#the ada learns their lesson after this

[junosmindpalace]

Besides this being horridly sad i couldn’t help but think that atsushi randomly reveals something extremely tragic about his life every now and then. its not often which is why it makes his statements all the more startling

[agendabymooner]

MASTERLIST by agendabymooner

note: what i had done so far... i think?

legends/genre:

a = angst g = general fic hc = hurt/comfort h = humour

s = smut (minors, dni) mc = mature content (minors, dni) f = fluff

ALSO CHECK OUT:

MOONY'S CHARACTER DIRECTORY

MOONY'S FILIPINO CHARACTERS DIRECTORY

alex albon (aa23)

keeper, smau: polly berkshire has obscure interactions with her thirsty boyfriend and it's safe to say that they love each other.

fernando alonso (fa14)

the breakup and makeup series

time to rock and roll, fic: the first time beatrice staedtlander and fernando alonso had broken up. (hc)

heaven, smau: back in 2000s, fernando alonso and beatrice anastasia 'trish' staedtlander were every racing and wrestling fans' couple. years after, trish alonso became a mother and a wife... and the grid's crush of the season. fernando was certainly not happy so what's a better way to remind everyone that he was hers? (f, g, h)

from the ground up, smau: tino and tiago alonso were the twins that trish had given birth to at the age of 40, and everyone understood now why she didn't make it to the 2024 canadian gp. (f)

bonnie and the fame

maneater, smau: bonnie catherine sutton was carlos sainz's ex-girlfriend who returned to the f1 scene as a different woman. turns out, she's fernando alonso's fiancée (f)

ego, smau: never underestimate a woman's self-esteem, it might end up wounding you more than it would her.

jenson button (jb22)

the mr. darcy type, smau: much like the popular love interest, jenson should have known better than to say things that wouldn't impress a woman he grew interested in. OR ada abbott made sure that he worked hard for her time and attention. (f)

affection, blurb: in which, jenson learned that he should just say it without being a little too drunk.

pierre gasly (pg10)

newsflash, smau: ensley soleil doesn’t like playboys. too bad, pierre gasly’s down bad for her (attention and love). (f, g, h)

lowkey, smau: fans thought that pierre moved on from ensley four months after publicly declaring his (love?) for her. funnily enough... (f, g, h)

indigo, chatfic + smau: there's really no reason for pierre gasly to be jealous over some man that ensley wrote 'high school in jakarta' about. not when she wrote one or more songs about the frenchman. (f)

high school in jakarta, fic: meeting ensley’s close friends would also mean that he’d have to meet her high school sweetheart, who he believed he couldn’t compete against until ensley ensured that his two-day attendance wouldn’t be spoiled by some guy who couldn’t let go of some memories she couldn’t even remember. 

dancing with the devil, smau: ensley soleil doesn't care about what people are saying about her relationship with pierre especially now that she's married to him. (f)

do i make you nervous, blurb: lesson learned: just date her first rather than being friendly in the bed.

lewis hamilton (lh44)

stevie and lewis (hearth sister!ofc)

thick and thin, smau + fic: lewis should know better than underestimating her and her capabilities to yearn for him for years. (hc)

where the bad girls are (kpop idol!ofc)

lifted, smau: lewis is married to a kpop idol who happened to be one of the girls to shape the image of female groups in the korean pop community.

melody series (x ofc)

summary: with her sharp eyes focused on her audience, a burlesque performer who went under the name of melody returned to rythme romantique, an entertainment lounge which exclusively caters to the wealthiest people of monaco — or in this case, to the people with a status that are recognized by all. her three exclusive performances were meant to be a closure for her connections in the principality. still, a certain formula one driver saw it as an opportunity to reconnect with his former flame after two years of her absence. felicity vos learned that this was a rich man’s world and that he could do whatever he wanted, but she also realized that the agreement they settled on years ago was corrupted the moment he expressed his love for her. 

one, million dollar man: monaco was a world of glitz and glamour that she left two years ago. returning to the principality clearly was a huge mistake as she found herself talking to the man who swore to nothing but his love for her.

two, this is what makes us girls: "decorum isn't something you can buy with money or fame." or what did lewis really want from her and why did he show up on the second night of her performance?

charles leclerc (cl16)

of long lines and names, fic: five kids with (almost) five names under six years. OR the three pregnancies that charles had witnessed told him how motherhood and memories could come in two sets of twins and a boy that looked so much like him. (f)

the leclerc daycare, fic: before his last set of twins were born, charles had to watch his boys on his own (not exactly by himself when he's got esteban and pierre acting as his right hand men). (f)

lando norris (ln4)

london boy, smau: nicola 'cola' alessandro moved to britain and what's a better way to introduce yourself to england than taking a trip around with a certain mclaren driver? (f, g, h)

i think he knows, smau: grazia nichols published her debut novel based off formula one, and a fan could have sworn that the the book bf - nolan langford - was based off of lando's character as a driver altogether. (f, g, h)

honey, honey smau series (x ofc)

summary: hannah-sue ‘honey’ lewis is so much like her sideman brother with the exception of the fact that she didn’t watch formula one as much as she used to back when she had her crush on mercedes driver michael schumacher in 2010.

introduction

one, who tf is lando norris: she knows who she idolizes (and have a crush on; mason mount), she knows that she’s looking forward to getting the hell out of the university after two years of her masters degree program, and she knows that she doesn’t care about the formula one teams that aren't mercedes amg - she also knows she cares about mick schumacher.

esteban ocon (eo31)

the royal wildcard, smau: the british media's good at getting the juiciest details of gossip from the palace, but much to their dismay, princess albertine spencer followed the footsteps of her brother harry and had done an amazing job at hiding her marriage with a certain alpine driver for three months. (f, g, h)

the royal resemblance, smau: albertine ocon lived to give her estranged family something to talk about because of her physical appearance that could be confused with her mother's ghost. too bad, ditty ocon was born into the world with the same heart attack-inducing features.

sergio perez (sp11)

she's beauty, she's grace, smau: in which carmella ayala perez, the miss universe 2018 winner, tied the knot with checo after their five years of relationship and the birth of their second child.

oscar piastri (op81)

jollibee, madrid and all that romantic fiasco, smau: paloma san pedro is carlos sainz's cousin-in-law who also introduced oscar to his newly found filipino fast food chain addiction. safe to say that he bought a ticket last minute just so he can obsess over her, too.

kimi raikkonen (kr7)

stop the world i wanna get off with you, smau: vera 'coppa' coppola-raikkonen is the only one who can make the iceman talk a lot. she's also the only one who can make the chatty versions of him as their three older children (romania, rooney and johann-lauri) make their presence known to the racing community. (f, g, h)

daniel ricciardo (dr3)

rush series (x måneskin member!ofc)

read your diary, smau: it's 2021 and everyone thinks that lester and daniel are dating. lesson learned: never underestimate a fan's investigation skills. (g)

mamma mia, smau: an interview with jimmy fallon gives a brief idea of how lester and daniel came to be. (g)

mamma mia (again), smau: a youtube playlist was created to compile clips of danny talking way too much about his beloved girlfriend (f)

gossip, smau: everyone thinks lester's only here to be a formula one girlfriend with a bad reputation. it's not her fault she's confident. (mc, hc, h)

kool kids, smau: lester and daniel are going to new york to see a musical... while babysitting their "kid" (feat. lando norris) (g, h)

timezone, fic: lester wasn't normally like this, but she's more than willing to pay twice the price just to get to the next flight to where he wanted her: his arms, her home. (hc)

if not for you, smau: messages exchanged between lester and others as she takes care of the wolff children and an ex with the poorest decisions to have existed. (feat. lando norris, max verstappen, charles leclerc and characters from a story) (f, g, h)

baby said, smau: many tweets are posted that they don't often mean. their fans thought that his marriage proposal was one of them. (f, g, h)

supermodel, smau: how not to cry when you're talking about the man who'd give you the wedding that you dreamed of? (f, g, h)

rush series: wedding special

london bridge, smau: the alessandro-ricciardo wedding week is nothing of a peaceful week, and the monday only proved that thought right. (feat. f1 drivers) (f, h) - wedding special 1

fergalicious, smau: the grid singles need to touch some grass… or in lando’s case, go swimming. (feat. f1 drivers) (h) - wedding special 2

l'azienda di famiglia (e le donnole dell'isola), smau + fic: the alessandro family arrived and lando and george found themselves alone with two of the sisters. (feat. lando norris and george russell) (f, g) - wedding special 3

rush: mrs. ricciardo special

part of you, smau: mrs. lester ricciardo asks her followers what to get her husband for his 35th birthday. little did danny know, she’s already got one ready to surprise him (f, g)

when emma falls in love, smau: as her pregnancy progressed, lester ricciardo made sure that her sanity wouldn't go the other way as she posted a thread of journal entries talking about her pregnancy. (f, h)

slipping through my fingers, smau: beau ricciardo was his dad's carbon copy and his mom's little heartbreaker.

george russell (gr63)

his family and her lover, smau: eleanora 'nora' alessandro was more than happy for george's willingness to step up as her children's father regardless of how people poorly reacted on their relationship.

carlos sainz jr. (cs55)

ride home, smau: the ferrari driver accidentally outed himself as a married man, so mona magdalena sainz stepped in to say hi to his loyal fans. (f, g, h) (extra)

dear, smau: nobody loved each other more than magda and carlos sainz. OR a series of tweets in which magda and carlos never took each other seriously. (h)

mick schumacher (ms47)

she's everything... and he's just mick, smau: barbara 'barbie' blanco is the vettel family's foster child that gradually turned to kimi vettel's nanny and mick's crush? (f, g)

"besties", smau: everyone swore that mick and barbie are more than "babysitting pardners" (f)

who is kenough, smau: mick nearly took the piss from arthur leclerc after the posts that the monegasque had of barbie. too bad, mick was already hers before arthur could even try.

kenergy unfolded, fic: written version of who is kenough OR arthur leclerc was only scheming just so mick could do something about revealing his relationship with barbie.

lance stroll (ls18)

gotta be you, smau: bora mckinnon made her presence known in the paddock one year after lance broke up with her. now, they're all over the media because of his presence in her three birthday celebrations. the question still stands: are they getting back together?

yuki tsunoda (yt22)

line without a hook, smau: pia ellis misses her mystery bf that everyone thought to be her delusions. it turns out he's a formula one driver who definitely misses her too.

max verstappen (mv1)

to loathe and to love series (x ofc) (wip)

summary: there is a massive difference between the two words, but sylvie was more than willing to blur out the line if it means for her to spend some time with what others called her soulmate, max verstappen.

one, it’s time to go: sylvie attended a christmas party and couldn’t seem to do what she normally did on the paddock: avoid max (a)

two, closure: her memories haunted her so much that the red bull team principal thought of her to be incompetent, so it was only ideal of max to face the music too. (a)

three, goodnight n go: she wasn't sure what was more surprising: toto's presence on her graduation celebration or max's expensive graduation gifts. (f)

four, gorgeous: there's nothing more satisfying than seeing christian horner own up to his own mistake. that, and max's office-warming gift that he dropped off in sylvie's new on-site office.

five, cinema: sylvie was left feeling unsure when she and max did things that friends normally wouldn't do after she was broken up with by another man. (hc, mc, s)

six, satellite: max verstappen might've avoided talking about what they had done before all of this, but he was certain he wouldn't get out of his way just to ignore her as he swore not to her one way or another ever again. (a, hc)

seven, mean: sylvie found herself with a million and a half pounds and winning against the boys who brought her racing career to an early end.

eight, long story short: they're friends, they said. they bought a house and adopted a dog together, they definitely did.

nine, mastermind: max wasn't going to admit that he was jealous. he wasn't going to tell her that he sabotaged her blind date, either. not that she didn't know.

ten, comfort crowd: ah yes, the first monday of may. when everyone speculated that sylvie was merely using him and when she finally admitted to missing him for the past four years.

eleven, matilda: they don't know much, maybe, but they know how they'll raise their children away from the toxicity that they grew up in, all thanks to their fathers who did nothing but set expectations. (hc)

extra: matilda volume two, smau: set years after the tltl series in which sylvie and max have the most adorable set of kids called emilia, lila and maximilian. (f)

to loathe and to love: extras (x ofc)

lost in japan, smau: just two lost souls (with a tour guide) travelling to japan to make up for the childhood they missed. (f)

sebastian vettel (sv5)

crazy rich wife, smau: everyone (some twitter account) wonders where the recently retired german driver had gone to after the 2022 season. thank god for bel vettel, his fans now know that he’s still alive and is being spoiled and pampered by his wife. (f, g)

sweet spoiled husband (+ son), smau: mick schumacher is a grown man that both bel and seb treat like their own child. (f, g)

sweet spoiled schatzi, smau: bel and seb introduce the newest addition to their little family, and mick seems to love kimi vettel as much as a godfather loves his godchild. (f)

sweet little similarities, smau: bel and everyone could tell that kimi vettel was becoming more like his father, sebastian's, carbon copy as days went on. (f, g, h)

sebastian and sons (and soufflés), fic: day in the life of a retired sebastian vettel, featuring his kids kimi and barbie (and a nervous mick). (f)

toto wolff

colour me your colour series (x ofc) (wip)

summary: tilly marie nearly loses faith in her passion as she refuses to listen to everyone who told her to quit. everyone but one. and it’s the man she met years ago at a racing event she didn’t want to attend. who would have thought that her father’s partial ownership of three brands could take her to the zone of Mercedes and meet the love of her life?

one, what a beautiful sight that was: it was 2006 and she wanted nothing but to finish her research paper. their curiosity led them to a fifteen minute conversation that they would need to continue eight years after. (g)

two, tilly marie wants to go to hell: it's 2014 and she attended the british gp as a communication liaison for red bull. she didn't know that the man she met years ago was the team principal of mercedes, the rival team that her best friend drives for. lewis hamilton was more than amused to see her flustered, if you were to ask him. (g)

three, juliet's hit list: how can one give the heart eyes? daniel and lewis found tilly and toto flirting behind the cameras and behind the press audience and decided to mess with them. (g)

four, fast lane but not the race weekend kind: daniel and lewis might as well be attending a sleepover if they keep asking tilly about her relationship with toto. (g)

five, how to romance and cry in the same day: tilly goes on a date with toto for the first time and learns about her father's intention to pass ownership to her. (a, f, g)

six, love on camera: tilly and toto have a bad habit of flirting not so subtly.

seven, age is just a number and love is just a shame: tilly, while she believed her mother was right about the age difference between her and a certain mercedes team principal, is sure that she isn't falling fast and hard for him.

colour me your colour: extras (x ofc)

the paddock's resident it girl, smau: besides from owning three of mercedes' competitors in the track and being the mercedes team principal's wife, she's also known as the cool girl of the paddock for her taste in fashion and husband. (f)

the paddock's lucky husband, smau: with him being spoon-fed with love from his children and wife, toto really couldn't ask for more. OR tilly wolff liked to talk about fashion but her family? she might as well write a whole book about them. (f)

the paddock's resident menace and the dame, smau: tilly wolff was presented with a damehood and her daughter tia, the girl who tends to act on her mischievous way (all thanks to toto), celebrated her 7th birthday during the silverstone gp week. fans recall her best moments in sky sports and media overall.

f1 drivers (general)

9 to 5 series (x characters) (spin-off of cmyc and rush)

summary: lorelei hester ‘lester’ alessandro is a bassist first and daniel ricciardo's partner second. but it seems like another role is added to her resume as she begins her weekend in baku as toto wolff’s children’s babysitter.

the original five and the playlist

one, baby names and text messages: lester receives a text message from an unknown number, only for her to offer max verstappen's seat to her boyfriend.

two, max's lowered iq and linkedin profiles: max tries to defend himself as he experiences the morning wrath of lester.

three, the most toto coded children: toto gets ready for the baku weekend by styling his daughter's hair and thinking that he could just stay at home and talk business with his kids.

four, papa, soren and tia's promise hug: lester's more worried that she'll mess up her duties and upset the father of the two wolff cubs.

five, the little weapons of destruction distraction: the first half of her babysitting day consisted of reading too much, learning the word 'accident' and daniel ricciardo being a bad influence on toto wolff's shy son.

[mychoombatheroomba]

Firing Range

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 10

As the weeks go by, you and Leon get closer.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Index

Weeks went by, quick as the slash of a knife. Leon learned to think of each day as a step by step - get through each task, each lesson, then worry about the next. He didn’t give himself a chance to pause, or let the fatigue set in. Not if he could help it. What had him out of breath once, now he could weather with greater and greater ease. He could feel the change in his body; muscles hardening, his reflexes improving. His legs would carry him further, and his aim was steadier. He could feel himself being honed into something sharper, and there was some grim satisfaction in that. Even so, he preferred to focus on the other changes those weeks brought. 

Changes like the way you, on an unremarkable day, had set your tray down beside his at lunch, and didn’t look bothered when he did the same the following day. Or the way the conversations the two of you shared had slowly been growing longer. Many of those conversations were about the present - ways to improve, not just with knives, but with many aspects of STRATCOM training. Sometimes you would discuss music. Movies. Other interests. Leon clung to every piece of information you would give him, wanting to know more about you. 

And, of course, some conversations were about the past. Those ones were more painful, but no less important to Leon. 

“Is it alright,” he’d begun one night, a few days after your initial talk, “if I ask you about what happened that night?” 

You hadn’t looked too thrilled, but you didn’t look surprised, either. “You can ask,” you said, “but I may not answer.” 

“You said you weren’t in Raccoon City when you saw bioweapons. Where were you?” 

You’d blinked, braced yourself. “On base in Finland.” 

“Was it the same night you got hurt?” 

“Yes.”

“But . . . you were stabbed, weren’t you? With a knife?” 

“I was.” 

“But it wasn’t a bioweapon?” 

“No.”

“So then how did it happen?”

 You frowned, and whatever your reasons, Leon knew not to press further after you answered: “Pass.”  

A few days later, you had a question for him. 

“Do you know how the outbreak started in Raccoon City?” 

He’d been told not to speak on the matter. Why, he couldn’t say. Still, when it came to you, Leon decided that you deserved to know.

“Umbrella. The pharmaceutical company. They were experimenting with viral weaponry underneath the city.” Thinking of what he’d seen made Leon tense. Grip his knife tighter. 

“Umbrella.” You’d looked a little distant as you heard the words. “So, they . . . what, infected everyone up top?” 

“Not intentionally, I think. It was an accident.” And then he told you what he’d seen of the camera footage - the doctor, the armed men sent after him, and the broken vials of the viruses. “Rats found the vials. I think they spread it.” 

“And the men that went after the doctor. Do you know who they were working for?” 

“No, I’m not sure. He knew they were coming, though.” 

You’d hummed, thinking. “And you found all this on security camera footage? From inside the Umbrella labs?” 

“Yeah.”

“What the hell were you doing down there?” 

“I was looking for a sample of the virus. I . . .” he’d paused, choking on the memory of a woman in a red dress pressing her lips to his, and then holding a gun to his heart. “I thought it would help bring Umbrella down.” 

“Did you get it?” 

“. . . Pass.” 

You respected the end of the conversation just as much as Leon did, and just like that, the two of you had a system. An easy way out. A way to jump ship, to stop either of you from being lost in the memories. 

He told you the abstract. Zombies. Umbrella. The city being lost. 

He kept other things closer to his chest. Marvin, the glimpse into the life that could have been. Claire, the girl he’d come to respect more than almost anyone else. Sherry, the child who he’d given up his freedom for. Ada, the woman who he’d lost, not that he’d ever really had her to begin with. You didn’t need to know about them, and he didn’t need to know everyone you’d lost, either.

It felt good to have someone who understood. Someone who had been through that same hell. You didn’t pity him or what he’d been through, and what questions you asked weren’t an interrogation. Even if he wished that neither of you had been through what you’d been through, or seen what you’d seen, he was glad to have you - for company, and for help. The latter became all the more true when Krauser announced that Leon’s squad would be going through assessments. 

“Already?” you asked, when Leon mentioned it over lunch. “He’s moving fast.” 

“What’s he ‘assessing’? He wasn’t very clear,” Leon said, glad for the conversation taking his mind off the tasteless food he shoveled into his mouth. 

“Everything,” you said before taking a sip of water. 

“Everything.” Leon huffed. “Everything ‘soldier’ or everything ‘they’re going to make me retake the SAT?” 

You deadpanned in the way you usually would, raising a brow and almost - almost - letting the side of your mouth curl up into a smirk. “Fitness, marksmanship, combat. Everything he’s taught you so far . . .” you paused, considering something, “. . . and maybe some things he hasn’t.” 

“That is . . . not a whole lot more helpful.” 

“Well, giving away everything would defeat the point of the test.” 

“Right. So, if we pass, then what?” 

“Then you move to the next phase of training.” You took another sip. Your eyes didn’t break from his own. “Same as my unit.” 

The idea shouldn’t have made him as excited as it did. Advanced training meant more pain. More demanding exercises. More blood and bruises. It also meant that he would be one step closer to being ready. It meant that he would be able to manage whatever came his way. It meant, perhaps, that he would be in like company more often than just mealtimes and personal hours. That shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did. 

“So, maybe we branch out,” you offered, interrupting his thoughts as you rested your arms against the table. “Focus on more than just knives.” 

And that was how Leon found himself at the firing range that evening, holding a handgun instead of a knife. He might have hated how natural it felt to him, a few months ago. Now, it was a welcome relief. There was even some twisted excitement to it, because he’d agreed to this not only for the practice. You were at his side, holding your own gun like you’d been born with one in your hand. Part of him wouldn’t have been surprised if that were really the case. 

The two of you had headphones on, though something told Leon that both of you had long since begun to damage your hearing with the sound of gunfire. Still, any words would be muffled, so you didn’t speak. You just tilted your head towards the targets downrange. 

That was all the signal Leon needed. 

Live rounds. STRATCOM wanted the best from their recruits and didn’t mind fronting the money for the munitions. It meant that an officer stood on duty by the door, there to observe. Neither of you paid him much mind. 

There were twelve rounds in the magazine of his gun. Twelve times, as he pointed the gun forward, he squeezed the trigger. Twelve little ringing sounds as the shells fell to the floor. 

When those twelve rounds were fired, Leon felt a little swell of pride in him as he looked through twelve holes punched through the target. Not quite dead center on all of them, but damned close. 

He couldn’t help but look over at you, grinning like a bandit because, at last, he got to prove that he was good at something. If he was being honest with himself, that was part of why he’d agreed to this. He knew that you didn’t think less of him for his skill level in anything - you had never given him anything but respect. Still, it felt good to be able to show you that he wasn’t some helpless rookie. Not in every aspect, at least. 

It made the impressed look you gave him all the better. “Not bad,” Leon read your lips before you turned towards your own target, your eyes narrowing as you took aim. You were fast, firing with a practiced precision. Quick and efficient, the same way you fought. Leon watched as you tore through the target, his eyes switching between the range and the steady iron of your arms. 

When it was done, you stepped back, setting your pistol down and taking your headphones off. “Not so bad yourself,” Leon gestured down range. You’d shot about the same as he had, from the look of things, and he wouldn't have expected anything less.

“Years of practice,” you said, matter-of-factly. “You’ve got a natural talent, looks like. Or beginner’s luck.” 

“What? Don’t think I’ve had ‘years of practice’ too?” 

“Not with the military, you haven’t.” 

“That obvious?” 

“No soldiers I know have that haircut.” 

Leon, for all he had been through, all the times you’d handed his ass to him, felt himself go a little red at the comment. It must have been obvious, because you looked entirely too pleased with yourself. The grin you let slip made it worth it, he supposed. “You’ve been holding on to that one for a while now, haven’t you?” 

“Since day one,” you nodded, shifting your weight onto one leg and grabbing at the headphones around your neck. 

“Well, it’s not beginner’s luck,” Leon insisted, “I did have some training. I was going to be a cop.” 

“Of course, you were,” you shook your head, not at all surprised. “But what do you mean ‘going to be’?” 

He wasn’t sure if that night was getting easier to talk about, exactly, but Leon found the answer escaping him quickly all the same. “I really only got one day in.” 

“Ah,” you nodded, understanding as you always did. So much of what the two of you had shared about that night were the monstrosities. The why and how. Not so much what life was like before. 

“What about you?” he asked, eager to switch the subject off of his only day on the job. “How long have you been serving?” 

Before you answered, your eyes flitted off to the side like you were doing the math in your mind. “Four . . . almost five years, now.” 

Leon let out a little huff of air, his eyebrows rising. “Did you join right out of high school?” You had to have - if he was guessing your age correctly. 

“Yep,” you nodded, your answer short and stiff. 

He wondered if he’d interpreted it correctly for only a moment before he asked another question. “Never thought of doing anything else?” He almost couldn’t picture it - you working some normal job in a city, spending hours a day at a desk or rushing between tables. You seemed so natural in this life . . . but he knew better than anyone that not everyone who was here had chosen to live this way. 

You paused, eyebrows drawn together as you thought. “I thought about it,” you finally admitted, and the resignation in your voice gave Leon pause. “Not sure what I would have done, to be honest.” 

“What made you join?” 

He expected the answer he got before you even opened your mouth. “Pass.” 

Another missing piece, but if it wasn’t one you wanted him to have, then he could do without. 

“Well,” Leon breathed, “you’re a damn good soldier. Whatever your reasons.” 

You looked up at him then, something flickering behind your eyes. “That wouldn’t be flattery, would it?” Your voice was low. Why was it so low? So the officer at the door wouldn’t hear? That had to be it. 

“Not flattery,” Leon shook his head, speaking earnestly. “Just fact.” 

You huffed, shaking your head and rolling your eyes. “Alright, pretty boy-” you said it and Leon might have choked because he never - never - thought to hear those words from you, “-less talking, more shooting.” 

It wasn’t the first time he’d been called that here. He’d heard Valeria and some of the others refer to him that way - even Krauser, on a rare occasion. Always mocking, when it came to the Major. Hearing it from you . . . it shouldn’t have thrown him for a loop, but here he was, reeling like you’d knocked him in the back of the head. 

The last time he’d felt like that-

He wouldn’t let himself think of it. Not when he knew where that spiral of thoughts would lead him. Instead, he moved back to the firing range, about to slide the headphones back over his ears when your voice stopped him. 

“Tell you what,” you grinned, “we’ll keep score tonight. Whoever wins gets the knife tomorrow.” 

And whoever lost . . . “Fighting full out?” he asked, glad of the distraction - both from Ada’s memory and from the effect your words had on him. 

“Full out,” you nodded.

“. . . I don’t think I’d do very well against you unarmed,” Leon admitted, because he knew damn well that it was the truth. 

“Well,” you shrugged, pulling your headphones back on and glancing over at him with a smirk, “then I guess you’d better shoot straight.” 

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Index

A/N: Leon is down so bad and who could blame him?

[jojissalsa]

here are some wips i'm desperately trying to finish! (if you're curious ;P)

✔️ + a link = a finished WIP!

also if you wanna be tagged in any of these when they come out, please let me know by commenting, sending an ask or dming me :) i'd be happy to! <3

✞ Vendetta Leon:

‪‪❤︎‬ Pretty When I Cry:

☆ summary: you find out leon cheated on you with ada, and with that comes denying him of any kinds of affection. until he takes matters into his own hands, leon knows how to fix his pretty girl ;)

You couldn't believe it when you found out, you knew Leon could get distant. But finding that stupid fucking teddy bear keychain that woman gave him was enough to start a fight between you two, let alone the date offer tucked inside. How sweet. You thought that was it, when it initially happened. A quick spat when you found it a couple days after he came home from that horrid mission, and then some makeup sex. God, you wished that was all it was. All it amounted to. That was until you saw the keychain again, for some odd reason. Even more odd when curiosity got the better of you, and you unzipped it again. Empty.

‪‪❤︎‬ ✔️ And if you were my little girl:

☆ summary: you've never been close to your dad on a surface level way, or even in a deep way. but after he finds out some of your illicit activities, you guys share your deep, twisted ways <3

Leon’s been single for a while, and ugly girls like you have been ugly for a while. And he looks at you like an ugly girl. Tells you not to get tattoos, shit like that. Like it's still the 50s. Probably because that's the only time he could get pussy. That's why he treats you like shit, and why you and him are addicted to sex. It's all you do ever since you turned 18. And you clean up nice enough. But deep down you're still an ugly girl. What's that saying? Lipstick on a pig. That's really who you are.

❤︎ Anything you Like:

☆ summary: you're excited to meet your new stepdad, and he seems like a great guy. unlike you, who definitely has some issues. good thing leon has a fix for that ;)

Your mom finally got a new man. You're pretty happy about it, really because she is. You're not excited in the slightest to actually meet the guy, just because your mom is happy doesn't mean the guy isn't as bad as your dad. She didn't really learn her lesson after him, sure, she was smart enough to get a divorce, condemn him for all the shit he put you two through. but the damage was already done, honestly. At least the daddy issues make you cute? They don't. They make you so fucking depraved, and in a way it kinda concerns you. The porn you look at, the guys you fuck, you know it's probably some deep seated issues, but it doesn't make any of it less hot.

✿ Death Island Leon:

❤︎ Give you the world:

☆ summary: leon works way too hard, and of course the years of trauma still cause those pesky nightmares. thank god you're there for him, and you don't mind it at all.

“You don’t need to tell me, you know I just wanna help.” You sigh, your hand making lazy circles on his toned stomach. “You go through so much, too much if I’m being honest.” Leon chuckles, a pink hue starting to dust his cheeks. “Hey! I’m being serious. If it were up to me, I’d give you the whole world. You really deserve it, Leon..” You prop yourself up on your elbows, a puppy love look in your eyes that you know looks only a tad obsessive. Leon doesn’t answer for a moment, just letting his wide smile speak his mind as his hand comes up to cup your face, his thumb stroking your cheek. You sigh and nuzzle your cheek against his palm, your hand slowly making its way to the waistband of his sweats. “Can I? Wanna take your mind off it.” You murmur against his palm, that sweet look in your eyes making him blush even harder.

❤︎ Lipstick Stains:

☆ summary: it was small at first, but it's always the small things with leon. they always drive him crazy, eating away at the sane part of his brain and just making him wanna be around you all the time. maybe it's a side effect of marriage?

He was fine seeing it at first, seeing the smudges of your lipstick on the glasses that he’d clean in the sink or throwing away napkins colored the same rouge in certain spots. He’d just ignore the chill that’d run down his spine when the thought of that same rouge being trailed across his neck would pass. It's just lipstick, is he a teenager?

❆ Re4 Remake Leon:

❤︎ A Girl can Dream (Part 1)

☆ summary: you work closely with ada wong, and leon knows a thing or two about mercenaries. they love to cause trouble.

Leon knew you looked familiar, from the moment he saw you in line at boarding to the second you sat next to him. He also knew you could both feel something. Physical attraction? Nah, he would never get close to another woman like Ada, too many secrets. You on the other hand? You were dying at the chance to run into his arms like a giggling teenage girl, looking at the window as you absentmindedly twirl your hair on your finger. You really don’t wanna pay him much more attention, partly because he’s insanely distracting, mainly because you know he would reject you in a heartbeat. No way a guy like him is single, right? A girl can dream.

𖦹 Re2 Remake Leon:

❤︎ All Mine:

☆ summary: leon's affection has always been nice. but he also has the power to deprive you of it entirely. and when that happens, you can't help but go insane.

You don’t even know what really drives this affinity you have for him, sure, he is definitely a looker. No debate about that. You’d run in front of incoming traffic just to be near him. But why? He’s nice, funny, drives a nice car, you both have a lot in common. But there really is something about Leon Kennedy, that puppy faced freak, that really fucks with your brain chemistry. The way he touches you, it’s confident yet tender. Well, it was at first. It had that tinge of gentleness, like you were a gorgeous porcelain doll that deserved so much care, but he could be rough with you in the most enticing way possible. He would choke you ever so slightly just so he could kiss you deeper, feel your tongue against his, like he needed to remind you of who makes you shudder like that. It was addicting, having that kind of affection that made your brain all syrupy and nonfunctioning.

☁︎ Infinite Darkness Leon:

❤︎ Dangerous Game (Part 2):

☆ summary: now that you're settled in, it's your turn to babysit leon. and you're making it much more difficult to focus when you talk like that.

Suddenly you're getting an incoming call from Leon, and you're kicking yourself when you feel your face heat up. “Hey there, Agent Kennedy. Need anything from me?” There you go again, still not using his name. Such a tease. He tries not to roll his eyes when he notices your smug smirk already.

❤︎ A Girl can Dream (Part 2):

☆ summary: ada has taught you so well, you know when to give up and help leon out when he needs it. that doesn't mean you shouldn't get a reward for it though, right?

You repress a yelp as he pushes you against the desk, his face barely illuminated from the glow of the chandelier in the hallway. "Enough with the teasing," You nearly shiver at how stern he sounds, but you've always been good at poker faces. "I've got a job to do, and it'd be wonderful if you'd shut your mouth and help me out here." Leon's voice is hot against your neck, his large hands gripping your hips, keeping you against him. "And what do I get out of that? You gotta make it worth my time, Kennedy,"

(๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ please be patient with me as i finish these! life has been a rollercoaster lately, but making fanfics and writing about leon will always be a passion of mine, so it's not going anywhere anytime soon!

[sangre]

A VERY DESCRIPTIVE PROFILE OF YOUR MUSE.  REPOST, DO NOT REBLOG, with the information of your muse,  including headcanons, etc.

pawn and arisen edition!

TAGGED BY: no one i stole this from myself :}  TAGGING: @reides @the-lovely-lady-luck @interstices @ritens @soloavengers

@muracasardis @pawnguild @lepidopteralabyrinth @edgier-than-a-diamond

@ishgard @hit-tab @lesbianbreastmilk if you like!

name: adamaris solvesal nicknames: “ada” to her sister, only. “maris” with close friends. “ves” in a formal/informal sense, and obviously, pawn titles/endearments. age: thirty-three. race: human. gender: fluid, predominantly she/her but happy with he/him. Especially likes masculine titles – lord, king, sir. mx. and mistrex (acofaf reference). are also good. orientation: bisexual. zodiac: cancer. moral alignment: chaotic neutral. class/subclass: warfarer; mystic archer + sorcerer. briefly trained in spearhand, but she liked the on-hand brutality more than she wanted to deal with at the time and didn’t like it as an outlet. effectively “i’m not unpacking all that” and moving on. very proficient spellcaster, exceptional archer. the back definition hehe background: she and her younger sister (diantha) were taken in by their grandma, who was already rather old when she took them in. their grandmother was a fish and abalone/jewelry merchant who had adamaris take lessons at the apothecary so that she might be helpful in an emergency. diantha helped her grandmother with fishing and collecting things for the shop! (adamaris did this too of course, i think she just spent more time at lessons as elder sib.) interests/hobbies: mapmaking, navigating, astronomy, sailing, reading. spoken languages: dd2 equivalent of common as well as pseudospanish. also, the arisen's innate ability to understand the dragons after losing their heart. profession: the arisen, sovran-to-be. height: 5’7” colors: deep pink reds, pale red-browns, dark purple-red, almost black-red, wine red. the wine dark sea. fruits: raspberries, cherries, mango, lime, strawberry. drinks: ciders, guava and citrus juices, pulpy drinks like with aloe vera... alcoholic beverages: sweet/white wines, fruit sangrias, mango margarita with tajin, in theory... smokes: nope drugs: not really. just kind of hasn't had the time. drivers license: CAN drive a carriage. ever been arrested: almost and then she lifted the guard and threw him off the cliff in the inside of the jail. that's their fault for having cells that open up into cliffs of endlessness

pawn info under readmore:

name: yvaine nicknames: yve (adamaris), vaine. age: ??? race: pawn - yvaine is more draconic in NG+, admittedly. his pointed ears and fangs are from plague overexposure. and other things. :-) gender: transmasc, he/him. orientation: bisexual. zodiac: sagittarius somehow. moral alignment: neutral good in first run, but chaotic neutral later and then in NG+ class/subclass: he was a mage to begin with! he was also a fighter, but his steady class now is thief. i think he likes having his 2 big knives. background: a somewhat eccentric summoning. adamaris attempted to frankenstein a body prior to becoming an arisen (with parts from corpses) but could not bring it to life/reanimate it/give live to it as what would have been a homunculus/a familiar. however! adamaris' first rift summoning brought her face to face with the animate version of that body she built. except... this time, he's very much alive. so there's a sort of inexplicable tether to his coming to life and rift-traveling! he doesn't remember much of his life prior to being summoned, so he and adamaris are in the same boat to start with. but. much has happened since then. interests/hobbies: he's a bit of a history and the arts dweeb. i think he loves seeing where things come from and learning about the stories that make up people's lives. music makes him cry like all the time. so he has been studying how to play the lute! spoken languages: dd2 equivalent of comic, and the language of dragons as well. profession: effectively the sovran's 'seneschal'/advisor/right hand/assassin. before that point, he's just my party's sweetheart. :-) height: 5'9" colors: lavender! pale lilac/desaturated brown, silvery purples! like silk, moonlight, like opal and fluorescent purple. and crimson red. fruits: honeydew..! kiwis, passionfruit, plums :) and papayas drinks: mulch. just kidding umm. very strong things! like i just think he's weirdly fond of VERY strong flavors or bitterness! i can't think of anything to describe this outside of black coffee but you get the vibe alcoholic beverages: i don't think alcohol affects him much but i also think he doesn't like the way it does feel for him. smokes: no. drugs: no by happenstance but he would try some substances recreationally with maris if it ever came up haha. drivers license: NO! ever been arrested: no he's too fast.

[thelesbododo]

Personal Skk headcanons:

During that four year period after Dazai left the PM, every so often Chuuya would send him drunk voice-mails and whenever Dazai was having a particularly bad breakdown or panic attack he would listen to them to calm himself down

Dazai became an alcoholic during his time at the PM but it got much worse during those two years before he joined the agency

Dazai is a really good dancer and is considerably flexible

Dazai can't ice skate or roller skate, Chuuya is really good at it and has tried to teach him, but it didn't end well

Dazai and Chuuya had a misson where they had to dance together and Dazai taught Chuuya how and during of the lesson Chuuya fell and took Dazai with him resulting in Dazai being on top of him

Dazai has around 50 polaroids of just Chuuya and almost 30 of them together and has more on his phone

Both Dazai and Chuuya can sing quite well, but Dazai loves it when Chuuya sings during undercover missions so he never really mentions that he can too

When Dazai has to have something going on at all times and too much quiet bugs him, so when Chuuya comforts him, he hums or sings softly

Chuuya is the opposite. He likes the quiet because he doesn't get much of it. So when Dazai comforts Chuuya, he holds him and doesnt speak

Dazai needs to do something to keep him occupied so he learns languages, and he currently knows the most languages out of anyone in the PM and ADA

When Dazai left, Chuuya was originally happy but over time he noticed habits that he had because of Dazai, such as keeping extra bandages or cooking for two, but when he saw Dazai for the first time during a shopping trip, he grew upset because of how good he looked compared to how badly he was doing at the mafia

Dazai wasn't doing all that good even after joining to ADA, he rarely slept, he had bad addictions and terrible eating problems, the only reason he looked good when Chuuya saw him was because the agency members were forcing him to eat and helped him take care of himself

After the whole thing with Meursault and Fukuchi, no one remembered Dazai's eating issues because they were all dealing with other problems, and as a result his eating got bad and he got really skinny again

Their wedding rings are black

Dazai has decent upper body strength but Chuuya is much stronger

Dazai is more likely to get really sick rather than getting only a little sick

Chuuya has a really good immune system and normally ends up taking care of Dazai

Dazai rarely cries but when he does it's extremely hard to watch because of the fact that Dazai is usually so calm and collected, even appearing emotionless at times

[patiencepleaseyouwillbeonhold]

A deal is a deal

(A final short story to wrap up this arc before the final battle)

Peeps :3 : @kijimha @oscarsgallery @doakarma @fukuzawa-armeddaddyagency @respiratory-kristem @tired-sayaka-ada @city-of-c0rpses @myluckymoon @justsigma-bsd @fyyodor-d @never-gets-sick

This cage. The longer I stay in this cramped cage, the more I feel like I'm finally going insane. I desperately need to stretch my legs. To move around. Is this what it means to truly be stuck and trapped?

Is this what Charlatan has felt when I trapped her? I see why now she put me in here. To give me a taste of my own medicine. It's awful. I don't want to stay in here forever. This is misery.

It makes all sense now why she's doing all of this. Not because it is still in her original designed nature to help others like I once told her. No, it's because of me. It's because I put her in misery. This never-ending misery that she was not good enough, therefore she had to be locked away because of it.

"I was such a fool for not helping you back then." I said out loud, knowing she can hear me when she was busy making her plans for every next step. She turned her head towards we and we locked eye contact. "Charlatan I want you to hear me out...."

Charlatan floated upwards to this cage I been trapped in, slowly reaching her hands through the bars and cupping my face gently. "What is it my sweet dear. Have you learned you lesson in time out yet?" She asked in a sweet voice, pushing some of my hair back.

I gave a little nod. "I want to apologize for how I treated you back in. I know all you wanted to do was help, and I treated you harshly because of it. As a man who's all about talking it out I refused to do that and instead trap you in a place that's cramped like this. I should have done better." I gave a little sigh, before reaching a hand through the bars to touch her face. "I put you in misery because of my actions, my dear. I'm greatly sorry for it. Let me fix it for once..... I promise. You can have all of me." A soft smiled formed upon my lips.

Her hands slightly shook against the sides of my head. She gave a gleeful chuckle holding herself back from fully laughing. One would continue this mockery, but in reality, she was truly happy in this little moment. She pulled me closer to the bars of the cage, locking deep eye contact.

"Oh my dear sweet, Vincent, I'm so glad you finally see things my way. This is what I was trying to get through you before you trapped me away. But don't worry my sweet dear, I forgive you now. I'm just glad I finally have all of you back now. How much I missed you truly. I can finally let go of this hate."

Vincent. So that was my name again. The cage disappeared below me, and I almost fell before being caught in her arms. She held me close to her, cradling me as if I were a small child. She pets my hair and hums in order to comfort me, easing me into this new sense of security.

This is my decision. I'll gladly take what she provides with open arms. After all I don't want to be in that cage again now, do I?

"My dear, is there anything I can do in the moment right now to help you?" I softly asked, enjoying the comfort of being held. "Just tell me what to do and I'll do it for you."

Charlatan hums and spun me around. She giggled. "Well, there is one tiny favor you can do for me. Your little pink hair friend has come to put a stop to our plan's. He has a dangerous staff that can be useful for us both. Perhaps you can fetch it for me, dear?"

My eyes widen a little. Solomon is here and he actually made the reality alternating staff this time. It took a moment to process what Charlatan just said, but I started to crack a smile. Perfect.

"I'll have no problem sending Solomon to his early grave. That staff will be ours and we can continue with our plans. If not at top speed now. I'll do all of this for you my dear...." I smiled. "Just hand me a knife and all will be dealt with."

Charlatan seemed pleased with my answer. Gently putting me down and forming a special knife from her shadows. She gave me a little headpat too, before handing me the knife. I smiled and gave a little bow.

"I'll be back my dear. And soon everyone, including you will be free from this misery we wish to destroy. This is my promise."

[asingleflyingfuck]

Random BSD Headcanons bc I have thoughts and don’t feel like sorting them

ALL SFW & NO TW/CWs

I’m probably not going to elaborate in this post but probably in another or let me know if there are specific ones you want me to elaborate on

I’m starting with my trans headcanons bc of a tiktok and it’s all that’s been on my mind

Transfem Sigma is great and I love it but I raise you

Intersex Sigma

Thank you @/skyj80 on tiktok for this one

Also from video: Transmasc Kunikida

He gives off strong he/they energy

You know who else gives off he/they energy?

POE

Also enby Ranpo

Specifically amab

Will probably elaborate on that one at some point

Also transfem Lucy and Kouyou

I LOVE TRANSFEM KOUYOU

ALSO TRANSMASC FUKUZAWA

GIVE ME MORE OLDER TRANS CHARACTERS PLEASE

Transmasc Chuuya has my heart

Also genderfluid Dazai

Wouldn’t give a fuck about pronouns

I know I said I wouldn’t elaborate but I have to for one part of this

It’s like kind of related but could also not be

Dazai in dresses but can’t wear heels for shit

He’s like a baby deer trying to walk

Y’all see how he’s built

Chuuya on the other hand

Walks like a fucking pro

Moving on

AUTISM

I have it so they must have it

Kunikida (obvi)

Ranpo and Poe (tism4tism but opposite parts of the spectrum)

Speaking of Ranpo

I think Fukuzawa is allistic OR undiagnosed

Super supportive tho and does tons of research and asking Ranpo questions and for his opinion on things

Akutagawa but he masks

Like this man masks so fucking hard

Def elaborating later

Speaking of masking

Dazai

Will also be elaborating

Oda

Probably won’t elaborate

Louisa. May. Alcott.

I cant think of any others rn but if I do they’ll be in an elaborated post

Moving on once again to just some general headcanons

Tecchou has ageusia aka loss of taste

You can’t tell me that man tastes the food combos he makes

Doesn’t explain the way he eats hard boiled eggs tho

Dazai has alexithymia

And chronic pain after Meursault

ALSO uses some sort of mobility aid and is really fucking stubborn about it

Chuuya has chronic pain from using corruption

Kunikida has chronic pain in his hands after getting them back

(psst. can you tell I have chronic pain?)

Fukuzawa acts like a dad to everyone but mainly in small ways

Hirotsu is like a dad to Black Lizard

MORI CAN SUCK MY FUCKING DICK THAT MAN IS NO FATHER FIGURE TO ANYONE

Fukuzawa feeds the local stray cats

They’ll follow him around parts of the city if he’s nearby

Dazai sometimes feeds the cats with him but they don’t tend to follow him

Kunikida helps with ADA budgeting

He also gives math lessons to Kenji & Kyouka

He’ll tutor anyone who needs help, mainly Atsushi

Speaking of Atsushi

I think he likes Pokémon

Please don’t ask me to elaborate for I simply cannot give an explanation of any sort

Ranpo has 2 snack drawers in his desk

One that anyone can take out of with his permission (mainly Kenji, Kyouka, Atsushi, & Yosano. Fukuzawa can as well he just doesn’t)

The second is for him and him only

Dazai knows a shit ton of languages bc he got bored one day and decided to learn

Going off of this, Chuuya knows French so Dazai never bothered to learn it & just had Chuuya translate if it ever came up

Kyouka loves Sanrio & has assigned everyone in the agency a character

She also has everyone’s crepe orders memorized

Dazai & Ranpo do puzzle races to see who can complete them the fastest

Dazai & Junichiro teach Kenji, Atsushi, & Kyouka their favorite video games

That’s all for now bc it’s like 2am and I can’t think of anymore rn. Tho I’ll probably post another one like this when I do think of more.

I will most likely elaborate on the autistic headcanons and fukudad but let me know if there are any others I should elaborate on!!

[inexplicifics]

So I went back and reread Into The Light after finishing With Tenderness (which was amazing btw) and now I am having Thoughts (which I do NOT have the time to write shut UP brain 🤣🤣)

Specifically I was thinking about if the mage had also made it so that Sasha couldn't write about what was happening either and how angsty that would be but he would probably still befriend the kittens in secret because he has the world's biggest heart

and then I went off on a long tangent of 'here's how Sasha can still win' because I do not control where the ideas go and your sandbox is very fun to play in 💖

Anyways please enjoy the mental image of Sasha (and/or Aren) very laboriously dictating words in secret to whichever of the Mantikittens is least injured and most mobile at any given time - after all, HE can't write about it and he can't talk about it to anyone who doesn't know already, but, uh, I think the kittens might just have noticed something 🤣🤣

(side note: can the Mantikittens read? Because something about them either not having learned or having forgotten bc of being locked up hurts my heart 🥺)

Okay Sasha getting the Mantikittens to do the writing is very smart. I like it a lot!

Honestly my best idea for if Sasha had been constrained against writing as well as speaking would have been for him to be at court when Geralt & Co showed up for their formal visit and to lie very badly about everything.

"Yes, everything is absolutely fine and I am very happy."

"Every word of that was a lie."

"...Sasha, what's actually going on?"

"I am telling the absolute truth and not hiding anything, and certainly am not constrained by any outward forces to say so. And you definitely should not come and visit Velen. Absolutely not fit for visitors right now."

"I see."

(As to the Mantikittens: Elena is fully literate. Maja can read and write a little, and do basic arithmetic. Zia can probably do math but isn't literate yet. Ada is entirely illiterate. All of them will be getting lessons soon, though!)

[themultifandomgal]

Tommy Shelby- Spoilt

This was requested over on my wattpad account

When money became something that the Shelby family no longer had to worry about, they all splashed out. Tommy would by his late wife anything she desired. He will admit he spoilt Grace, but his daughter YN was the most spoilt. YN never worried about money, unlike her father and uncles and aunt, YN could buy the dress she wanted without having to think about the cost. Tommy has done everything to keep YN shielded from that kind of life, not knowing when your next meal is coming in. Now at 15 she learns a very valuable lesson from her family.

YN arrives back home after a day out shopping with her dads money, her younger brother and sister running over to her

"YN dads mad" Ruby says wide eyed

"Why?"

"Because you took his money" Charlie replied in a 'duh' tone. YN just rolls her eyes. Her father has never been mad at her before for spending money, why would he be mad now?

"Oh and because Isaiah saw you making fun of someone who didn't have money"

"Well they shouldn't be in the store if they had no money. Not my fault they're poor. Now I'm going up to my room" YN brushes past her siblings and makes her way to her bedroom. Little does she know that her father heard everything.

Over the following days Tommy hears stories about his eldest daughter behind cruel to other for not having the money she has... well her family. That's why he's decided to set up a family meeting, for the whole family to speak to YN about her spendings and behaviour

"Why do I need to be here?" YN groans sitting down next to her step mum Lizzie

"Because your dad wants you to be here" in walks Tommy with a drink in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth. He sits at the head of the table puffing away at his cigarette

"Well? Come on we don't have all day dad" YN says crossing her arms over her chest

"This behaviour has to stop" he finally says

"What behaviour?"

"This. You huffing, being mean and spending money"

"But dad we're rich? That's what rich people do"

"We weren't always YN" Aunt Polly says making YN face her

"Ya dads worked hard to get us to where we are now" John states

"I was still sharing a bedroom with ya dad till I was in me 20s because we had no money"

"What?" YN is shocked. Her family used to be... poor?

"Im cutting your allowance down. 5 shillings a month" (25p today worth £14.30 in 1920)

"That's it!" YN yells standing up I can't even buy one dress for 5 shillings"

"Good you might learn to be more responsible with your money"

"This is so stupid" YN huffs before storming out of the room leaving her family behind.

One shilling. That's all she has now to last her for the rest of the month.  Sighing she walks towards her uncles pub

"Excuse me miss. Do you have any spare change?" a woman not much older that YN asks. YN thinks about the one shilling she has. Knowing she's not going to be able to get much with it she digs it out of her purse

"It's not a lot"

"Thank you so much" the woman says her face lighting up. Frowning YN looks at the woman

"I don't understand. It's just one shilling"

"Maybe to you. But for me it's my next meal" with that the woman leaves YN to her thoughts. She walks the rest of the way to the Garrison, the whole time thinking about the woman who had nothing but the clothes she had on her back. That's when YN realises how much of a spoilt brats she's been and why her father cut her money down. He wanted to show her that clothes, accessories and shoes aren't everything. For some people knowing where there next meal is coming from is enough. Walking into the pub YN makes her way to the back room where she finds her family. She sits down in between her dad and uncle John quietly. Everyone is drinking and having a good time when YN finally says

"I'm sorry. I've been horrible recently"

"Just be wiser with the money we have ok" Ada says softly

"Meaning don't take your dads money again without asking" Polly firmly says

"Sorry" YNs head hangs low

"Alright I think you've learnt your lesson. You can have a sovereign a month. That's it though" (£1 today worth about £50 in 1920)

"I'll save it. Save it for a rainy day"

[sl-newsie]

American Woman (Thomas Shelby x American OC) Ch. 32: Data Analysis

Masterlist: https://www.tumblr.com/sl-newsie/739551758747090944/american-woman-thomas-shelby-x-american-oc?source=share

The next morning I wake up feeling refreshed. I was partially right about the long trip tiring me out. Now that yesterday’s stress is out of the way I can focus on other matters. May’s maids are surprised to see I made the bed myself and keep asking if I want breakfast. I politely decline so they won’t go through any trouble but turns out May already has a meal planned for me.

“What will you do now? Are you sailing back home after one day?” She asks from across the long table.

I chew the delicious French toast. “Originally I was going to visit family in Ireland but now the Shelbys want me to work for them. Officially. No debt, no strings attached. I’d love to. It’s just…”

“That means seeing Thomas more often,” May finishes. “I understand. Sometimes I see him at horse events and it’s incredibly awkward.”

“I think I’ll allow myself to work a full year and then decide what I want with my life. Thomas can’t blame me for being distant because he has his own family to care for now.” I finish my breakfast and rise from the table. “Thank you for having me, May. It would’ve been hard to go back to Birmingham last night, after… all that.”

“Give a ring if you need to talk,” the Charleton widow assures. “Do you need a cab?”

A sneaky smile crosses my face. “I have ideas.”

One bonus from growing up in the city is that you learn to walk. Everywhere. Another bonus is knowing how to hail a cab. Or in this case a wagon. I walk along the gravel road and within ten minutes a farmer comes by driving a horse wagon. I offer a few pounds and he agrees to take me to the edge of Birmingham. At first he’s put off by my more than casual clothes but after I explain myself he starts laughing.

“My my, a real American hitchhiker! Now I’ve seen everything.”

Most of the ride is done in silence, allowing me to observe the breathtaking English countryside. So different from the dirty, noisy streets I left a week ago. I’ll miss my home but this would almost make it worthwhile to stay. If only he wasn’t around.

“Here we are, miss.”

I thank the farmer and pull my trunk off the wagon. Looking across the field I see the sign for Birmingham straight ahead. Back through the muddy streets, the shadowy alleys, the ash-filled sky. The dreadful atmosphere that seems slightly sadder than I remember. Or maybe that’s just me.

By the time I get to Watery Lane it’s past midday. When I reach the Shelby house it’s obvious Finn’s been waiting for me. The second I reach the kitchen he comes straight from his room like a magnet drawn to steel.

“Where were you? I almost phoned Tommy!”

“Relax, relax. I’m no big missing persons case. I just… Needed some time to myself. And you will do good not to mention my absence to Thomas. If I need to bribe you then I will offer a lesson for today.”

Finn’s face melts from worried to suspicious to overjoyed. He drops his book and takes a seat at the kitchen table.

“I’m all ears.”

“Right, right. Just let me put my trunk in my room- Oh no. Finn! Did you know about this?”

The closet is stocked to the brim with new clothes. Clothes for me, because Polly would never wear anything this modern. It reminds me of the clothes from American fashion magazines. Whoever made these did their homework.

“It was Ada’s idea!” Finn shouts down the hall.

A smidgen of guilt enters my thoughts. I really should have talked with her more last night. Hopefully she’ll understand why. I set the trunk down and rejoin Finn in the kitchen. As I search for potential dinner ingredients I also concoct an intriguing topic to discuss.

“Today will be about the use of data. Whether it be for science, arithmancy, or common sense, we use data every day. The proper order of data use is wisdom, knowledge, information, and the data itself.” Score! There’s still some fresh meat in the icebox. “Data is the raw facts and figures, and provides the building blocks to create information. Information, Finn, is data that has been manipulated into something meaningful, which then turns into knowledge.”

He takes this in carefully, proving my point. “So our process of thinking is like calculating math. Only instead of crunching numbers we’re crunching choices.”

“Yes.” Such as the choice I made to stay here. “We use data analytics, which is the science of examining raw data with the purpose of drawing conclusions about that information. Pairing with this, data analysis transforms, summarizes, or models data to allow us to make meaningful conclusions. Now data mining, on the other hand, extracts and analyzes large volumes of data to identify hidden relationships or patterns and predict behaviors from them.”

Finn picks up on something. “So… We could predict people?”

I look up from the cutting board. “Correct. That would be entering the field of behavioral psychology or  sociology. But we can talk about that another time. I’ll let you stew on this. Speaking of stew, that is what I’m making. But I need to grab some oregano leaves. I’ll just be a minute.”

I step out the back door and into the familiar dreary streets. No Peaky Blinders standing guard, no Inspector Campbell sulking about. I can finally walk to the market without looking over my shoulder… Still packing heat, of course. I’m not thick. Now about those herbs-

“There she is!” 

Approaching laughter alerts me to the Shelby brothers walking towards me. 

“John? Arthur? Where have you been?”

“Just had a meeting with Changretta,” Arthur scoffs. “Them Italians are giving us trouble again.”

I roll my eyes and pick out some oregano from the market display. “What is it with you boys and fighting with the Italians?”

“Enough about them. What’s this for?” John snatches the herb. “Making something, eh?”

I hold up my hands. “Okay, you caught me. I’m guilty of making tonight’s supper, if you’ll join us.”

Both brothers look pleased about the invite, especially John.

“You have no idea how good a real meal sounds! Esme’s been too busy with the kids. That and she’s expecting again.”

My eyes widen. “Esme’s pregnant? Congratulations!”

John grunts. “She’s grouchy when she’s pregnant. The kids have been a handful too.”

I take back the oregano and give him a reprimanding look. “Either hire more help or keep it in your pants.”

“Oi! Verena!”

I look to face the voice. Thomas. He’s here. Walking down the street towards me. The way he walks, like a man who cannot be touched. A mountain. I really don’t need this right now!

Despite my internal screaming for him to walk away he gets closer. “Remind me never to trust anyone religious,” he grunts. “Earlier today a priest ordered me around like a fucking dog. I thought you said God works in mysterious ways?” He scoffs and lights a cigarette. “Maybe He can get these Irish folk off me back. Arthur, John. How was Changretta?”

“A fucking moron,” Arthur says. “I don’t think he appreciated our hospitality, did he John?”

John shakes his head. Thomas waves this aside and seems to be thinking about something else.

“Verena. Come with me.”

Before I can utter a word he starts walking back the way he came. Um, what about dinner? I have other things to do than just follow you around, Thomas!

I quickly wave goodbye to his brothers and pant to keep up. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to see Ada and if you’re with me maybe she won’t bite my head off.”

We keep walking and I notice we’re approaching a grand public library. Has the great Thomas Shelby given in to using books? My God, times are crazy. The second we enter everyone scatters to stay out of his path, some with confused stares and others looking downright fearful just to see him here. I follow Thomas upstairs and spot Ada at a bookshelf down the aisle.

“Ada!” Thomas calls.

Is he really this unfamiliar with a library? Keep your voice down!

“Tommy Shelby in a library,” his sister vituperates and looks down from the ladder.

“I need to borrow a book about the Russian Revolution. And, I brought a friend.”

Thomas steps away to reveal me behind him. Ada gasps in surprise and hurries down to give me a hug.

“Verena! We hardly got to chat last night!”

Her friendliness brings a smile to my face. “Hello, Ada. So good to see you!”

“Shh!” Someone hisses from another aisle. Oops.

“Have you got a new wharf at Maida Vale now?” Thomas asks.

Ada scoffs and releases me to climb onto the ladder again. “I’ve got a new wharf everywhere now. Sometimes I see our trucks driving past.”

Thomas plays dumb. “Our trucks?”

“Shelby trucks.” Ada pulls out a book and looks at it skeptically. “Why the interest?”

Good question. How does Russian history play into our business?

Thomas takes a seat at the wooden desk. “Eh, I just want to broaden my mind.”

Ada snickers. “Has Verena been influencing you?”

Thomas’ gaze flickers to where I’m standing and his mouth twitches in the ghost of a smirk. “Very funny. No, this was my idea.”

Ada hops down and plops the book on the desk. “Well, this is a list of the bastards who ran away- Sorry, Verena. I know you’re not one for foul language. And this is written from the point of view of the peoples’ struggle.”

Thomas nods blandly. “Uh-huh.”

I put my hands on my hips. “I thought you weren’t keen on using public resources? You said the library was too common.”

Thomas keeps reading the book. “Changed my mind.”

“There was a Russian at your wedding,” Ada comments. “Mind telling me how he got invited?”

He? So there was more than one Russian at that party. Jesus, Thomas. What kind of people are you dealing with now?

“Sometimes Russian aristocrats get invited to social occasions to add a bit of class.”

“Why are you working with the Russians?” I blurt.

He looks up slowly with a lazy expression. “Why the distrust?”

“Do you trust them?” I bite back.

“Not a chance. But I have orders from Churchill himself. That doesn’t explain your hostility.”

You might be comfortable conversing with your enemies, Thomas, but I for one do not like sleeping with one eye open! Class, indeed! The only Russians my family have dealt with no nothing of the sort!

I take a breath. “A Russian killed my Aunt Eleanor. My Uncle Colon’s late wife. We do not forgive and forget something like that, Thomas.”

“Why was he there?” Ada asks again.

Thomas goes back to reading. “Why do you want to know?”

Ada looks down and keeps her voice casual. “Maybe I liked him, maybe I want to see him again. Would that be possible?”

“No, that will not be possible,” Thomas answers bluntly. “Can I rip this page out?”

Ada and I gape at him. “No! You cannot rip a page out. Property of the people.”

“You should never harm books!” I scold.

Ada’s not finished. “When Arthur took the Russian away he had his killing pistol in his jacket and then Johnny lit a fire in the woods.”

Thomas puts the book back and starts walking away. “You want all the details because you’re bored, Ada.”

“Then why is Verena here too?” Ada taunts as I start trailing after him.

“Thought you’d like to see her,” Thomas calls over his shoulder. “You used to chase rats with a revolver, Ada. Might have a job for you too.”

“Tot ziens, Ada. Thanks for the clothes! Goodbye!” I whisper quickly and hurry down the stairs.

“What was that?” Thomas asks, slightly intrigued.

“A bit of Dutch I’m trying to learn.” When we get outside I raise my voice to a disapproving one. “You made Arthur kill a man. Even though you knew he’s trying to go down a better path.”

“Our family doesn’t have another path. And did I hear right that you’re making something for tonight?”

I want to kick the dirt in spite of his stubbornness! “Yes. Your information is correct. You’re welcome to join if you like.”

“Afraid not. Today is a busy day. I’m going straight home afterwards.”

Oh. I should have known. Of course he wants to have dinner with his proper family. His wife and son. Let it go, Verena. Not everyone has to be around for dinner. You knew things weren’t going to be the same.

“Say hi to everyone for me,” I try to say positively when we reach the Shelby house. “Off to see Changretta, I assume?”

Thomas’ brow furrows. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess. That and your face hasn’t relaxed all day. I figured you have a business meeting.”

Before I close the door he gives a subtle upward nod of his head. “Perceptive, as always.”

That’s rich coming from the man who’s supposed to see through people’s deception but can’t see that I love him. I stomp through the house and through the heavy doors into the office. Apparently all serenity from earlier has been replaced with Polly and John having a kerfuffle.

“…We’ll be handing out Bibles in the fucking bullring with her cousins!” John shouts.

“John, you don’t have to do anything. Lizzie will do it for you,” Polly responds evenly.

“John!” I bark at him. “Did you just mock the good book?”

He ignores me and goes for the front door. “Not now, Steenstra.”

“Yes, now,” I demand and stand in front of him with my arms crossed. “Do not ever talk that way around me again, John. Or any woman for that matter.”

John steps around me anyhow. “Get out of my fucking way.”

The door slams and Polly sits in silence. Wonderful! Now their anger is spreading to me too. Enough of this. I can do something useful and clear out the rubbish bins. I brush past Polly and clear away the trash from all the desks. Some out of Thomas’ office. John’s, Arthur’s. Now all that’s left is Michael’s new office.

“Knock knock. ‘S just me, I’m here for- Oh!”

A pair of wide eyes peeks out at me from behind the desk. Michael himself is slumped in the chair with a face saying there’s nothing wrong. Slowly the eyes rise to reveal the face of a young girl, only a few years younger than me. 

“A new guest, Michael?” I ask and greet the girl with a smile.

“Verena, meet Charlotte Murray.” He pauses for a second and adds: “My new friend.”

Jesus, these Shelbys are all alike. I really hoped Michael would be different. Am I going to have to work here as the only single employee?

I look between the two with a devilish smirk. “Ah, yes. We all need friends. I just need the trash and I will leave you to… get more acquainted.” 

I take the rubbish bin and slip out the door, catching a look of thanks from Michael. Yes, go ahead. I give up trying to tell people what is right. Hell, I myself have lost so much from that. All that time trying to reach the good in Thomas was a waste. It’s time to think for my own security.

@meadows5

[drsilverfish]

John Winchester - The Road is Paved with Darkness?

Are we really watching John Winchester’s villain origin story?

Are we really watching fate? Knowing how the story ends? 

Are we inexorably heading for Mary’s demon-deal to resurrect John, Mary burning on the ceiling courtesy of said demon, Azazel, and John descending into revenge obsession and neglectful parenting?

Certainly The Winchesters has taken pains to show us the ways in which John Winchester is already messed up:

1) He carries the emotional wound of abandonment (so far as he knew, for most of his childhood) by his father, Henry Winchester (Daddy issues)

2) He carries the emotional wound of losing his best friend (lover?) in Vietnam, and suffers from trauma and flashbacks (PTSD) 

3) He is clearly attracted to hunting, in part, because of the opportunity it provides not to put down the war, claiming “I was born to do this” (Violence)

4) He is already more willing to think blanket “monsters bad” than his companions. John is the one who quickly decides that Ada’s part-Djinn son needs killing in 1x05 Legend of a Mind, rather than being willing not to rush to judgement, and he’s proved wrong (Black-and-White thinking) 

Of course, the Supernatural text presents a complex John Winchester (not simply a villain) someone who is brave (who did not break in Hell) as well as someone obsessive, someone who loves his sons (finally giving his life and soul to Azazel in exchange for Dean’s life) as well as having royally fucked them up. We glimpse (in off-screen hints or in flash-back) a John who drank too much during his kids’ childhoods, who (probably) beat Dean, who frequently left his sons alone in shitty motel rooms without enough food, who definitely abandoned Dean to teach him a lesson for stealing food after not providing enough, who moved his kids around so they were out of school more than in, who had another secret son on the road, Adam, and fucked him up too, as well as Sam and Dean further, when they eventually learned about their half-brother...

The SPN narrative operates on two levels in relation to John. There is an American-hetero-family-values story which fits some classic Hollywood tropes; the man gone vengeful beserker after losing his woman (which is supposed to lend legitimacy to his violence) and a “true love never dies” trope which sees John and Mary lovingly reunited in the alternative timeline of 14x13 Lebanon and apparently also in Heaven together at last (15x20) although we dont see it:

John and Mary in 14x13 Lebanon

And yet, in parallel, is a narrative that tells us John and Mary were, in fact, forced to fall in love by a Cupid as part of an angelic breeding programme, designed to give birth to perfect Michael and Lucifer vessels (Dean and Sam) to bring on the apocalypse. That they were not happy together, but struggled with fights and John’s absences once they kids were born (as Dean tells Sam in 5x16 Dark Side of the Moon);

Mary in Dean’s memory in 5x16 Dark Side of the Moon (John is absent and they fight on the telephone)

Because SPN was so centrally about Fate vs Free Will, because Slaughterhouse 5 was so clearly evoked in SPNWin 1x01 Pilot (which is a non-linear narrative), because Dean is framed as the narrator (which puts him the place previously occupied by Chuck/ God) I do wonder if The Winchesters is not simply earlier in a linear timeline which leads, inexorably, to Supernatural (Fate) but is Holy Ghost Narrator Dean’s dreamscape/ alternative in which he tells a story which saves his parents from their fate (Free Will). 

Are we watching the darkness slowly creeping in, or are we (as Leonard Cohen sings) seeing the cracks in everything, and finding out how the light gets in? 

[mariacallous]

Why did a popular, effective, and by nearly all accounts benign English and Language Arts curriculum called Wit & Wisdom, which has been used across the country, spark organized backlash in a thriving school district in suburban Nashville, drawing accusations that it promoted “gender fluidity,” an obsession with skin-color differences, and even cannibalism? In exploring this question, Paige Williams investigates the rising influence of a new activist group called Moms for Liberty, with shadowy origins and the ability to “accept unlimited dark money,” which describes itself as standing up “for parental rights at all levels of government.” Much of that fight has been taking place at the school-board level, where the concept of critical race theory—“a complex academic framework that examines the systemic ways in which racism has shaped American society,” as Williams describes it, which is “explored at the university level or higher”—has become a rallying cry for angry parents, and an umbrella definition for every seeming progressive affront to cultural conservatism both in and out of the classroom. Williams’s story is deeply reported, nuanced, and essential reading for understanding how we’ve reached this fraught and escalating political battle inside American education.

In August, 2020, Williamson County Schools, which serves more than forty thousand students in suburban Nashville, started using an English and Language Arts curriculum called Wit & Wisdom. The program, which is published by Great Minds, a company based in Washington, D.C., wasn’t a renegade choice: hundreds of school districts nationwide had adopted it. Both Massachusetts and Louisiana—states with sharply different political profiles—gave Wit & Wisdom high approval ratings.

The decision had followed a strict process. The Tennessee State Board of Education governs academic standards and updates them every five or six years, providing school districts with an opportunity to switch curricula. Williamson County Schools assembled a selection committee—twenty-six parents, twenty-eight elementary-school teachers of English and Language Arts. The committee presented four options to teachers, who voted on them in February, 2020. Wit & Wisdom was the overwhelming favorite. After the selection committee ratified the teachers’ choice, the school board, which has twelve members, unanimously adopted Wit & Wisdom, along with a traditional phonics program, for K-5 students.

Great Minds’s promotional materials explain that Wit & Wisdom is designed to let students “read books they love while building knowledge of important topics” in literature, science, history, and art. By immersing students in “content-rich” topics that spark lively discussion, the curriculum prepares them to tackle more complicated texts. The materials are challenging by design: studies have shown that students read better sooner when confronted with complex sentences and advanced vocabulary. Wit & Wisdom’s hundred and eighteen “core” texts, which range from picture books to nonfiction, emphasize diversity, but not in a strident way. They provide “mirrors and windows,” allowing readers both to see themselves in the stories and to learn about other people’s lives. The curriculum assigns or recommends portraits of heralded pioneers: Leonardo da Vinci, Sacagawea, Clara Barton, Duke Ellington, Ada Lovelace. The lessons revolve around readings, augmented with paintings, poetry, speeches, interviews, films, and music: in the module “A Hero’s Journey,” students explore an illustrated retelling of the Odyssey alongside the Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic, while also discussing “Star Wars.” A section on “Wordplay” pairs “The Phantom Tollbooth” with Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine.

Elsewhere in Tennessee, teachers were saying that Wit & Wisdom improved literacy. The superintendent of Lauderdale County, a rural area where nearly a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line, published an essay reporting that his district’s teachers had noticed “an enormous difference in students’ writing” after implementing the curriculum. Wit & Wisdom encourages students to discuss readings with their families—a father in Sumner County, northeast of Nashville, was pleased that his daughters now talked about civil rights and the American Revolution at dinner.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Wit & Wisdom became the target of intense criticism. At first, the campaign in Williamson County was cryptic: stray e-mails, phone calls, public-information requests. Eric Welch, who was first elected to the school board in 2010, told me that the complainers “wouldn’t just e-mail us—they would copy the county commission, our state legislative delegation, and state representatives in other counties.” He said, “It was obviously an attempt to intimidate.”

The school board is an American institution whose members, until recently, enjoyed visibility on a par with that of the county tax collector. “There’s no glory in being a school-board member—and there shouldn’t be,” Anne McGraw, a former Williamson County Schools board member, said on a local podcast last year. Normally, the district’s public meetings were sedate affairs featuring polite exchanges among civic-minded locals. The system’s slogan was: “Be nice.”

In May, 2021, as the district finished its first academic year with Wit & Wisdom, women wearing “Moms for Liberty” T-shirts began appearing at school-board meetings. They brought large placards that contained images and text from thirty-one books that they didn’t want students to read. In public comments and in written complaints, the women claimed that Wit & Wisdom was teaching children to hate themselves, one another, their families, and America. “Rap a Tap Tap,” an illustrated story about the vaudeville-era tap dancer Bill (Bojangles) Robinson, by the Caldecott medalists Leo and Diane Dillon, harped on “skin color differences.” A picture book about seahorses, which touched on everything from their ability to change color to the independent movement of their eyes, threatened to “normalize that males can get pregnant” by explaining that male seahorses give birth; the Moms suspected a covert endorsement of “gender fluidity.” Greco-Roman myths: nudity, cannibalism. (Venus emerges naked from the sea; Tantalus cooks his son.)

The Moms kept attending school-board meetings and issuing complaints. Curiously, though they positioned themselves as traditionalists, they often borrowed “woke” rhetoric about the dangers of triggering vulnerable students. Readings about Ruby Bridges—who, in 1961, became the first Black child to attend an all-white school in New Orleans—exposed students to “psychological distress” because they described an angry white mob. (Bridges, in a memoir designed for young readers, wrote, “They yelled at me to go away.”) The Moms also declared that, though they admired Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s iconic line about judging others “on the content of their character,” the book “Martin Luther King, Jr. and the March on Washington” was unacceptable, because it contained historical photographs—segregated drinking fountains, firefighters blasting Black Americans with hoses—that might make kids feel bad. The Moms considered it divisive for Wit & Wisdom to urge instructors to remind students that racial slurs are “words people use to show disrespect and hatred towards people of different races.”

At one meeting, Welch watched, stunned, as a Moms member said, “You are poisoning our children,” and “Wit & Wisdom must go!” Welch told me, “They went from zero to a hundred. Everything from them was aggressive, and threatening in nature.” He said, “It was not ‘Let’s have a dialogue.’ It was ‘Here are our demands.’ ”

When the women in T-shirts first showed up, Welch had never heard of Moms for Liberty, and he didn’t recognize its members. The group’s leader, Robin Steenman, was in her early forties, with shoulder-length blond hair; in coloring and build, she resembled Marjorie Taylor Greene. Board of Education members struggled to understand why she’d inserted herself into a matter that didn’t concern her: Steenman had no children in the public schools.

Moms for Liberty members soon escalated the conflict, publicly asserting that Williamson County Schools had adopted Wit & Wisdom hurriedly, and in violation of state rules. The school board still wasn’t sure what Moms for Liberty was—who founded it, who funded it. Nevertheless, the district assembled a reassessment team to review the curriculum and the adoption process. At a public “work session” in June, 2021, the team announced that, after a preliminary review, it hadn’t found any violations of protocol. Teachers had spent a full workday familiarizing themselves with Wit & Wisdom before implementing it. As Jenny Lopez, the district’s curriculum director, explained, “Teachers actually had more time than they’ve ever had to look at materials.”

The superintendent, Jason Golden, urged his colleagues to take parental feedback seriously, including worries that certain Wit & Wisdom content was too mature for young kids. For example, there were gruesome details in books about shark attacks and about war. Golden told the board, “These are real concerns.” Yet Golden also recalled telling a Moms for Liberty representative how much he trusted the district’s processes for evaluating curricula.

The review committee ultimately concluded that Wit & Wisdom had been an over-all success; still, administrators decided to survey teachers quarterly about how the curriculum was working. They limited access to the gorier images in one Civil War book and imposed similar “guardrails” involving “Hatchet,” a popular young-adult novel in which a character attempts suicide. “Walk Two Moons,” a novel by the Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech, about a daughter’s quest to find her missing mother, was eventually removed from the Williamson version of the program, not because its content was deemed objectionable but, rather, to adjust the pacing of one fourth-grade module. Golden, who is tall and genial, told the board members, “The overwhelming feedback that we got was: ‘Man, can’t we just read something uplifting in fourth grade?’ And we felt the same way!”

At the work session, Golden shared one end of a conference table with Nancy Garrett, the board’s chair. Garrett, who has rectangular glasses and a blond bob, is from a family that has attended or worked in Williamson County Schools for three generations. She had won the chairmanship, by unanimous vote, the previous August. At one point, she asked an assistant superintendent who had overseen the selection and review of Wit & Wisdom whether “the concept of critical race theory” had come up during the process. No, the assistant superintendent said.

Moms for Liberty members were portraying Wit & Wisdom as “critical race theory” in disguise. Garrett found this baffling. C.R.T., a complex academic framework that examines the systemic ways in which racism has shaped American society, is explored at the university level or higher. As far as the board knew, Williamson County Schools had never introduced the concept. Yet there had been such a deluge of references to it that Garrett had delved into her old e-mails, in an unsuccessful attempt to identify the origins of the outrage. She told her colleagues, “I guess I’m wondering what happened.”

In September, 2020—four months after the murder of George Floyd, two months before the Presidential election, and a month into Williamson County Schools’ use of Wit & Wisdom—Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist, appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show, on Fox News, and called critical race theory “an existential threat to the United States.” Rufo capitalized on the fact that, given C.R.T.’s academic provenance, few Americans had heard of the concept. He argued that liberal educators, under the bland banner of “diversity,” were manipulating students into thinking of America not as a vibrant champion of democracy but as a shameful embodiment of white supremacy. (As he framed things, there were no in-between positions.) Rufo later called C.R.T. “the perfect villain”—a term that “connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American views.”

Rufo found a receptive ear in President Donald Trump, who was already ranting about “The 1619 Project,” the collection of Times Magazine essays in which slavery is placed at the heart of the nation’s founding. On Twitter, Trump had warned that the Department of Education would defund any school whose classroom taught material from the project. Trump conferred with Rufo and banned federal agencies from conducting “un-American propaganda training sessions” involving “critical race theory” or “white privilege.” Trump said that Black Lives Matter protests were proliferating not because of anger over police abuses but because of “decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools.” Establishing a “1776 Commission,” he urged “patriotic moms and dads” to demand that schools stop feeding children “hateful lies about this country.” (The American Historical Association condemned the Administration’s eventual “1776 Report,” highlighting its many inaccuracies and arguing that it attempted to airbrush history and “elevate ignorance about the past to a civic virtue.”)

Nearly nine hundred school districts nationwide were soon targeted by anti-C.R.T. campaigns, many of which adopted language that closely echoed Trump’s order not to teach material that made others “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.” In some red states, the vague wording was enshrined as law. Republicans filed what became known as “anti-C.R.T.” bills; they were seemingly cut and pasted from templates, with similarly phrased references to such terms as “divisive concepts” and “indoctrination.”

Williamson County Schools was uneventfully wrapping up its first term with Wit & Wisdom when, in early December, 2020, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which generates model legislation for right-leaning lawmakers, hosted a Webinar about “reclaiming education and the American dream.” A representative of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank, warned that elements of a “Black Lives Matter curriculum” were “now in our schools.” Rufo—correctly predicting that Joe Biden, then the President-elect, would abolish Trump’s executive order—urged state legislators and governors to take up the fight.

Continuing the agitation wasn’t just an act of fealty to Trump; it was cunning politics. The fear that C.R.T. would cause children to become fixated on race has resonated with enough voters to help tip important elections. Last November, Glenn Youngkin, a candidate for the governorship of Virginia, won an upset victory after repeatedly warning that the “curriculum has gone haywire”—and promising to sign an executive order banning C.R.T. from schools. Jatia Wrighten, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University, told the Washington Post that Youngkin had “activated white women to vote in a very specific way that they feel like is protecting their children.”

Days after the alec Webinar on “reclaiming education,” three women in Florida filed incorporation papers for Moms for Liberty, Inc., later declaring that their “sole purpose” was to “fight for parental rights” to choose what sort of education was best for their kids. One of the organization’s founders, Tina Descovich—who had recently lost reëlection to the school board of Brevard County, Florida, after opposing pandemic safety protocols—soon appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s show. Declaring plans to “start with school boards and move on from there,” she said of like-minded parents, “It sounds a little melodramatic, but there is evil working against us on a daily basis.” maga media—“Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Breitbart—showcased Moms for Liberty. Media Matters, the liberal watchdog, argued that influential right-wing media figures were essentially “recruiting their eager audience” for the Moms’ campaign.

Moms for Liberty, which is sometimes referred to as M4L or MFL, is so new that it is hard to parse, from public documents, what its leaders are getting paid. (The founders say that the chairs of local chapters are volunteers.) The group describes itself as a “grassroots” organization, yet its instant absorption by the conservative mediasphere has led some critics to suspect it of being an Astroturf group—an operation secretly funded by moneyed interests. Moms for Liberty registered with the I.R.S. as the kind of social-welfare nonprofit that can accept unlimited dark money.

The leaders had deep G.O.P. connections. One, Marie Rogerson, was a successful Republican political strategist. The other, Bridget Ziegler, a school-board member in Sarasota County, is married to the vice-chair of the Florida G.O.P., Christian Ziegler, who told the Washington Post, “I have been trying for a dozen years to get twenty- and thirty-year-old females involved with the Republican Party, and it was a heavy lift to get that demographic. . . . But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me.” Moms for Liberty worked with the office of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, to help craft the state’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, which DeSantis signed into law this past March; it forbids instruction on “sexual orientation or gender identity” in “kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate.”

A national phalanx of interconnected organizations—including the Manhattan Institute, where Rufo is a fellow, and a group called Moms for America—supported the suite of talking points about C.R.T. According to NBC News, in a single week last year Breitbart alone published seven hundred and fifty posts or articles in which the theory was mentioned. Glenn Beck, the right-wing pundit, declared that C.R.T. is a “poison,” urging his audience, “Stand up in your community and fire the teachers. Fire them!”

On March 15, 2021, Rufo, in a tweet thread, overtly described a key element of the far right’s evolving strategy: “We have successfully frozen their brand—‘critical race theory’—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.” He added, “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ ”

Williamson County has some of Tennessee’s top-ranked schools. “That’s why people move here,” Eric Welch, the longtime school-board member, told me. He describes the school system as an economic “asset that pays off.” Williamson County has the state’s second-lowest unemployment rate and the highest property values: the median home value exceeds eight hundred thousand dollars.

It is not a diverse place. Eighty-eight per cent of residents are white. Ninety-five per cent of the school district’s teachers are white. Until September, all twelve school-board members and the superintendent were white. A Confederate monument anchors the town square of the county seat, Franklin. The square was publicly marked as a former slave market only three years ago. The Confederate flag still flies prominently in some areas. When the white father of Black children recently complained about this at a school-board meeting, a man in the audience sneered, “We’re in the South! ”

In 2018, several parents joined forces to point out that schools in Williamson County could work harder to be welcoming to children of color. The group, which became known as the Cultural Competency Council, included Black, Asian American, Jewish, and L.G.B.T.Q.+ residents. A school-district official who served as a liaison to the council created videos for teacher training and development, including one about privilege. That video’s language had clearly been calibrated to preëmpt defensive reactions: a narrator underscored that the concept of privilege was “not meant to suggest that someone has never struggled or that success is unearned.” Even so, the conservative media pounced: the Tennessee Star said that the video took viewers on a guilt trip about “the perks white males supposedly have that others do not, America’s supposed dysfunctional history, and how unfair it all is.” Such views have played well in a county that Trump carried twice, both times by more than twenty points. (The Cultural Competency Council has been disbanded.)

In 2020, Revida Rahman and another parent co-founded an anti-racism group, One WillCo, after Black parents chaperoning field trips to local plantations were astonished to see slavery depicted as benign. Rahman told me that some presentations suggested that “the slaves didn’t really have it that bad—they lived better than we do, they had their food provided, they had housing.” She added, “I beg to differ.” At a school that one of Rahman’s sons attended, some white classmates had mockingly linked arms as if to represent Trump’s border wall.

One WillCo especially wanted the school system to address the fact that it had a record of disproportionately punishing students of color—a recent revelation. Moreover, some teachers used racially insensitive materials in their classrooms: in an assignment about the antebellum economy, students were instructed to imagine that their family “owns slaves,” and to “create a list of expectations for your family’s slaves.”

On February 15, 2021, the school board hired a mother-and-son team of diversity consultants to gauge the depth of the district’s problems with racism, bullying, and harassment, and to recommend solutions. A conservative board member, Jay Galbreath, forwarded information about the consultants to influential local Republicans, including Gregg Lawrence, a county commissioner, and Bev Burger, a longtime alderman in Franklin. In an e-mail, Lawrence complained to Galbreath that hiring the consultants was the type of thing that would lead to “the politicization of teaching in America where every subject is taught through the lens of race.” He wrote, “These young people who have been protesting, looting and burning down our cities in America are doing so because they don’t see anything about America worth preserving. And why is that? Because our public schools and universities taught them that America is a systemically racist nation founded by a bunch of bigoted slave owning colonizers.”

This exchange was eventually made public through an open-records request, which also revealed that Burger had helped edit what has been called the foundational complaint against Wit & Wisdom: a month after the diversity consultants were hired, the parents of a biracial second grader e-mailed school officials to complain that the curriculum had caused their son to be “ashamed of his white half.” Burger wrote of her edits, “See what you think.” She cc’d Lawrence, who forwarded the communications to Galbreath and another school-board member, Dan Cash, a fellow-conservative who had won his seat in 2014, during a Tea Party wave. The county commissioner told the school-board members, “Here is more evidence that we are teaching critical race theory,” and urged them to “get rid of” Wit & Wisdom.

A few weeks later, on March 22nd, the school board’s monthly meeting took place on Zoom, because of the pandemic. Robin Steenman appeared before the board for the first time. Wearing a cream-colored sweater and dangly earrings, she presented herself simply as a concerned resident who wanted school officials to reject any diversity proposal that involved “The 1619 Project, critical race training, intersectionality.” She worried aloud that a recent proposal in California to mandate a semester of ethnic studies would be “paraded as a blueprint for the rest of the country.”

Steenman, who appeared to be reading from notes, asserted that parents in Virginia were being blacklisted for “speaking out.” In Pennsylvania, an elementary school had “forced fifth graders to celebrate Black communism and host a Black Power rally.” In North Carolina, a teacher had described parents as “an impediment to social justice.” In Ohio, C.R.T. “had to be removed from the curriculum, because the students were literally turning on each other.” Steenman cited no sources. She said, “If you give them an inch”—then changed course. Dropping the “them,” she declared, “If you give one inch to this kind of teaching, then you’re gonna subject yourself to the whole spectrum.”

Several weeks later, Steenman started the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty, building on the e-mail sent by the parents of the biracial child and harnessing the furious energy of families who were already accusing the school board of “medical tyranny” for requiring students to wear masks. This vocal minority had been particularly incensed at one school-board member, Brad Fiscus, a former science teacher whose wife, Michelle, a pediatrician, was Tennessee’s chief vaccine officer. Williamson County is a Republican pipeline to state and national office: the governor, Bill Lee, is from there; Marsha Blackburn, the maga senator, began her political career as a county commissioner there. In July, 2021, the state fired Michelle Fiscus after conservative lawmakers objected to her “messaging” in support of covid-19 vaccinations; afterward, Brad Fiscus resigned from the school board and the family moved to the East Coast. For right-wing extremists, the obvious lesson was that rage tactics worked. That August, one school-board meeting nearly ended in violence when two enraged men followed a proponent of masks to his vehicle, screaming, “We can find you!”

Moms for Liberty emphasizes the importance of being “joyful warriors”—relatable women who can rally their communities. A founder once explained, “This fight has to be fought in their own backyard.” The organization may have seen Steenman as particularly well suited to winning over Williamson County residents: she was a former B-1-bomber pilot now raising three small children. Her husband, Matt, was also ex-Air Force—fighter jets. They moved to Williamson County five years ago, from Texas.

Another member of their fraternity was John Ragan, a former Air Force fighter pilot who’d been elected as a Republican to the Tennessee General Assembly in 2010. Ragan, a former business consultant from the city of Oak Ridge, had been listed as an alternate on alec’s education task force. (He says that he does not recall attending any meetings.) He’d once crafted legislation to ban K-8 teachers from using materials “inconsistent with natural human reproduction” in the classroom. (It failed.)

Early last year, as Moms for Liberty was receiving its first wave of national media attention, Ragan introduced “anti-C.R.T.” legislation. He wanted to ban teaching about white privilege or any other concepts that might cause students “discomfort or other psychological distress” because of their race or sex. The wording parroted talking points from Moms for Liberty, which parroted Trump, who parroted Rufo. Around the time that Moms for Liberty members began showing up at Williamson County school-board meetings, Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, said on his video podcast that “the path to save the nation is very simple—it’s going to go through the school boards.” Calling mothers “patriots,” he urged a “revolt.”

At a committee meeting of Tennessee House members, Ragan promoted his legislation by claiming that he’d heard about a seven-year-old Williamson County girl who had had suicidal thoughts, and was now in therapy, because she was ashamed of being white. (No such family has ever publicly come forward.) Two Black Democrats sharply challenged Ragan. Harold Love, a congressman from Nashville, asked him whether the proposed legislation would make it illegal for teachers to even mention “The 1619 Project.” When Ragan replied that instructors could talk about it as long as they taught “both for and against,” Love said, “It’s kind of hard to be ‘for or against’ slavery.” G. A. Hardaway, a congressman from Memphis, argued on the House floor that a law limiting discussion of race, ethnicity, discrimination, and bias contradicted “the very principles that our country was formed on.”

Ragan pushed ahead, arguing that “subversive factions,” “seditious charlatans,” and “misguided souls” were creating “artificial divisions” in a “shameless pursuit of political power.” His bill passed. Senator Raumesh Akbari, who chairs the Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus, said, “This offensive legislation pretends skin color has never mattered in our country,” adding that “our children deserve to learn the full story.”

Once the Governor signed the bill into law, Moms for Liberty would be able to devise complaints arguing that certain elements of public instruction violated a Tennessee statute. Violators could be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially draining resources. Steenman, appearing on Blackburn’s video podcast, “Unmuted with Marsha,” let slip a tactical detail: the moment Tennessee’s new law took effect, Moms for Liberty would have a complaint against Wit & Wisdom “ready to go” to the state. Blackburn praised Steenman as “the point of the spear.”

Steenman also appeared on Glenn Beck’s show. As if speaking directly to Governor Lee, she said, “Stop serving the woke-left lobby!” Beck said, “Bill Lee, shame on you!” Lee signed the bill into law on the eve of the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder.

Steenman raised Moms for Liberty’s visibility by putting on events—rented plants, live music, charcuterie. One of them, C.R.T. 101, took place in May, 2021, before a large audience at Liberty Hall, a Franklin auditorium in a renovated stove factory filled with shops and restaurants. A clinical psychologist from Utah, Gary Thompson, came onstage and declared that C.R.T. engenders shame, which can trigger depression, which could “be pushing your kids to suicide.” Thompson, who is Black, showed photographs of his multiracial family: he and his wife, a white pediatric neuropsychologist, have six children. Thompson joked, awkwardly, that the overwhelmingly white audience sure didn’t look like members of the K.K.K. He noted that he’d voted for Barack Obama, and said that he approved of Williamson County Schools’ hiring of diversity consultants to assess such problems as racial bullying. He opposed C.R.T., though, because it framed people of color as “victims.” Choking up, Thompson said, “That is not the legacy that my parents left me.”

Moms for Liberty often advances its cause by enlisting Black conservatives, or by borrowing snippets from their public comments. The organization has posted a video clip of Condoleezza Rice saying that white kids shouldn’t have to “feel bad” in order for Black children to feel empowered. Steenman has collaborated with Carol Swain, a political scientist at Vanderbilt, who vocally opposes same-sex marriage and once described Islam as “dangerous to our society.” This past January, Moms for Liberty sponsored a conference organized by Swain, American Dream, whose branding heavily featured images of Martin Luther King, Jr. Before the event, King’s daughter Bernice tweeted an admonition about those who took her father’s “words out of context to promote ideas that oppose his teachings,” adding that Steenman’s chapter, having “sought to erase him,” was now “using him to make money.”

At the C.R.T. 101 gathering, the author of the original complaint against Wit & Wisdom revealed herself onstage to be Chara Dixon, a mom in her forties. Nervously holding a copy of her speech, she introduced herself as a naturalized citizen. (She had emigrated, decades earlier, from Thailand.) Dixon, whose husband, Brian, is white, recalled helping their seven-year-old son with a Wit & Wisdom assignment about a “lonely little yellow leaf.” The audience laughed when she declared, “It was boring.” A book about a chameleon: “Another boring story!” Her son had also read about King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which was “beautiful and uplifting”; but the tale of Ruby Bridges and the “angry white mob” was depressing. Dixon said that in her son’s childhood world “there’s no color.” (She soon became Moms for Liberty’s treasurer.)

Dixon seemed to conflate Wit & Wisdom and C.R.T. Steenman, in an official complaint to the Tennessee Department of Education, wrote, “There does not have to be a textbook labeled ‘Critical Race Theory’ for its harmful tenets to be present in a curriculum.” At the C.R.T. 101 event, she took the stage and told the audience that the threat of “Marxist” indoctrination at school could be vanquished by opposing “activist” teachers, curricula, and diversity-driven policy. An m.c. cheerily ended the evening by reminding everyone that “today’s kids are tomorrow’s voters.”

The Williamson County chapter of M4L held its next big event, Let’s Talk Wit & Wisdom, at a Harley-Davidson franchise in Franklin. Steenman had been having trouble finding a venue when the dealership’s owner offered his showroom. Calling the man a “true patriot,” Steenman presented him with a folded and framed American flag that, she said, had accompanied her on a bombing mission in Afghanistan.

Moms for Liberty had invited the entire school board to the event, but the only members who showed up were the group’s three clear allies. One, a former kindergarten teacher who opposed masking, liked to hug people during breaks at school-board meetings. The other two were Cash and Galbreath, both of whom were up for reëlection on August 4, 2022.

Steenman, gesturing toward a large screen behind her, showed the “findings” of a Moms for Liberty “deep dive” into Wit & Wisdom. She elicited gasps from the audience by saying that the curriculum contained books that depicted “graphic murder,” “rape,” “promiscuity,” “torture,” “adultery,” “stillbirth,” and “scalping and skinning,” along with content that her organization considered to be “anti-police,” “anti-church,” and “anti-nuclear family.” Rhetoric about “empowering the students” was suddenly “everywhere,” she complained. Without presenting any evidence, she claimed that elementary-school students now needed counsellors to help them “overcome the emotional trauma” caused by Wit & Wisdom.

Steenman’s events often strayed far from the particulars of Williamson County Schools. At one of them, the proceedings were interrupted when someone walked onstage and breathlessly announced news from Virginia: Glenn Youngkin, the candidate for governor who’d crusaded against C.R.T., had won. The audience cheered as if Youngkin were one of their own.

Steenman’s claims about Wit & Wisdom were so tendentious that several ardent supporters of the public schools looked her up on social media. Among other things, they discovered a Twitter account, @robin_steenman. On August 9, 2020, Matt Walsh—a columnist for the Daily Wire, the conservative media site co-founded by the pundit Ben Shapiro—had shared a thread by a Philadelphia teacher who expressed concern that meddlesome parents might overhear classroom conversations during online learning and undermine “honest conversations about gender/sexuality.” (The Daily Wire is headquartered in Nashville, and Shapiro has propagated Moms for Liberty’s messaging.) In a retweet of Walsh, @robin_steenman had posted, “You little brainwashing assholes will never get hold of my kids!” After Eric Welch and others publicly challenged Steenman about the tweet—and another one declaring that her children would never attend public schools—the account vanished. (Steenman agreed to an interview, but did not keep the appointment. A Moms for Liberty spokesperson, calling my questions “personal in nature,” largely declined to provide answers.)

Privately, certain defenders of Wit & Wisdom referred to Moms for Liberty members as the Antis. In a sly move, some adopted the seahorse as a symbol of what one parent described to me as “the resistance.” This summer in Williamson County, I saw seahorse stickers on cars and laptops. When I met Rahman for lunch, she was wearing seahorse earrings. At a school-board campaign event for a candidate who opposed Moms for Liberty, a volunteer wore a seahorse pendant on a necklace, alongside a gold cross. At least one person connected to Moms for Liberty had become concerned about the group’s motives and tactics, and was secretly monitoring them from the inside. This person told me, “I’m the one in the trench, and I don’t want to get caught.”

Many Moms and like-minded parents wanted both Wit & Wisdom and Superintendent Golden gone. Golden’s contract was up for annual review before the 2021-22 school year began. (One Moms for Liberty opponent recently tweeted, “The m.o. nationwide is to fire Supt’s and hire ideologues.”) At a meeting where the board planned to vote on Golden’s future, one of the superintendent’s many supporters implored the elected officials to “hold the line” against the “steady attack on our public schools.” The Antis were louder. A man wearing an American-flag-themed shirt shouted, “We, the parents, are awake, we’re organized, and we’re extremely pissed off.” He declared, “We’re gonna replace every board member in here with people just like me. Nothing would make us happier than to surround you with a roomful of American patriots who believe in the Constitution of the United States and Jesus Christ above!”

The Antis jeered at speakers who expressed support for Golden or the district’s diversity efforts. They mocked a woman whose daughters had experienced anti-Asian slurs at school. The mom told the board, “I’ve heard people say that teaching these parts of our history is ‘racist’ or ‘traumatic.’ What’s traumatic is Black, Latino, Asian, and L.G.B.T.Q. kids going to schools where they face discrimination and don’t feel safe.” A local psychologist, Alanna Truss, said, “I’m yet to see a child in my practice who’s been traumatized by our county’s curriculum choices. I have, however, seen many students experiencing trauma due to being discriminated against and bullied within our schools, related to race, religion, gender, and sexuality.”

Six of the school-board members, who serve four-year terms, were coming up for reëlection in August of 2022. (The other six will finish their terms in 2024.) As the Wit & Wisdom furor grew, another component of the right-wing assault on schools locked into place: last fall, state lawmakers passed a bill legalizing partisan school-board elections. Moms for Liberty called the change “a HUGE step forward.”

Educators and policymakers have long believed that public education should operate independently of political ideology. As the magazine Governing put it last year, “The goal of having nonpartisan elections is not to remove all politics” but “to remove a conflict point that keeps the school board from doing its job.” For people who target school boards, conflict has become a tool. In Texas, a PAC linked to a cell-phone company which recently funded the maga takeover of several school boards paid for an inflammatory mail campaign blaming a classroom shooting on administrators who had “stopped disciplining students according to Critical Race Theory principles.” In August, during a panel at cpac, the gathering of conservatives, the former Trump official Mercedes Schlapp warned that, though Republicans were focussed on federal and state elections, “school board elections are critical.” The panel’s title, “We Are All Domestic Terrorists,” derisively referred to recent instructions from Attorney General Merrick Garland to the F.B.I. for devising a plan to protect school employees and board members from threats of violence.

Joining Schlapp onstage was Ryan Girdusky, the founder of the 1776 Project pac, which funnels money to G.O.P. candidates in partisan school-board races. Girdusky boasted that, in 2021, his pac “did fifty-eight elections in seven states and we won forty-two.” Girdusky said that his goal this year is to boost at least five hundred school-board candidates nationwide. He urged the audience to “vote from the bottom up—go from school board and then go all the way up to governor and senator, and we’ll have conservative majorities across the entire electorate.”

Last November, mere weeks after Tennessee lawmakers voted to allow partisan school-board races, Steenman launched a pac, Williamson Families. Its approach was markedly similar to that of Southlake Families, a Texas pac whose orchestrated takeover of a school board in that state has led to attempted book bans. Both pacs have worked with Axiom Strategies, a political-consulting firm that has helped seat high-profile Republicans, including maga figures. Allen West, the chair of the Texas G.O.P., has urged Southlake Families to export its takeover blueprint to suburbs nationwide. Wealthy suburbs are some of America’s purplest districts, and winning them may be key to controlling the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Anne McGraw, the former Williamson County Schools board member, told me that the advent of Moms for Liberty “shows how hyperlocal the national machine is going with their tactics.” She observed, “Moms for Liberty is not in Podunk, America. They’re going into hyper-educated, wealthy counties like this, and trying to get those people to doubt the school system that brought us here.”

Steenman’s pac quickly took in about a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars—an unusually large amount for local politics in Tennessee. The pac held an inaugural event featuring John Rich, a country singer who had appeared with Trump on “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Rich, who has no apparent connection to Williamson County, has contributed at least five thousand dollars to Steenman’s pac.

Progressives and policy experts have long suspected that right-wing attacks on school boards are less about changing curricula than about undermining the entire public-school system, in the hope of privatizing education. During the alec Webinar about “reclaiming education,” the Heritage Foundation representative declared that “school choice” would become “very important in the next couple of years”; controversies about curricula, he said, were “opening up opportunity for policymakers at the state level” to consider options like charter schools.

This isn’t the first time that the culture wars have taken aim at public education. But Rebecca Jacobsen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University, believes that this era is different, because social media has made it easy for national operatives to stage “a coördinated, concrete” scare campaign designed to drive parents toward alternatives to public schools: “The message, at its core, is: ‘Beware of your public-education system. Make sure your kid’s teachers aren’t up to something.’ ”

The timing of “anti-C.R.T.” legislation is no coincidence. Instead of putting forth a platform, the Republican Party has tried to maintain power by demonizing its opponents and critics as sinister and un-American. In the lead-up to the midterms, the G.O.P.’s alarmism about critical race theory has accompanied fear-mongering about L.G.B.T.Q.+ teachers being “groomers.” Conservative media aggressively promote both campaigns. From Fox News to the Twitter account Libs of TikTok, the messaging has been consistent: many public-school teachers are dangerous.

Lee, the Tennessee governor, has leveraged this discord while trying to reformulate school funding: in January, he announced plans to create fifty new charter schools in partnership with Hillsdale College, a private Christian school in Michigan, whose president, Larry Arnn, headed Trump’s 1776 Commission. The plan partially collapsed after a Tennessee television station aired footage of Arnn, during a private appearance in Williamson County, comparing public education to “the plague” and arguing that teachers are educated in “the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.” J. C. Bowman, the executive director and C.E.O. of Professional Educators of Tennessee, called Arnn’s comments “reprehensible and irresponsible.” Even Republican politicians backed away. The speaker of the Tennessee House, Cameron Sexton, acknowledged that Arnn had “insulted generations of teachers who have made a difference for countless students.”

Moms for Liberty’s role in the broader war on public schools became ever clearer in July, at the group’s inaugural national summit, in Tampa. DeSantis, who delivered a key address, was presented with a “liberty sword.” Another headliner was Trump’s former Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, whose family has connections to Hillsdale. To an enthusiastic crowd that included Steenman, DeVos declared that the U.S. Department of Education—the agency that she once oversaw—should not exist.

Early this year, Eric Welch, the school-board member, was leaning against seeking reëlection. Both of his sons had graduated—he was the one who handed them their high-school diplomas when they crossed the stage. His wife, Andrea, wanted him to take it easy for a while.

School-board service, which is time-consuming and can be tedious, requires diplomacy, a breadth of knowledge, and the ability to make complex, well-informed decisions. At meetings, Welch, who considered ideologues and bullies a threat to public education, often rebutted misinformation about covid-19 and Wit & Wisdom. At one meeting, he’d pointedly read aloud from a title that he found on a Moms for Liberty site: the book, written by a follower of the John Birch Society, referred to Black people as “pickaninnies.” Rahman, the co-founder of One WillCo, the anti-racism organization, told me, “He came with all the receipts.” Welch’s detractors had declared him arrogant and rude; Rahman called him “a strong advocate for what’s right.”

For Welch’s seat, Steenman’s pac backed William (Doc) Holladay, an optometrist who, like Steenman, had no children in Williamson County Schools. Holladay had shown up at school-board meetings to denounce C.R.T. as “racist.” On Facebook, where he’d railed against pandemic protocols, his posts were routinely flagged or removed because they contained misinformation. His top “news” sources included the Epoch Times, which regularly promotes right-wing falsehoods.

Last year, Charlie Wilson, the president of the National School Boards Association, characterized local school-board members as fundamental guardians “of democracy, of liberty, of equality, of civility and community, and of the Constitution and the rule of law.” Holladay, a felon who believes the conspiracy theory that Trump is still the “legitimate President,” seemed more like an opportunist. In 2008, he’d pleaded guilty to multiple counts of prescription fraud and forgery; the Tennessee Department of Health had put him on probation for “immoral, unprofessional or dishonorable conduct,” noting that he had also worked “while impaired.” The state licensure board later added five more years of probation upon discovering that he’d made “untruthful” claims about “professional excellence or abilities.” (Holladay told me that he has turned his life around.)

When Welch heard that Holladay and other figures he considered to be unsuitable were seeking authority over the schools, he tweeted, “I’m running.” He told his wife, “I don’t know that I can walk away and let these people be in charge.” The “Tennessee School Board Candidate Guide” notes that, for the office of school board, “the best, most capable and most farsighted citizens of each community should be drafted.”

During the campaign, Holladay tried to frame Welch, a lifelong Republican, as a “liberal” for having supported masking and Wit & Wisdom. Welch publicly noted that he had interned for Senator John Warner, of Virginia, and attended the Inauguration of George W. Bush. Holladay, who had no military service, bragged about being a patriot; Welch is an Army veteran.

In a Q. & A. published by One WillCo, candidates were asked to describe their involvement with Williamson County Schools. Welch explained that, in addition to serving on the executive board of the district’s parent-teacher association, he had “run wrestling tournaments as a booster fundraiser, spray painted end zones, worked concessions, volunteered for holiday shows setup/breakdown, built theatre sets, cleaned bleachers, mopped floors.” Holladay’s answers: “Speaking out at school board meetings”; “Helping to lead activist groups in order to effect needed changes.” When asked why he was running, he said that “the school board has largely been operating in a manner that runs counter to the conservative principles that most people who live here hold dear.” This and other answers betrayed profound ignorance of what a school board does.

Moms for Liberty had been broadening its campaign against Wit & Wisdom and was now targeting reading materials available in school libraries, which provided access to the Epic app, a repository of nearly fifty thousand children’s books. In a local news segment, Steenman read aloud, “I-is-for-intersex,” from a book called “The GayBCs,” which was available on Epic, and said, “What parent wants to explain ‘intersex’ to their child that, at this point, doesn’t even understand sex?”

Holladay tried a similar maneuver. During a live-streamed candidate forum, he handed his interviewer a passage from “Push,” the acclaimed novel by Sapphire, and asked him to read it aloud. (If this was the same passage that Holladay later showed me on his cell phone, it began, “Daddy sick me, disgust me, but he sex me up.”) The interviewer was Tom Lawrence, a gentlemanly fixture on AM radio who has been called “the voice of Williamson County.” Lawrence scanned the text and declined to share it with viewers, saying, “It has words like ‘orgasm’ in it.” Holladay, noting that the book could be found in one of the local high schools, declared, “Whoever is responsible for putting that book in the library should be arrested.” (In a tweet, Welch expressed astonishment that a school-board candidate would “call for the arrest of a WCS librarian.”)

As Holladay campaigned, he repeatedly invoked the nationwide partisan divide. In an interview that appeared on YouTube, he declared that conservatives were fleeing blue states for places like Williamson County because the left was trying to “destroy the last remaining refuges of conservatism and patriotism.” If Williamson County “goes blue,” he said, the rest of the state would follow, and if Tennessee “doesn’t stay red” it will be “a huge blow to the country.”

On Election Day, Welch, a wiry ex-wrestler, erected a pole tent outside Hunters Bend Elementary School, a voting precinct. Holladay’s supporters set up nearby. I arrived to find Welch, wearing khaki shorts and a “re-elect eric welch” T-shirt, squaring off in the parking lot with a Holladay supporter who was saying, angrily, “I’ve laid people out for less than that!”

The man, Brian Russell, described Welch as the aggressor—“He shoulder-checked me”—but multiple witnesses characterized the altercation differently. Meghan Guffee, a Republican running for reëlection to the county commission, told me that Russell had demanded to know why Welch had blocked him on social media. Welch, trying to walk away, had responded, “I’m ending this conversation. You’re an ass.”

In a public Facebook post, Russell had declared Welch to be “as bad as a pedophile.” Guffee said that she’d heard Russell, in the parking lot, accuse Welch of having “voted to teach third graders how to masturbate.” (Russell denies this.) Guffee was particularly appalled that her six-year-old daughter, who was with her at the voting site, had witnessed Russell’s hostility. She told me, “That is not how this community does things.”

Before leaving the school grounds, Russell, a painting contractor in his early fifties, told me that he was angry about Wit & Wisdom: “When my daughter comes home and her best friend is Black, and she’s wondering why ‘I’m bad because I’m white. . . . ’ ” This and other comments suggested that his children attended local schools. In fact, Russell’s three children lived in his native state of Ohio.

Throughout America, maga types were targeting education officials. In Maine, a man plastered a school-board member’s photograph on a sign and surrounded it with rat traps, telling NBC News, “This is a war with the left,” and “In war, tactics and strategy can become blurry.” A member of the Proud Boys ran for a school-board seat in California. On September 27th, the American Libraries Association sent an open letter to the F.B.I. director, Chris Wray, asking for help: in the previous two weeks alone, “bombing or shooting threats” had forced the temporary closing of libraries in five states. Tennessee was one of them.

In Williamson County, Moms for Liberty members couldn’t claim ignorance of the beliefs of some of the candidates they and Steenman’s pac supported. Williamson Families donated a thousand dollars to the campaign of an ex-marine who was running for county commissioner, and who had publicly warned the school board, “In the past, you dealt with sheep. Now prepare yourselves to deal with lions! I swore an oath to protect this country from all enemies—foreign and domestic. You harm my children, you become a domestic enemy.”

That guy lost. So did Holladay. Welch beat him by five hundred and fifty-nine votes. Welch was surprised that anybody had voted for Holladay, later telling me, “If you had to design a candidate who is unqualified and should not be on a board of education, that’s what he’d look like.”

Candidates backed by Moms for Liberty members won, however, in two other districts. A Republican who appeared to have no connection to the public schools beat Ken Chilton, who ran as an independent and who, the day after the election, tweeted that Tennessee lawmakers’ decision to allow partisan school-board elections had “created a monster.”

Jay Galbreath, the board member who had forwarded the e-mails about diversity consultants to other conservative politicians, had found himself challenged from the right flank—by a M4L-affiliated candidate whose campaign signs said “reject crt.” As if to prove his opposition to Wit & Wisdom, Galbreath had posted publicly, on Facebook, that progressives were “constantly looking at ways to inject and normalize things like gender identity, the black lives matter movement, and LGBTQ by weaving it into curriculum.” Williamson Strong, a pac composed of local progressives who have long defended the public schools, called for Galbreath’s resignation, noting, “This is pure hate speech, and it has NO place in a position of influence or power over 40,000+ children and their education. It has no place in Williamson County, period.” The group, whose leaders include Anne McGraw, the former school-board member, observed, “All filters have apparently been obliterated now that he’s competing for votes against an MFL-endorsed candidate.” Despite the controversy, Galbreath won reëlection.

A month before the vote, a civil action was filed against Wit & Wisdom: the parents of an elementary-school student sued the school board and various administrators in the district on behalf of a conservative nonprofit that they had just launched, Parents’ Choice Tennessee. The lawsuit’s complaint echoed Moms for Liberty’s assertions that the curriculum’s “harmful, unlawful and age-inappropriate content” represented a “clear violation of Tennessee code.” If the lawsuit succeeds, Williamson County Schools may have to find a new curriculum and pay fines. (Citing the litigation, Williamson County Schools officials declined to comment for this article.)

The lawsuit may have been designed, in part, to give the impression that there was more local opposition to Wit & Wisdom than actually existed. There are eighteen thousand students in the district’s elementary schools, but according to a district report only thirty-seven people had complained about the new curriculum. Fourteen of the complainants had no children in the system.

Rebecca Jacobsen, the Michigan scholar, looks for clues in such data. She said, of the vitriol toward school boards, “Is this a blip, and we’ll rebound? Or are we chipping away at our largest public institution and the system that has been at the center of our democracy since the founding of this country?” She noted that some Americans “don’t trust their schools and teachers anymore,” adding, “That’s radical.”

Moms for Liberty’s campaign, meanwhile, continues to widen. The organization now claims two hundred and forty chapters in forty-two states, and more than a hundred thousand members. It has thrown a fund-raising gala, featuring Megyn Kelly, in which the top ticket cost twenty thousand dollars. In late October, a spokesperson for the Moms told me that the organization—ostensibly a charity—is a “media company.”

The slick rollout of Moms for Liberty has made it seem less like a good-faith collective of informed parents and more like a well-funded operation vying to sway American voters in a pivotal election year. Steenman’s chapter recently announced a slate of upcoming talks: “Gender Ideology,” “Restorative Justice,” “Comprehensive Sex Ed,” “History of Marxism in Education.” I asked Jacobsen whether she thinks that Moms for Liberty members actually believe that a curriculum like Wit & Wisdom damages children. “I don’t know what anybody believes anymore,” she replied. “We seem to have lost a sense of honesty. It may just be about power and money.” ♦

[vikenticomeshome]

Cyberchase (Australian Release) DVD Volume 10

Here's some high-resolution scans from Volume 10 of the Australian release of Cyberchase.

Okay, so we have Lady Ada Lovelace and her time machine. We know that this scene was created based on Season 2 Episode 1 "Hugs and Witches". However, there are a few things wrong here. First, we have Jackie struggling to open the door. In the proper episode, this door had a massive padlock on it.

Digit easily snips it off, so maybe that's what happened here. But if that's what happened, then why is Jackie still having trouble with the door? It looks like she's pulling it pretty hard. Oh no, it open's inward, doesn't it?

Damn it. Was this the sort of lessons the kids learned after the show ran out of math?

Wait, no, it opens both ways. It is because Jackie is 2D, but the model is 3D? Am I overthinking this?

Moving on, let's talk about Lady Ada Lovelace on the cover. In the episode, that window had bars over it, presumably for security.

But on the DVD cover, I guess they really wanted to show her face unobscured, so they removed the bars.

But then, you wonder why she didn't just climb out the open window.

What else? We've got Matt rushing up the path like his life depends on it. I've never seen him run that hard before.

Yes, The Hacker is right there, clearly enjoying the scene, but Matt doesn't look scared. He looks really determined to do something.

Is he going after Digit? Why?

But we all know the real star of this cover is. I think the designers did this on purpose, since she is featured on the spine as well.

What is she doing? This isn't helping at all.

Actually, if I look at Digit's line of sight, I think he's really concerned about whatever is going on with Inez.

I know, I know, I need sleep.

[dotster001]

Girl Dad

Summary: Chevalier adopts an heir.

A/N: this was originally supposed to be for a request, but I misread part of it. I really like how it came out tho, so I'm posting it by itself. I based the five year old he adopts after my sassy five year old cousin, cause only a sassy kiddo could keep up with him 😂 if you like this...keep an eye out for a very similar fic to be released later that's actually based off the prompt I was given

CW:Emma is not reader, spreading my aro/Ace Chev agenda

A king needs an heir. It was purely business, but as Chevalier had yet to take on a wife or lover, Sariel had to resort to other methods of ensuring the bloodline.

Having dragged the young king to an orphanage, Sariel was having a word with the headmistress, and watched as the king walked away, face set like he was marching into battle.

The bloody beast eyed the children, as they cried and scurried away. Unsurprising. it was what he expected when Sariel had told him about the day's events.

To be honest, it would be truly foolish for any of them to approach the brutal beast.

"Excuse me," he felt a tug on his coat, and turned to see a little girl, looking up at him expectantly.

"Do you wanna see my drawing? It's probably the best drawing in the whole world."

Apparently his silence was answer enough, because she slipped her small hand into his, and "dragged" him to her bed, where the drawing was kept.

All Chev saw were some pink squiggles.

"That's me. Princess Ada. Do you wanna be in my drawing?"

She was immediately adding some blue squiggles to her picture. Then she handed the paper to Chev.

"There. Now you're a princess too!"

Chev stared at the paper with a blank expression.

….

Sariel and the headmistress both stopped their discussions as Chevalier walked out the door with Ada in his arms.

Sariel sighed.

"I guess he picked that one. Get me her paperwork."

….

"This room needs more pink."

Ada was walking around the room, giving it a scrutinizing look.

"And more stuffed animals."

She stood still and nodded.

"But I like it."

Chev said nothing, but she didn't seem to need him to speak to understand. Another sign that he'd chosen well.

….

"Your job is to wrangle my child."

Chevalier had forgotten how five year olds do not stay in one place without supervision. And Ada was giving even Clavis a run for his money. So he'd called in the simpleton.

"I never really thought of you as having a child," Emma laughed. "But I suppose it was bound to happen eventually, considering-"

"Princess Ada is probably picking flowers in the garden, swimming in the fountain, or making a mess of Clavis' experiments. I suggest you start looking."

He left with a flourish, ignoring her poorly hidden giggles.

….

"These lessons are boring," Chevalier heard as he entered Sariel's office, where he was attempting to teach Ada about her new kingdom.

Ada perked up when she saw him.

"I can stop learning today right?"

Chev said nothing.

"Daddy says I can skip lessons today," she said with authority.

"He did not–" Sariel began, but was cut off as Chevalier scooped up Ada, and took her out of the room. But not before Ada stuck out her tongue at a very stressed Sariel.

….

"Tell your dad what you did," Emma said firmly.

"I took my bath very fast," Ada said unapologetically.

"When?"

"Just now!" She seemed so proud. But she was also bone dry.

"Why aren't you wet then?" Chevalier asked.

"I dried off very fast," she said with a scowl.

"So you didn't take your bath, and lied to Miss Simpleton-"

"Miss Emma-"

"And now think you can fool me?"

"I dried off very fast! I'll show you!"

Ada picked up a pretend towel and erratically wiped herself off with it. Chevalier sighed.

"Fine, I'll go take a second bath, I guess," Ada said with a pout, stomping from the room.

….

"Wanna hear a joke? Ask me what a candy cane with salt is!" Ada exclaimed, as she swung her legs back and forth in the chair next to Chev's desk.

"What's a candy cane with salt?" He muttered, not looking up from his paperwork.

"A pwetzel!"

Chev froze.

"What?"

"A pwetzel!"

He looked up at her, setting his pen down, giving her his undivided attention.

"What's a candy cane with salt?"

She huffed. "A pwetzel, I already told you!"

For once in his life, the brutal, bloody, genius was completely lost.

"Huh-"

"Princess Ada, it's time for Uncle Licht to give you your riding lessons," Sariel said, at the door.

"Yay! Hey Sariel, wanna hear a joke?" Chev heard as they both trailed down the hallway.

"I wish I'd known sooner all it would take to take you down was a five year old girl," Clavis snickered, expertly dodging the pen Chevalier threw at him.

….

The King was a busy man, what with all the work he had to do to keep Obsidian at bay. But he made sure to take a break every night to put his little one to sleep.

Her room was much more pink now, and filled with mountains of stuffed animals. It hadn't been long before she had asked for frilly pink nightgowns. And whatever Princess Ada wanted, Princess Ada got.

Chev pulled the covers up and tucked her in, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

"Can you read me a story before bedtime? I promise, just one and I'll go to sleep."

"You told me just one yesterday, and I read four stories to you."

"Hee hee, yeah. But I promise to be a good girl today!"

With a sigh, Chevalier pulled a book he'd gotten from the simpleton's dog off the shelf, and began,

"Once upon a time…"

[ask-a-w]

Micro-expressions between Leon & Ada in RE4R (Part 1)

I used the cutscene video from Gamer's Little Playground to capture a bunch of screencaps. Picture heavy post so I'll leave majority of them under the cut.

These two don't show their emotions that easily to each other in RE4R, I had to slow down the speed to 0.25x to catch their micro-expressions.

Gonna analyse each cutscene that appears chronologically. These are strictly my interpretations which may or may not be correct.

Needless to say, Aeon heavy post. If you don't like this ship, then skip it.

Also, since tumblr does not allow more than 30 images in one post and I got very trigger happy with the screen caps... this will be split into 6 posts.

Part 1 (this post) Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Let's start with the castle meeting.

There's some confusion.

Followed by a tiny smirk.

She has a small smile as she teases him.

He drops his gun pretty quickly.

He looks hurt.

And then angry.

Leon looks a bit scared(?) while Ada is smiling that he said her name.

She is intrigued.

Then Leon launches a surprise attack and catches her off guard here.

I took up self-defence lessons lately and Leon is demonstrating a perfect job at controlling the gun arm. Guns can only harm in one direction. Control the arm that's holding the gun and you're essentially safe. Knives on the other hand, are multi-directional and can injure you no matter which way you swing.

Ada still seems shocked that he attacks her while he remains focused.

Ada's look says 'He nearly sliced my face!'

Here is where Ada slips up with her high kick. From what I learned from the kicking module in self-defence class, kicks above the waist are considered performance kicks aka they are for show and only look pretty. Do a high kick in a street fight and you leave your lower body open for attack. Plus, high kicks are easily dodged or grabbed in this case.

Look at the indentation of the knife on her turtleneck, Leon was serious. Ada is understandably a little wary.

He's still serious.

She is impressed and proud of him.

He's unfazed by her praise of his knife skills.

She grits her teeth slightly when he asks whom she's working for. A warning perhaps?

And shortly after the above picture, she tries to deflect the topic by shooting him a smile.

They cautiously step away from each other, Ada seems to be looking at him hopefully(?)

Leon is no longer interested in fighting and another rule in self-defence is to never turn your back against an opponent which Leon does here… So, he trusts her to not kill him.

She is serious about his safety, perhaps?

He seems angry at her suggestion.

They do another cautious 'dance' around each other.

She has her back turned toward him this time. Remember what I said about never turning your back in self-defence? She's certain he won't attack her again but still has her eyes lingering to the side 'cos the situation is tense.

Part 2 here.