing a hand either side of her head to get her to focus on me and really listen, “No one did, not even me.” My voice cracks slightly at the admission, but it is what we both need to hear in order to forgive ourselves even the smallest amount.

 Our breathing regulates, the tears start to dry, and I look back to the image with a fond memory.

 “Do you remember the day we left?”

 Lucy gives me a breathy and snotty but genuine laugh. “Yeah. Mum packed me about five boxes of chocolate fingers.”

 “And they wouldn’t let us go through security with them so we had to stand and eat as many as we could.”

 We share a laugh at the fond memory, glad to remember ourselves so sweet and naïve.

 I pick up an empty frame from the floor, slipping the taped-up photograph inside and set it on the coffee table.

 “I’m not letting him have any more of me.”

 She nods and we sit for a moment.

 “Thank you for always being next to me.” I say, a lump forming in my throat yet again, however this time, my heart swells instead of breaking.

 “You and me.” She says with a soft, slightly teary smile as she extends a pinky finger for me to connect with. Of course, I do.

 * * *

“He said he wants to talk when he’s back from New York.” Lucy tells me nervously as she stares down at her phone.

 “Could be a good thing.” I argue, reaching out my hand to lift my nearly empty wine glass from the coffee table. I bring it to my lips carefully, my laying position on the sofa not aiding my slightly messy actions.

 “I don’t know, he got funny the other day when I left his place.” Lucy mutters, gulping at her newly replenished glass.

 “Luce, I’m going to be completely honest with you.” I say, sitting upright and trying to avoid the urge to hiccup as I move. “I think he likes you, and I think you like him too… and I think that scares you a bit.”

 Lucy pauses, chewing on my words before responding with a sigh, “I think you’re right.”

 “When aren’t I?” I tease, earning an eye roll, “Seriously though, Joseph is great, and he would take care of you.”

 “That’s scary.” Lucy whispers to herself more than me, “What do I do if I’m not the one looking after people?”

 “You’ll always have to look after me.” I joke, squeezing her knee lightly.

 “That’s what I got Harry for.” She teases, unknowingly making my stomach squeeze just at the mention of him. “What?” she laughs, noticing my sudden silence.

 I tell her everything. Running her through every moment with Harry, from our first date excitement, to accidentally on purpose friend-zoning him, to breaking the surface on my past relationship. As I describe each of our encounters, I recognise the lightness in my chest when I speak his name. Each small interaction I recall seems to stoke the embers in my chest, burning hot and steadily as I catch her up.

 “I think you like him but you’re afraid.” Lucy repeats my own advice back to me with a smug smirk.

 “Wouldn’t you be?” I defend.

 “Oh definitely, but if you like him why are you waiting around. Be brave.” Her voice is so calm and matter of fact that her words seem nothing but logical, all my excuses flying out the window as I let her advice sink in.

 Except for one.

 “I don’t think he likes me like that, maybe he did at the start… but not anymore.”

 “You can’t know that unless you ask him.” She replies, again as if it’s the most blatant thing in the world. Which I suppose it is.

 Maybe I should be brave. I look to the newly framed photograph and find my answer. Maybe I will be.

 * * *

 Lucy made me text Harry that night before she left. He replied before I had finished locking the front door.

 Yesss are you free Friday? I potentially have an idea – Harry

 Before I know it, I find myself in the car park of The Forum in Inglewood, Harry’s hand slipped effortlessly into mine as he guides us through backdoor after backdoor.

 Adrenaline courses through me as we wind through corridors, hearing the support act through the overhead speakers. We had already missed part of the show and were desperately trying to make up for the time lost sat in traffic.

 Harry takes care of everything, shaking hands with everyone we interact with and thanking them graciously when they help us locate our seats. I watch him, slightly awe-struck, as we make our way to our little section by the balcony. The space is more private than general seating and I wonder what strings Harry had to pull to get such incredible last-minute tickets.

 “Comfortable?” Harry asks as we get settled.

 I nod, afraid that if my mouth were to open, I would let everything slip. Who could blame me though? The kindness and sincerity behind his eyes are enough to make anyone swoon.

 No time to dwell on the way his eyes glide across my face, the crowd roars, almost making me jump as they drag me from my daydream.

 Up on stage, Fleetwood Mac take their positions. A kick drum meets with the first few notes of The Chain, sending thousands of screaming fans into overdrive, ecstatic to see their idols in the flesh. Harry and I easily fall into that category, excitedly squeezing the other’s hand as the song builds.

 “Oh my God!” I scream, head thrown back momentarily, unable to contain my wonderment at whatever cosmic coincidence allowed this to by my life.

 It is loud. I feel the drums rattle in my chest, bass swirling in the pit in my stomach. My free hand grips the bar of the balcony, desperately trying to tether me to reality before I float away into whatever heavenly dream I have fallen into.

 The show goes on, each passing song appearing to be a fan favourite as the crowd only grows wilder and more liberated. I watch with glee as each and every person moves freely, dancing and singing excitedly as Second Hand News transitions into Say You Love Me.

 My gaze flits back to Harry for the hundredth time since the show began, admiring the joy radiating from him. It is infectious and feeds me until my rays begin to pour out of me as well.

 Harry is goodness. Any other day, I would have used this as a reason to drive a wedge between us. He brought happiness while I worried that I drained it from the world.

 But here, with him, I know the truth. I feel the good and the beauty in the world, and I know that I am a part of that. I do not drain him, we fill each other up.

 “Harry,” I desperately call over the music.

 Instantly, his eyes are on me, smile still present but quickly glancing over me to ensure my wellbeing.

 “I’m sorry I friend-zoned you!” is all I can think to say. Somehow, it seems to be enough. Harry lets out a beautifully easy laugh, dimples deep-set in his cheeks as he lets go of my hand in order to wrap both arms around me.

 “It’s okay.” He chuckles, quickly letting go of me and turning me towards the stage so as not to miss anything. His arms linger around me, hugging me slightly from behind, swaying us almost anxiously.

 “We don’t normally do requests, but this will have to be an exception.” Stevie says, her voice light as a playful smile finds its way on to her face. “This is Skies the Limit.”

 “I was going to choose Storms but didn’t want to see you sad.” Harry utters in my ear, confirming every complimentary thought I have of him.

 My jaw struggles to stay closed as I watch the band play my song. Harry did this for me. My favourite, non-depressive, song is playing in front of all of these people. For me. Because of him.

 His name tumbles from my lips, breathless and unbelieving that I am not existing in some kind of simulation.

 I turn to look at him, gobsmacked, when I find his tentative gaze. Never have I seen him so timid, as though I might think this gesture too much. I mean, it is. There is no way on Earth someone could deserve to feel so cherished. No one could possible earn this heart-swelling sensation. No one is worthy of this level of care. But here I am. I get to be with him and being with Harry is like every birthday rolled into one. He drives me wild and keeps me calm, often managing to do both simultaneously.

 For once, I do not care what anyone else thinks. All that matters is the man standing in front of me and the decision I need to make. Am I going to let this pass me by and shy away from potential happiness yet again? Or will I be brave and take a chance?

 Harry watches me cautiously as my brain tries to spiral and twist itself into knots of self-doubt. But every wonderful decision I have every made required an element of risk. What would my younger self think if she saw me fumble this chance? She was always so fearless, why can’t I be?

 “Remember at Lucy’s? You asked what I’d do if I wasn’t scared.” I say, palms starting to sweat as I feel the edge of the cliff approaching fast.

 Harry nods.

 “I didn’t tell you that if I weren’t so scared, I would let myself fall for you...”

 Our eyes search the other’s face; mine desperate for any sort of reaction, his cautiously awaiting a hint of insincerity.

 “Funny thing is I don’t think it will stop me.”

 And like that, the cliff is far behind me and I wait in limbo for any response.

 My heart wishes for Harry to scoop me up in his arms, bend me low and kiss me like a solider coming home from war. My mind worries that he will throw up over the side of the balcony from sheer disgust at the very notion. However, Harry provides neither anticipated response. Instead, a stifled smile spreads across his face.

 “I know,” he grins, “Lucy told me.”

 “For fuck’s sake!” I laugh incredulously, my head thrown back in despair and amusement. I should have guessed she would continue meddling. “I’m going to kill her.”

 “Do you think you could wait a while to do that?” Harry asks when I finally meet his eyes again, his hands slipping up my back, pulling our bodies ever so slightly closer together.

 “Why?” I sigh, half-joking.

 “So I can do this.”

 Each of Harry’s hands settle on either side of my head, a thumb instinctively grazing across the soft skin of my cheek. I have just enough time to register his touch before his lips come down to meet mine.

Our first kiss is fuelled with longing and ignited with hope. A new type of excitement spreads through my chest as his lips melt with mine, soft and sweet, as all fears and doubts seem to drown out with the roar of the arena. Some other time I will tell Harry about Will and how he affected me, and things will be okay, because with Harry things are okay. He makes them okay. And with heaving chests and his forehead pressed against mine, for the first time in a long time, I feel the potential for a free kind of love.

masterlist

[shadowfromthestarlight]

The moment a group of people stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday, news  companies began the process of sorting and commoditizing information that  long ago became standard in American media.

Media firms work backward. They first ask, “How does our target demographic want to  understand what’s just unfolded?” Then they pick both the words and the facts  they want to emphasize.

It’s why  Fox News uses the term, “Pro-Trump protesters,” while New York and The Atlantic use “Insurrectionists.” It’s why conservative media today is stressing how Apple, Google, and Amazon shut down the “Free Speech” platform Parler over  the weekend, while mainstream outlets are emphasizing a new round of  potentially armed protests reportedly planned for January 19th or 20th.

What happened last Wednesday was the apotheosis of the Hate Inc. era, when this  audience-first model became the primary means of communicating facts to the population. For a hundred reasons dating back to the mid-eighties, from the advent of the Internet to the development of the 24-hour news cycle to the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the Fox-led  discovery that news can be sold as character-driven, episodic TV in the  manner of soap operas, the concept of a “Just the facts” newscast designed to  be consumed by everyone died out.

News companies now clean world events like whalers, using every part of the  animal, funneling different facts to different consumers based upon  calculations about what will bring back the biggest engagement kick. The  Migrant Caravan? Fox slices  off comments from a Homeland Security official describing most of the  border-crossers as single adults coming for “economic reasons.” The New York Times counters  by running a story about how the caravan was deployed as a political issue by a Trump White  House staring at poor results in midterm elections.

Repeat this info-sifting process a few billion times and this is how we became, as none other than Mitch McConnell put it last week, a country:

Drifting apart into two separate tribes, with a separate set of facts and separate realities, with nothing in common except our hostility towards each other and mistrust for the few national institutions that we all still share.

The flaw in the system is that even the biggest news companies now operate under the assumption that at least half their potential audience isn’t listening. This leads to all sorts of problems, and the fact that the easiest way to keep your own demographic is to feed it negative stories about others is only the most  obvious. On all sides, we now lean into inflammatory caricatures, because the  financial incentives encourage it.

Everyone monetized Trump. The Fox  wing surrendered to the Trump phenomenon from the start, abandoning its  supposed fealty to “family values” from the Megyn Kelly incident on. Without  a thought, Rupert Murdoch sacrificed the paper-thin veneer of  pseudo-respectability Fox  had always maintained up to a point (that point being the moment advertisers  started to bail in horror, as they did with Glenn Beck). He reinvented Fox as a platform for  Trump’s conspiratorial brand of cartoon populism, rather than let some more-Fox-than-Fox imitator like OAN sell the  ads to Trump’s voters for four years.

In between its titillating quasi-porn headlines (“Lesbian Prison Gangs Waiting To Get Hands on Lindsay  Lohan, Inmate Says” is one from years ago that stuck in my mind), Fox’s business model has  long been based on scaring the crap out of aging Silent Majority viewers with  a parade of anything-but-the-truth explanations for America’s decline. It  villainized immigrants, Muslims, the new Black Panthers, environmentalists —  anyone but ADM, Wal-Mart, Countrywide, JP Morgan Chase, and other sponsors of  Fortress America. Donald Trump was one of the people who got hooked on Fox’s  narrative.

The rival media ecosystem chose cash over truth also. It could have responded to  the last election by looking harder at the tensions they didn’t see coming in  Trump’s America, which might have meant a more intense examination of the  problems that gave Trump his opening: the jobs that never came back after  bankers and retailers decided to move them to unfree labor zones in places  like China, the severe debt and addiction crises, the ridiculous  contradiction of an expanding international military garrison manned by a  population fast losing belief in the mission, etc., etc.

Instead, outlets like CNN and MSNBC took a Fox-like approach, downplaying issues in  favor of shoving Trump’s agitating personality in the faces of audiences over  and over, to the point where many people could no longer think about anything  else. To juice ratings, the Trump story — which didn’t need the slightest  exaggeration to be fantastic — was more or less constantly distorted.

Trump  began to be described as a cause of America’s problems, rather than a symptom,  and his followers, every last one, were demonized right along with him, in  caricatures that tickled the urbane audiences of channels like CNN but made  conservatives want to reach for something sharp. This technique was borrowed  from Fox,  which learned in the Bush years that you could boost ratings by selling  audiences on the idea that their liberal neighbors were terrorist traitors.  Such messaging worked better by far than bashing al-Qaeda, because this enemy  was closer, making the hate more real.

I came  into the news business convinced that the traditional “objective” style of  reporting was boring, deceptive, and deserving of mockery. I used to laugh at  the parade of “above the fray” columnists and stone-dull house editorials  that took no position on anything and always ended, “Only one thing’s for  sure: time will tell.” As a teenager I was struck by a passage in Tim  Crouse’s book about the 1972 presidential campaign, The Boys in the Bus, describing  the work of Hunter Thompson:

Thompson  had the freedom to describe the campaign as he actually experienced it: the  crummy hotels, the tedium of the press bus, the calculated lies of the press  secretaries, the agony of writing about the campaign when it seemed dull and  meaningless, the hopeless fatigue. When other reporters went home, their  wives asked them, “What was it really like?” Thompson’s wife knew from  reading his pieces.

What Rolling Stone did in  giving a political reporter the freedom to write about the banalities of the  system was revolutionary at the time. They also allowed their writer to be a  sides-taker and a rooter, which seemed natural and appropriate because biases  end up in media anyway. They were just hidden in the traditional dull  “objective” format.

The  problem is that the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction of  politicized hot-taking that reporters now lack freedom in the opposite  direction, i.e. the freedom to mitigate.

If you  work in conservative media, you probably felt tremendous pressure all  November to stay away from information suggesting Trump lost the election. If  you work in the other ecosystem, you probably feel right now that even  suggesting what happened last Wednesday was not a coup in the literal sense  of the word (e.g. an attempt at seizing power with an actual chance of  success) not only wouldn’t clear an editor, but might make you suspect in the  eyes of co-workers, a potentially job-imperiling problem in this environment.  

We need  a new media channel, the press version of a third party, where those  financial pressures to maintain audience are absent. Ideally, it would:

not be aligned with either Democrats or Republicans;

employ a Fairness Doctrine-inspired approach that discourages       groupthink and requires at  least occasional explorations of alternative points of view;

embrace a utilitarian mission stressing credibility over ratings, including by;

operating on a distribution model that as  much as possible doesn’t depend upon the indulgence of Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Innovations like Substack are great for opinionated individual voices like me, but what’s  desperately needed is an institutional reporting mechanism that has credibility with the whole population. That means a channel that sees its mission as something separate from politics, or at least as separate from politics as possible.

The media used to derive its institutional power from this perception of separateness. Politicians feared investigation by the news media precisely because they knew audiences perceived them as neutral arbiters.

Now there are no major commercial outlets not firmly associated with one or the other political party. Criticism of Republicans is as baked into New York Times coverage as the lambasting of Democrats is at Fox, and politicians don’t fear them as much because they know their  constituents do not consider rival media sources credible. Probably, they  don’t even read them. Echo chambers have limited utility in changing minds.

Media companies need to get out of the audience-stroking business, and by extension  the politics business. They’d then be more likely to be believed when making  pronouncements about elections or masks or anything else, for that matter.  Creating that kind of outlet also has a much better shot of restoring sanity  to the country than the current strategy, which seems based on stamping out  access to “wrong” information.

What we’ve been watching for four years, and what we saw explode last week, is a paradox: a political and informational system that profits from division and  conflict, and uses a factory-style process to stimulate it, but professes  shock and horror when real conflict happens. It’s time to admit this is a  failed system. You can’t sell hatred and seriously expect it to end.

Matt Taibbi is one of the only people I subscribe to. He’s one of the few journalists I like because I actually believe he’s genuine.

[tinyshe]

Pure, Unalloyed Evil Masked as a Pandemic Analysis by Mike Whitney

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Mike Yeadon is a soft-spoken microbiologist and a former vice-president of allergy and respiratory research at Pfizer. He spent 32 years working for large pharmaceutical companies and is a leading expert on viral respiratory infections.

He is also a man on a mission, and his mission is to inform as many people as possible about the elite powerbrokers that are using the pandemic as a smokescreen to conceal their real objectives. Here’s Yeadon in a recent interview:1

“If you wanted to depopulate a significant portion of the world, and to do it in a way that wouldn’t require destruction of the environment with nuclear weapons, or poisoning everyone with anthrax or something, and you wanted plausible deniability, whilst you had a multi-year infectious disease crisis; I don’t think you could come up with a better plan of work than what seems to be in front of me.

I can’t say that’s what they’re going to do, but I cannot think of a benign explanation for why they are doing it.”

“Depopulation?” Who said anything about depopulation? Isn’t it a bit of a stretch to go from a mass vaccination campaign to allegations of a conspiracy to “depopulate a significant portion of the world?” Indeed, it is, but Yeadon has done extensive research on the matter and provides compelling evidence that such a diabolical objective may, in fact, be the goal.

Humans Are Capable of Unimaginable Viciousness and Cruelty

Moreover, it is not for lack of proof that people are not persuaded that Yeadon is right, but something more fundamental; the inability to grasp that men are capable of almost-unimaginable viciousness and cruelty. Here’s Yeadon again:2

“It’s become absolutely clear to me, even when I talk to intelligent people, friends, acquaintances … and they can tell I’m telling them something important, but they get to the point [where I say] ‘your government is lying to you in a way that could lead to your death and that of your children,’ and they can’t begin to engage with it.

And I think maybe 10% of them understand what I said, and 90% of those blank their understanding of it because it is too difficult. And my concern is, we are going to lose this, because people will not deal with the possibility that anyone is so evil …

But I remind you of what happened in Russia in the 20th century, what happened in 1933 to 1945, what happened in, you know, Southeast Asia in some of the most awful times in the post-war era. And, what happened in China with Mao and so on … We’ve only got to look back two or three generations. All around us there are people who are as bad as the people doing this.

They’re all around us. So, I say to folks, the only thing that really marks this one out, is its scale. But actually, this is probably less bloody, it’s less personal, isn’t it? The people who are steering this … it’s going to be much easier for them. They don’t have to shoot anyone in the face.

They don’t have to beat someone to death with a baseball bat, or freeze them, starve them, make them work until they die. All of those things did happen two or three generations back … That’s how close we are. And all I’m saying is, some shifts like that are happening again, but now they are using molecular biology.”

People ‘Cannot Imagine Anything so Demonic’

He’s right, isn’t he? Whereas, a great many people know that the government, the media and the public health officials have been lying to them about everything from the efficacy of masks, social distancing and lockdowns, to the life-threatening dangers of experimental vaccines, they still refuse to believe that the people orchestrating this operation might be pushing them inexorably toward infertility or an early death.

They cannot imagine anything so demonic, so they stick their heads in the sand and pretend not to see what is going on right beneath their noses. It’s called “denial” and it is only strengthening the position of the puppet masters that are operating behind the scenes. Here’s more from Yeadon:3

“… In the last year I have realized that my government and its advisers are lying in the faces of the British people about everything to do with this coronavirus. Absolutely everything. It’s a fallacy this idea of asymptomatic transmission and that you don’t have symptoms, but you are a source of a virus.

That lockdowns work, that masks have a protective value obviously for you or someone else, and that variants are scary things and we even need to close international borders in case some of these nasty foreign variants get in.”

Many readers may have noticed that this interview appeared on a small Christian website called Lifesite News. Why is that? Shouldn’t the informed observations of a former Pfizer vice president appear on the front pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post? Wouldn’t you expect the big cable news channels to run a hot-button interview like this as their headline story?

Of course not. No one expects that, because everyone knows that the media honchos reflexively quash any story that doesn’t support the “official narrative,” that is, that COVID is the most contagious and lethal virus of all time, which requires a new authoritarian political structure and the wholesale evisceration of civil liberties.

No One Is Allowed to Refute the Official Propaganda

Isn’t that the underlying storyline of the last year? COVID skeptics and naysayers, like Yeadon, are not allowed to refute the official propaganda or debate the issue on a public forum. They’re effectively banned from the MSM and consigned to the outer reaches of the Internet where only a scattered few will read what they have to say. Here’s more:4

“Everything I have told you, every single one of those things is demonstrably false. But our entire national policy is based on these all being broadly right, but they are all wrong. But what I would like to do is talk about immune escape because I think that’s probably going to be the end game for this whole event, which I think is probably a conspiracy.

Last year I thought it was what I called ‘convergent opportunism.’ That is, a bunch of different stakeholder groups have managed to pounce on a world in chaos to push us in a particular direction. So, it looked like it was kind of linked, but I was prepared to say it was just convergence.

I [now] think that’s naïve. There is no question in my mind that very significant powerbrokers around the world have either planned to take advantage of the next pandemic or created the pandemic. One of those two things is true because the reason it must be true is that dozens and dozens of governments are all saying the same lies and doing the same inefficacious things that demonstrably cost lives.”

Let’s pause for a minute, and ask ourselves why a modest, self-effacing microbiologist who operated in the shadows for his entire professional career has thrust himself into the limelight when he knows, for certain, he will either be ridiculed, smeared, discredited, dragged through the mud or killed.

In fact, he openly admits that he fears for his safety and assumes that he could be “removed” (“assassinated”) by his enemies. So, why is he doing this? Why is he risking life and limb to get the word out about vaccines?

A Moral Obligation to Warn People

It’s because he feels a moral obligation to warn people about the danger they face. Yeadon is not an attention-seeking narcissist. In fact, he’d rather vanish from public life altogether.

But he’s not going to do that because he’s selflessly committed to doing his duty by sounding the alarm about a malign strategy that may well lead to the suffering and death of literally tens of millions of people. That’s why he’s doing it, because he’s an honorable man with a strong sense of decency. Remember decency? Here’s more:5

“You can see that I am desperately trying not to say that it is a conspiracy, because I have no direct evidence that it is a conspiracy. Personally, all my instincts are shouting that it’s a conspiracy as a human being, but as a scientist, I can’t point to the smoking gun that says they made this up on purpose.”

Many of us who have followed events closely for the last year and have searched the internet for alternate points of view are equally convinced that it is a conspiracy, just as Russiagate was a conspiracy. And while we might not have conclusive, rock-solid proof of criminal activity, there is voluminous circumstantial evidence to support the claim.

By definition, a “conspiracy” is “an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons.”6 What is taking place presently across the western world meets that basic definition.

Just as the contents of this article meet the basic definition of a “conspiracy theory,” which is “an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of a small powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events; indeed, the official version may be seen as further proof of the conspiracy.”7

We make no attempt to deny that this is a conspiracy theory, any more than we deny that senior-level officials at the FBI, CIA, DOJ and U.S. State Department were involved in a covert operation aimed at convincing the American people that Donald Trump was a Russian agent.

That was a conspiracy theory that was later proven to be a fact. We expect that the facts about the COVID operation will eventually emerge, acquitting us on that account as well. Here’s more from Yeadon:8

“I think the end game is going to be, ‘everyone receives a vaccine’ … Everyone on the planet is going to find themselves persuaded, cajoled, not quite mandated, hemmed-in to take a jab.

When they do that every single individual on the planet will have a name, or unique digital ID and a health status flag which will be ‘vaccinated,’ or not … and whoever possesses that, sort of single database, operable centrally, applicable everywhere to control, to provide as it were, a privilege, you can either cross this particular threshold or conduct this particular transaction or not depending on [what] the controllers of that one human population database decide.

And I think that’s what this is all about because once you’ve got that, we become playthings and the world can be as the controllers of that database want it.”

Mass Vaccination a Pathway to Absolute Social Control

So mass vaccination is actually the pathway to absolute social control by technocratic elites accountable to no one? Are we there yet? Pretty close, I’d say. Here’s more:9

“And they are talking the same sort of future script which is, ‘We don’t want you to move around because of these pesky ‘variants’ — (but) ‘don’t worry, there will be ‘top-up’ vaccines that will cope with the potential escapees.’ They’re all saying this when it is obviously nonsense.”

Is he right? Is the variant hobgoblin now being invoked to prolong the restrictions, intensify the paranoia and pave the way for endless rounds of mass vaccination? Judge for yourself, but here’s a sampling of articles that appeared in recent news that will help you decide:

1. Reuters — South African Variant Can ‘Break Through’ Pfizer Vaccine, Israeli study says10

“The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa can ‘break through’ Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is low and the research has not been peer reviewed …

We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group. This means that the South African variant is able, to some extent, to break through the vaccine’s protection,” said Tel Aviv University’s Adi Stern. (So, according to the article — the vaccine doesn’t work.)

2. The New York Times — Rise of Variants in Europe Shows How Dangerous the Virus Can Be11

“Europe, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic last spring, has once again swelled with new cases, which are inundating some local hospitals and driving a worrisome global surge of Covid-19.

But this time, the threat is different: The rise in new cases is being propelled by a coronavirus variant first seen in Britain and known as B.1.1.7. The variant is not only more contagious than last year’s virus, but also deadlier.

The variant is now spreading in at least 114 countries. Nowhere, though, are its devastating effects as visible as in Europe, where thousands are dying each day and countries’ already-battered economies are once again being hit by new restrictions on daily life …

Vaccines will eventually defeat the variants, scientists say. [So, they don’t work now??] And stringent restrictions can drive down cases of B.1.1.7. [So, don’t leave your home.] …

‘We’ve seen in so many countries how quickly it can become dominant,’ said Lone Simonsen, a professor and director of the PandemiX Center at Roskilde University in Denmark.

‘And when it dominates, it takes so much more effort to maintain epidemic control than was needed with the old variant.’” [In other words, we are effectively dealing with a different pathogen that requires a different antidote. It’s an admission that the current crop of vaccines doesn’t work.]

3. Cell — SARS-CoV-2 Variants B.1.351 and P.1 Escape From Neutralizing Antibodies12

“… our findings indicate that the B.1.351 and P.1 variants might be able to spread in convalescent patients or BNT162b2-vaccinated individuals and thus constitute an elevated threat to human health.

Containment of these variants by non-pharmaceutic interventions is an important task.” [Note — In other words, the new vaccines don’t work against the new COVID strains, so we might need to preserve the onerous lockdown restrictions forever.]

How can people read this fearmongering bunkum and not see that it is designed to terrify and manipulate the masses into sheeplike compliance?

Variant Being Used to Fuel COVID Hysteria

There’s no denying that the variant is being used to fuel the COVID hysteria and perpetuate the repressive social restrictions. So, the question we should be asking ourselves is whether we can trust what we are being told by the media and the public health officials?

And the answer is “No,” we cannot trust them. They have repeatedly misled the public on all manner of topics including masks, asymptomatic transmission, immunity, infection fatality rate, social distancing and now variants. According to Sunetra Gupta, who is professor of theoretical epidemiology in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellow:13

“… some of these variants could be more transmissible, but the truth is … even with a marginal increase in transmissibility … that does not have much of a material effect or difference in how we deal with the virus. In other words, the surge of the virus cannot be ascribed to a new variant …

The other question is are these variants more virulent, and the truth is we don’t know, but it is unlikely because the data don’t seem to say so despite the scary headlines … Pathogens tend to evolve toward lower virulence … because that maximizes their transmissibility … It is much more probable that these strains will not be materially so different that we would have to alter our policies.”

So, according to Gupta, even if the new strains of COVID are more transmissible, it is highly unlikely that they are more lethal. Here’s more on the topic from diagnostic pathologist Dr. Clare Craig, who provides a more technical explanation:14

“SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence has ~30,000 letters. Alterations in a handful of letters will not change it’s shape much — if it did it wouldn’t function properly anyway. Fear mongering about immune escape is not needed and is irresponsible especially when no evidence to support the claims.”

In essence, Craig is saying the same thing we said earlier, that the slight mutations to the infection will not impact the immune reaction of people who already had the virus. Thus, the current crop of “variants” should not be a cause for alarm. If you have already had COVID or if you already have prior immunity due to previous exposure to similar infections, (SARS, for example) the new strain should not be a problem.

It should also not be a problem if the new vaccines provide the type of broad-based immunity that one should expect of them. Again, the mutations represent only the slightest change in the composition of the pathogen (less than 1%), which means that — if the vaccines don’t work — they are, in effect, useless.

Media Misstating Science to Terrify the Public

Here’s a longer explanation that some readers might find overly technical and perhaps tedious, but it’s worth wading through in order to see that the media is deliberately misstating the science to terrify the public. This excerpt is from an article by Yeadon. Here’s what he said:15

“The idea is planted in people’s mind that this virus is mutating in such a way as to evade prior immunity. This is completely unfounded, certainly as regards immunity … (that is) gained naturally, after repelling the virus … It’s important to appreciate that upon infection, the human immune system cuts up an infectious agent into short pieces.

Each of these short pieces of protein are presented to other cells in the immune system, like an identity parade … These have a range of functions. Some make antibodies & others are programmed to kill cells infected by the virus, recognized by displaying on their surface signals that tell the body that they’ve been invaded.

In almost all cases … this smart adaptive system overcomes the infection. Crucially … this event leaves you with many different kinds of long-lived ‘memory’ cells which, if you’re infected again, rapidly wipe out any attempt at reinfection.

So, you won’t again be made ill by the same virus, and because the virus is simply not permitted to replicate, you are also no longer able to participate in transmission … The general ‘direction of travel’ (for viruses) is to become less injurious but easier to transmit, eventually joining the other 40 or so viruses which cause what we collectively term ‘the common cold.’

What generally doesn’t happen is for mutants to become more lethal to the hosts (us). But the key point I wanted to get across is just how large SARS-COV-2 is. I recall it’s of the order of 30,000 letters of genetic code which, when translated, make around 10,000 amino acids in several viral proteins.

Now you can see that the kinds of numbers of changes in the letters of the genetic code are truly tiny in comparison with the whole. 30 letter changes might be roughly 0.1% of the virus’s code. In other words, 99.9% of that code is not different from the so-called Wuhan strain.

Similarly, the changes in the protein translated from those letter code alterations are overwhelmed by the vast majority of the unchanged protein sequences. So your immune system, recognizing as it does perhaps dozens of short pieces … will not be fooled by a couple of small changes to a tiny fraction of these.

No: your immune system knows immediately that this is an invader it’s seen before, and has no difficulty whatsoever in dealing with it swiftly & without symptoms. So, it’s a scientifically invalid …

… even if mutations did change a couple of these, the majority of the pieces … of the mutated virus will still be unchanged & recognized by the vaccine-immune system or the virus-infected immune system & a prompt, vigorous response will still protect you.”

Why Are Public Health Officials and the Media Lying?

Let’s summarize: We have presented the informed views of three reputable scientists all of who explicitly refute the idea that the so called “variants:”

Are more lethal

Have the potential to reinfect people who have already had COVID

Have mutated enough to reinfect people who have already been vaccinated (unless, of course) the vaccine does not provide broad-based immunity to begin with (which is possible since Phase 3 long-term trials were never conducted).

So, why are the public health officials and the media lying about this matter, which is fairly clear-cut and uncontroversial? That is the question.

Yeadon concludes that there is something flagrantly diabolical about their denial. He thinks they are lying in order to dupe more people into getting injected with a substance that will either render them infertile, cause them great bodily harm or kill them outright. Take your pick. Here’s more:16

“The eugenicists have got hold of the levers of power and this is a really artful way of getting you to line-up and receive some unspecified thing that will damage you. I have no idea what it will actually be, but it won’t be a vaccine because you don’t need one. And it won’t kill you on the end of the needle because you would spot that.

It could be something that will produce normal pathology, it will be at various times between vaccination and the event, it will be plausibly deniable because there will be something else going on in the world at that time, in the context of which your demise, or that of your children will look normal.

That’s what I would do if I wanted to get rid of 90 or 95% of the world’s population. And I think that’s what they’re doing.”

“The eugenicists have got hold of the levers of power?” Has Yeadon gone mad?

Has the pressure of the global pandemic pushed him off the deep end or is he “on to something” big, something that no one even dares to even think about; a plan so dark and sinister that its implementation would constitute the most grievous and coldblooded crime against humanity of all time; the injection of billions of people with a toxic elixir whose spike protein dramatically compromises their immune systems clearing the way for agonizing widespread suffering followed by mountains of carnage?

There are others, however, who see a connection between the current vaccination campaign and “the eugenicists.” In fact, Dr. Joseph Mercola points to the link between the lead developer of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Adrian Hill, and the Eugenics movement. According to Mercola:

“Hill gave a lecture at the Galton Institute (which was known as the U.K. Eugenics Society) in 2008 for its 100-year anniversary. As noted in Webb’s article:17

‘Arguably most troubling of all is the direct link of the vaccine’s lead developers to the Wellcome Trust and, in the case of Adrian Hill, the Galton Institute, two groups with longstanding ties to the UK eugenics movement.

The latter organization, named for the ‘father of eugenics’ Francis Galton, is the renamed U.K. Eugenics Society, a group notorious for over a century for its promotion of racist pseudoscience and efforts to ‘improve racial stock’ by reducing the population of those deemed inferior.

The ties of Adrian Hill to the Galton Institute should raise obvious concerns given the push to make the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine he developed with [Sarah] Gilbert the vaccine of choice for the developing world, particularly countries in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, the very areas where the Galton Institute’s past members have called for reducing population growth …

Emeritus professor of molecular genetics at the Galton Institute and one of its officers is none other than David J. Galton, whose work includes ‘Eugenics: The Future of Human Life in the 21st Century.’

David Galton has written that the Human Genome Mapping Project… had ‘enormously increased … the scope for eugenics … because of the development of a very powerful technology for the manipulation of DNA.’

This new ‘wider definition of eugenics,’ Galton has said, ‘would cover methods of regulating population numbers as well as improving genome quality by selective artificial insemination by donor, gene therapy or gene manipulation of germ-line cells.’ In expanding on this new definition, Galton is neutral as to ‘whether some methods should be made compulsory by the state, or left entirely to the personal choice of the individual.

… The Wellcome Centre regularly cofunds the research and development of vaccines and birth control methods with … a foundation (name withheld) that actively and admittedly engages in population and reproductive control in Africa and South Asia by, among other things, prioritizing the widespread distribution of injectable long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs).

The Wellcome Trust has also directly funded studies that sought to develop methods to ‘improve uptake’ of LARCs in places such as rural Rwanda…’ LARCs afford women in the Global South ‘the least choice possible short of actual sterilization.’

Some LARCs can render women infertile for as long as five years, and, as Levich argues, they ‘leave far more control in the hands of providers, and less in the hands of women, than condoms, oral contraceptives, or traditional methods.’

… Slightly modified and rebranded as Jadelle, the dangerous drug was promoted in Africa … Formerly named the Sterilization League for Human Betterment, EngenderHealth’s original mission, inspired by racial eugenics, was to ‘improve the biological stock of the human race.’”

Does Eugenics Factor Into the mRNA Vaccine?

So, how does “eugenics” factor into the creation and distribution of the mRNA vaccine? Is there a link or are we grasping at straws? We can’t answer that question, but a recent article by Mathew Ehret at Off-Guardian provides a few interesting clues. Here’s what he said:18

“The fact that the organizations promoting the rise of this eugenics policy throughout Nazi Germany and North America included such powerhouses as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Human Sterilization League for Human Betterment … which have all taken leading roles in the World Health Organization over recent decades is more than a little concerning.

The fact that these eugenics organizations simply re-branded themselves after WWII and are now implicated in modern RNA vaccine development alongside the Galton Institute (formerly British Eugenics Association), Oxford’s AstraZeneca, Pfizer and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation should give any serious thinker pause as we consider what patterns of history we are willing to tolerate repeating in our presently precarious age.”

We’ll end this piece with an excerpt from a 2010 article by Andrew Gavin Marshall at Global Research, who presciently noted that:19

“Eugenics is about the social organization and control of humanity … (particularly) population control …

The ideas of Malthus, and later Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin were remolded into branding an elite ideology of ‘Social Darwinism,’ which was ‘the notion that in the struggle to survive in a harsh world, many humans were not only less worthy, many were actually destined to wither away as a rite of progress. To preserve the weak and the needy was, in essence, an unnatural act.’

This theory simply justified the immense wealth, power and domination of a small elite over the rest of humanity, as that elite saw themselves as the only truly intelligent beings worthy of holding such power and privilege.

Francis Galton later coined the term “eugenics” to describe this emerging field. His followers believed that the ‘genetically unfit’ ‘would have to be wiped away,’ using tactics such as ‘segregation, deportation, castration, marriage prohibition, compulsory sterilization, passive euthanasia — and ultimately extermination’ …

Sir Julian Huxley was also a life trustee of the British Eugenics Society from 1925, and its President from 1959-62 … ‘Huxley believed that eugenics would one day be seen as the way forward for the human race,’ and that, ‘A catastrophic event may be needed for evolution to move at an accelerated pace’ … It is much the same with ideas whose time has not yet come; they must survive periods when they are not generally welcome.

The 21st-century technologies are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups.

They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them … I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.

… Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system.

If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite …

A horrifying vision indeed; but one which builds upon the ideas of Huxley, Russell and Brzezinski, who envisioned a people who — through biological and psychological means – are made to love their own servitude. Huxley saw the emergence of a world in which humanity, still a wild animal, is domesticated; where only the elite remain wild and have freedom to make decisions, while the masses are domesticated like pets.

Huxley opined that, ‘Men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown.’”

We must ask ourselves whether the current mass vaccination campaign is a science-based effort to relieve sickness and disease or a fast-track to a dark and frightening dystopia conjured up by evil men seeking to tighten their grip on all humanity?

SOURCE

[vydante]

Restart | Avengers x Male! Reader | 9

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing: Avengers x Male! Reader (romantically: multiple)

Plot: Dr. Strange said there was only one possibility of winning the battle against Thanos.

But when (Name) is forced into the past and into his younger body, he’s suddenly given the chance to start over and prevent the future from happening again.

So which route are you going to take? Are you going to risk the future and take preventative measures, or live life with the Avengers for the next 4 years, knowing what will soon come?

A/N: Long- 5.29k words. Lmao did y’all miss me? Also, completely in POV of future timeline, so no actual (Name) ‘till next chapter. Granted, next chapter we get to meet someone pretty chill, so there’s that. So... yah. 

It's safe to say that it's been a complete shit storm on Earth, Carol muses behind her cup of coffee.

Of course, it's not just Earth that's undergoing complete mass hysteria from the reversed blip. Other planets and societies beyond the Terran solar system were facing the after-effects of what had happened, too- and it doesn't help that Earth was so cut off from the intergalactic systems, so nearly everyone else didn't know of what had happened.

So least to say, she was quite busy trying to maneuver her way through the galaxies (with help, of course) to try and spread the word of what had happened.

Regardless though, she'd thought that after weeks and weeks, perhaps maybe the news would've slowed down a little bit. And it seemed to have, just a little bit, but for every time news slows, another wave comes in.

The first wave was about, obviously, the reversed blip. Of course, that one didn't have enough time to slow down as the next wave came around. The death of Tony Stark was announced a week after the fight- just so his family and friends had enough time to mourn in privacy. Then the next one about the sacrifice Natasha Romanoff made- though it was a smaller wave, it was one that still had a huge impact. And for a while, it seemed like that was that- weeks pass, and just barely had the craze around the reverse blip (Lord, there's got to be another name for this, Carol thinks) lessened.

And then (Name) Stark is pronounced dead.

To say the headlines erupted once again in a mad-dog-like frenzy would be an understatement. Hell- Carol would even dare say that it was almost as talked about as his father's death. Of course, it was in part due to, well, (Name) fucking Stark being pronounced dead. A man of his status was bound to capture the headlines with his passing for weeks, just like his old man.

But it was also in part credited to something else: the timing and nature of his death, or lack thereof.

Carol remembers watching the SI press conference a couple of hours ago, just as it finished broadcasting. She was a few light-years away from Earth as she heads back for check-in.

(New message, 3 hours ago: Maria R.

'Hey, I think you might wanna watch this before you come back to Earth. Just broadcasted. It's about (Name) Stark.'

Carol pauses, midway through drying her hair as she's about to put her uniform on. She'd be lying if curiosity wasn't eating at her, so she still clicks on the link Maria had sent her.)

(Name) was... A prominent figure within Earth's society. Being the CEO of Stark Industries (a massive company, so she's been told), a superhero/ Avenger, and the world's 'longest-running most eligible bachelor' (Carol scoffs- why is that one of the main things the public likes to point out so much?) definitely lands you underneath the people's microscope more often than not.

They'd pick at every nitty-gritty detail one by one and shred into it without mercy.

And even in his death, they did the same thing. Unsatisfied, they practically crucified Stark Industries and the Avengers after SI’s press conference. 

She glances around her, the local tavern loud with nothing but one word on their lips: Stark.

'Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he died from like, an inside job or something.'

'Died too young, man. The kid had so much potential to be great... May God rest his soul.'

Carol shakes her head. They weren’t wrong- from what she’s seen working with (Name), he was a hard worker, that’s for sure. Sighing, she left a tip at her table and quietly left.

Hopefully, for Earth, they’ll come to find some peace soon.

"You okay, punk?”

'No,' Steve fiddles with nail absentmindedly, 'I'm not.'

That's his honest answer to the question. He wants to scream and shout to the world that no, he is not okay whatsoever, but he knows that's one of the many luxuries he'll never get to have anymore- even to the people closest to him. Too much of a burden no one would want to carry.

So, instead, he smiles at Bucky with more teeth than necessary, face straining ever so slightly. 

"Sure thing, Buck'. Are you?"

The brunette offers him a small, sympathetic smile back. It's not the same as Steve had remembered- it used to be confident and relaxed, but nowadays it's always tense and careful. But then again, it wasn't like Steve was the same man either, so he'd be hypocritical to expect the same man from his memories from his old pal.

"I'm managing."

It was always something along the lines of that. Never an okay, never a not okay. Just... managing. Short and simple.

It's scary how much Bucky's reserved presence reminds him of how Steve himself used to be, back when he was wide-eyed and naive to what the world has become without him. He didn't really feel like he was actually there and knowing how separated he and the rest of the world were made him want to close in on himself.

On one hand, he'd never wish that feeling of emptiness on anyone. But on the other hand, he's almost relieved he's not the only one who's felt so completely alone in this world anymore.

Almost.

Steve doesn't say anything as Bucky comes over to where he was in the living room and sits adjacent to him on the couch. For a brief moment, they say nothing as the TV plays the news station. Steve pretends to watch the news, but he can't find the energy to care about what's going on in the news. It's all the same thing nowadays: Blip, Blip, Avengers, Blip, Starks...

Settling down in his seat, he lets his mind drifts off other places instead.

It drifts to a cramped, moldy apartment that was too small and cold for the average person, but just enough for him. 

It drifts to an ugly tower, placed right at the epicenter of one of the most beautiful yet terrifying cities he's ever been in. Charming, and in every way a wonderful representation of the future.

It drifts to the loud yet comforting hum of the inside of the quinjet, sailing ever so smoothly into the night sky after a successful mission. Bruised, but satisfied.

It drifts to a sly redhead with one too many daggers slipped around her person, sitting next to a tired brunette wrapped up in blankets. Deadly, yet delicate. Open, yet intimate.

It drifts to a mystical long-haired blonde and an erratic billionaire, sitting together and joking about as if they hadn't just fought neo-nazis no less than an hour ago. He remembers a rush of fondness glossing over him as he passively observes them.

It drifts to a pair of warm, mirth filled eyes as they listen attentively to Steve ramble on and on about the war as if he had hung the moon. He relishes in the spotlight of their monopolized attention.

It drifts to the nights where life's not as unbearable as it usually is, as he sits across from a usually aggressive young adult quietly chatting about books they've read together: their own secret club. Warm, he reconsiders, comfortable. Content.

It drifts to quiet nights where he tries to focus on the ceiling rather than the erratic beats of his heart, images of his own teammate grinning tiredly at him, lips bruised, split, and inviting. Guilt courses through his veins, but so does heat.

Steve's mind drifts through lots of things before Bucky murmurs into the air nonchalantly.

"It's about Stark, isn't? The son?"

Steve holds back a flinch, praying that Bucky doesn't notice the red crawling up his neck. He wouldn't have been embarrassed if Bucky had meant Tony- of course, Steve misses him dearly- but for Bucky to go straight to you instead is mildly humiliating, to say the least. He can feel Bucky's eyes burning holes into his skull. It'd be no use trying to deny it, so Steve conceded with a reluctant nod.

"That obvious?"

"It's written all over your face."

Steve doesn't offer to say more, so Bucky continues, quieter this time.

"He seemed like a great kid."

Steve huffs with a small amused smile. He thinks back to when you two spent Valentine's Day together- not as a couple, obviously, but you claimed that the two loners on the Avengers team should have each other's backs. He chuckles absentmindedly. You two did nothing but watch movies and critique them all night.

Granted, it was more one-sided as he spent the whole night listening to you go on and on about how objectively, the Hunger Games books were far better than the movies, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. It was nice to hear you talk, especially when it's about something so trivial but important to you.

"One of the best," Steve half-heartedly offers. 

"Tell me 'bout him." Bucky isn't looking at the TV anymore as his eyes are trained on Steve's.

Steve shrugs with a sigh.

"What more can I say that hasn't been said already?"

Ever since the SI press conference, countless of people came out to say great things about you, as they did with Tony. Countless of people praised you, especially with your efforts to help society get back on their feet ever since the blip. Even random people gave their one anecdote with you, whether it be a barista that had served you or folks at Morgan's daycare center whenever you picked her up.

Nothing but words of praises and kindness for you.

Bucky hums, understanding what he means. It wasn't like he hadn't looked at the news as of recently, either. For every 10 headlines that are published, chances are 9 of them have at least one mention of a Stark, whether it be the senior or junior.

They sat in silence once more, something Steve noted as a reoccurring theme between them. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it did make Steve's skin crawl, hoping for the other to say something just once.

"... You were sweet on him, aren't you?"

Though, maybe this was the one time he wished Bucky would've just stayed silent.

It would be horrifying to hear someone accuse him of being in love with his own (ex-) teammate if he hadn't already come to terms with it. Still, it's unnerving to hear someone pinpoint his feelings within a matter of a week or two when it had taken him up until it was too late to figure it out.

"Did it matter?" Steve runs a hand through his hair, almost as if it were a defense mechanism, but he insists it's not, "It's not like he was interested in me, anyways... Not especially after..."

Steve laughs quietly, almost bitterly so. If he thought he had any chance with you before, he sure as hell threw that chance straight in the garbage the moment he locked eyes with you at the airport. And it sure as hell didn't help when he had practically rag-tag teamed up against your own dad.

"Besides... He's a man of the future, Buck. He's so... so bright compared to everyone else. I can't- I don't have much to offer. I'm just- all I'm good for is fighting."

He sighs, and he'll deny it if anyone comments on how resigned it sounded.

"Not to mention, there're other people that he'd be happier with. People that wouldn't- wouldn't hurt him," 'Like you did,' his subconscious bitterly reminds him. And he wasn't wrong- there were other people you could be wonderful with.

You and Queens already had some chemistry, from what Steve's heard in the air. There was never anything substantial, but he'd pass by a few newspapers mentioning you and Spider-Man spotted together more often than not. You two would've been cute, Steve reluctantly admits. He wouldn't even be surprised if you two were dating.

Then there were a few others, too. Surprisingly enough, he saw you and King T'Challa, of all people, together too often in the New York Times, and even Wakanda's own news websites. His Highness' explained it was only ever about the Accords, but Steve wasn't so blind as to not notice how much more genuine T'Challa's smile seemed when you were brought into the conversation.

There was also Thor, too. You stopped talking to the rest of the Avengers save a select few after the initial blip in 2018, so there wasn't any new thing between you and Thor, but Steve reminisces when he'd catch you joking around with Thor and teasing the poor God. If not lovers, you two were most definitely good friends. Steve hates the fact that he's exceptionally happy at the prospect of you and Thor being just friends.

Not to mention the other seemingly boundless amount of people who you'd make a great couple with. Maybe it was just Steve being excessively attentive when it came to you, or maybe it was because everyone's eyes just seemingly happen to gravitate to you, no matter if there's hundreds of people in the room at the same time.

Bucky sighs and mutes the TV. Steve gives him a questioning look, but Bucky only raises an eyebrow back as he looks at him straight on.

"Those just sound like excuses. Never took you for a coward."

Steve bristles.

He'll admit that he's a lot of things. Frustrating, thick-headed, and quick to anger. And knowing other people, they have a whole list to add on to those too, whether it be positive or negative. But one thing he's never been was a coward.

"I'm not- look, I just know a lost fight when I see one, okay? He just- wasn't interested in me, and that's fine. Hell- he's probably not even into men."

Steve's mind lingers back to a picture lying in your old room, back when he used to come visit you just to say goodnight, or to ask you to join him in his morning jog. He never brought up the picture, rationalizing that it was too invasive of a question. You were with a girl- both of you seemed quite young- but it was obvious that you two were more than friends judging by the way you held her and the very obvious hickey on your neck.

His ears burn, and he's not sure if it's with embarrassment or envy.

"But you don't know that, though, do you? You ever asked him any of that? If he was into fellas? If he was into you?'"

Steve tears his eyes away from Bucky's stare, feeling his eyes burn into his skull.

Sure, he never asked you outright anything Bucky had mentioned, that much was obvious. And sure, even entertaining the (pleasant) idea that you were into men, it didn't take a genius to guess that you absolutely loathed Captain America. It was obvious, too. Especially ever since the 'scandal' of you deleting any tweets or photos you had uploaded that Steve was in. 

(Of course, you deleted any photos the Rogue Avengers were in, but that didn't make the stinging hurt any less when Steve had found out.)

Bucky sighs and turns the sound back on. There was a tension in the air between them, but Bucky beat Steve from saying something as he speaks up.

"And the whole thing 'bout you knowing a lost fight when you see one?"

Steve raised an eyebrow. Bucky half-smirks.

"Not the Steve Rogers I know."

He gently punches Steve's shoulder and ruffles his hair, much to Steve's amused annoyance.

"The Steve Rogers I know would've charged headfirst into a battle, even if it was just him against the world. Oh wait- you already tried doing that."

Steve rolls his eyes and playfully shoves Bucky. The amount of razzing he had gotten from Bucky- and others, too, like Sam and Bruce (his heart curls, knowing that Natasha would've been among them as well, telling Steve off for trying to pull a 'bull-headed' move)- was more than enough for Steve to feel bad anymore at this point.

"Shut it." Steve jests.

They fall into a comfortable silence again, though this time Bucky turns back on the TV to a low volume. Steve glances at Bucky, who's got his chin rested absentmindedly on his hand.

"You know... You're taking this awfully well."

Bucky pauses, peering at Steve with a raised eyebrow.

"Taking what?"

"Me bein'," Steve pauses, trying to find the right words before giving up, "Er, into ladies and fellas."

Bucky doesn't say anything for a solid minute, and before Steve was about to start rambling, trying to just get Bucky to say anything, the brunette speaks up, but timidly so.

"It's... not somethin' I ever thought about, y'know? You bein'- bein' into guys, I mean."

He sighs and runs a hand through his shaggy hair. He keeps his eyes glued onto the TV with a soft gaze, so distant that Steve wants to know what he's really thinking about.

"We just... Never talked about it. Never... Never gave it a thought. I'd be lying if I said I was 100%, er, up to speed with it."

Bucky pauses mid-sentence. He waves his hands and flickers his attention to Steve for just a split second, almost as if he's nervous about what he's saying.

"Not the bein' gay thing, or whatever. Just... How open people nowadays are with that stuff."

Steve unclenches his jaw, not even realizing it had been clenched this whole time. It wasn't something that Steve had thought would be new to Bucky, and he almost feels dumb for not realizing it sooner. Hell, even when Steve himself had been defrosted, it shocked him that something as gay relationships were accepted now. Not that he was against it- but to see that the world had progressed like that without him made him hurt less whenever he thought too hard about the old times.

"Oh, Buck..."

Steve places an encouraging hand on Bucky's shoulders, and he almost seems to sag into it.

"Back then, you'd practically be crucified if you were caught."

Bucky's eyes are unfocused, lips pressed in a firm line. Steve doesn't say anything since he doesn't even know what to say to that.

Bucky, seemingly haven snapped out of it, smiles; though, it looks more like a grimace in Steve's opinion.

"Just- give me some time, 'kay? I'll come round sooner or later. Just... It's all still a lot, even after years of bein' here..."

'To the 21st century,' the words lingered on his tongue. Steve sure knows how that feels, to be overwhelmed by the new world. It's almost suffocating, knowing how much you've missed out on, and how different everything is now. It's like drowning, really.

Surrounded by so much, too much, and at one point it even feels like Steve's being dragged down further and further away from the surface no matter how much he tries swimming up. There's no one there to save him, either. No one to dive their hand down into the waters, no one to hold onto as they pull him back up to the surface.

It's just Steve, alone, in a bottomless ocean, drowning. And it's constantly filling up and up and up and God all Steve just wants to do is get away from there and be able to breathe.

Steve pats his shoulders, pulling him in for a side-hug as Bucky returns the gesture. He playfully ruffles the blonde's hair, much to Steve's annoyance, and gives him a lopsided smile that makes the tension in Steve's shoulder loosen.

"B'sides, you're still my Stevie. Not like you've sprouted horns and started killin' people."

Steve rolls his eyes but doesn't comment on that. Once again, they fall into a comfortable silence, though Steve's shoulders feel unexplainably lighter than it has in days.

The sun's almost gone by the time Steve gets home from the group therapy session he was at. It was the same old, same old. Go in, talk about your feelings, and listen to other people afterward. Sure, it helped, and it felt great to empower people to get back up from a great fall, but it just...

It doesn't really fulfill him nowadays.

Hell, he's not sure what can fulfill him now.

Settling in, he notes that Bucky's room is dark; chances are, he's probably out right now. Before, Steve used to be worried about him, but now it's not uncommon for Bucky to be gone every now and then. Steve doesn't really ask where he's going, so long as Bucky doesn't tell him. One day, maybe he'll ask.

Regardless though, Steve rummages around in the fridge to see what he has to work with in terms of dinner. But before he could even take out anything, his phone buzzes with a notification.

Taking out his phone, still halfway into the fridge, Steve glances at the display name.

It's from Rhodes.

Raising an eyebrow, he taps on the notification. It's rare that Rhodey texts, and it's even rarer for him to text Steve of all people. Nowadays, other than any Avenging business, they don't really talk. Granted, Steve also never finds the energy to talk to anyone these days, save a select few and those at the group therapy sessions, but that's beside the point.

So if Rhodey is texting him, it's gotta be important.

And judging by how fast Steve had bolted out the door and onto his motorcycle, it sure as hell was important. 

From: Col. James Rhodes.

To: Capt. Steve Rogers, Dr. Bruce Banner, +3 others.

"Dr. Strange's back. He has new information about (Name), and it's major. He's not staying for long. - James."

Pepper doesn't want to be here.

There was no going around it- as composed as she was and had to be, she knew she could only take so much before she would snap. And sitting in the compound once again, she wouldn't be surprised if what she was about to hear would be the final straw.

She had plans today, too. She was supposed to take Morgan to go see the neighborhood fireworks festival, and she remembers distinctly looking forward to taking Morgan on the ferry-go-round, too. And yet, here she is, at the compound which once used to be lively, but only whispers of her husband and son echo in the hallways.

She had already been sitting in here for an hour before Steve had finally made it. By then, Bruce and Strange had already explained why they were here.

Just like Tony and Natasha, it seemed like your fate had already been set in stone the moment Stephen had spared the time stone for Tony's life.

But that wasn't what they were called in here for; or at least, in a way that Pepper had initially thought. 

Bruce was talking, and as if he was concluding his monologue, he spares a sympathetic glance at everyone in the room, especially at Pepper. She just wishes he'd stop throwing glances at her as if she was a fine piece of China ready to tip over from the cupboard at any moment now (She knows she almost is, but she'd rather be caught dead than to have an emotional breakdown at a time like this. What was it- Stark men are made of iron?)

"And besides... We've retrieved video recording of what happened that day. From DAHLIA."

The only thing in her vision is red. But she doesn't raise her voice. ('Am I going to have to watch it?' She thinks) She doesn't move from her spot as she stares at Bruce, eyes dilated ('Yes, of course, you want to know what happened,' her subconscious betrays her). Her ears are pounding and she doesn't know whether she wants to laugh or cry.

"And why did it take you so long to get the recording?"

She watches like a hawk as Bruce and Stephen grimace. They glance at each other with uncertainty, but it's Bruce who bites the bullet and speaks up.

"Because, ah... We didn't think about it...?"

Suddenly, all she wants to do is scream. Lifting a shaking hand to her head as there's now a pounding at her skull, she clenches her eyes shut.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe in, breathe out.

She opens her eyes and boy, does she hate the way that everyone's avoiding her gaze. Even the ever so elusive Sorceror Supreme (In her head, she knows he's not at fault. In her heart, she wants to spit on his name.) pretends to be busy, but she knows.

She knows.

She sighs, ignoring the tremble of her lips, and dismissively waves her hand at Bruce.

"Just play it. Please."

Bruce silently nods and pulls up a recording. It's dated back to the day of the reversed blip, a quarter past afternoon. 

Pepper crosses her arm, praying that no one sees her hands quake as the recording starts. 

It's dark and decrepit, with a good portion of the screen glitching out. There are charts and tables everywhere, and Pepper now recognizes them as his health stats. The walls all blur together as she tries to bite back the tears.

There's rubble everywhere. In the distance are lights from fires, but you're so far down there's barely any light at all. Your face isn't in view, and rather what she sees makes her heartache even worse than before.

A gleam of metal jutting out of your stomach is front and center of the camera. It's huge- about the width of her thigh- and it's stained red. Your breathing is labored and short, obvious signs of a panic attack as the sounds of you gasping echo in the room. No one says a thing as an Australian voice speaks up in a frantic.

"Doll! Doll, I need you to breathe! You're going into shock!"

There's no response from you as you continue to hyperventilate. Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees Steve's jaw clench and Bruce covering his mouth. She doesn't react to Rhodey's hand squeezing her shoulder as they all watch on.

There's a weird sound coming out of you. Pepper's heart clenches, and at this point, she doesn't even care that she's crying now- because she knows what that sound is.

That's the sound of you hiccuping.

You're crying.

You- one of the strongest men she knows, an Avenger, a hero, her baby- are crying, alone, and she was none the wiser to your suffering.

You're moving- oh God, your arm- and the video feed pick up scuttering and growling. Her stomach drops even further. Chitauri. 

Your other arm grasps all over your lower body, barely gliding past your wounds (oh God, please tell her that's not a steel beam) and into your pockets. There's an orange tint, barely there, but in your hands as DAHLIA speaks up again.

"Don't move! You've been impaled by a steel beam and your prosthetic arm has been dislocated- any more movement will result in an increased blood loss! I am attempting to contact Mister-"

There's the sound of glass shattering before the video camera shuts off. The charts suddenly spike unnaturally, going practically haywire as the only thing left coming from the screen is the sound of DAHLIA's voice glitching. 

"-er-er-er!"

It was a horrific way to go if Stephen's being honest.

Of course, as both a doctor and Sorcerer Supreme, he's seen- and even experienced- his fair share of gruesome injuries and deaths. It was par the course, so it wasn't enough to make him want to empty his guts.

But he'd be lying if he said that he didn't at least feel his stomach curl in when he had to witness your 'death' the first few times. 

Seeing you crushed under debris, your prosthetic arm hanging by a few strings, and literally impaled by a steel beam wasn't a pleasant sight whatsoever. Add on watching your scared form hyperventilating and hearing your A.I. trying to calm you down with heartbreakingly real panic in her voice, and it was downright unbearable.

And that was the best of it: there were ones where the steel beam had sliced through your skull or where you had been straight up mauled by the Chitauri as you didn't have your suit on hand, for whatever reason. There were other scenarios where the chitauri had mobbed-up your decapitated head, and Thanos had presented it to the older Stark, just as he was about to grab the stones. That one move proved fatal for everyone, as even Stark had lost his composure at the sight of his dead son.

As much as Stephen doesn't want to say it, he knew that what had actually happened to you was the best possible route that had been chosen for you.

The video ends, and the Captain leans away from the wall he was positioned on. 

"What the hell happened? One moment- he was trapped under rubble, the next, nothing? Suddenly we lose all contact with him? What- did he just- pop out of existence?"

He's frustrated, angry. Stephen would be lying if he didn't feel an inkling of the same emotions as him. Stephen runs a shaky hand through his hair.

"You're not entirely wrong, Captain. What happened to him was similar to that of St- Tony," He corrects himself prematurely, "and Romanoff."

"You telling me he was meant to- to die too? Like Tony and Natasha?"

Stephen shakes his head, ignoring the seething anger in the captain's voice. In the corner of his eyes, he sees Rhodes wrap his arms around Pepper, who's sat still in her chair, staring blankly at Stephen. It's almost as if she's seeing past him for a split second as if she's looking at someone else behind him.

There's only a wall next to him. He ignores her, skin prickling at her unwavering attention, yet eery silence.

"It's a means to an end. I can't pick their fates, Captain. That's not how my powers work."

'Though, it would've been better for the sake of everyone had it did work that way.' Stephen bitterly remarks.

"Besides that, I never said he's dead, Captain. Or, shouldn't be, anyway." Stephen carefully avoided answering if it was a necessity that you were to go.

Stephen internally sighs, knowing immediately that wasn't the right thing to say judging by the 'oh God' Pepper just muttered.

Rhodes speaks up with a clenched jaw. He had been silent this whole time, but Stephen wasn't foolish enough to not recognize how even he had been bothered by the film. Whether it was because of the gore, emotional connection, or both, Stephen doesn't care enough to ask.

"Then what exactly are you saying?"

Stephen, once again, ignores how confrontational his tone is. He doesn't blame Rhodes for his frustrations; being a doctor, it's inevitable that he'd come and get used to people like this.

'They're mourning,' he hears imaginary Christine chiding him.

Stephen sighs. He's not even sure how to break it all to them, as even he's not too sure of what has become of you after the film. But regardless, Stephen reels himself back in and composes himself.

He pulls back the need to add any fluff words and says what he's been inching to say ever since he had attended Tony's funeral.

"Stark's traveled back in time; the only problem is, is that we don't know when and where."

Masterlist

Tagged: @unsolvetheheckoutofit

[queenarticlearchive]

Sophisticratic rock - Genevieve Hall gets a dressing down from Queen

Record Mirror

March 30, 1974

Genevieve Hall

Fire and brimstone, the gnashing of teeth and all of hell’s fury, is nothing compared to the anger and wrath of Queen.

It was the first journalist they’d encountered after having had their new album Queen II slagged off unmercifully in most of the music papers. Plus the fact that one particular journal had analytically delved into the depths of hype using Queen and Merlin as their prime examples.

So was it any wonder that all their embittered feelings of outrage, hurt, anger and frustration poured out like hot lava from an erupted volcano?

Lead guitarist Brian May picked up the paper and waves it under my nose. “This article is the biggest load of rubbish I’ve ever read in my life”, he declares vindictively.

“Look, there are people going to read this article - some of them won’t have heard of Merlin and some of them won’t know us. The headline screams out commercial pop. They’ve printed a very old picture of us, which we hate, looking extremely poppy, and underneath it is the word HYPE. The whole article says in a suggestive way that Queen are a hype.”

Hype

“To be honest it looks to us like a put-up job. They say we’re a put-up job. I say that’s a put-up job, and the reasons are that this paper completely ignored us all the time we were going around on the road building up a following. We draw about a minimum of a thousand people a night for the last God knows how many months and they all know where we’re at.

“This paper completely ignored us and so now that we’ve got to the position where our records are taking off and we’re in the public eye. Now we’ve got to that position without the help of the music papers, they can’t really admit that we’re good, they have to suggest we’re a hype or something.”

Is that how you really see it? I asked.

“That’s exactly how we think it is,” joined in their drummer Roger Taylor. “Supported by the fact that they’ve compared us to a totally new band who we’ve never even heard of. We don’t want to say anything against them, but, apparently they’re just a straight pop band. Whereas we’ve been playing and working up to this for years. Christ, I’m 24, Brian’s 25, Freddie is 27, John’s a bit younger 23. Plus the fact that we’re all intelligent enough not to want to be put across in that way. We want to put out music first.”

Is it coming first? I asked, we appear to be getting a giant-sized image with the music running a close second.

“That’s only ‘cos we want to put our music across in the most striking and entertaining way. We want to make an impact. Surely that’s what it’s all about - entertaining.

“And that’s another thing,” he continues, “They’ve given the impression that someone’s said to us, ‘here’s a load of money boys, go down to Carnaby Street and get yourselves some clothes.

“Freddie and I used to sell old clothes. In fact Freddie used to design and MAKE our stage costumes. We’ve always taken care to make sure that our clothes are just right and look good. Perhaps they’d prefer it if we went on in dirty jeans, but we don’t really think the public want to look at that. I think they’d rather see something that looks good.”

Their lead vocalist Freddie Mercury (the aristocratic one) reads aloud with indignation the parody of a hype lead singer, and comes to a part where it says that hype bands employ writers to pen their instant hit singles.

“Now how the hell do they think we fall into that category? They haven’t done any homework. They’ve even called John our bassist our drummer. They haven’t even bothered to find out what we’re really about.

“Everyone seems to object if you’re playing what you think is serious and the kids buy it, they can’t understand it.

“Well we’ve definitely had no Chinn and Chapman behind us,” Roger bursts out, “every song we’ve do is planned by us, including our album sleeves” (note the famous Queen crest designed by Freddie).

Uncontrolled

“We even have control on which tracks we want released. In fact out of all the bands, I think we’re the most uncontrolled.”

“Exactly,” says Freddie, “That’s why this article is a complete farce and nowhere near the truth.”

OK - so how come they’re able to obtain this uncontrolled freedom? It was Brian who answered. “Because the record companies desperately wanted us in the beginning. I know it sounds like blowing our own trumpet, but it’s true. We made demo tapes and everyone thought they were good and wanted us. They realised they were in competition with each other. So in the end we were able to settle for a deal which enabled us to dictate a bit.”

You can’t deny that you’ve been getting preferential treatment over a lot of equally good bands, I said glancing around at their specially provided de-luxe van, which had been given to them at the beginning of their British tour.

“Ah wait a minute,” says Roger. “It wasn’t until our record company realised we were succeeding before they started giving us the big treatment. At first EMI printed 5,000 copies of our first album and much to their surprise they had to reprint that number five times over. So naturally when we made our second album, they felt justified in a lot of work behind it. Which is really why there’s been enough copies in the shops to put it into the charts in the first week.”

“Yes, but any record company if they’ve got any sense is going to do that,” says Freddie, “it looks like we’re getting knocked for having the right people around us doing their jobs properly.”

Is that a large part of their success - having the right people doing the right job?

“No”, answered Roger, “that comes after. Our success is due to us being a bloody good band and also having common sense - ‘cos there a lot of bloody good bands around - to get things managed properly. But even so we wouldn’t have had the support of the people if they hadn’t believed in us in the first place.”

And now over to Freddie. “People think that if there’s a lot of money put behind a band and they seem to make it quicker than usual, then they’re a hype. But we’ve geared ourselves to jump a few hurdles and have benefited by doing so.” He glances down at his picture.

“Oh really,” he exclaims in disgust, “this paper has no flair - I mean to print this picture three times in succession … and just look at my arms!” He was horrified, “look at how fat they appear, now my arms aren’t like that at all - what do you think?”

He rolls up his sleeves for me to inspect and I’d like to state here and now that the poor dear’s arms are quite, quite slender!

Ripped-off

Phew! If after all that you think that the lads are hypersensitive to criticism and feel animosity towards their critics, then let Roger put you straight.

“No, we don’t hold grudges - we just go round and wrench people’s arms and legs off. Or send them bags of wet cement, nothing too violent!”

By this time John Deacon (who reminded me of the Alice’s doormouse) had woken from his slumbers (too many late nights and early mornings), he was reasonably cheerful for someone who had had his clothes ripped off the day before.

“By the law of averages,” he was saying, “it’s someone else’s turn to be ripped off today.”

You talk to him about the success of their Queen II album and he says, “It’s all our Mums and hype.” He’s a lot quieter than the other three, but can’t help warming to him as he’s completely unpretentious.

Freddie is a pretty dynamic character, he has an air of confidence which can sometimes be mistaken for arrogance. He has hair the colour of midnight, luminous brown eyes which he makes look evil with skillful use of make-up. He speaks ever so nicely (don’t you dear?) with the superfluous use of his hands, and commands attention rather than demands it.

Brian’s the tallest one and has a shock of dark curls which bring out the green flecks in his lucent grey eyes. He’s the thoughtful considerate one, and it’s a joy listening to him arguing with Roger.

And Roger - well he’s the pretty one with a sense of fun. He doesn’t look capable of busting a gut over a set of drums, but once he gets that adrenaline moving - the guy goes berserk.

Sucker

Music wise, Queen are a heavy electric rock band - but not raucous. There’s a fair amount of melodic structure incorporated in their material, which contains complex harmonies and could quite easily become messy was it not skillfully honed to precision. They’re exciting to listen to and watch, and have the good sense to capture rather than rupture the senses. The only word which describes their musical finesse is SOPHISTICATION.

After their British tour which climaxes at the Rainbow Theatre, Queen will take their ‘sophisticratic’ rock for a two-month stateside tour. Their opening night will be in Denver, Colorado, where they appear on the same bill as Mott the Hoople. I don’t know about the rest of you - but I’ve always been a right sucker for royalty.

[popculturebuffet]

Analysis of X: Maurader’s #1 “I’m on a Boat”

Ahoy Muties! I’m Jacob Mattingly and in moving to Tumblr and print, this is my first text review. As for this segment, welcome to Analysis of X, where I cover the dawn of x and onward as it happens. I will get to X-Men #1 as I wasn’t sure wether to review it late or not soon enough, but for now I felt it best to start with Dawn of X’s first non-hickman stab at greatness, Gerry Duggan and Matteo Lolli’s pirate themed Mauraders. Come aboard after the break. 

So Mauraders begins a few months back, with our book’s headliner Kitty Pryde, and her future teammates, close friend and surrogate mom Storm and ex-boyfriend and her best buddy, my faviorite X-Man and organizer for orgies on Krakoa: Nightcrawler, ready to head to Krakoa. For those two of you who didn’t read house of x or couldn’t afford it and powers, understandable the current status quo is simple: Mutantkind has formed it’s own nation on their former enemy Krakoa, the island that walks like a man but currently dosen’t because several people would fall off, and have planted gates globally so mutants can come to their new eden, finally done with all the racist genocidal bullshit mankind has put them through. Kitty tries to come along  But welll....

Instead of letting her in for some reason Krakoa instead says come on and SLAM and your not welcome to the JAM. Kitty takes it well. 

We get our character page, which is apparently NOT limited to Hickman’s work, but I find it a nice touch, and unlike the avengers books from other writers under his tenure not doing the same thing, unify’s things a bit. I also like this opening mystery a ton. Is it her powers? Or is it something else? And how will Doug Ramsey aka Cypher, her former best friend who had a crush on her in the mutant equivalent in high school and Krakoa’s translator factor into this. I hope he does because most Kitty Pryde centric stories kinda forgot he existed entirely, as did New Mutants and All-New X-Factor on the Doug side. Seriously it bugs me as they were incredibly close yet because him being single might get in the way of her and other ships the writers had planned, this was just ignored and hopefully with Doug being a bigger player Duggan won’t ignore him this time, and given how strong this book is I expect this to come up. 

Moving Right along after the intro page, with the wonderful welcome of ahoy muties and a cast page, showing this isn’t exclusive to Hickman’s book and something I like we get a captain’s log of sorts, with the reveal that, with no way to portal there, Kitty just stole a boat, said i’m the captain now (Because you can’t escape that refrence and why would you) and then .. muses a bit about how left behind she feels as seen above. And it’s an intresting dilema: without the portals, how can she ever REALLY feel at home on Krakoa when she’d basically be trapped there, alone amongst everyone else.. and not for the first time. 

Longtime fans or those who’ve binged Claremont’s run will recall this little scene: after taking the bullet for Rouge during Mutant Massacre Kitty was left basically a ghost. No tangeblity, no way to interact, just trapped in a world she could see. While it DID get better from here it was only marginally: she could speak, she could talk.. but for the early part of her days with Excalibur, basically the british X-Men and something i’ll save more for next week, her powers of phasing through objects had reversed. She had to concentrate to stay SOLID and it was hell for her. It eventually righted itself, somehow I haven’t read far enough into Excalibur to know, but it had to leave some scars. The fact it happened AGAIN after that time she made a bullet meant to destroy earth intangiable and was only saved about a year or so later in story, or month given the weird timescale for marvel but moving on, by Magneto.. and left like this AGAIN until right before Schism. So to me, wether intentional or not, and it feels intentional, Kitty’s been isolated and trapped, alone amongst those around her before.. and she probably dosen’t want that again but worse. So she sails to Krakoa unsure with logan’s grocery list in tow. Which gloriously, we get to see. 

And this also explains where the hell the beer used in the big party at the end of HOX and POX came from, though it’s equally likely Logan had magneto steal a beer truck for them and then spent a full day with him carting it all through the gate. But before this gloriousneess Kitty arrives and tries going through the other way. 

So before Kitty, or Kate as she prefers to be known now, gets down to a rousing round of killing a child, Bobby shows up. Kitty assures him her problem is be handled by top men, which your saved from the indiana jones refrence because I can’t find a picture for that, logan goes diving for booze.

Because let’s face it Logan without enough Booze to murder Bojack Horseman just isn’t Logan. Bobby heads into a gate to find out why it has no traffic, while Kitty.. gets a phone call from her good old buddy Emma Frost, white queen. As a refresher the two went from sniping at each other constantly to mutaual respect with still a good deal of pot shots during Joss Whedon’s run on the book. That has not really changed. For those of you just joining us Emma was, and now is again, the white queen of a hellfire club and the first evil mutant kitty ever met, so naturally, shit’s complicated. But the important takeaway is that Emma trusts kitty. And has a job opprotunity for her. Those who read HOX and POX probably know that the ruling council of krakoa has an open chair.. and Emma wants her to .  See these days Emma’s old running buddies in the hellfire club, which she’s now in charge of, are the Hellfire Trading company, a vital economic partner and thus were naturally courted by Xavier as a vital part of Krakoa and shipping the life giving plants Krakoa gives worldwide. Where Kitty Kitty Bang Bang comes in is that not everyone is happy about Krakoa or welcoming of their gates: HOX and POX outright showed some countries refused to partner with them, and even some that have agreed to soverignty have taken to some drastic measures to keep mutants from leaving. 

Yeah, and it makes sense. The Marvel universe was prejudiced against mutants on a GOOD day, and now they’ve outright declared superiority, strong armed their way into acceptance, and want to take all of the rest away to their eden. While they had every right to after multiple, and i’m not exagerating, attempted and two sucessful GENOCIDES, of course they have to play hard ball to get this and of course extremist anti-mutant groups wouldn’t stand for it. But it works because it makes sense: the portals are a big target and several assholes aren’t going to let mutantkind escape their service, or alive, without a fight. So that’s the mission Emma is offering: a seat at the table as Red Queen of Hellfire and a misson saving muties, getting drunk and fightin round the world. And she also, cleverly, juxtoposes her being a pirate with what pirates in the past did: the pirates and traders of old were slavers. Kitty and her crew would be liberators, saving mutants from Humankind, bringing the live saving drugs in even to countries who refused and the mutants out. Speaking of mutants who are out let’s check on Iceman. But first lockheed with a crab. 

Awww. So bobby heads to mother russia.. and finds a nice warm reception. 

Yeah naturally this dosen’t go well. Russia is , unsuprisingly, being a dick about the whole thing and it turns out the asshole’s armor can temporarily depower mutants, so bobby books it back and tells kitty.. who’s Mr. Lahey levels of plastered and gets Storm to tag along on her boat, with Storm likely doing so Kitty dosen’t start declaring that she is the liquor or something. 

We cut to china where a woman is claiming her husband disappeared.. but Bishop shows up looking into it, and claiming he never showed up. She refuses to talk to him and Bishop calls it a night, but like the audience can tell something’s not right, and given he’s on the cover but doesn't join the team this issue, we’ll likely find out soon enough. Meanwhile ON A BOAT. The future Mauraders are filled in that the people surrounding the portal aren’t with the goverment but an extremist group, and find they have a stowaway aboard. 

Yup it’s everyone’s faviorite aussie aronist Pyro, back from the dead after years of being dead, a quick ressurection that reset his character development, and then disappearing and being replaced by one of the very few intresting parts of X-Men gold. I wasn’t even aware he’d been ressurected which shows just how much they gave a shit. Duggan wisely gives him amnesia and reveals the tragic truth of how he came back. 

Yup, true to Xavier’s new regime being one part hope and compassion and another part cold detached dickery, which really isn’t that far from the old regime he’s just open about the last part now, Pyro was only brought back first so the “Important mutants” would be sure to be safe. Even with his actions post ressurection, going back to petty crimin.. even though his death, despite never having read the issue, is still a great moment in X-History. Pyro, having failed several desperate attempts to cheat death at the hands of the Legacy Virus, uses his last moments to save someone who fears and hates him: Senator Kelly.. and in the process until the man’s own death changed the man from Mutantkind’s greatest enemy to a great supporter. And after that great selfless sacrifice... all Xavier and Magneto think of him is a lab rat, an unimportant mutant to use first to make sure their plan works. A throwaway slab of mutant meat. Understandably he was about to slide right back into crime but is instead drafted by storm and likely thinks “Eh, what else am I gonna do. “ So with our roster complete for now, our heroes dive into battle with kitty suggesting they swarm the power suit asshole so she can take him out and it works, but leaves her with just herself, pyro and lockheed to fight back.. and we get one of the best marvel fight scenes in recent history as a result. I’m only showing what’s necessary, but I can’t resisit a few choice shots

The fight as you can see is fast paced, fun, and uses kitty’s powers in creative ways we haven’t seen in some time. It’s been a LONG time since her powers weren’t boiled down to “I can’t be hurt” and “I can disrupt tech by phasing through it” and it is GLORIOUS, with Lolli’s art utterly shining and promising more tasty action and creative fights to come. Also i’d be remiss if I left this out

KItty using lockheed to give pyro a boost and blow away the Calvary. Our heroes win the day, save the grateful mutants the group had been holding from the gulag, and send them home, with all three deciding to stick with her: Pyro because it’s fun and because as established he’s pissed at Xavier and Mags for using him as a lab animal, and Iceman  out of loyalty. With that Kitty has one of the mutants presence pull out her phone and gives one hell of a series, and team, tagline...

The issue closes out with a nice little scene where Kitty asks storm to join her. And while storm, understandably given the last mutant group of maurders caused aforementioned massacre, not crazy about the name, she affirms her loyalty to her old friend’s new cause.. and to her in this beautiful line of dialogue. 

And with that, Kate takes Emma up on her offer and we get a great group shot to close us out. 

Well okay not entirely. Like in powers of x we get some plot revant gossip from bar sinsiter. Mostly just foreshadowing for the future.. that emma may of asked someone before storm, a clan of racists in hoods, and some “red tides” at hellfire bay. nothing to dig into much.  Final Thoughts: An excellent start that I hope keeps going like this. Marauders is one of my faviorite kinds of comics: a quirky team, loads of laughs and great likeable characters. Pyro is an easy faviorite and the book took Kitty from creators pet for Benids and Guggenhiem into new territory while building on what Claremont, Ellis and Whedon started. It’s also a welcome breath of fresh air after the more plot based house and powers to have more character focused stories and reactions to Krakoa and see the world build as we see how the globe is taking the Mutants new status. An excellent addition to what hickman has built. If you liked this follow me for more as i’ll be reviewing X-Men #1 sometime soon, Excalibur #1 next week, and more fun stuff and if there’s something you’d like me to review you can slip me a fiver to commission me for it. Until we meet again my fair muties. 

[rena-rain]

The Shortcut Home ch. 7

Chapter 6

Ladybug waited at the top of the Eiffel Tower for Chat Noir for patrol. She’d decided to tell him tonight.

Marinette had asked Tikki how Chat Noir could possibly have not noticed she was pregnant - sure, the bump was hideable with civilian clothes, but the suit was skin-tight! None of the public had caught on either, even the meticulous Ladyblogger. Tikki’d explained the suit’s magic warped how people saw her. Even if her belly did get bigger and people saw it, for a while no one would register its presence or what it implied. It was the same principle of how no one recognized her face even though the mask did nothing to hide her bone structure.

However, the magic had limits and so did her body. Tikki could compensate for the baby interfering with Ladybug’s range of motion for now, but she wouldn’t be able to keep her pregnancy secret once the baby got too big.

Hawk Moth stopped sending out akumas a few years ago. But whoever he was, he still had the butterfly miraculous and Nooroo kept captive. There was no telling when he might become active again. And if that happened while Ladybug was out of commission…

Chat Noir needed to know. And after this, she had to convince Master Fu to let her tell Adrien. It was hard enough to hide her identity from her parents. She couldn’t, in good conscience, keep a secret so big from her baby’s father, too.

Ladybug heard a soft landing behind her. “Evening, Bugaboo.”

“Hey, Kitty.”

“Ready to bounce around some rooftops?” Chat Noir extended his baton, getting ready to vault off the building. Ladybug stopped him with a hand on his bicep.

“Actually, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“If you’re about to profess your undying love for me, I’m afraid I’ve quite moved on, M’lady. Not that I’d ever blame you for falling for a tomcat.”

“Chat Noir, this is important.”

“Do we have a lead on Hawk Moth?”

“Unfortunately no. I’m pregnant.”

He stared at her with big dopey eyes, taking some time to process. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. Or husband?”

Ladybug laughed nervously. “Nope, not married,” she obfuscated.

He shook his head. “Wow.”

“Wow?”

“It feels like everyone around me is having babies right now. A couple of my co-workers are on maternity leave. One of my friends is expecting, too.”

“I guess we’re at that age. I’m just worried about Hawk Moth.”

“That’s a good thing to worry about in general but why specifically?”

“I won’t be able to fight with you in a couple months. My kwami’s been protecting the baby so far, but there’s only so much she can do eventually.”

Chat Noir’s eyebrows furrowed. “And if Hawk Moth resurfaces while you’re gone...oh, God.”

“Exactly. I’ve been thinking that maybe someone should step in as Ladybug temporarily.”

“You have someone in mind?”

“I want to give the miraculous to Rena Rouge but I’ll need to talk to Master Fu first.”

“You know Rena Rouge in real life right?”

“Yeah. I trust her.”

“What if Master Fu makes her the new Ladybug because you’re on maternity leave, and she puts two and two together and figures out who you are?”

Marinette hadn’t thought of that. She sighed. “We might have to take that risk. Chat Noir, you have to promise me you’ll protect her like you protect me.”

“Of course, my lady.”

“There’s one other thing.” She wrung her hands. She didn’t know how Chat Noir would react to this idea. He’s never been fond of keeping their secret identities from each other and this may just add salt to the wound. “Out of necessity, I think I’ll need to tell the father that I’m Ladybug.”

He looked shocked. “It’s too dangerous, LB! What if he gets akumatized?”

“He should know where I’m disappearing to! I can’t let him think I’m randomly abandoning my kid and he should understand the stakes here.”

Chat Noir went very quiet. Ladybug looked over at him and noticed his face had gone very pale.

“Chat Noir? Are you mad?”

“No. No, Ladybug, I...I understand. Better than you might think.” He gave her a smile, but it was a weak echo of his regular confident smirk. He stood up and spun out his baton. “There’s something I should also talk to Master Fu about, though.”

“What’s going on?”

He winked. “It’s a secret.” With that cryptic response he leapt off the Eiffel Tower and vaulted over the city skyline.

Ladybug couldn’t help but feel miffed. She’d been as honest as she possibly could with her partner tonight; why couldn’t he extend the same courtesy? Didn’t he trust her? She felt tears well up in her eyes and glared down at her stomach. Curse you, hormones.

Looked like she was doing patrol on her own tonight.

--

Adrien de-transformed in the alley beside Master Fu’s flat. Plagg snatched some Camembert from his shirt pocket and downed it in a single gulp. “Dang. Babies left and right. Think Miss Ladyblogger is next?”

“Don’t even joke about that, Plagg. Nino would cry for a week.” Adrien went inside and got in the elevator. His head spun the whole ride up.

“Kid, if you chew any harder on your hand you’ll lose all your fingers.”

“Bite me.” The doors dinged open. “Hide, Plagg.”

Master Fu called him in seconds after he knocked on the door. “Ah, Adrien. What can I do for you?”

“Master Fu.” Adrien took a seat in front of the guardian. “I was talking to Ladybug, and she said something that made me think.”

“What are you worried about?”

“I’m kind of...expecting a baby?”

A huge smile broke across Fu’s face. “Oh congratulations!”

“Let him finish,” Plagg said through a mouthful of cheese.

Adrien tapped his knee nervously. “Anyways, I realized that it’s going to be really hard being Chat Noir and a father at the same time. Especially if Hawk Moth shows himself again. I think it’s important that I tell my - the baby’s mom.”

Fu said nothing for several moments. Adrien couldn’t make himself meet his eyes.

Finally he spoke, “Revealing your identity, to anyone, could endanger her and your child. No one in Paris is safe from Hawk Moth, but your family may become specific targets if he ever finds out who you are.”

“But, but if I tell her then she’ll know how important it is not to get akumatized! And I need her to trust me if I’m going to be a good father. She won’t if I’m disappearing for patrols and akuma attacks with bad explanations.”

“I take it you trust her?”

“Other than Ladybug, more than anyone.”

“You’re right, in that knowledge may be power in this case. Although I urge you not to make any rash decisions. Sleep on this for a few nights then come speak with me again. It is very important that you’re careful about this.”

Adrien figured that was as far as he was going to get tonight, and he was feeling tired and strung-out. Better to think about telling Marinette his identity for a while, make sure it was the right choice. He bowed his head and stood to leave. “Thank you, Master Fu. Have a good night.”

“You as well, Adrien.”

--

The next day found Fu graced with the presence another visitor.

“Good morning, Marinette. What brings you by today?”

“I have a couple things to talk to you about, Master Fu.” Marinette hesitantly came in, Tikki trailing behind her.

He raised an eyebrow at her, amused. “Please, have a seat. What is on your mind?”

“Well, I’m essentially going to need a...maternity leave from being Ladybug soon.”

Fu’s eyes flicked to her abdomen, where Tikki had taken to hovering. Her bump was barely visible, but only if you were looking for it. “Indeed, carrying a baby complicates superhero work. Why haven’t you come to me about this sooner?”

“Master,” Tikki spoke up. “I am able to protect both of them when she’s transformed at the moment. The suit shields them from view and damage. But in one or two months there won’t be much I can do anymore.”

“It’s still very dangerous, Tikki. That must be draining your power immensely and no matter what you do, it still puts stress on Marinette’s body.”

Marinette realized Tikki had been eating way more cookies than usual lately. She’d also developed a taste for cheese danishes, which she thought was odd.

“I understand this will be very difficult - God knows I struggle letting go of Wayzz - but you should pass on the ladybug miraculous for the time being.”

The words sucker-punched Marinette in the gut. Tikki let out a little gasp and flew up to hug her cheek. It was one thing to think, theoretically, in the future, to temporarily give up her miraculous. But she was unprepared for the thought of being separated from Tikki now .

Marinette stared sadly at the floor. “That’s what I came here to suggest. Just...so soon?”

“You shouldn’t be fighting while you’re pregnant, Marinette. It’s never happened to a Ladybug, but I have seen miraculous holders lose their babies before.”

“Tikki?”

Tikki’s huge eyes had gone shiny and ever bigger with contrition. “I’m sorry, Marinette. I didn’t know. I really thought I could protect you both.”

“You said a Ladybug has never miscarried before. Tikki’s the kwami of creation,” Marinette said. “Doesn’t that mean she has more power over this than other kwamis?”

Master Fu put a hand on her shoulder. “Possibly. But I do not want to risk that. Do you?”

Marinette looked at Tikki sitting in her hands. An understanding passed between them. She kissed her kwami’s tiny head. “I’m going to miss you, Tikki.”

She hugged her cheek again. “I’ll miss you too, Marinette.”

Marinette blinked back tears. “I know who I want to give the earrings to, Master Fu. Alya Cesaire, Rena Rouge.”

Fu nodded. “A wise choice. She has proven herself a worthy hero.”

“Before I give you the earrings back, I want to talk to Chat Noir one more time. I don’t want to disappear without saying goodbye.”

Fu looked like he was going to object, but Tikki flew up to his face with crossed arms in an unusual display of blatant defiance. After a brief stare-off, he conceded. “Very well.”

--

Adrien got an alert from the Ladyblog on his phone. He may not be a pining, lovestruck fool obsessively stalking the blog anymore, but Alya knew if her friends didn’t read her posts. He swiped it open.

The headline read: LOOK WHO SWUNG BY MY WINDOW, FAM! Underneath it was a picture of Ladybug in all her spotted glory perched on a building he recognized as the one beside their apartment building.

What’s Ladybug doing out?

Adrien found Plagg in his trashcan and poked him awake.

“Hnnnng. Whaaaat?”

“Wake up, time to transform.”

“Uuuuuuuggghhhh.”

“Claws out!”

Chat Noir carefully crawled out his window, up the outside wall, and onto the roof. He didn’t need anyone seeing him coming out of one of the flats. He jumped from roof to roof in a horseshoe to throw anybody off and stuck a landing in front of Ladybug, who appeared to be waiting for something.

“Is there an akuma?”

She looked startled. “What? No, not that I’ve heard.”

“Then what’s got you out in broad daylight, M’Lady?”

Ladybug twisted her hands together. “I have to return my miraculous sooner than I thought.”

Chat Noir’s throat went dry. “Permanently or temporarily?”

“Until after I recover from having the baby. Master Fu says it’s too dangerous for me to be Ladybug while I’m pregnant at all. He’s not confident that Tikki can protect me and…” Her hand drifted to her lower abdomen, which he now saw was getting round. How had he missed that before?

Chat Noir held Ladybug’s upper arms. “Hey. It’s okay. Do what you need to do. I’d never ask you to put your kid in danger.”

Ladybug looked down at her belly. “I just thought I’d have more time before giving this up.”

“But hey, it’s not forever! You’ll be back in no time. You won’t be able to resist my animal magnetism.”

She giggled. Then she gazed at his face. “What was it that was bothering you out last night?”

“You, you noticed that?”

“I noticed. What aren’t you telling me?”

“I don’t want to put any more stress on your shoulders, LB. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“You’re my best friend, kitty, I’ll worry anyways. And I won’t see you for a few months.”

He sighed dramatically. “This is one hell of a coincidence, but we’re actually in similar boats. My - my girlfriend is pregnant, too.”

Ladybug blinked. “Oh. Oh, that’s wonderful! Wait...are you excited?”

“Thrilled. I’m just worried. It’s what I talked to Master Fu about last night. After what you said, I think it’s in everyone’s best interest if I tell her who I am, too.”

She didn’t say anything for a minute. He wished, not for the first time, that he could tell what she’s feeling from looking at  her face. Finally she smiled. “It’s not an easy choice, is it?”

Chat Noir laughed. “Nope.”

“Well. Good luck with your baby. I don’t want to say goodbye, but...I should give the earrings to Master Fu.”

“Yeah. I’ll miss you, Bugaboo.” He wrapped her up in a long, warm hug.

When she eventually pulled away she gave him her best smile. “See you in six months, Chat Noir. And hey, by then we’ll both be parents!”

Chat Noir grinned and saluted her as she yoyo-ed in the direction of Master Fu’s flat.

Tears streamed down Marinette’s face as she took out her earrings, her eyes locked on Tikki. She handed them to Master Fu. “It’s going to be really hard being in the same apartment and not being able to talk to you.”

“I know, Marinette. But at least I’ll be close by.”

Marinette wiped her eyes. Fu took her hands and squeezed comfortingly. “You must remember why you are doing this.”

She nodded and wiped her eyes. “Master Fu, there’s something else I wanted to ask you. Regarding my secret identity.”

He sighed. “Do you wish to tell Mlle. Cesaire? That would be very dangerous.”

She shook her head. “No, I want to tell the baby’s father. He’s going to be a permanent part of my life after they’re born, and I don’t think I can keep lying to him about where I vanish to when I’m Ladybug.”

Master Fu gave her a look. A squinty-eyed, not-quite scrutable look. “May I ask, who is this young man? I should know whom you’re trusting your identity with.”

That’s not a no. “An old friend of mine, Adrien Agreste.”

His eyebrows shot valiantly toward his receding hairline and his eyes widened. “Adrien Agreste...the fashion model, no?”

“That’s him.”

He bowed his head and his shoulders started shaking. Wayzz hovered oh-so-nonchalantly over his shoulder. Marinette bent over him, concerned. “Master? Are you all right?”

Fu straightened to reveal a red face and a big smile, and he was chuckling like a maniac. Marinette frowned at him.

“Why is that funny?” she demanded.

The guardian coughed and got a hold of himself. “Nothing, nothing. I suppose I should have figured a girl such as yourself would catch the eye of a celebrity.”

Marinette blushed furiously. “It’s not like that - I’ve known him since we were thirteen.”

“He’s only teasing, Marinette,” Tikki said. Wayzz opened his mouth and she slapped a little nub-hand over his mouth.

“If you’re sure you trust him,” Master Fu continued, “Then I agree sharing your identity with him is in your best interests.”

Despite her annoyance she breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Master.” She turned to leave, but with her hand on the door handle, she looked back sharply and said, “I’m not a groupie!” before darting into the hallway.

--

Alya knocked on her best friend’s door. She heard sobbing through the thin wood and plaster. “Mari? Marinette, what’s wrong?” She cautiously opened the door.

Marinette was curled around a throw pillow on her bed, crying and hiccuping into the fabric. Alya sat next to her and gently put Marinette’s head in her lap, stroking her dark hair.

“Just - just stupid horm - ormones.”

“I agree hormones are stupid. But did something happen?”

“I lost my earrings,” she gasped.

“The black ones you’ve worn for a decade? Oh Mari, I’m so sorry.” Alya kept running her fingers through her best friend’s hair while she cried into her jeans. She expected the volatile emotions; she remembered what her mom was like, pregnant with the twins. On a normal day, getting upset over lost beloved jewelry was totally valid; in Marinette’s state it must feel devastating.

[evien-stark]

✧I Need You✧ Chapter 65

You hadn’t expected Tony to be in New York at this time- a month ago- when the Met had contacted you about an invitation to their charity benefit. And while you absolutely could (and maybe should) go on your own, you decided against it. Stark Industries was already doing enough, you were already doing enough. Sending a check would suffice enough in lieu of your actual presence. But they’d mailed back very recently telling you utterly disappointed they were that the two of you couldn’t attend. And then in the postscript asked if instead of money you’d think about parting with a few pricey pieces in your household.

Because it was an art auction benefit, of course. Not for any other reason. 

The problem was, the Malibu mansion’s pieces were not yours to give away. And the other collection you had had in stock at one point had been gifted to the Boy Scouts of America some time ago. It made it hard to approach Pepper and ask if you could snatch one or two pieces she had just started putting together… 

It angered her. Upset her. She was just rebuilding after her collection had been carelessly given away. But, being an amazing sport, she said… eventually, fine. Then she trotted out her “least favorite” pieces. It was just the lingering gaze she held before she left that made you feel guilty. Why did she care so much about these? Far beyond you. But, now it was up to you to pick a couple out to have sent so other celebrities could vie for them. 

It didn’t really matter. Not to you, anyway. All you had to do was choose a couple and be done with it. Whoever ended up with them after didn’t matter. The event didn’t matter. Because you weren’t going. 

So you thought. 

Until Tony wandered up from the lab into the penthouse where you had art strewn about. “Charity thing?” 

Nodding absently, “Charity thing.” Because what else would you be doing with random pieces of canvas? Of course it was for charity. 

“Should we… go to the charity thing?” 

“I already told them we weren’t going. Hey, which ones should we auction? It doesn’t matter but at the same time I can’t decide.” It mattered to Pepper, that was probably why. Your guilt was making it impossible to pick a single one, let alone two. 

He’d crossed over to the kitchen and came back with a water bottle. Arm around your waist, he pretended to look like he cared as much as you didn’t, and then let out a hum. “How about… those two.” Pointing to the abstract pieces on the far end. “And so what? You think they’ll be mad if we show up?” 

Done deal, with his decision. You started stacking the pieces you were keeping against the wall near the elevator. “You sound like you wanna go. And you hate going to these things. Almost more than I do.” Almost. But not quite. You weren’t in the mood to go buy a fancy dress and get him put in a sharp tuxedo just to bump elbows with people who just wanted to use you for photo-ops. 

Neither did he. ...right?

“Sure.” He shrugged, folding his arms. “I don’t wanna go. But… maybe we should?” He was terribly easy to see through. He hated being in the Tower. Even if he’d been having a fair bit of fun with Bruce in the labs. He just couldn’t stand it. And he couldn’t fly home to work on the army of suits he’d started because he’d promised he’d stay for the press event you had set up in a couple of days- ...and also because he was starting to finally get the understanding that you didn’t like that army of suits hiding beneath the house. 

So. Cabin fever, effectively. And to cure it he was willing to put on a bowtie and go schmooze. The lowest of the low hanging fruit. 

“If we go we’ll have to buy some new pieces. Do you just want to take Pepper instead? I’m sure she’d love to go.” 

“Yeah. Because that’s the headline we need next.” 

“What? Friends can’t go to art galas together?” Grinning at him lightly. He was too right. Every newspaper from here to LA would be talking about how the two of you had broken up. Or how he was flagrantly cheating on you. 

“Are we friends? I get the feeling she still doesn’t really like me.” 

“Hard to dislike someone who’s never around.” Back to lightly flippant as you moved away from the front of the room to take a seat on the couch. 

He drew in a hiss of a breath. “Mn. And… you’re still… mad?” 

“I was never mad.” 

“...disappointed?” 

He was standing behind the couch, so you dropped your head along the back to stare up at him, smiling again. “Getting warmer.” 

His hands raised in a show of deference. “Warm is good enough.” It really wasn’t, but for the sake of not fighting with each other over how stunted the two of you were at this moment in time, you let him continue speaking- ah, better yet, let him lean in to press a little upside down kiss to your lips. “So. Charity thing?” 

Effectively ruined, you blew a sigh out hard in his face. “Yeah. Charity thing.” 

Tony wanted to go. So you’d go. 

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

The benefit organizers made sure to gush about how grateful they were that you and Mr. Stark were taking time out of your super busy schedules to drop by the event- and bring artwork, too. Did your charitable-ness know no bounds? One could only wonder. 

For the event you had Pepper pick you out a dress and she’d come back with a black ball gown with sheer sleeves and silver starry accents. Easy enough for Tony to match with an all black tux and silver bowtie. Silver expensive cufflinks, too, of course. Really, it would have been much better to just send the money you’d spent on the clothes you were never going to wear again to the event but what fun would that be?

If you didn’t go how then would you take your time walking up the red carpet, posing for ten whole minutes for pictures and take questions you didn’t really have answers to- and deflect things you didn’t want to answer- all while smiling for the general public who were really the people who thought to care about this sort of thing. Because they’d read about it tomorrow. In all the fashion magazines and all the newspapers that would either revel in what a great thing the star power of the world was continuing to do, or the more truthful pieces that called this out for the piece of self-aggrandized crap it all was. 

...when had you become so bitter? 

The only good thing about the evening was that the museum was letting its esteemed guests roam the halls unsupervised. Because the rich and famous could be trusted. And everyone was paying their way to be here, in some shape or form, so why not? It made getting away from all the noise and all the people a very easy thing to do. And while art had never been one of your absolute favorite things, tonight you’d make an exception. 

You and Tony wandered through several different wings, trying to escape the noise, going further and further until finally it no one was around and all the two of you had were the sound of each other’s footsteps in the lonely rooms where the art stared back at you. 

The two of you followed the dimmed lights into the rear center quadrant of the museum, ending up in the French Decorative Arts section. All overly designed rooms from overly wealthy French people throughout history. Maybe it would have been interesting to look at all the things and read all the placards… 

But Tony read the both of your minds as he plopped down on an antique couch (emphasis on antique) that groaned dangerous with his weight. Despite how much trouble the two of you were potentially about to be in, you couldn’t help a smile. “I don’t think you’re allowed to sit on that.” 

“Where’s the sign that says I can’t?” He hung his arms over the back, looking like he belonged there. 

You hooked your thumb to the left. “Right there.” A big one, in fact. Because the objects were very fragile. And were not meant to be disrespected. But this was the danger of letting wealthy people do whatever they wanted, right? Disrespect was sure to follow. 

He turned his head briefly. “Right. It says specifically No Tony Starks allowed on the big ugly couch?” 

Feeding into his behavior was bad. It was the wrong thing to do. But you raised a hand to hide a giggle. It was nice to just feel some semblance of normal. The two of you hated these events. What a way to show it. “No, I don’t think it’s that detailed.” 

“Then it’s fine. That’ll hold up in court.” 

Despite your better judgement, when he raised his hands with a curl of his fingers, beckoning you closer, you came. Lifting the large skirt of your dress, you settled on his lap. The couch creaked. Settling your hands up the sides of his neck, you gave him quite the imploringly soft look. “What are we doing here, Tony?” 

“Great question. Does that mean it’s time for the usual early evening bail?” His hands came to your sides, thumbs stroking just underneath your ribs. 

“Then what was the point of coming? We didn’t even bid on any art.” You had guessed something like this would happen. It had become a little bit of a habit, he was right, that the two of you would leave far too early into a party meant for charitable leaning. That didn’t mean neither of you cared about whatever good cause was going on at the time, just that…

These things sucked. And you two far preferred each other’s company than that of people who liked to pretend to care about things. 

He gave a careless shrug. “I wouldn’t even know where to start. We’d end up going home with some ugly Pollock piece. He’s the one that does all the ugly art, right?” 

Again you couldn’t quite keep a small laugh from escaping, which was incentivizing him all the more to keep going, you knew. “Art’s supposed to be subjective. Someone likes his work.” 

“Someone isn’t me. I much prefer… let’s call it... “ His tone dropped a very increments, head inclining, eyelids dropping just a little. “Live art?” 

“Let’s not. And not here.” Dangerous territory. Because if you acquiesced, Tony would take your dress off and then take you right on this old french couch. For sure. No questions asked. 

“So, again I ask… time for the early evening bail?” 

“It’s terrible that it has a name- and don’t think nobody notices that you and I have been leaving all the charity events super early. It’s bad for PR, you know.” Despite the words coming out of your mouth, you weren’t really concerned with any of that. PR was easy to spin and… god you hated these things. 

“I’m heading a lot of words, and none of them are no.” His grin up at you was unfairly handsome- and more than devilish. Par for the course for him. Especially with what he was asking. 

“Why did we come here, Tony? We could have stayed home and fucked, you know?” Cut right to the chase. 

That grin disappeared, and there was an ache to his gaze that you knew he didn’t want to put words to. Yet despite this, for you, he tried. “I thought it would help.” Being terribly, painfully honest. 

Something you already knew, too. He didn’t want to be at the Tower. But he also didn’t want to be here. The one place he did want to be, you didn’t want him to be. So he was stuck. And realizing it, you felt awful. “Okay, Tony. Let’s go home. But… out the back, please. It’s barely been an hour.” Your shortest record yet. And with it being so early, every single organizer would be asking where the hell you two were going. 

As you leaned back, the couch moaned underneath the sudden movement, and the two of you jolted as one of the legs gave way, sending the front down in a tilt. Tony looked about as anxious as you did. “Out the back?” 

“Yes. Now.” 

If the two of you were trying to leave discreetly, your paired giggles and quick footfalls gave it all away. 

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

While it would have been wise to call Happy to bring the car around and head right home, instead the two of you walked from the venue a few blocks south., following the outskirts of Central Park. The bottom of your dress was already getting dirty, but hand in hand with Tony in a city that wasn’t actively bearing down on you… it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Of course people on the opposite side of the street were taking pictures and there were some not so sly paparazzi trailing behind you. But that was life. That was your life. 

Anywhere you went with him, unless it was a private event, the privacy of your own home, or somewhere with tight security, the two of you were being looked at. Scrutinized. But they were easy to forget. Especially when he seemed so calm and just there. For the first time in a long few months Tony was present. And that was more than you could have asked for. 

There was a Mr. Softee truck parked just a little bit up ahead. “Wanna make this old school?” 

“Oh, yes. I want a double twist.” Feeling your mood improving dramatically now that he was back in full control at his own helm. 

“Classy choice.” 

“I know how to pick ‘em.” 

The window opened as you approached and while the clerk was about to give a memorized speech, once he saw the two of you he stopped dead. “No way.” 

Tony reached into his jacket to pull out a hundred dollar bill. “Way. Hey. Once you’re done gaping, can you get us two double twists? Thanks.” Holding the bill out. “And keep the change.” 

Reaching down, the kid grabbed the bill and nodded, and then shook his head. “Yes- I mean sure, but I’m not allowed to. Company policy.” 

Leaning up on tiptoe you held your hand up to the side of your mouth, “We won’t tell if you won’t.” 

“Better you keep it. In fact, here-” Tony dipped his hand back into his jacket and procured a wad of bills. “I was going to throw it all away on art I don’t care about tonight. Better spent here.” 

His eyes just about popped out of his head. “You’re- giving me- ...that?!” 

“Better hurry.” You teased. “He’ll just buy the truck off you if you don’t.” 

“I mean I don’t own the truck, the company owns-”

“Offer going once… twice…” All he had to count to before the kid shakily reached down to accept such a massive amount of money. You had no idea how much Tony had even had on him. Or why he was walking around with that much at all. Plastic was the new king. 

Once he finished stuffing that stupid amount of money into his apron, he got to making your ice cream. It took a short minute to get both out to you, but what you weren’t expecting was when he came to the front of the car and then exited out the driver side door to come up to you. Shorter. And… much younger, now that you could see him properly. “This money’s gonna change my life.” 

Tony reached his free hand out for a shake. “Sure thing, kid. You’re welcome. What’s your name?” 

“Dante. Really. My mom lost her job because of the … that alien stuff. We’ve been behind on rent- This is gonna help so much.” He grabbed on to Tony’s hand hard and shook it a little too vigorously. 

You tried not to eye him too sadly. “Stark Industries has a program out, have you looked into the paperwork?” 

Turning to you he offered his hand and you gave it a brief shake, but he shook his head. “We don’t meet the minimum requirements, so-”

Fire burned in your chest. “There are no minimum requirements.” 

“That’s not what the people on the phone said.” 

Tony, sensing you were probably about to explode, put a hand on the kid’s shoulder and took control of the conversation. “Mistake on our part. We’ll get it fixed. In the meantime, why don’t you drop by Stark Industries tomorrow. You make one hell of an ice cream cone, but I think I can find something better suited to your talents.” 

As Dante started glowing with excitement and babbling Tony’s ear off, you turned away, getting your cell phone from your purse. Calling Pepper, you were glad she answered on the first ring. It was only eight o’clock, not too late, but she didn’t have to. After she greeted you, “Is the person in charge of the rebuild initiative still in? Do you know?” 

“Uh oh. Uh- yeah I think she… I think she might still be in her office. Why? This sounds bad.” 

“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Thanks.” The window would be closing shortly. It was luck that she was still in the office. Turning back to the two, you saw Dante chewing Tony’s ear off and Tony listening with nods and dramatic brow raises while eating his ice cream. 

Once he locked eyes with you though, he knew. Giving Dante another firm pat on the shoulder. “Seems like we’ve got somewhere to be. But I’m serious. Come by tomorrow. We’ll put you somewhere nice.” 

“A corner office?” Cheeky. You liked him. 

Tony must have, too, grinning. “You never know. One might be freeing up sooner than later.” 

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

This trip would be a short one. Because someone was not on the right page. Even though you’d given explicit instructions about how the recovery funds were supposed to be handed out. And sure enough, Ms. Cadence (Pepper had texted you, your fault too, you should know who was in charge of your charity funds like that), was still in her office. You didn’t bother knocking. 

She had her feet up on the desk, watching something on her phone, but as soon as she realized what was going on, she rocked back in her chair and stumbled to her feet. Tony had opened the door.  “Mr. Stark! Hi- I didn’t know you were coming by- oh- and-!” 

“Save it.” You only walked about a quarter into her offices. “What are the minimum requirements of the recovery funds for the victims of New York?” 

She made a face and then shook her head. “Well, they have to be making less than 20k income yearly. And-”

“What part of everyone gets help did you not understand? The everyone part? Or the getting help part?” Perhaps you were being too harsh. Coming off too strong. But this was not only going to hurt your image, Stark Industries’ image, but more importantly, people in need were being denied help. That could not go on. 

Breathing out a sigh she held her hands up in a shrug. “With all due respect, ma’am, we can’t help everyone. And some people don’t even need the help. They just want the money. So… having a minimum weeds them out and-” 

“You’re fired.” 

It took her a solid ten seconds to process this. “-what? You can’t be serious.” 

“You don’t understand that, either? You’re fired. Collect your stuff and get out.” 

“You can’t be serious!” 

“I had direct instructions about what I wanted you to do. You decided to do something else. Something that not only hurts us, but is hurting people out there. People that are already hurt. So yes, I’m serious. You’re fired. Get out. Don’t make me say it again or I’ll get security.” 

Side stepping you she leaned over to implore with Tony still waiting at the door. “Mr. Stark-” 

Tony put both his hands up. “Don’t look at me I’m not the boss around here. But. For the record. I agree.” For a moment the woman felt a small sense of relief. Tony Stark was on her side- “You’re doing a terrible job.” Until that moment. When he fired a cannonball through her sails. 

On your side. Always. 

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

It took her too long to get her things, too preoccupied with ranting and raving about how you were ruining the company, how you didn’t understand the economics of things, or how things worked. Eventually you called security just to post them at the office door so they could watch her and escort her off the property. After that you took Tony by the hand to exit towards the elevator. 

Once inside, the soft smirk he was giving you tickled you too much to ignore, so you turned to him. “What?” 

“Nothing. It’s just hot watching you throw your power around.” Hands yet again moving forward, quickly to amend, “For the right reasons.” 

There was no point in trying to hide your smile. “Thanks for always being on my side.” 

“Hey. I knew you had what it took to run this company years ago but someone didn’t want to take full control.” 

The doors opened up into your penthouse suite and you led him by the hand over to the couch. “Why don’t you take some full control.” 

“Oh. Yes, ma’am.”

The two of you only made it as far as the couch. Which was fine. He was careful with your dress, so you tried to pretend to be careful when you helped him out of his jacket and undid his bowtie. This is what you’d wanted. For him to just be with you. In the moment. There. 

The feel of his lips on your bare neck and shoulders helped immensely, too, of course. As did him promising he would take his sweet time, and those kisses trailed down from your chest, over your stomach, and to your thighs… a handful of his hair between your fingers. His mouth hot and sure with every touch. It didn’t take long to get you to completely dissolve. 

You really did like when he took full control. 

Even more so when, after coming down from the first high, he took helped you up only to bend you over the back of the couch. He found some amazing way to be gentle about it, each thrust in slow but hard all the same. His arm came around your shoulders, and he just held you to him while he rocked up into you at that angle. One that had your knees threatening to go weak with every move. 

From the couch to the kitchen, where he perched you on the island counter and you wound your legs around his waist, drawing him in again. Forehead pressed against his, eyes half-lidded, but gaze staying on his. Just breathing in each other. You weren’t sure who lost it first that time. But it must have been you. It always seemed to be you. 

He assisted when your legs seemed not to be working, carrying you to the bed where it picked up again. This time the both of you on your sides, arms wrapped around one another, your leg up over his hip. His thrusts were shallow but sweet and you got so lost you thought you might never find your way back. A fitting end. 

You were sure you’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms. And that was where you wanted to stay. But somewhere deep in your unconsciousness, a weight started to crush you. There was no dream to attach the feeling to, it was just a sense of dread. And too little too late you realized it wasn’t coming from you. When you awoke in a start it was because Tony had literally thrown you aside, and you were a little stuck at the edges of sleep to get a read on what was happening. 

Crawling to the edge of the bed you saw him on his hands and knees on the floor, drenched in sweat. Panting. “Tony-” Edging down to come next to him, putting your arm around him. “Tony, talk to me…” 

“Just a- ...just a nightmare- I… I can’t breathe…”  His hands were curled into fists in the carpet, gabbing at it. Clawing. His whole body shuddering.

“Alright- you’re okay… listen, watch me… try in for me… and out…” Starting to count for him until he could follow. Gone again. Not all there anymore. So fast. He’d been torn away from you so fast. Because the second he could breathe on his own he was up on his feet, pulling on a robe. 

“I… I don’t think I can sleep anymore. I’m gonna go down to the lab.” 

 You followed and tried to recapture his attention, putting a hand on his waist, and when he turned, cradling his cheek in your opposite palm. “Stay. Stay with me. Talk to me. Don’t run.”

 His smile was forced. “I’m not running anywhere. I’m just. I can’t sleep. And I’m in the lab. It’s right downstairs, if you need me.”

As quickly as he’d filled in the hole in your chest, he’d hollowed it out again. You let your hands drop from him. “Okay.” What more could you do? What more could you say? Though at the door, you tried. “Are you sure you don’t wanna talk about it?” 

“Just a nightmare. Don’t worry about me. Go back to sleep.” He left in the next instant. 

And you were lost again. 

[thegreatcorpus]

Leyte Normal University

College of Arts and Sciences

Language and Literature Unit

EVALUATION OF MEDIA CONTENT TRHOUGH LANGUAGE USE

A Concept Paper

Submitted by:

FRNZA MAE G. ARCEGA

JOSHUA D. DAGAMI

MARY JANE LABUTAP

BAEL AE2-1

Submitted to:

MR. ROGELIO TICOY, JR.

Instructor, Language and Media

July 15, 2020

DEFINITION OF TERMS

The term “media linguistics” has been formed based on the combination of two key components “media” and “linguistics”, the subject of this new discipline is the study of language functioning in the sphere of mass communication. In other words, media linguistics deals with overall complex research of a particular social field of language usage. (Luginbühl, 2015)

Language registers refer to the levels of formality are used in different situations and scenarios. It is important to be conscious on how we are going to use language appropriately in presenting our messages, when to use a specific register and in what type of media platform it should be used. Topic, audience, purpose and location should be taken into consideration when choosing a register. According to Nordquist (2019), “there are five existing language registers. It includes frozen/static register, formal register, consultative register, casual register and intimate register.

Language style also known as stylistics, is the study of style used in literary, and verbal language and the effect the writer/speaker wishes to communicate to the reader/hearer. It attempts to establish principles capable of explaining the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language. It strengthens the contact with the reader and heightens their awareness. (Lamichhane, 2017)

Grammar refers to the structural regulations and rules that govern the construction of phrases, sentences and words in any language. This is because they are extremely important for the communication that is desired. Although, some might argue that correct grammar and spelling does not really matter, especially in advertising, like what Paul Suggett (2010, as mentioned in Sommerfield, 2014) statement “A sentence that is structured beautifully, obeying all the laws, and bylaws, of the English language, is not what advertising is all about. In fact, in advertising you don’t even need to use real words, good sentence structure, and proper punctuation, or obey any of the rules that were drummed into you in school.” Indeed, using grammar seems like an uphill battle, but media content without it is a suicide.

Semiotics, also called semiology, is the study of signs and sign-using behavior. The Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, one of its founders, defined it as the study of “the life signs within the society”. On the other hand, American Philosopher Charles Sandres Pierce defined sign as “something which stands to somebody for something” and contributed its categorization into three namely: icon, index and symbol. He added that a sign can never have a definite meaning, for the meaning must be continuously qualified. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020)

Pragmatics deals with utterances, by which we will mean specific events, the intentional acts of speakers at times and places, typically involving language. Logic and semantics traditionally deal with properties of types of expressions, and not with properties that differ from token to token, or use to use, or, as we shall say, from utterance to utterance, and vary with the particular properties that differentiate them. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019)

INTRODUCTION

Media is deeply rooted in our lives that it is significant in our personal lives, as well as in business, politics and society. Its importance has grown exponentially. It seems like the world is lifeless without it.

Rapid development of the print and the electronic media, quick growth of virtual communications and the Internet have enormously changed people’s lives, giving stimuli for the development of the whole range of information society theories. (Luginbühl, 2015) It creates an overwhelming feeling which made people to take every information that is served on the table. Oftentimes, it misleads people that is why it is important to critically think and evaluate media content.

Patton (1987) defined evaluation as “a process that critically examines something. It involves collecting and analyzing information which include its activities, characteristics and outcomes. It is done in order to make judgments and to ensure that they are as effective as they can be. It can help us identify media content.

This paper aims to provide criteria that will help media users in evaluating media content of different types of media through language use.

DICUSSION

Media content can be evaluated through representation, audience, institutions, language, ideology, narrative and genre, but we are only going to focus on how language is used in these media types. It is also called as media linguistics.

There are six different types of media: Print Media, Visual Media, Electronic Broadcasting Media, Outdoor Media, Transit Media and Digital Media. Each media type will be evaluated on how language is used, specifically language registers, language style, grammar, semiotics and pragmatics.

PRINT MEDIA

Print media represents the oldest and the most widespread type of mass media published on paper. It includes books, circulars, journals, lithographs, memos, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and periodicals. (Oxford Reference, 2020)

Evaluating print media content in terms of:

Registers: Papers with an international audience usually use formal register.

Stylistics: It follows formal type of writing. it also uses a hierarchy of information to guide the consumer’s attention towards the most important statement/topic. Claims or statements are supported with evidence either in text or figure. Author’s information is usually detailed to make it easy for prospects to contact them and it holds them accountable for any problems on their published article.

Grammar: In this type of media, correct grammar and spelling should be observed. Based on the study conducted by Appelman & Bolls (2011), grammatical errors can affect the credibility of news stories and the amount of time and effort required to read them. Such errors increases reading difficulty and lower readers’ perception of credibility.

Semiotics: Effective print media design is bold and clear. Fonts should be easy to read and high quality graphics should work together. A few prominent graphics will do a much better job that having numerous elements scattered throughout the page. Contrast is everything. It highlights the most important parts of the message to create some visual appeal. Monotone color palette or tones that are very similar to each other are refrained from using.

Pragmatics: The main function of headlines and titles is to inform the reader briefly about the text that follows. They also signal of the paper’s attitude to the facts reported. Also semantically, the headline can be interpreted due to its literal meaning and inferences that readers reach depending on their cognitive knowledge. In order to demonstrate the meaning in its full efficiency, pragmatic aspects are also helpful in specifying the purpose of the article by making appropriate sense. The writer can use different stylistic devices such as discourse markers and connectors, metaphors, rhetorical questions, and emotive words to facilitate the interpretation of the utterances and attract readers’ attention. (Ismail, 2016)

VISUAL MEDIA

Visual Media as defined by the International Visual Literacy Association is ‘a group of vision competencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences. (Welsh & Wright, 2010) In addition to this, it is as a set of competencies that ‘enable a visually literate person to discriminate and interpret the visual actions, objects, and/or creative use of these competencies, we are able to communicate with others. (Debes, 1969) it includes images, paintings, videos and infographics.

Evaluating visual media content in terms of:

Registers: Papers with an international audience usually use formal or casual register to attract a wider scope of audience. Lasquite (n.d.) stated, that visual communication is a key component in visual content marketing. Every marketer understands the value of sending the right message to consumers.

Stylistics: Content of this type of media is not going to be plain and boring if they are full of interesting characters and places, if they are connected to themes like good vs. evil etc. and if they have engaging prose that the audience can appreciate.

Grammar: Bradley (2010) said that design elements are like letters and words. When we add design principles and apply them to our elements, our words, we form a visual grammar. As we learn to use both we enable ourselves to communicate visually. In life we can communicate through the spoken word or through gestures. In design we’re bound by a visual language. Even the words on the page are made up of characters of type which are abstract shapes. Written language itself is a visual representation of spoken language. Bradley also stated that the  visual grammar, is the context within which we study design principles. When we learn to use girds or better understand typography or color we are doing so in order to communicate more effectively with our audience. The principles are the trees. Visual grammar is the forest.

Semiotics: Parsa (n.d.) stated that in visual semiotics iconic signs look like its object. They are more ‘motivated’ signs. The indexical signs draw attention to the thing to which it refers. The symbol signs, - e.g. a red rose is a symbol of ‘passion’ in Valentine’s Day and means ‘love’– are unmotivated or arbitrary. In a different culture this color of flower may not signify ‘passion’ or ‘love’. Also, any information, if not directly provided, is gained via a process of interpretation. Texts are not always produced recognizable codes in a communicative process. Usage of symbolic narratives, metaphors and metonymy may restrain the comprehension and signification of the text. In other words, in the exploration of the connotations and the associations, one requires to “make interpretations”. It also includes the material used, camera angles and color filters.

Pragmatics: David Lodge, writing in the Paradise News, says that pragmatics gives humans "a fuller, deeper, and generally more reasonable account of human language behavior." Without pragmatics, there is often no understanding of what language actually means, or what a person truly means when she is speaking. The context—the social signs, the image, body language, and tone of voice (the pragmatics)—is what makes utterances clear or unclear to the speaker and her listeners.

ELECTRONIC BROADCASTING MEDIA

Electronic media is the media that one can share on any electronic device for the audiences viewing, internet to transmit facts, skills, understanding, knowledge and appreciation with the aims of to attract general publics in general and marketers in particular. Popular examples of electronic media are television and radio. (Wikipedia, 2020)

Evaluating electronic broadcasting media content in terms of:

Registers: Electronic broadcasting media sometimes use formal register because less rigid but still constrained, where communication is expected to be respectful, uninterrupted, and restrained. Slang is never used and contractions are rare. However, it also uses consultative register. often in conversation when they are speaking with someone who has specialized knowledge or who is offering advice

Stylistics: Electronic broadcasting media is combined with a general negative view against excessive foul language has tempered electronic broadcasting into a much more “family friendly” media form. They use electromechanical energy or electronics for public to access the content. Main resources of electronic media are CD-ROM, online content, slide presentations, audio recordings, video recordings and multimedia presentations. Emotional appeal and repetition is highly observed.

Grammar: Electronic broadcasting media encompasses any form of media that is primarily consumed through listening. The grammars that they used in conveying the information to the audience are appealing and interested in the ears and eyes of the viewer.

Semiotics: Electronic broadcasting media uses connotation since they are designed to generate culturally-significant meanings. Iconic sign is usually used in advertisements of this media type. Advertisers do this, not only through repetition, but also through the combining of symbols, bringing words, images and music together into one meaningful and coherent composition.

Pragmatics: Its language contains plural codes, which interact to create new meanings or messages. Electronic broadcasting media uses the language without any opinion to the audience and convey the information just like they are interacting to the audience.

OUTDOOR MEDIA

Outdoor media is typically consisting of any advertising seen outside of the home, and is primarily grouped into a few specific categories such Billboards, posters and transit to name a few. Outdoor advertisements are the best medium to inform the moving population. Once an advertisement board is installed at a place, it usually remains there for a fairly longer period. What is best in outdoor media is that it can be displayed at a place where best impact can be created. (Nguyen, 2020)

Evaluating outdoor media content in terms of:

Registers: It uses casual register because it is probably use when you consider how you talk with other people, often in a group setting—marketers to be specific. Use of slang, contractions, and vernacular grammar is all common in Outdoor media. Also, Outdoor media uses the static register wherein it contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices.

Stylistics: Outdoor media often uses public notices in advertising to different locations. It also uses figurative languages to make their advertisement more reliable and catchier to the commuters or even to the tourists. Outdoor media uses visual techniques to make the viewers more attentive and languages are more powerful in visualizing their ads for the commuters and tourists to have a desirable view.

Grammar: Just like any advertising and marketing strategy, outdoor advertising requires research and preparation so that their use of grammar may not be mistaken because it can affect their viewer’s insight about their advertisement.

Semiotics: When it comes to branding and advertising, semiotics can provide some amazing insights. In some cases, the sign can be an exact representation of the thing being signified, while in other cases, it may be a symbol associated with it. In outdoor media, they use image to visualize the product being sold. They also use word to convey a message with the same effectiveness as an entire picture. It uses the Rule of Thirds and The Golden Mean.

Pragmatics: Outdoor media uses words and images to advertise their products and the words and pictures that they are using, connects to the understanding of the people. The words and images they used are more attractive, catchy and have a bigger size for their viewers to be more interested in their advertisement.

TRANSIT MEDIA

Transit media refers to advertising placed in, on, or around modes of public transportation: buses, subways, and taxis, as well as at bus, train, and subway stations. Transit media can be a great way to reach a really diverse audience: families traveling to daycares, professionals heading to work, tourists navigating a new town, or even students making their way to a local coffee shop. (Hendricks, 2020)

Evaluating transit media content in terms of:

Registers: Conversational register is often used in this type of media because of its target audience.

Stylistics: Placing a message outside targets a larger audience and is recognized by three quarters of passing individuals. It serves as a last minute reminder or as impulse motivator at pricely a time when real and potential consumers are on the move. Exterior bus posters, displayed on the front, back, and sides of the vehicle, offer advertisers high exposure, particularly in largeurban areas. There are commuters and tourists, or people in cabs, rental cars, and on foot who can see the rolling billboard go by. According to "The Complete Guide to Creative Out-Of-Home Media Forms," bus exteriors are available in 80 to 85 percent of the top 100 markets in the United States on more than 36,500 buses. The bus exteriors provide "mass audience exposures" that are repeated and reinforced as they follow the same routes every day. The more innovative, intriguing and humorous it is, the better.

Grammar: The message should be brief consisting of at least 3-5 words.

Semiotics: It also helps that nearly all transit ads are available at eye level with large graphics and text. The message should be legible. Colors are used to contrast each other. It builds a recognizable format or layout that catches the briefest eyes contact.

Pragmatics: Every transit agency that advertises has guidelines dealing with "objectionable" material. The problem comes in defining what might fall into that category. Seventy percent of the respondents indicated that they had formal, written guidelines addressing ad content. The restrictions differ throughout the transit industry, but generally include some variation of the following prohibited content: illegal, indecent, or immoral ads; political, alcohol, or tobacco ads; libelous, obscene, or profane ads; ads that ridicule individuals or groups of people; advocacy of or opposition to a religion, denomination, tenet, or belief; violent, criminal, or anti-social behavior; false, misleading, or deceptive ads; adult materials and services; explicit sexual material; pornography or businesses that traffic in pornography; and advertising that appears as graffiti, gang signs, or symbols.

DIGITAL MEDIA

Digital media are any media that are encoded in machine-readable formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified and preserved on digital electronics devices. Examples of digital media include software, digital images, digital video, video games, web pages and websites, social media, digital data and databases, digital audio such as MP3, electronic documents and electronic books. (Richard, 2013 as mentioned in Wikepedia, 2020).

Evaluating digital media content in terms of:

Registers: It uses casual register or consultative register because it is probably use when you consider how you talk with other people, often in a group setting—marketers to be specific.

Stylistics: User-generated content raises issues of privacy, credibility, civility and compensation for cultural, intellectual and artistic contributions. The spread of digital media, and the wide range of literacy and communications skills necessary to use it effectively, have deepened the digital divide between those who have access to digital media and those who don't. Each digital media network has its own intended purpose and audience. Understanding this and matching your content and tone to the proper social media outlet is imperative for success..

Grammar: Gumpart & Cathcart examined how new media develop their own grammars, the way individual acquire media literacy, and the effect of media literacy on ways people relate to the world and each other. It concludes that people develop different states of media consciousness based upon the… media grammars, and that particular consciousness produce media gaps which separate people.

Semiotics: When it comes to graphics, it uses color psychology. Photos and videos can boost your social media strategy. Tweets that feature images earn 150 percent more retweets are favorited 89 percent more and lead to 18 percent more clicks. Typing in all capital letters is visually alarming, they also communicate that you’re upset (and yelling) about something. It should be avoided. When used correctly, hashtags will increase your online visibility and followers. When used in excess, it looks spammy and becomes ineffective.

Pragmatics: Its language contains speech acts like constatives (assertive, concessives, suggestive, suppositive, responsive), directives (request, question & requirement), expressives (thank, accept, reject, negative opinion & positive opinion) and attachments (link, code & log).

CONCLUSION

Media has evolved rapidly over the last couple of centuries. These changes brought a lot of convenience in accessing different types of information, from typical newspapers to our smartphones. It provided an ocean of information these days, but “we need to be critical enough not to drown in hoaxes and misinformation.” Hence, it is our duty to be responsible consumers of information, regardless of media type, and to examine every small detail we see and hear on the media. Indeed, “media is a blessing for humans as it plays a vital role in our personal lives and many other walks of our lives.” It lies upon us who decide whether “media is a blessing or a curse.”

REFERENCES:

Gray, J. (2008). How to move into moving media: Transit Media. Journal of Marketing. Retrieved from https://journals.co.za/content/mfsa1/2008/04/EJC74350

Gumpert, G. & Cathcart, R. (2009). Media grammars, generations, and media gaps. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038509360059

Appelman, A. & Bolls, p. (2011). Article Recall, Credibility Lower with Grammar Errors. Newspaper Research Journal. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/073953291103200205

Herrmann, E. (2015). Language Register: What is it and why does it matter in education? Retrieved from https://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/language-register-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter/education

Nordquist, R. (2019). What is Register in Linguistics? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/register-language-style-1692038

Eilders,C. (2016). Print Media. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/9781118541555.wbiepc193#accessDenialLayout

Wikipedia (2020). Digital Media. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/digital_media

Wikipedia (2020). Electronic Media. Retrieved fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_media

Oaks, D. (2011). Rethinking the role of grammar in advertising and marketing curriculum. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/073953291103200205?journalCode=nrja#:~:text=It%20was%20observed%20that%20grammar,retention%20and%20low%20perceived%20credibility.

Nguyen, G. (2020). Types of Outdoor Media. Retrieved from https://penji.co/types-of-outdoor-advertising/

Oxford Reference (2020). Print media. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100346392

Lewis, J. (2020). Semiotics in Advertising. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-semiotics-advertising-38593.html#:~:text=Semiotics%20are%20frequently%20used%20in,symbol%20that%20signifies%20something%20else.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (2020). Semiotics. Retrieved from https://encyclopaediabritannica./semiotics

Authors:

Frenza Mae G. Arcega

Joshua D. Dagami

Mary Jane Labutap