#we could also talk about how big pharma is part of this

[wtfuglydemonalt]

Just saw a post talking about DSPS (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome) and how stupid it is. Here's some important reminders:

Disorders are not discovered for the sake of disabled people.

Disorders depend on what is seen as desirable/undesirable in a society at their specific time period.

Disorders are a tool. Not the symptoms themselves, of course, but the classification is. It works to give people who have those an "other" status, separate them from "normal" people.

Not to mention the pathologization of completely normal things, like mentioned above. It is normal for people to have later sleep cycles, hell, DSPD's own description mentions how it's normal in teenagers. But it doesn't fit the work cycle set by capitalism, does it? It doesn't matter if humans evolved that way due to protection needs in the wild, if you can't abide by the set rules then there is something wrong with you. In their eyes, anyway.

There's a big movement within psychology of people who are against the DSM-5 and CID-11. People should get the help they need without being marginalized.

If you are disabled in any way, psychologically, physically, developmentally... please know there's nothing wrong with you, no matter how much society wants you to forcefully fit their bullshit standards.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

This is kind of what I'm talking about. Tolerance and love are fine for a world where people can get along. This person? They are saying they take accountability for their actions. Except, how does one be accountable for actions taken when they don't even UNDERSTAND what they are doing?

And that will always be my point. EVEN JUST ONE detransitioner is too many. Many people when they start to transition, they give up so much while having NO IDEA what they are giving up. The ability to have kids. The ability to have functioning man hood. The ability do get taller. The ability for proper brain development. Even the ability to become more masculine or feminine depending on how far down the line of transitioning you get.

Big Pharma, and the larger Medical apparatus of cosmetic surgeons.....you are nothing but more money in their pockets. And what's worse is even if you can't pay them, the government will. THEY HAVE ZERO reason to tell you that you are not trans. Why? Because once you start on that route they have a customer for life. Though often they don't because most people that transition are not trans. They are depressed and don't know what to do.

They don't feel like themselves. And often during puberty YOU DON'T FEEL like yourself. Because you are still becoming who you are going to be. Contrary to the narrative pushed, a lot of "trans" people don't commit suicide because the world isn't accepting enough. They do it because the are depressed and in need of help. And rather than get help, they get told that the root of their depression is because of "gender". SO, not only are they not getting mental health help, they are being rushed onto blockers, CSHs, and sex change operations.

The reason I know this is because I know trans people in my own life. Ones who've been like that as long as I've known them. And they've done the proper thing in their lives which is social transitioning, but only after 2-3 years of psychological evaluations to be sure that is what it is. Then between the ages of 19-21 that's around the time doctors suggest surgery.

Doctors now? No they just want the extra money. And why risk activists protesting outside of their hospital or practice. When they can just be like, "Yep, you're my patient for life now, and if I make the responsible decision and say no, not only am I not getting more money, but I'm also going to end up with bricks through my place of business. Let's just cut parts off kids, remove their ability to procreate at all, and destroy their ability to have normal lives if/when they realize that this is not what they wanted......BUT I GUESS more money for me."

My take on this is actually a sane one. If your take on this is let KIDS take drugs to halt development, or to give them life altering surgeries before the age of 17-18 you are the lunatic. It's not transphobic to want people to be safe. And that video above? People like him will go on to pass actual legislation that will fuck trans people. And they will do it out of spite. You keep saying it's not happening. AND IT KEEPS FUCKING HAPPENING! Feels like there is a dozen new cases every single day. And all for what? So potentially 2% of the global population can be lifelong benefactors of Big Medical and Big Pharma?

If that's what you want you do it. But stop pretending that no one is being pressured into it. We see you. We KNOW you do it. We've seen the lives it's destroyed. And you don't seem to care. Actually, I know you don't care. Because I've seen detransitioners be called transphobes for actually going through the process of walking back everything they can, when often it's not enough because it was done early as possible so they never could go back.

If anything, I'd say you get pleasure from it. Watching and looking at all the lives that will be decimated by the bullshit you push.

AND FUCK! Look how long this post is. One of MY FRIENDS almost got her breasts removed because of you stupid, narcissistic, fucks convinced her she was trans. When she never has been and never will be. Now she's had to get laser hair removal on her arms and cheeks. So I take this personally. Because she almost killed herself.

And lastly. Stop pretending your "science" is settled. It's not. Not when all the studies are coming out of for profit orgs and activist groups. As well as hospitals that have a LOT to gain from lying to you. And you will pay for the rest of your life with all the medical procedures you go through, and all the chemicals you take. Because it WILL be for the rest of your life. And stop pretending that blockers are reversible. They are not. Your body is made to go through puberty at a certain rate. When you suppress it outright? It doesn't just "Make up for lost time". Any puberty you miss is gone. And what does puberty do exactly?

Well let's see:

Develops bone density

Helps with brain development

Helps in immune health development

Growth of sex organs

Helps with hair growth

Helps with weight gain or weight loss depending on your size

Develops your height

Develops you ability to have kids

Develops your ability or non ability to grow body hair *which is needed for your hygienic health in some instances.

Basically, things your body needs to go through for you to reach adult hood. A metric that will not change even on CSH's after adolescents. Your changes will be drastic, but you will never be the opposite sex. Your body was not meant to be the opposite sex. As such, it makes sense that there will also be accompanying medial issues that can come up. And often do.

Listen to me and understand this. Trans activists are not your friend. You are a pawn to them. And if the day ever comes that you decide it is not for you, they will either shame you into continuing, or they will drop you like a sack of bricks and proclaim to all their activist buddies that you are a transphobe. Because it's not about peoples health. It's about power. And power often over KIDS.

Hell, on of the Orgs most involved in all of this is led by a man that's in a group who get off to the genital mutilation of little boys. Eunuchs and others that want to see it done or do it themselves. If you take anything from this, please realize this. You will be lied to by these people. They WILL tell you that it is a simple process, that it's very basic, and that things will be 100% ok because you totally are old enough to realize what the risks are. But if that is really the thought process ask this. Why are you not old enough to vote? Why are you not old enough to consent? Why are you not old enough to Drink or smoke? If you can't do any of that, so why are you allowed to make a choice that will alter your entire life, and make you a bitch to medical companies for the rest of your life, and also take away your ability to have your own family?

We can't even get transplants right every single time and you want shit added to you or cut off fully? What's even funnier, (not haha funny) is the fact that you will not enjoy sex the way you would if you had developed properly. So just consider that too. There is a reason we let parents decide on medical procedures for their kids. Too bad that it's also leading to parents being scared to push back on these delusions most of the time. And even more scared that if they DON'T affirm the delusions that their kid will do what the one in the video did. Run away, and have the state do it for them, using MY tax dollars, and then burning the bridges to their own parents.

And why? Because predators want you away from your parents. They will say things like, "Your parents will never understand you", "You need this, if they say no just call CPS", "I care about you, even if they start hating you, you should trust me", "I can't wait to see how you look once you start blockers", "I promise I get you, no one else does they are just bigots".

THOSE LINES, if coming from adults, to minors online, should be red flags that you need to pay attention to. You are being groomed. You are just too ignorant to realize it. You might be smart for a younger person but you are uneducated, impulsive, and know little compared to someone much older than you are. If adults are trying to convince you to do medical procedures to yourself, or find off the counter drugs, please understand that you are the prey to a predator. And if you and your friends are on TikTok? Same thing. It's just that rather than grooming you 1 on 1, they do it in mass to 1000's of you a day.

And it's the new norm. It's the new trend. After all, being cis is boring and bad right? Being trans is actually good and brave.

If you believe this bullshit I'm sorry but good luck with your life. Transitions are life altering processes, that when done correctly address your mental health first and foremost. It will be a process in which you face pushback from a certified mental health doctor. If the doctor doesn't push back, and affirms you, find a new doctor. Pushback is a needed method to understand how you fight the pushback, as well as understand where the pushback is coming from. Then after 2-3 years of proper therapy, if the doctor and you are both on the same page, and they believe that the best thing for you is to transition, they will write you a note so that you can start the process. But they will likely start by having you live your life as the opposite sex, and document your progress, as well as how you fit in with others during this process. After 1-3 years of this, they will start you on blockers, long enough to put you on CSH's. It is at this point where you will start having changes in your body that will (again if the doctor deems it needed) decide if you indeed need to surgically transition. And they will be there for you through the whole thing. Mostly to keep tabs on your mental health during the whole process. And they will make sure you stay checked in with them multiple times a year, mostly to be sure that this WAS the right call.

If this process is not followed almost to the T you are being played and used. I've been called Transphobic before for stuff like this but unlike most of you that call me that I actually care about Trans people. Much more than you. I care about people in general. But I'm not going to indulge in delusion. I'm not going to indulge in the idea that kids can just have stuff cut off, and their ability to have kids REMOVED before they are even old enough to even have consenting sex. Before they are even old enough to understand what a man or a woman even is. And you can only learn it by experiencing it for yourself. No movie can tell you what it is. No actor or media pundit can tell you what it is. No youtuber or TikTok star can tell you what it is. You have to learn that on your own.

Please be safe. And please understand, if you are young, you probably think you know everything in the world and you know better than everyone else. I know because I felt the same at that age. And I promise you are wrong. Don't ruin your life before it starts. Take your time and learn. Realize that what you see as "masculine" or "feminine" is not universal. And it doesn't have to be.

Boys, if you don't feel masculine enough that's fine. It doesn't mean that you are secretly a girl. It probably just means you don't hold the same metric of masculinity as your peers. And that's ok. Are you a little "girly" or feminine? Ok, maybe you are just gender non conforming. Maybe you are Gay. Which is more than fine. If you are gay then just be gay. Maybe you are a feminine gay power bottom. That's perfectly fine.

Girls, listen. Instagram is not the metric for what is "pretty" or "sexy" or "feminine". You can set that standard on your own. Do you want to wear shorts and an oversized Tee shirt? Fucking do it. If people complain you are not girly enough tell them you are feminine in your own way. And just like the boys, you can be gender non conforming. There is zero wrong with that. Maybe you want to be a pretty little princess. OR maybe you want to put on a suit of armor and charge down the depths of Baulders Gate. Maybe you are a Lesbian. Maybe, just maybe you are a butch lesbian that takes a more, "masculine" role in the relationship. You can still be a girl and do that. Maybe you are just shy and don't like super "pretty" things. That's fine.

All I'm saying is. It's ok to be you. And you don't have to take drugs, and go though surgery to be what you are. Some people may have to. And for those of you that do, go through the proper channels. Go through the full process. Do the best you can for you and no one else. And make sure no shrinks, or doctors are taking you for a ride. If you promise them free money, they will take it. And they will not care about the end result. People are self centered and greedy. Just remember that.

[transingthoseformers]

Tarn definitely still has his tank kibble but he's got his OG colors back and his face is mended if scared. Thinking maybe a bronze or coper colored patch though because the material adhered better.(pretty color combination)

The Maltos recognize the Deceptacon badge but Damus is chill, and not acting hostile or threatening to them. His main concern was for Nickel. Mostly he was asking questions that boil down to him ascertaining the sparklings were in a safe home situation. To his minor surprise the answer was yes.

Damus knows Megatron's going to flip and try to find him it's why he gave the young ones his name. Damus wants to talk with Megatron and he's hiding out because he can't blend. Let Megatron find him. They can have out whatever they will have far from the younglings.

What's alarming Bee and Dot more than Damus initially is what happened to Prion. There is a little medic with big PTSD out there that needs help. Also this is intel about the wider universe boss-bot needs. Dot is torn between personally insulted and approving on general principle that Damus wanted to afirm her babies were safe. Alex is tentatively optimistic about the devlopemt.

Megatron is so suprised by Damus' description. No mask, no purple except for his badge, blue optics and biolights. He's describing Tarn and the fusion cannon is at home and the kids are well he was a tank but none of the rest is right. Plus he didn't transform at all just carried Nickel in his arms. Megatron is confused as well as panicking.

I had the stupid thought that in this AU! Pharma snaped and blew up Mestasanine by detanating all the Nucleon instead of the red rust virus and by chance Tarn and Nickel were off planet while the rest stayed behind. Maybe they were grounded or had temporarily "lost recreational activity privileges."

Yessss such a pretty color combo!!!

Awww yep yep, Damus cares🥰

Makes sense he's waiting for Meggsie to look for him rather than the opposite, there's a conversation between those two that needs to happen and Damus doesn't want it to be a surprise (in case it doesn't end well)

Makes sense that Dot and Bee are thinking that, especially considering Nickel's reaction and the information that the cybertronians outside of earth are definitely definitely not safe (and what if the black box consorta comes to earth??? They cannot have that.)

Sdgjjss yeah. She's proud of how she's raising the kids, and on one hand it's nice to know someone else is looking out for them too. But it also kinda stings that someone would be suspicious of her over it.

Megs is having so many big feeling about this, and what he knows of Tarn isn't matching up with what the kids are saying about Damus. Like, from what we can see, Megatron just is part of the Malto family in his own way. I feel like I'm entirely right on this. He has proven time and time again to be greatly protective of the kids, and part of him is afraid of what Damus could do to them. Confused and panicking indeed.

I can see WHY Pharma would make that decision in his scenario, it is a lot simpler than the Red Rust plan and he was rather desperate.

Hilarious then sad thought but Tarn had indeed lost planet privileges (that, or a factor of him being sick from something more mundane than the bleeding red plague) and Nickel was supervising, so they sent the others to do their usual deal which. Saying it went south is an understatement. I'm imagining that finding out what happened was an incredibly angsty moment, and I feel like it was another thing that made Damus reevaluate himself (after all, this was pretty much his fault because he pushed Pharma well past the breaking point for the sake of his dual addictions).

I can also see a situation where the Red Rust had progressed much faster than anticipated and the other members of the DJD caught it, after all wasn't Pharma's original plan for it to nail Tarn?? (After all it's centered around the T-cog. Not only does it prove deadly upon transforming, but it very probably makes the T-cog of the corpses entirely unusable. The Red Rust Plague very much was made with Tarn in mind.) And, I mean. There's no Ratchet and crew to have stopped it in canon (.... ... Unless, there was and it didn't work?? That would sure as hell explain why we don't see earthspark Ratchet in this au)

[spockandawe]

Hm. I want to say up front that it's not my intention to rag on any particular ships, or even anyone who gravitates towards a particular ship vibe, but I just looked up my new favorite pet ship for a character, and was devastated to find next to nothing, and further :C at the general trends when I skimmed the shipping landscape on ao3. Sometimes a ship is popular and I'm not interested but I can understand why it's popular, and sometimes I don't understand and I dig for (and find!) answers, and sometimes I'm left baffled and sit alone chewing on my thoughts in solitude, which isn't that wrong, but I'm in the mood to talk in front of people today, so it goes here instead of inside my head.

Thrawn. It's Thrawn.

And this isn't even exactly about Thrawn, because I've only got what little I've absorbed via osmosis and the original Thrawn trilogy under my belt so far, but the Thrawn trilogy was more than enough to give me a clear, clear picture of what I would want from a ship for him, because it's a character paradigm I've dealt with before (transformers, particularly, though the way transformers iterates on continuity means this isn't likely to be a universal truth for any character I bring up), but something about the landscape here didn't shake out the same way, if that makes sense. It's not just a Thrawn thing either, this is also a pattern I'm seeing play out with other characters (cough COUGH crosshair) where I have a picture of what I'd like to see happen, and that's not where popular opinion went. Maybe it's that transformers are much more... ageless and immortal, and that does impact the nature of character development in these series, I don't know but I went off in one direction, the crowd went off in another, and I want to understand, slash make plaintive noises about how tasty the food I'm craving would be if it actually existed.

Repeated disclaimer as a standalone paragraph: These are just my own shipping onions, people are free to do their own thing and have fun with it, I am just standing lonesomely next to the monkey bars at recess wondering why so many people are on the swings when monkey bars are lots of fun too, and wistfully thinking that it would be a lot easier for me if i understood the appeal of swings myself.

I am going to go back to transformers to talk about this, though. IDW1 continuity. Consider Starscream. Consider Prowl. If you really want to put in some character development work, consider Pharma. There are other characters who could apply, but these are ones that jump out to me as perennially favored blorbos, on a personal level. Also make note of Megatron and Soundwave and Whirl, though those two go in a separate bin for later consideration. So we've got a total of six brutally effective military (or military-adjacent) men, for slightly varying personal definitions of effective. Whirl's definition of 'effective' is not often the same as Soundwave's, but it's not always different from Starscream's. We are going to talk about characters who have made morally questionable decisions, who may or may not be happy with the outcome and/or morality of those decisions, but who I am interested in steering back onto a path that is less likely to end in evil despot-hood or a tragic death, because their stable happiness is important to me as a consumer of the fiction they appear in.

Starscream is an easy example. When I'm shipping someone with him, there is an INCREDIBLY limited zone in which knowledge of him in a more innocent youth, or a more idealistic youth, is a structural part of the ship. I won't say it can't enhance things, but I'm not interested in a ship where it happens because someone knew him as a fresh-faced baby with Big Feelings, or where someone learns he used to have Ideals and then got ground down by life. Like... okay. I'm glad you're having fun with that, truly! I've enjoyed stories like that, as occasional snacks! But If I am going to ship this character, I want to square up with years of stone-cold atrocities, terrible spite-driven decisions, current personality and habits, and confront all that. How much do youthful idealism and current regrets counterbalance that? Some, sure, but not a structural amount of 'some.'

Is there an emotional and/or vulnerable core in there that I would love to gain access to? Sure! But if I gain access to that by means of pure backstory, it's going to feel cheap to me. I need to confront who he is now. Sympathetic backstory can add seasoning, but it can't bear the entire load. If I want access to this man's heart, I need someone who is ready to take an emotional pickaxe to his exterior. I need someone who is ready to confront him head-on, whether the impulse is to fuckin FIGHT (windblade), stubbornly wear him down (cyclonus, wheeljack, bumblebee), or to have weird enough priorities to dodge defensive backlash and continue worming their way under his skin plating (rodimus, jazz). Most of these are autobots, and are people strongly not disposed to take sad backstory as a reason to excuse/accept current performance.

Now, not every character like this is cut from the same cloth. Pharma is, I think. By the story present, he isn't going to expose a HINT of vulnerable underbelly unless someone goes looking for it on purpose, and he's going to make them bleed along the way. I am trying not to let this essay get too far out of hand, so really quick, exceptions. Megatron. Megatron in IDW1 especially was a character willing to crack HIMSELF open and expose parts of Himself to outside scrutiny, because that was what it took for him to do his own rebuilding work. I think that opens up fascinating windows for romance, but the things he exposes that enable this aren't learning he has a history as an oppressed miner and was almost lobotomized, it's watching him in the present wrestle with the realization that the ideals he started with fell by the wayside and he was fighting and killing just to win, or watching him take in the scope of how many deaths he is personally responsible for. Whirl is a character who exposes his own vulnerabilities not... casually, but more casually, daring people to notice the ways he's fucked up in the same breath as he jokes about how he's nature's perfect lean, mean, killing machine. There's a self-destructive bent to him that leads to an erratic but not rare willingness to expose bits of himself to people who can use that against him, and it makes shipping him a wild roller coaster ride where anyone can jump into the car at any moment, as long as they're strong enough to hold on.

(I don't know what it Means, but note that cyclonus is a flawless romantic partner for all these men. he is truly the best of boys)

Circle back to star wars with a brief aside about crosshair. I don't necessarily know who I would want in a ship for him, I kind of 60% think that what I want isn't even best delivered in a ship, but most of this essay is framed in shipping terms. I want him reconciled with his family. I will be devastated if this doesn't happen, and that's my first priority. I don't want someone to walk up to him and be Soft with him and that fixes things. I will find that narrative cheap and unsatisfying, and my emotional takeaway is that it cheapens everything he put everyone else through. I want someone to grab him by the front of his shirt and yank him down and tell him he's being a real asshole and that he needs to stop, and I don't want it to be fast or easy, and in the process of getting him to pull the brakes on the egregious assholery, then things like feeling sad and abandoned can also be tackled. The order of operations is important! The order of operations defines the story priorities, it will define how jarring a change in direction feels compared to the canon jumping off point! Dramatic changes can be good, but it's the difference between pulling an unsignalled u-turn in the middle of a freeway versus doing it at a light.

Anyways. Thrawn. That's the point of those previous paragraphs that mention him not at all, but they're all relevant to what I want out of a ship for him. I'm still getting to know the extended EU cast, but by the time we arrive at the thrawn trilogy, like... it's hard to get a ship that satisfies my cravings in there, by the position we've reached at story present. I still have more extended universe characters to meet, but I recognize that he's kind of characterized himself into a corner (i will give a shout out to wedge antilles as my tentative manic pixie dream boy character, but that would be in the realm of crack treated seriously and with heavy plot, which isn't something i write well). So, like many writers have often considered, the sensible solution is to step backwards in time. Compare shipping Megatron and Impactor (emotionally complex/destructive hatefucking) at story present versus shipping them as Youths (rough and tumble friends who read each other's poetry).

But. BUT. Thrawn discusses that what he was up to shortly before the clone wars honestly.... aligns pretty well with who he is now. You have to assume that he's got less knowledge accumulated, that's just part and parcel with youth, but that he's pretty darn dedicated to the eventual empire's overall goals. After all, one of his first big projects was hunting down the Outbound Flight group, which is why he knows that the original jedi Joruus C'baoth is totes super dead. He was a stone cold motherfucker, and he seems to have been pretty darn young at the time, and still crushing it on the politically weighty career advancement front.

Okay spoilers what I am leading up to is Padme. Padme/Thrawn.

Look, my girl has a type, and that type is slightly evil overbearing men who have political ideals that are uhhh not quite aligned with hers. Rush, Anakin, and Thrawn would make a consistent pattern, that's all I'm saying. But she's also smart, and very capable of debating the ups and downs of the political positions she holds (anakin is not so great at this part), and someone like Thrawn is very capable of taking in dissenting voices, evaluating their merits, and being willing to change his own position without parsing it as a huge blow to the ego.

Not to get (continue getting) all homestuck over things in this tyool 2022, but pitch romance padme/thrawn.

First, this lady is absolutely surrounded by authoritarian asshats who roll their eyes at her when she tries to be like 'this is fucked up, actually', including her canonical husband, and she deserves better. Even if there are some major disagreements in what they think is best, give her someone who's willing to listen to her and take her advice. Anakin gets... jealous, and maybe she's chill with that, but also consider giving her a love interest with a natural knack for the dispassionate, disconnected side of political maneuvering, and who isn't going to flip his shit when she gets drinks with rush clovis. I don't want him to be totally remolded in the image of a good, wholesome boy, but I want her to be just enough aware of politics and his career and jedi temple happenings to get some kind of clue about the outbound flight project and argue him out of going along with the mass extermination. That is a longfic I would find so compelling.

Also, he has his silly art thing. It's ridiculous. I love it. Give him a love interest who hails from Planet Fine Arts, and who is just as willing to throw down about artistic theory as she is to throw down about politics. This is impossibly FASCINATING to me. I want slap slap kiss where the actual fight is her being like 'oh my god don't tell me you've never heard of this species' [keysmash] movement, it was a fundamental paradigm shift that echoed through all forms of their visual media and informs the interpretation of all works completed after 82 BBY, we learned about this in first grade, i stg--'

Now... I will say. That tying up padme this way has Some Implications about the future of the universe. So I wasn't going to say anything about time travel, but I will actually say that this is PRIME material for time travel fic. Maybe she doesn't remember how she died, or maybe she jumps back in time at some point before the end of the clone wars, old enough to know that shit is fucked, without the DIRECT knowledge to be like 'who wants to go on an 'assassinate sheev palpatine' road trip.' But knock her back to, say, Episode I era, give her a little time to make her way back into the senate somehow, let her clear the way for her baby self to have the romance she wants to have, and give her a weird romance with the blue military man who hasn't been fully baked in to his final form yet. Let her be frustrated that he can't see the way the universe is at the top of a slide down into absolute shit, and let him be frustrated that she has all kinds of information it's impossible to determine how she knows. And also that she thinks his art opinions are bad and he should feel bad. Let them work out their mutual frustration through hot angry makeouts.

Anyways, there are like eight total fics on ao3 and I am... devastated. I will make every effort to be the change I want to see in the world, but this dynamic seems so clear and spicy to me that I'm very sad it isn't all over the place. I'm sure there is enjoyment to be had without me projecting quadrants onto yet another fictional universe, but god, this would be so choice, and I'm so sad I can't go wallow in an existing pool of fanworks

[ralucasalmostgone]

why am I not surprised?

I finally read her interview properly and maybe some other notes too:

she has no clue what she's talking about

---

but most importantly, she's also lying about several personal details (if she would lie about that, what else would she lie about?)

I felt really offended when she said she "enjoys swimming"...No...I enjoy swimming from ages 0 till now. She doesn't swim, that's why she's a fat cow!

And secondly, the father never showed her ANY chemical reactions, that's also made up. He was too busy watching TV or something.

How pathetic and lifeless do you have to be to make up details about yourself, anyway?

But...to steal my behaviour and claim it as your own and then fearfully add as a motto: we are where we chose to be? In reference to me?

Has she no shame?

---

I mean, that's what I'm saying, I remember now (her brain/mind, for the most part): it would intentionally understand concepts in part and ignore something like 90% of the relevant information out there, including morality as a separate topic.

No wonder she doesn't advance in anything, ever!

She's selectively stupid!

---

So I read some of the stuff she thought she was doing (ironically looking at phenotypes (!) 😂) and keeping them intact, I don't think she understands the point of it either when she gets to this topic (not so suprisingly). I don't think she even gets WHY she recreates diseases, she just knows she has to do it on repeat and that it's someone else's job to cure the disease...

Which is just stupid and also, again, when she gets to the topic of simulating the apperance of a disease, she gets blocked as though...she doesn't know anything.

And I don't understand either why she has to do this cause she's not explaining, so I'm gonna need better literature that has nothing to do with her words (!) cause she's too thick to explain it.

So I'm not using her for anything for my own studies. And if I'm not, then I dare say she's useless to people coming up with cures for diseases too and having to read papers!

And why she can't get published more etc.

Or get noticed more for that matter.

I think the highlight of her career is long gone now, after she passed through Gage's office (the stem cells guy who...whatever, I could have told you there's all kinds of cells in the brain! proving stem cells is like...I'm not impressed, okay? 🙄)

And something tells me that we've got a lot of people working on the brain anyway, it was a matter of time when people stumbled on what I left inside their brain, you get me? 🙄

And techniqually, you did NOT find EVERYTHING either...so 😌

Still not impressed!

BUT! It's not Gage who I'm interested in attacking (even though he's strange in his lack of advancement, kinda too lazy, kinda...again, it's almost like he just got lucky once 🙄 "wow"...)

---

no, it's Andreea

she both got kicked out of there (in a sense) and used that pseudo-experience to get hired in a lower tier place

and Pharma is a very big industry in USA and a very profitable one

so it's like: there's tons of companies like that!

---

this is a step lower and a clear sign for me that her science knowledge is lower than rudimentary 🙄

there is no genius among us that's human, I'll tell you that much...

there's only someone who is clearly winging it and being controlled by me (mostly to fuck off, as far away from me as possible 🙄)

[branded-perceptions]

Usually most criminals, perpetuators of social injustices and or any (geopolitical) conflicting "parties" believe to be "go(o)d" as their in-group reinforces their narratives "positively" via social rewards like money streams and social reinforcement (🎵THROW YOUR SOUL THROUGH EVERY OPEN DOOR)

linking into our brains' dopamine rush rewards: Gary Vee talks about enjoying the process: 🎵COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS TO FIND WHAT YOU LOOK FOR.

This curves via direction of our dollar BILLS'💸💉💸 our collective chase for reputation managed🎭 status "heaven"🤥😷😇 GATES🚪☠️🚪 due confusing (competition for) these fictional mind rewards with our actual cooperative purpose in life as part of causal care for collective society

which similar like in romantic relationships also in our economic go(o)d(s) 🔍"brand love" communications can only be kept close the "pulse" of its causal livelihood of shared touch in objective reality if one vulnerably via direct communication openly shares ones mind and any possible concerns in a realm of shared introspection

🎶ROLLING IN THE DEEP - ADELE

to connect and handle our inevitable subjective motivational drives

(🎵THERE'S A FIRE STARTING IN MY HEART)

whose full spectrum of contrasting emotions incentivises us to transcend the apathy (🔍darkness in bible as metaphor of ignorance)

(🎵REACHING A FEVER PITCH, IT'S BRINGING ME OUT THE DARK)

of our otherwise robotic "rational" th-oughts' mind matrix psychotic self-explanations

(🎵FINALLY I CAN SEE YOU CRYSTAL CLEAR)

that our worS(e-)HIPped social reward streams🐟🐟🐟 (🔍this is water david foster wallace = 🔍age of pisces = 🔍christian fish symbolism = 🔍mass psychogenic illnesses)

spring from

(🎵GO AHEAD AND SELL ME OUT AND I'LL LAY YOUR SHIP BARE)

as shared identity making

(🎵SEE HOW I'LL LEAVE WITH EVERY PIECE OF YOU)

that we need to calibrate upon causal care

(🎵DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE THINGS THAT I WILL DO)

to avoid the otherwise like Covid early treatments as usually via BREATHLESS incentive hypes (🔍brand love) incentivised ventilator death$ perpetuated causal abuse

(🎵THE SCARS💉☠️💉 OF YOUR LOVE THEY LEAVE ME BREATHLESS)

which like almost everything in society and human relationships could have been easily managed via by reality testing

(instead of social reward fake attachements)

driven authentic agile direct communication of own motivational initiative focused on problem solving of our collective shared needs' causal touch with our minds

(🎵AND CAN'T HELP FEELING THAT WE COULD'VE HAD IT ALL)

via the for these social tasks responsible aspects of society like media communications of consumer go(o)d(s) whose stories society and decision-makers via collective dynamics infatuate

(🎵YOU HAD MY HEART INSIDE OF YOUR HANDS, AND YOU PLAYED IT TO THE BEAT)

their motivations and economic decisions with like out of this resulting Big pharma profits or out of similar dynamics during last decades rising chronic diseases of big food

(🎵TURN MY SORROW INTO TREASURED GOLD)

that are publicly perception managed via vain err media or modern day pastors or laughing killer clown horror movies like Gary Vee masquerading🤡 their from an objective perspective causal abuse as "kindness" similar like via their false self of from causal reality detached shared identity-making faked "smiling advertisings":

🎵YOU PAY ME BACK IN KIND AND REAP JUST WHAT YOU'VE SOWN

[linapoletti]

In its activism and agitation, ACT UP was often fighting against inherent biological limits as much as governmental policies. No amount of rage and public awareness could by themselves cure a disease. To this day, despite decades of well-funded research, there is still no vaccine for HIV-AIDS. The drugs have gotten more sophisticated, but in principle, the treatment remains the same as it was with AZT: AIDS is still treated as a chronic condition to be managed with antiretrovirals.

With the appearance of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP, in 2012, it became common to prescribe antiretrovirals not just for AIDS patients, but also as a daily preventive measure for healthy sexually active gay men. This trend of medicalizing the healthy hasn’t been unique to homosexuals, of course. As the physician and critic of medicine Seamus O’Mahony has written, “Pharma’s single greatest idea was to move its focus from the sick to the well, thus creating vast new markets of ‘patients’ requiring lifetime treatment with drugs.” For example, healthy people can be redefined as being at risk of future disease based on measures like blood pressure or cholesterol and then prescribed medication they must take for the rest of their lives to keep the risk at bay.

The increased medicalization of everyday life in recent decades hasn’t been a purely top-down process. However unwittingly, AIDS activists played a part in bringing it about. ACT UP provided a model for patients organizing themselves into a political constituency to raise awareness and demand drugs for their condition. Pharma is an enormously powerful industry, but by funding patient-support groups, it can present itself as the voice of the powerless.

During the Covid pandemic, many activists demanded that medicine and public health be accorded massive power over our daily lives. Notable among them was Yale epidemiologist and public intellectual Gregg Gonsalves, a veteran of ACT UP. As a young man, Gonsalves spoke of the need for activists to prod science in the right direction on AIDS research. More recently, he became a vociferous advocate of mask and vaccine mandates to fight Covid.

But nowhere is ACT UP’s legacy more apparent than in the relationship between contemporary transgender activism and transgender medicine. In this politically charged domain, the division between science and activism has broken down almost completely. Activists have managed to get the medical establishment to adopt the so-called affirmative model for gender dysphoria. According to this model, if patients experience distress about their secondary sex characteristics, the role of medical professionals is to affirm them as having a transgender identity and put them on path to hormones and surgeries.

In their rhetoric and style, trans activists bear a close resemblance to ACT UP. Both groups have argued that withholding access to experimental drugs amounts to deliberate murder, and the ubiquitous talk of “trans genocide” echoes ACT UP’s rhetoric from decades ago. Trans activists, like AIDS activists in their day, see themselves as a radically oppositional force, but their demands happen to coincide with the interests of a pharmaceutical industry always seeking out new groups of lifelong customers and novel rationales for loosening regulatory oversight.

In one crucial respect, trans activism goes well beyond ACT UP’s work. While Kramer and others exaggerated the dangers of AIDS to the population at large, it was certainly true that many people were dying or desperately sick of the disease in the group’s heyday. By contrast, trans activists’ claims about looming death are almost entirely a rhetorical tactic. We see this, for example, in the routine claim that dysphoric youth will all kill themselves if they aren’t allowed to transition. As a statistic, this is a fabrication, but suicidal ideation is contagious; by endlessly repeating it, activists make it more likely to be true. The assertion is better understood as a threat than a statement of fact.

[marissapaul]

1/5 day 11: Botanicas & Alternative Medicine

i was fascinated reading about the brazilian leaf houses. i am reminded of what an interesting historical moment we are living in. i decided to go to google to look up some casas das folhas in brazil. most of them don't have websites, a lot of their comments say that they communicate to customers over distance through whatsapp. i then went looking for reviews of different shops, most people just gave five star reviews and left no notes, but some left short affirmations like "great". there was one in particular that stood out to me, a woman that had visited wrote "wherever i go i am attended" and i think that is a really powerful statement. i think an american understanding of stores has been so messed up by corporations and white supremacist ideals of politeness/customer service/the customer is always right. i don't know that i often feel attended to in stores, especially in places like target or walmart or at the grocery store. and that is to no fault of the employees just to be clear, they are not getting paid nearly enough to do one bit more than their contract requires, but seeing other forms of running shops is liberating. growing up i would hear all the time "well that's just business" and i think that is a sad way to organize society. consumerism has bastardized what, at its core, is a beautiful system of exchange. one person cannot produce everything they need to live, and so we must rely on others. i would much rather rely on a shop where i feel attended to, where both parties respect the exchange that is happening because it is a real and genuine exchange of things that sustain life, not mind-numbing purchase from a corporation that cares less about taking care of you than they care about taking care of the workers that allow them to function. i hope that wherever my life takes me i am able to attend to others in genuine and uplifting ways.

i was also struck by Voeks' discussion of non-endemic plants. i read some ecological histories last spring as part of an atlantic history class and they were tough reads. i think that more often than not we see non-endemic species of flora and fauna being brought over with, if not outright malicious intent, a clear disrespect for the ecology of the americas. indigenous controlled burns, knowledge of herbal remedies, and a deep deep respect for the land and life we have been given were all bulldozed over as europeans sought to terraform the americas into what it had become today. they sought to conquer the continent, not live in sync with it. so i was overjoyed here to read about so many species of plants that had been brought over from africa for spiritual purposes, and with immense respect for the flora and fauna that already existed there. indeed, the knowledge required to comprehensively grow, harvest, and activate these plants is immense and it is absurd that that knowledge is seen as a not legitimate form of knowledge. Voeks talks about how there were over two hundred species that these people would have to work with each day, each requiring different words, care, and attention to grow to their fullest potential. that is beautiful. and in a country dominated by big pharma, it is no wonder that more and more people in the united states are turning towards these other forms of healing that are curated with intention, something that a corporation could never do. (well, they intend to make as much money as possible, but that isn't being intentional in the way that i care about, i care about being intentional about leading with love).

of course, we see in spiritual merchants that these modes of knowledge production and of healing have not been allowed to flourish without militaristic intervention from the us state. it is no secret that the united states has again and again quite literally bombed and burned down economically independent black cities and establishments. that is true here, but beyond just the economic aspect, the targeting of hoodoo business was targeting knowledge. of more authentic and liberating forms of knowledge that threaten to tear apart a fragile an unnatural system of white supremacist thought.

i also want to very quickly talk about wakanda forever again. as i was reading through the sacred leaves of candomble i was struck by the following, "over the centuries, while observers marveled at the wealth of medicinal knowledge retained by the indigenous population, most denied entirely the legitimacy of african ethnomedicine" p. 141. a common criticism i see of the movie is that it feels a little suspect that marvel is putting out a movie where africans and indigenous americans were fighting each other. i of course can understand this sentiment, but i think it flattens out what was a very real exploration of inter-diaspora conflict that ryan coogler was going for. there is a very real history of fighting among the diaspora just as there is conflict between different marginalized groups. of course in an ideal world, the multi-racial proletariat would all work together, but that is not the reality of how things have played out across history and so i really appreciated wakanda forever's exploration of that, i thought it was really powerful. BIG SPOILER AHEAD, but the movie literally ends with shuri and namor (as representatives of wakanda and talokan) breaking the cycle of trauma and violence against one another that the surface world (colonizers and white supremacists) want to keep them in. i am interested to see where black panther 3 goes, but ryan coogler has laid the groundwork for wakanda and talokan to work together in decolonizing the world and i think that leaves a lot of beautiful places where he can take the story.

iris lee's vast and varied artwork and the spiritual meaning behind it is incredible and i thank isis for sharing it with us.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The music monopolists

Writing in Wired, Institute for Local Self Reliance researcher and anti-monopolist Ron Knox gives a thorough, important account of how music industry monoplization resulted declining revenue for artists, even as the industry itself has reaped greater profits.

https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-big-music-needs-to-be-broken-up-to-save-the-industry/

Importantly, Knox describes how concentration has come to every link in music’s supply chain, from radio to recording, streaming to live performance. The monopolists who dominate these sectors fight fiercely between each other, but no matter who wins, artists lose.

Let’s go segment by segment. Two thirds of all North American music comes from three labels. The labels grew through anticompetitive mergers: giant companies, awash in investor cash, bought out mid-sized, successful labels, turning them into subdivisions of the Big Three.

The more concentrated the labels got, the worse they were for everyone. They spent the nineties and naughties price-gouging record companies, pocketing hundreds of millions from an illegal price-fixing conspiracy. The fines they paid were smaller than the profits they reaped.

But at least they distributed music. Today, the struggling physical record store industry — a network of passionate music sellers who serve the most intense music fans — find themselves getting “record shipments” that turn out to be boxes of random stuff like cough syrup (!).

That happened when the Big Three all piled their distribution into a single company, the monopolist Direct Shot Distributing. As Direct Shot started to fail, its operations descended into chaos, and record stores started to receive boxes of random consumer packaged goods.

It was bad news for the non-monopolized, music-first record stores, but it barely registered for the Big Three labels — today, they buy an average of two new acts every day.

The labels don’t make money from selling records, of course. They get their money from streaming.

Streaming is also massively concentrated, gathered into the hands of just a few companies: Spotify, Apple, Youtube, Amazon — with the notable exception of Spotify, the industry is dominated by companies that also monopolize other sectors.

Monopolies are good to these companies. Spotify’s market-cap doubled during the pandemic — the market values its 150m subs (twice as many as subscribe with Apple) at $50b. The major labels get $1m/hour from streaming. 99% of their artists see $25/year in streaming royalties.

Spotify may be the biggest streaming service, but it’s not the lowest-paying. Youtube — a Google division, whose unsuccessful attempt to launch an in-house video service convinced it that it had to buy someone else’s success — drives the worst bargain.

Spotify uses its industry dominance to extract heavy fees from the labels — creaming 30% of the total revenue generated by a typical track. Big Three monopolists with fat margins can absorb this. Indies? Not so much.

Spotify’s market cap growth is in part due to the new ways it’s come up with to shake down the labels — a variety of tactics that all boil down to one thing: payola. Spotify will sell labels pop-up ads, placement in “radio” algorithms, and access to “Discovery mode.”

Like all forms of payola, Spotify’s rate-card is a way for monopolists to edge out indies, buying their way into your ear-holes. I’m sure that the Big Three would rather keep the bribes they pay to Spotiify, but the consolation prize is pretty sweet.

If the Big Three are the only ones who can afford to buy access to Spotify’s audience, then creators are driven to sign with them, and have less bargaining leverage when they negotiate their deals.

Spotify, meanwhile, can consolidate its gains by driving up those fees, pitting labels against each other in a bidding war for access to listeners. This effectively drives down the royalty rate Spotify pays, because every new track will have to buy in to get any reach.

Spotify talks a good game about how it uses big data and machine learning to pick the songs you hear, but increasingly, the algorithm is getting far less compute-intensive, a simple sort-by-highest-bidder system you could operate from a laptop running Windows 3.1 and Excel.

In theory, streaming losses can be made up with touring. Acts who attain digital popularity can charge access at the door to clubs and other venues. The only problem is that live performance is also a monopoly business.

The 800lb gorilla there is Livenation, a division of the ticket monopolist and notorious arm-breakers Ticketmaster — spun out of Clear Channel, the monopolist that we now know as Iheartradio.

Livenation parlayed its access to the capital markets to buy out $1b worth of venues and promoters, before being acquired by Clear Channel for $4.4b in 2005. Today, it’s a division of Liberty Media, consolidated with Ticketmaster, Pandora, and Siriusxm.

What goes around, comes around: Liberty’s private equity owners are in the process of buying up Iheartradio, re-merging all of Clear Channel’s spinouts into one giga-monopolist.

The conglomerate already coerces artists to book exclusively in its clubs and using its ticketing, starving independent venues. Add 850 terrestrial radio stations to the mix and it will choke off all the oxygen that independent venues, promoters and ticketers rely on.

Liberty didn’t buy all these companies because it’s passionate about music and wanted to ensure artists got a fair shake. By rolling up the entire live music/radio supply-chain, it bought the power to extract vast sums from musicians, and to keep rivals out of the market.

Well, not all competitors. Lollapalooza co-founder Marc Geiger raised tens of millions for “Savelive,” a new would-be monopolist that offered to “rescue” live music venues in exchange for a 51% stake in them.

Savelive illustrates an important point about the nature of monopolies: they beget more monopolies. Consolidation in the labels meant that only the largest streaming companies could negotiate a sustainable rate.

But consolidation in radio drives consolidation in labels — and many of the indie radio stations that survived the first wave of consolidation were picked up cheap by Iheartradio once monopolistic streamers ate their lunch.

This is a pattern across the whole entertainment industry: bookstore mergers and big box retailers drove consolidation in publishing; that was accelerated by consolidation in online ebook and physical book retail.

It’s not limited to the entertainment sector either. As David Dayen describes in his essential book MONOPOLIZED, hospitals didn’t start consolidating until the pharma industry underwent a wave of brutal mergers and started gouging for drugs.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

Hospital consolidation led to gouging insurers, leading to a wave of insurance consolidation. Today, nearly every part of the health industry is monopolized, from pharmacy benefit managers to medical labs.

The only parts of the supply chain that doesn’t monopolize — that can’t monopolize — are the ends of the chain: the people who work in the system, and the people who use it.

Monopoly punishes doctors and nurses and other health workers — and it punishes patients.

It punishes writers and publishing workers, and it punishes readers.

It punishes musicians and independent venue owners, and it punishes listeners.

When every part of the supply chain gets so monopolized that it can’t easily be squeezed by any other part of the supply chain, these giants turn on us — the workers and users of the system. We, the atomized and fragmented, cannot resist the squeeze.

But as Knox writes, the tide is turning. After 40 years of waving through anticompetitive mergers in the name of “efficiency,” the DoJ and FTC are under new management, with two-fisted trustbusters like Lina M Khan at the helm.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

This new cohort of monopoly fighters reject the “consumer welfare” theory of antitrust (the idea that monopolies drive prices down and are therefore good for society), going to war against the hegemonic orthodoxy that began with Ronald Reagan.

https://doctorow.medium.com/epic-v-apple-d3e59893b4f3

The new antitrust is surging, with bills in the House and Senate, executive orders from the White House, regulatory proceedings at the DoJ and FTC, and an interagency-cabinet coordination committee that ties it all together.

This new antitrust promises workers and users of monopolized industries a better alternative than rooting for one giant to beat another in hopes that they will drop a few crumbs for the rest of us to enjoy.

Creative workers don’t have to choose between Big Tech and Big Content based on their assessment of which monopolist will abuse them the least. Instead, we can root for antimonopoly, for giant-slaying, and the right to self-determination.

The most important immediate step towards that future is blocking new anticompetitive mergers, like Sony’s bid for AWAL, or Liberty Media’s use of a $500m SPAC to go on a vertical monopoly shopping spree.

The agencies have the power to stop these. They should. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

But ending anticompetitive mergers won’t get us out of that hole: most industries (from beer to cheerleader uniforms to wresting to eyeglasses) are already monopolized.

The new trustbusters — and the ILSR — want to use antitrust law to break up these conglomerates. I think that’s right: vertical monopolies will always engage in self-dealing to the detriment of independents, workers and customers. Break. Them. Up.

But breaking up is hard to do. When the DoJ tried to break up IBM, the company’s lawyers outspent the entire DoJ antitrust division, every single year, for twelve consecutive years, and in the end, it escaped breakup.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. IBM escaped justice because Reagan was elected and neutered antitrust. And even though it remained intact, it was never the same — for one thing, it decided that it was too risky to make its own PC OS.

IBM knew that antitrust enforcers were very suspicious of tying software to hardware — so it tapped a couple of hacker kids, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, to sell it DOS, from their new company “Micro-Soft.”

Unfortunately for all of us, antitrust enforcement only declined after that, so IBM was able to return to its monopolistic ways, and Microsoft escaped from antitrust scrutiny after a mere seven years in regulatory hell.

Antitrust enforcement can sap monopolists of the will to power, as they become increasingly concerned that their actions will attract aggressive legal reprisals.

Think of how Apple “lost” the Epic lawsuit but still “voluntarily” rescinded its heretofore hard rule against apps providing links to web-pages where you can use third-party payment processors to make purchases.

As monopolists lose their nerve, space opens up for all kinds of pro-worker, pro-user interventions, far beyond those afforded by traditional antitrust.

Next year, Beacon Press will publish THE SHAKEDOWN, a book I co-wrote with Rebecca Giblin about the monopolistic corruption of creative labor markets and how creative workers, regulators and fans can resist it.

The Shakedown catalogs the ways that monopolization of investment, distribution and sale of creative works allows entertainment companies, Big Tech, and major retailers to shift an ever-larger share of the creative industry’s revenues from workers to themselves.

More importantly, we identify tools beyond breakups that we can use to de-monopolize the industry — things we can do right now, without having to wait for the conclusion of an antitrust suit that might run for decades.

Take reversion rights: many copyright systems allow creators to take back their rights after a set period (35 years in the US). This lets artists who signed bad deals — before they were proven successes — to resell their catalog or extract reparations by threatening to.

But reversion is really hard to do, and 35 years is way too long. Only an handful of creators — even those with valuable catalogs that could be renewed through reversion — ever manage it.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/06/backsies/#take-backs

Congress (and other legislatures around the world, including Canada, where this is likely to come up in the new Parliament) could fix reversion: make it easier to do, and make it available after a shorter period — say, 14 years.

And what about those bad contracts? The “freedom to contract” has always been subject to limits, where some clauses are deemed unenforceable “as against public policy” or because they are “unconscionable.”

With the entertainment sector consolidated into just a couple of states, state legislatures could act to void the most abusive clauses — for example, clauses that allow labels to claw back royalties indefinitely to recoup (often inflated or fictitious) “expenses.”

Our book explores dozens of these kinds of ideas, from co-operatives to trade unions; better accounting practices and direct arts subsidies; radical interoperability and collective licensing; minimum wages for creative labor and collective bargaining.

None of these are replacement for reducing the size and power of conglomerates throughout the supply chain, but all of them are interventions we can make as the power and nerve of conglomerates declines, changes that will hasten that decline and open more space for breakups.

And all of them are applicable, to a greater or lesser extent, to helping workers and users of all the other consolidated industries, from health care to cheerleading.

For example, expanding California’s ban on noncompete clauses would help fast-food workers nationwide — because today, fast food employers are the most aggressive abusers of noncompetes.

That means that a fried chicken cashier earning the tipped minimum wage can’t quit to work at a burger joint across the street for a $0.25/hour raise. Creative workers aren’t the only ones suffering from monopolization — we’re not even the worst off.

But by definition, creative workers have a platform. We reach people. We have the potential to help form the kind of unstoppable coalition that we’ll need to reverse the generations of oligarchic, post-Reagan consolidation.

You may have heard about how Danish McDonald’s workers earn $22/hour and get six weeks’ paid vacation and sick leave. That didn’t come about because McDonald’s was required by law to pay it.

It was worker solidarity that did it. As Matt Bruenig writes, McDonald’s initially refused to sign the voluntary “hotel and restaurant” collective agreement. So its workers went on strike.

https://mattbruenig.com/2021/09/20/when-mcdonalds-came-to-denmark/

Now, if McD’s workers had struck alone, they’d probably have lost. But Danish law allows for sympathy strikes — that is, it allows workers in other parts of the supply chain to take industrial action to support their sisters and brothers who are striking.

When the McD’s workers walked out in 1989, sixteen other sectoral unions joined them. They didn’t just help picket at leaflet in front of McD’s restaurants!

Dockworkers wouldn’t unload McD’s shipments. Printers wouldn’t print their cups and placemats.

Builders downed tools on McDonald’s construction projects. Typesetters wouldn’t set the McD’s ads in the daily papers. Truckers wouldn’t deliver to McD’s restaurants. Food industry workers wouldn’t produce the drink syrups, fries and other inputs to the McDonald’s kitchens.

McD’s caved.

Now, as Bruenig points out, these kinds of sympathy strikes are illegal in the US, but it’s a mistake to think that workers don’t have power because sympathy strikes are illegal — rather, sympathy strikes are illegal because workers don’t have power.

Workers across all sectors face the same kinds of monopolistic exploitation. Workers across all sectors have a common enemy (literally, thanks to “common ownership” where companies like Vanguard and Berkshire Hathaway hold significant stakes in almost every major company).

With a shared cause, shared tactics, solidarity and a renewed sense that we can do more than root for the giant we think will mistreat us the least, creative workers and their sisters and brothers in every sector can reverse generations of losses.

That’s why the new antitrust matters — because it is an assault on the consolidation that gives all industries the power to shift money and other forms of value from workers and users to a small elite of investors.

[deonideatta]

@ohcoolnice @whyyoudo I couldn't get the concept of han seok and junwoo being two different people out of my head so on this vincenzo-less sunday I give you a loose rewrite of canon where jun woo is the third jang brother and han seok's twin!

They were born jang han seok and jang han sol, and han seok is the older twin. They were separated when they were very young, because of han seok and an incident which ended up with han sol in the hospital. It was supposed to be temporary, but one of the house staff took pity on the poor child and smuggled him away. His name was changed to jun woo and they didn't find him again until both him and han seok were adults

They grew up very differently, han seok under the jang family, tormenting han seo and becoming the unhinged, solitary figure we all know and hate, and jun woo in an adopted family somewhere across the country into the dorky, sweet intern we knew for a bit and loved

Both of them somehow ended up spending time in america, though neither knew and they never met. Han seok because his father sent him there and jun woo because he got a scholarship to go to university there

Very few people now know about han seok himself, much less his twin brother. Before han seok's chairman takeover, most people think han seo is the only jang child

Jun woo knows he has a twin brother, but he doesnt know who he is. He can't remember his name or his face, or those of his real family. When he receives an offer for a job at wusang, he takes it as a learning opportunity and accepts

The only one who has all the cards is han seok, and so when he hears that jun woo has become an intern at wusang he decides its time to play them

So he spends people to observe and record jun woo, and after things start heating up and chayenzo declares war on babel, he kidnaps and threatens him, and tells him that he has to let him cosplay as him so that he can scope out the increasing threat

This is not how jun woo had ever thought meeting his long lost twin brother would go. He tries to put up a fight, but han seok hits him in the stomach with the hockey stick he's wielding like some kind of ancient weapon so hard that he spits out blood, and that takes the fight out of him

Han seok crouches down in front of jun woo and stares him in the eye, and it's like looking into a mirror except his reflection is staring at him with chillingly blank eyes.

It's the same for han seok, except his reflection looks back with open terror. The feeling it gives him is unpleasant and han seok doesn't like seeing weakness like that on a face that could pass for his own. But if he wants to get what he wants, he can't harm his twin too much just yet

Visually they're identical, so han seok passes perfectly for jun woo. He doesn't get all his mannerisms right at first, but with practice basically no one can tell the difference unless they look hard enough to notice that han seok's eyes are always empty even when he's copying jun woo's biggest grin.

A part of han seok feels a flash of jealousy at the fact that his twin has had a pleasant and fulfilling life while he's had to live neglected in the shadows for so long, so he takes extra satisfaction in the way jun woo's face falls when he appears in front of him for the first time dressed in his work attire, indistinguishable from jun woo on the average week day, backpack and all.

To spite him even further, han seok mimics his cheery, enthusiastic way of speaking, smiling so widely that it's mocking, and embraces the glee that jun woo's downtrodden expression gives him

He does hate having to curl his hair to copy jun woo's usual hairstyle though

At this point han seo finds out he has a second older brother, because han seok wants him to be able to continue to act normal and not freak out if he sees him cosplaying as jun woo

This brother is identical to his other one but actually really nice to him and it's both incredible and completely terrifying. It takes han seo a while to warm up to jun woo because he looks so much like han seok, as well as for fear of han seok's reaction, but he gets there

Whenever they meet (usually bc of han seok) the two bond over their shared fear and hatred of han seok. There's twice the himbo power. Incredible

Jun woo had had no idea that he had a younger (half) brother, and his heart goes out to him for having to live under han seok's abuse for so long

So he makes an effort to get to know han seo when han seok isn't around to yell at them. Han seo appreciates this a lot, because jun woo is like han seok on his incredibly rare good days except much better and all the time

Being a veteran at Handling Han SeokTM, he gives jun woo tips on how to get on han seok's good side and avoid getting things thrown at you

Jun woo tells han seo that one day when they get free of han seok they should take a trip to disneyland. Han seo, who has never been to an amusement park before, makes him promise it

Han seok's babel boss reveal presentation goes more or less the same way, except it's also a twin reveal and choi myung hee and mr han have to deal with the fact that not only is their intern the babel chairman's twin brother, but they have also been switching places regularly

Meanwhile cha young, who is out there living her best anti big pharma life, thinks jun woo is acting weird. Some days he's super bubbly, almost too bubbly, and on other days he's more subdued, seemingly a bit on edge.

Biggest red flag comes when she, him and vincenzo eat spicy food together

The spicy food tolerance gene missed han seok altogether and endowed han seo and jun woo with its power

So though he doesn't protest when cha young orders the extremely spicy dish jun woo usually gets for him, han seok struggles to finish the food almost as much as vincenzo does

Cha young thinks that's really sus, but she keeps her questions to herself because there's really no explanation for it unless jun woo was replaced by a government clone or aliens. Or his secret identical twin. Hah, imagine

She files the thought away for later and they continue to dig into the man behind han seo and babel. They find out about han seok, but there's no remaining information about jun woo in the files because the jang family thought losing him was supremely embarrassing so they tried to make sure no one knew

Meanwhile han seok is super happy he's gained another protective shield. If babel gets into trouble he can force han seo to go to jail for him, and if he ever gets personally exposed he can make jun woo take the fall for him. Genius

For that purpose he makes sure no one except the babel quartet know about him and jun woo being twins

He finds that it's interesting living as jun woo though, people interact with him in a way they never do when he's han seok. Jun woo's neighbours say hello to him when he goes by, and the lady in the local convenience store makes small talk with him and asks how his new job is going. And cha young is an incredibly unusual person, han seok finds that he has some level of attraction to her, and enjoys her company

While han seo is a puppet, jun woo is a mask, a protective measure and a means to explore the world, and han seok mentally pats himself on the back for having such useful brothers

But he has to stop spending time pretending to be jun woo for now bc he knows his identity is at risk of being discovered by jipuragi squad as they hunt down the person who exposed vincenzo as a mafia member

So when vincenzo does find out that han seok is allegedly jun woo, and tells cha young, it actually isn't han seok she's sitting with when she receives the news

Naturally she doesn't know this, and she feels supremely betrayed

And when vincenzo breaks into 'han seok's' house, it's actually jun woo's house. Jun woo, who was not expecting the mafia to break into his house, is understandably scared. The kneeling gun scene goes down, except there is no bravado on jun woo's part and he's genuinely terrified

Vincenzo is arrested as planned, and jun woo meets cha young in the police station as she goes to help vincenzo

She's furious, and jun woo honestly denies that it was him who killed her father and the babel victims, unable to expose that it was han seok because he's scared of the consequences and because it sounds like such a ridiculous excuse

Poor guy gets the double slap intended for his twin brother

When han seok hears about it he laughs a lot. Jun woo is understandably angry about his reaction, but he is forced to seethe in silence

Nevertheless han seok decides to go into hiding (and forces jun woo to do the same somewhere else, hiring guards to make sure he doesn't leave) because even if chayenzo think jun woo is the babel chairman, they still have the same face

Unfortunately for han seok this means that vincenzo's spy squad see him going into his own safe house, and he gets to be the victim of the drugged water

After a few more near death scares courtesy of the local mafia man, choi myung hee suggests he reveal himself as chairman so he doesn't die at the hands of vincenzo unknown and like a loser. And so he does

At the expense of jun woo, whose identity has more or less been stolen now, and who is now indefinitely confined to the family property han seok had him hide in

The war begins all out, and jipuragi squad works hard at removing han seok's support circle, starting with daechang daily, then the anti-union activities

Han seo watches all this unfold and starts to wonder how he can get his better older brother free while taking down the other one

The answer comes to him when he sees chayenzo cover han seok with pigs blood. They're the only people who seemed to consistently be able to one up han seok, and he has only heard good things about cha young from jun woo, not to mention the fact that surely even han seok can't defeat a mafia member in the long run

So he asks mr han to help him meet vincenzo, and he tells him he has twin older brothers and asks for his help in betraying the bad one and saving the good one

Vincenzo thinks he's messing with him, and turns down han seo's request to be on the same side

But then jipuragi squad opens the guillotine file, and there below han seok's escapades in homicide and the details on han seo's suffering, is the shocking secret of the jang family, the existence of a 3rd jang brother, han seok's twin brother jang han sol

Cha young remembers how jun woo hadn't been able to eat spicy food that one time and suddenly everything makes sense

For his part vincenzo remembers what han seo had said and mentally kicks himself for thinking it was a lie

They puzzle over what this could mean and where han seok's twin brother could be now. Is the man who revealed himself as the babel chairman the real han seok? Are both of them evil? Is one being used by the other?

Cha young silently wonders which times jun woo had just been jun woo, and which times she had been eating lunch or joking with han seok the babel chairman and serial murderer

They decide they have to find the other jang twin in order to answer their questions

Problem is that he's been absent from work for the past 2 weeks, and when vincenzo breaks into his house, it looks like it hasn't been lived in for quite a while

The trail seems to lead nowhere, and they turn their attention back to tearing down babel, with the new knowledge sitting uncomfortably in the backs of their minds

And then han seo shows up at the jipuragi office in all his coffee wielding glory to plead his cooler older brother's case again

This time, to han seo's surprise, they listen to him patiently when he tells them about his older brothers. He makes sure to stress that the only one he wants to betray is han seok, and that jun woo has done nothing wrong

If the fact that they've read the part of the guillotine file that talked about what han seo had had to suffer under han seok makes it easier for them to believe him, he doesn't have to know that

The only way they can strike at han seok and simultaneously clear jun woo of suspicion is to reveal that they're twins

To do that they have to find jun woo. Han seo doesn't know where exactly he is, but he tells them that han seok would probably try and use jun woo as a shield should he ever be sent to jail

The guillotine file gives them what they need to force the prosecution to put han seok behind bars under fabricated charges. It wouldn't last long once actual investigation starts, but hopefully it will be enough

Han seok takes the bait, unknowingly, and shuttles jun woo off in his place. There's not much that irritates him as much as the thought of going to jail, and this is the perfect chance to test jun woo's loyalty. It also gives him a blind spot to operate, while his enemies think he's in jail. You can't dodge a hidden dagger and all that.

When the jipuragi squad watches the arrest of the babel chairman on the news, there's a nervous hunch to 'han seok's' shoulders, and the impassive smile he seems to be going for isn't quite right

Vincenzo and cha young go to visit him in jail

When they first see him, cha young immediately feels bad, despite herself. He looks like he hasn't slept well in ages, and his expression is far from his usual cheer, sober and sullen. This had better really be jun woo, she does not want to ever feel pity for jang han seok

It is jun woo, and he really hasn't slept well in ages, as reuniting with han seok and his violent tendencies has reawakened the memories from his childhood in the jang household that he had supressed, causing all kinds of nightmares

He doesn't look up as they enter and sit opposite him. Cha Young takes charge, and vincenzo lingers behind her, a solid and present support

When she speaks his head snaps up at the sound of her voice, before he seems to want to correct himself and looks away

When he looks at her again there are no traces of jun woo in his face, his expression haughty and unbothered

It's chillingly like the han seok they had sat across following the pig's blood incident, and cha young has to work hard to push down the flare of anger the expression causes

She decides not to beat around the bush. She presses the printed page of the jang han sol section of the guillotine file up against the glass, and watches as jun woo's eyes widen, the facade falling as quickly as he had donned it

Jun woo takes in the picture of the two identical little boys and has to squeeze his eyes shut at the wave of fear that hits him

In its wake is a small flare of hope. If they know he isn't han seok, maybe they can help him

Cha young watches as jun woo seems to deflate at the sight of the document, and now she's sure it isn't han seok, because she's never seen him allow himself to show any form of weakness

When jun woo looks up again, there is determination mixed in with the weariness in his eyes

A while later, cha young exhales shakily as they walk out, vincenzo's hand steady and comforting on her back. She's surprised at how relieved she is to know that the jun woo she had known had not been an elaborate set up, a con which had seen her at some of her lowest moments. Her heart goes out to jun woo, but there's an undeniable joy at the confirmation that her friend still exists, because it means he can be saved

The plan is simply to collect evidence of the fact that jun woo is not han seok. Best case scenario a video of them together, though a good photo will do as well. It would also work if they can somehow get footage of han seok out and about while jun woo is in jail

The first obvious course of action is to look for cctv footage. They hunt high and low through the cameras at babel, at wusang, and around han seok and jun woo's houses, but the searches are largely fruitless

With han seo's help, they locate the safehouses han seok likes to hide out in, and vincenzo sends men to snoop around each property. This ultimately pays off when, at the 3rd property, han seok is spotted standing by a window.

The second stage begins with Mr ahn's help, and they get a swat team to raid the house han seok is hiding out in.

Fully believing that everyone thinks you're in jail makes you sloppy, and han seok doesn't see it coming until the black vehicles are speeding down his driveway

He doesn't stop to take anything much, he grabs a hockey stick and he runs, wild and angry, out into the dark of the woods surrounding the house

Vincenzo watches him charge into the forest on the cctv footage retrieved from the house and smirks

The footage hits the news the next day. The headline is in large, bold letters, "Chairman Jang Han Seok spotted at holiday residence, despite prison sentence." The picture below the tagline serves as the final blow, side by side images of Han Seok sprinting away from the house, and an identical man sitting demurely in a jail cell.

As the story breaks, people begin to step forward, old employees of the jang household who had known and seen both han seok and han sol. There's nothing like good gossip to get people talking, and the shocking secret of the jang twins makes the rounds in record time

Jun woo's identity is rechecked, and he is set free

Cha young, vincenzo and han seo go to meet him when he gets out. Han seo tackles him in a hug, and cha young smacks him heartily on the back. Vincenzo doesn't react much but he does shoot jun woo a smile.

Han seok hasn't been seen in days, and jun woo is unbelievably happy to be himself again

It isn't over yet though, babel still needs to pay and han seok still needs to be found. Search parties comb through the woods around the house regularly, but there's still no sign of him. In the meantime, jipuragi prepares their final attack.

Han seo lets jun woo stay with him, and the house is fortified by multiple levels of guards

It's still mildly unsettling for han seo to have someone with han seok's face in his house, in his own safe space, but jun woo makes for a far better housemate than han seok ever was, and gradually he relaxes

For a few days, despite the tension of not knowing where your psychopath brother who probably really wants to kill you could be lurking, when there is a spare moment in the evening, han seo and jun woo catch up on years of lost brotherhood

Han seo tells him about his mother, and jun woo talks about his adopted family. Neither of them mention han seok, they skirt around his name like he doesn’t exist, like speaking their trauma aloud to someone who had been there too would make it too real to bear. Jun woo knows he had gotten the better end of the deal, he had been separated from han seok pretty early. Han seo had lost too many years of his life to their psychopath brother, and jun woo isn't sure he knows how to confront that, or how to comfort him. He hopes he can learn

Han seo wants to ask what exactly had happened to lead to jun woo being removed from the jang household and separated from han seok, but he doesnt dare. Maybe later, maybe when they aren't still worried about what han seok could do to them

Then the jipuragi squad files their lawsuit against babel. Han seok still hasn't been heard from, and they begin to wonder if he got lost in the woods. Maybe he fell of a cliff, or into a river

Either way, the trial goes spectacularly badly for babel, aided by the fact that vincenzo had threatened the unjust judge before the trial. The verdict is guilty, and it serves as a means to kick-start further investigation into previously dismissed babel trials

The day after the trial, han seok reappears

He was lost in the woods for a while, but he found his way out and laid low for a while plotting a way to get back at vincenzo and cha young for destroying his backup plans and destroying his family and company's reputation. He will also have to deal with his traitorous brothers.

It's a big blow, but it's not one he cannot recover from. All he has to do is get his revenge, terrify his brothers back into submission, and go back to his plans for his babel.

So he requests the kidnapping of cha young, and he gets his men to attack the guards at han seo's house and take her there, cornering his brothers. He strolls in when he gets word that everything is done, cocky and confident, twirling a gun between his fingers

He takes in the open fear on han seo's face, the frightened anger on jun woo's face, and the sneer on cha young's face, and he laughs. They are consistent to the very end, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

All that’s left is vincenzo, and a short while after a brief and taunt filled phone call he arrives, eyes wide and angry. Han seok does not waste time in pointing his gun at the mafia man. He stops where he is, still glaring at han seok, eyes darting regularly to cha young

Because he is never one to turn down some fun, in a bid to further anger vincenzo, han seok crouches down and points the gun to cha young's head. He watches at vincenzo's face twists with anger and worry, and he revels in it. Out of the corner of his eye he sees jun woo has moved in front of han seo, like he's protecting him, and han seok wants to laugh

He speaks to cha young in jun woo's voice to spite them both, mockingly sounding out his words in his twin's bright tone

But suddenly vincenzo drops to his knees to plead for cha young's life, and han seok grins in satisfaction. The satisfaction is shortlived, however, as something solid suddenly crashes into the back of his head

It dazes him enough that he lets go of cha young for a moment, and she takes the chance to headbutt him so hard that he drops the gun. Vincenzo pounces almost immediately, and aims a kick to han seok's head, knocking him out

The last thing he sees before everything fades to black is his spitting image standing a distance away, holding a dented art deco lamp.

When they are sure han seok has been knocked out for real, the relief that sweeps the room is palpable. Han seo slumps down and jun woo moves to check on him as vincenzo unties cha young

Jun woo moves to call the police, but vincenzo tells him not to. 

Instead, he makes a call of his own, and soon two men enter and carry out the still unconscious han seok. Jun woo wants to ask where they’re taking him, but there’s a dark glint in vincenzo’s eyes that makes him swallow the question.

None of them see han seok again until he’s on the news. His body is found in a river near the family property he had first run away from, and the consensus seems to be that he fell in and drowned while lost in the woods

The whole matter has vincenzo written all over it, but no one is going to ask about it

Han seo and jun woo hold a funeral for him because it would be suspicious if they didn’t, but they work hard to make it as underwhelming as possible. When han seo cant stop shaking (whether it’s in weariness, relief, or anger at any traces of grief, jun woo can’t tell, and honestly neither can han seo) as they stand in front of the portrait of their deceased brother, jun woo silently rests a hand on his back.

After that is over with, they take a break to have a small ‘han seok is gone’ party, and then they both throw themselves into work

Han seo takes charge of babel, firing all of han seok’s people and working hard at cleaning up the stain of corruption he’d left behind. He works hard to transform the company’s reputation, and begins the process of compensating all the people who had been wronged by them in some shape or form

Jun woo leaves wusang and starts his own law firm. Han seo makes the company his first customer, and jun woo tries hard to run his firm without any traces of what made lawyers at wusang such monsters

Cha young and him have a friendly law firm rivalry going, much to vincenzo’s amusement

When they aren’t working, jun woo and han seo hang out a lot. Jun woo is determined to replace han seo’s memories of a terrible older brother with better ones with a more pleasant older brother. Han seo still struggles sometimes with seeing han seok in jun woo, but he’s more than happy to overwrite han seok’s image in his mind with jun woo’s

A few months after everything is stable again, they do take that trip to disneyland. The picture they take outside the park is framed on both their desks.

The next year, vincenzo and cha young get married, and han seo and jun woo attend the wedding. They bring expensive gifts, and jun woo cries like it’s his own family getting married. Cha young rolls her eyes at him, but she’s pleased to have him there

It will take a while to move on fully from the damage han seok caused, but they are all working hard at it. Because now han seok is gone for good, and everything is fine.

bonus

The Incident that led to han sol becoming jun woo happened when he and han seok were 6 and han seok, having decided that they had to see who was the superior twin, challenged him to a fight to the death

It was traumatic to the point that jun woo repressed all the memories of his childhood with han seok

Han seo once called jun woo hyung when speaking to han seok, and han seok got really angry and threw a lamp at him

Before vincenzo finishes off han seok, cha young slaps him six times to make up for the two slaps she mistakenly gave jun woo

After everything blows over, jun woo takes han seo with him the next time he goes to visit his adopted family. They dote on him like he's their family too, and han seo feels more loved than he has since he lost his mother. He says so to jun woo, and from then on he takes him along whenever he visits them

Cha young, jun woo and han seo meet up sometimes to eat spicy food, both because they like it but also to spite han seok’s memory just that little bit more

Because han seok died before he could find out about vincenzo’s mother, she’s alive and well and vincenzo visits her regularly

[according-to-the-laura]

StackedNatural Day 159: 2x18, 13x19

StackedNatural Masterpost: [x]

April 19, 2022

2x18: Hollywood Babylon

Written by: Ben Edlund

Directed by: Phil Sgriccia

Original air date: April 19, 2007

Plot Synopsis:

Sam and Dean discover that a group of ghosts are attempting to shut down production of a movie that they feel is mocking them.

Features:

The biggest soundstage in the world, Dean’s crush on Matt Damon, an interfering producer, Dean as a PA, summoning a ghost to do your dirty work, an ancient motorola phone camera, the world’s most determined B-List horror movie.

My Thoughts:

This is just a fun little episode where Dean does a silly little job. Also, it’s maybe the happiest we’ll ever see him except for 10 minutes in the middle of Tombstone?

People have been talking on Tumblr for years about how Dean would be fixed if he could just quit hunting to go be competent in a job where he gets to be part of a team, and this is why. He could literally quit hunting and con himself into a very successful career in film production. It’s really fun to see him being such a nerd and so unreservedly enthusiastic, and I love how it’s carried all the way through to Mint Condition in season 14. 

A fun way to be sad is to think about how we just watched a season 10 episode where Dean said he’d never been to the beach. They were IN LA and he wanted to go to a beach and had to work and then he never got another chance to go to a beach. Also, do NOT think about A Complete Kingdom.

I like Tara, it’s rare that a female character in a monster of the week episode isn’t a complete stereotype. They could have made her a classic starlet that was a real bitch but instead she’s just a normal lady doing her job even if she doesn’t like it that much. The polaroids are cute, too. 

The best part about watching this episode is that Dean has already been all over the news for theoretically robbing a bank and he still hooked up with a movie star on set. Icon.  

Notable Lines:

“You know nothing of your cultural heritage, do you?”

“What's a P.A.?” “ I think they're kind of like slaves.”

“You know, I thought you hated being a P.A.” “I don't know. It's not so bad. I kind of feel like part of the team, you know?”

“You know, maybe the spirits are trying to shut down the movie 'cause they think it sucks.”

“You are one hell of a P.A.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 8.6

IMdB Rating: 8.5

13x19: Funeralia

Written by: Steve Yockey

Directed by: Nina Lopez-Corrado

Original air date: April 19, 2018

Plot Synopsis:

Sam and Dean must stop Rowena, who is on a deadly mission. Meanwhile, Castiel looks to heaven to recruit angels for an impending invasion but is shocked by not only what he finds, but who.

Features:

Rowena’s powerful sense of the dramatic, Jessica the baby monitor-Reaper, Reaper assassinations, the machinery of Death, Death’s notebooks, Naomi’s return, Big Pharma as the real monsters, Rowena confronting Death.

My Thoughts:

This isn’t my favourite Yockey episode, but even still it’s got lots of good stuff in it. Tons of Samwena straight-bait, A little sprinkling of Billiewena for spice. Cas being called handsome. 

The A plot and the B plot line up really nicely in this episode with the thematic understanding that we can’t control everything and we can’t win every time. 

I have a theory that Yockey’s Dean is happier than a lot of other writers. Even when he’s drinking (flirting) in the kitchen with Cas and the world is gone to shit, he’s a bit lighter. I like seeing that in his interactions with Cas. 

I really like Rowena the more she shifts to the good guys’ team (which is rare, come to think of it - I usually think it ruins a villain to turn good). The alley scene fucks extremely hard. She gets a lot of space to have her emotions explored and I love the mutual misery between her and Sam when they learn about her fate. 

In terms of fate, this is a nice gentle way to start setting God up as the ultimate villain - they didn’t tear up the script at the end of season 5 like they’ve always been told. Chuck has brought fate back.

I love Yockey making all of the angel death (and genocide) matter, in a way it should have since season 7 but was overlooked. I like Naomi too, so it’s fun to see her back around. All of the Heaven stuff does make me wish that the finale had been about abolishing afterlives and allowing souls to return to the universe. 

Notable Lines:

“Ah, the handsome angel is there, isn’t he? Hello tweety pie.”

“ you stole my memories, and you threatened to "tear me apart," and you made me repeatedly act out Dean Winchester’s murder, and you killed many, many people.” “Those were simpler times.”

“There are a grand total of nine angels in Heaven, present company included,”

“Sometimes life is unfair, and sometimes we lose things. And sometimes we make mistakes. And some of these things can never be fixed, no matter how powerful you become. Some things just are, and everyone has to live with that.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 8.2

IMdB Rating: 8.2

In Conclusion: We are just over a month away from the end of Stacked. The light at the end of the tunnel. 

<< Previous Day  |  Next Day >>

[blake-wyatt]

Right, so I can’t stop thinking about everything that doesn’t add up about Peter Nureyev and what we’ve learned and his motives and I just had to spell it out. Please someone talk to me about their Peter!Theories! He’s my emotional support disaster gay!

So we know Peter has been working consistently his whole career, and at the very least had back-to-back lucrative heists in the last eight years. In fact, the jobs he’s taken on were some of the most lucrative of the last century.

Yet, he hasn’t got a penny to his name. Not only that, but for years he’s been desperate and living payout after payout. The need for money has been haunting him his whole career and somehow now he needs more, urgently.

This could either be because whatever has been squeezing him dry has suddenly demanded more, or because, as he said, ‘time is running out’. For him or for whatever the money is for? Yes, maybe he thinks he’s getting too old and doesn’t have a lot of heists left in him - so he wants enough money to last and pay off his ‘debt’. Or his ‘debt’ has a deadline.

We also know that despite his need for money, his moral code led him to a series of pro bono cases, which embarrassed him. Still, he did some good and earned nothing as a result despite payouts being so necessary to him.

The other question is: why would he join Buddy’s crew? He doesn’t believe in working as part of a team; he didn’t even know what kind of jobs Buddy had in mind; he was perfectly capable of getting hired for the most lucrative heists of the century but suddenly he needs to be on the Carte Blanche to settle his debts; he had no idea the Curemother Prime was even on the table when he joined.

It hurts me to say that it looks like the actual lucrative heist was joining the crew. He doesn’t ask for the big picture when he takes on a job - maybe he didn’t even know what he was supposed to do there beside getting them to trust him. And he clearly considered finding ways out of the deal  and was surprised by whatever happened with the distress signal and Dark Matters, so I don’t think he sent it (on purpose). And I don’t think he’d betray Juno, not without warning.

And thirdly, he was vibrating when Buddy mentioned the Curemother Prime. He didn’t know what Fresh Starts Incorporated was but he knew what the Curemother Prime was. How? How do you know about the Legend so much that you can barely hide your excitement but have no idea that FSI partially owns it? I suppose: compartmentalizing. Buddy implies Peter isn’t there for the money anymore because of Juno, and that might be true, but also maybe....because of this?

His fingers were shaking, he was sweating, he felt feverish when Buddy told him they were going to steal it. The vulnerable part of him had been clinging to the myth of this Panacea. The part that he tried to excise. That’s quite the reaction. 

He seems healthy and Vespa ran tests on him. However, she mentioned secret medical histories AND Nureyev displayed some symptoms of early onset neurodegenerative disease. The forgetfulness, the confusion, the mess, he might be getting too sick to work on his own and it could be as simple as that. Or.

Is it possible someone he loves is...very sick? Has been for awhile? And whatever pharmaceutical corporation is keeping them alive has been demanding a lot of money from Peter? And the prices must’ve gone up since the Outer Rim had to rebuild after the war, so in the last eight years he has been working incessantly to ‘pay his debt’ - pay for this person’s healthcare? But he wouldn’t need money if he could fix the problem at its root with the Curemother Prime.

And then when you think about:

“Memories [...] of a floating home. Warmth and laughter and the soft sigh of another beside me, from a time when money wasn’t my only concern. “

First of all, do we know if all of Brahma has floating city, or is it just New Kinshasa? Because then...when did he begin to call that home? And I know we’d assume he was talking about Mag but...’the soft sigh of another beside me’ sounds a bit romantic? Coupled with Nureyev’s clue: who was the first person he loved?

Why would he choose to tell that story to Juno before giving him his reward? Did he need to share that story, the key to Peter Nureyev’s motives, so Juno would understand why he needs to do what he needs to do? Make up his mind about whether that’s something he can accept, something he can love?

Not to mention, whoever Peter owes money to....knows his real name. They must be connected to Brahma, to his past. And using him to now get their hands on four items that might get the Outer Rim to win a war against the Solar Government.

The only thing that makes sense to me right now is that Peter loved someone a long time ago, and whatever happened to them...Peter feels it’s his responsibility to take care of them. And they might need medical attention requiring constant payments to a Pharma Corp. These bastards can pretty much set their prices however they see fit, so maybe they squeezed Peter dry and then gave him an option: just one more job, and the account would be settled forever.

Time is running out, and he needs Juno to know and to understand, and then Dark Matters is there and he...disappears. With the Class X Radical.

If he's doing it for someone else or for his own health I do not know. After trying on so many identities, the thought of losing his real one to a disease must be excruciating. Maybe that's why he told Juno his name. Maybe that's why he's so devastated thinking no one knows him better than himself, and he's losing that knowledge. I wouldn't hold it against him if he needed to steal among thieves to get cured.

Basically......I want to believe in Peter Nureyev.

[blueskyscribe]

Robots & Their Unplanned Babies

So I’ve noticed this trend in Transformers fanfiction.

Character A gets pregnant, via Character B.  But there is a conflict or baggage between the two characters.  Sometimes it’s straight up noncon, sometimes it’s “enemies to lovers” and they’re still on the “enemies” part.

But either way, what often follows is something like:

“Should I terminate it?” wondered Char A.  “No, I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t be such a MONSTER as to snuff out an innocent life!  Its life is just as important as mine!” (And if it’s the result of noncon, add “I can’t punish this baby for the actions of its father!”)

And that does make me wince since those are the exact rhetorical arguments that get used against real life people fighting for reproductive rights.

I’m not an anti, I’m not here trying to shame or scream at writers. I get that the dilemma is “Well, I have to think of SOME reason for them to have this Drama Making Baby”.  Conflict drives a story.

But guess what, I thought of some alternative reasons!  That still involve a lot of drama!

1.  They physically cannot get an abortion, for physiological reasons.

Hot take:  If you’re writing about robots, you can make their biology whatever you want.  You can say, “Actually, robots can’t terminate a pregnancy b/c snuffing the mini-spark would also snuff the parent’s spark.”  And if you like writing angst, this is going to be a great source of it!

Or maybe abortion is possible--but not for this specific person, because of [medical reason you just made up.]

2. They physically cannot get an abortion, for situational reasons.

Is the character poor?  Maybe they can’t afford a doctor.  Or maybe they are rich, so rich that the paparazzi follows their every move, so they come up with a crazy scheme to have the baby and bribe a maid to claim it’s their baby.

Maybe the government has made getting an abortion almost impossible through stringent and restrictive legislation, ha ha, good thing this is FICTION, what a FICTIONAL situation!  

If this is in the midst of a war, maybe all the doctors have been trained / put on the frontlines as field medics and they are unreachable.

Or maybe the parent is stuck in the wilderness or on an island.

3. They’re too nervous about talking on the phone to make an appointment.

Making appointments is stressful, and it’s even more stressful if you think you’re going to be judged over it.  So I think it would be perfectly feasible for a character to continually think, “Okay, I have to do it, I have to make the appointment TODAY”, but they keep putting it off and putting it off until, whoops, it’s too late.

I feel like this probably happens in real life quite a bit.

4. They WANTED a baby, actually.

Maybe the character was trying fertility treatments with Character C for ages and ages . . . but it was only after being with Character B that they got pregnant. Even if there was noncon, maybe their thought is, “Okay, whatever, at least I’m pregnant finally.”  Or maybe it wasn’t noncon, maybe it was a single night of forbidden (but consensual) passion.  Either way, that’s some good drama!

Maybe they even plan to stay with Character C and pass off the baby as being a result of A x C parentage.  That would also be a good source of drama--worrying what the baby will physically look like.  Will C be fooled??

(Fic Rec: “The Doctor Is In” by Spoon888 uses this reason, and it’s great!)

5. They are a bad person and want a baby for bad reasons.

I’m just saying, if you’re the villain and you give birth to the hero’s child, you suddenly have some amazing leverage against the hero.  This can range from telling the hero “do what I say or the kid gets it” to the classic trope of “child is raised to unjustly hate their parent.”  

If you want an eventual happy ending, you can have the villain-parent initially only use the child as a bargaining chip, but as the child grows up the villain becomes fond of them and actually becomes a good parent.  You could even have further conflict when the villain’s eventually like, “Hey pumpkin, I’ve been thinking . . . We should invite Hero over for tea to sort this mess out” and the kid is like “NoOooOoo they are EVIL, you told me so” and then the villain + hero have to work together to convince the kid otherwise.

6. Having a baby brings some specific benefit.

So, I come from an Irish-American family.  In my dad’s family, there were eleven kids.

My paternal grandparents lived on a farm.  And ‘back in the day’, if you lived on a farm, you wanted a lot of kids.  First, you wanted a lot of kids because some would likely die.  (Which did happen, several of the kids in my dad’s family died before they were school-aged.)  Second, you wanted a lot of kids because they were free labor.

That doesn’t mean the kids weren’t loved, it doesn’t mean they were abused.  But when you are living a hardscrabble life on a farm in the Great Depression, you do have to think about things like “So, how am I going to survive?”  And if child labor is legal, and you have a kid right there, weeeelll . . . 

So just think of some way a child can financially or socially benefit the pregnant parent.  It doesn’t have to be the gritty scenario of “send the kid to work in a factory” if you don’t want that.  It can be . . . “Eccentric king loves babies and invites new parents to a special feast every year, and Character A needs to ask the king for a boon / is a social climber / needs to steal the Macguffin that the king has in his collection.” 

Or “Master thief knows there’s a jewel at the end of a narrow tunnel that they can’t fit through, but a small child on the other hand . . .” And then they train their kid to be a super-spy from day one because of that or whatnot.

Or maybe adoptive parents pay big $$$ for babies and that is the incentive.

7. The character is pro-life.

If the character does have pro-life beliefs and thinks abortion is immoral--that is valid!  Characters can have strong beliefs, and they don’t have to be the beliefs of the author!  Just . . . this works better for some characters than others.

Like if it’s a fic about Sunstorm, I would one hundred percent believe that was part of his belief system. (He is probably picketing Robot Planned Parenthood on his days off.)  But if it’s Pharma or Ratchet . . . I don’t.  

(Not because they’re doctors.  But because Ratchet is canonically non-religious and pragmatic.  And Pharma seems like the type of person who does not put up with personal inconvenience.  Though I could see Pharma looking down on other people who have abortions, while sneaking away to have his own while he’s “on vacation”.)

--

So those are my brainstorms!  Like I said, I am not here to judge or yell.  I get it, we all love dramatic fics and an unplanned pregnancy is drama. :) Just, there are more reasons that people have unplanned kids than the one I commonly see in fics.

[yourcoolfriendwithallthecandy]

Magic and Miracles and BEYOND

Chapter 16

Now that there is physical trauma, let's explore the mental trauma shall we? Good thing Dr. Gentiana Glacian is here to help. Let the healing begin.

@the-immortal-marshal this is one is also for you. Enjoy.

Magic and Miracles and BEYOND

Chapter 16

Tredd poured over the medical textbooks that Sylva had given him, one of which he would need to become an EMT, and others that would help him understand what the medical textbooks were saying that explained what different medical terms meant as Ravus was doing the same as Sylva was already ordering new replacements to the books she had given out and placed other orders for other things for Ravus and Tredd respectfully before she went to the pharma section of her hospital and got a two sets of project recovery and went to Sabrina’s room first to administer the first dose to her so that Sabrina would make a full recovery before she then went to Selena’s room to deliver the second set of it and administered it just before Selena’s boss, Wilson Foster and his wife Tammy came in.

“Hey, how are you feeling Sweetie?” Will asked, kicking into father mode since his own kids were close in age to Selena, a few years older though and were already in college.

“Everything hurts.” Selena answered honestly. “I broke four ribs, punctured my liver and my lungs and my arm was broken in two places and I have a pretty bad concussion.” Selena revealed as the lights in the room continued to stay low, so as not to aggravate it.

“Oh bless your heart and soul, you are one tough cookie to make it through all that, we are just so grateful and thankful you survived and should be making it through. And having your mom with you, I’ll bet both of you were very worried about the other. Well, we wanted to come and see what we could possibly do to help, besides hoping and praying that you pull through just fine.” Tammy offered as she sat down in the chair with her folder while Will put the flowers they had gotten for her on the ledge by the window.

“I don’t know if there is anything you can do.” Selena answered honestly, fearing the worst now that they were here. Yesterday, Craig had asked Ravus and Selena if he could inform his family about what happened and Ravus and Selena had given their permission and at the time, all the response Craig had gotten back was that everyone in his family were praying for Selena and her family.

“Well actually there is, you see, back in the beginning of September, when you were hired on as a part time designing assistant and I believe this counts as a “qualifying life event” and wouldn’t you know it, last weekend when you were in, we got so busy with the customers we forgot to tell you that you got a promotion, and with that promotion and with this qualifying life event, we wanted to come and make you aware that you are officially a remote associate designer so you don’t need to come into the office until you are fully recovered and can do any work you feel like doing from any computer and these are your login credentials in the various computer systems and passcodes for the licences for all the programs that we use and run in the office. And that position does come with a raise and of course insurance options, which I hope you don’t mind but we went ahead already accepted on your behalf, I hope you can forgive us if we overstepped ourselves, but gosh darn it, wouldn’t you know it, it all happened about a week ago, we are just so sorry we didn’t get a chance to tell you until just now.” Tammy explained as she opened her folder and set the paperwork in front of Selena as Selena just started crying as Sylva and Ravus got choked up too by the wonderful gesture.

“We already scanned in your signature, if you can just try to make your initials with your left hand best you can, that’s all we need from you.” Tammy requested.

“Thank you.” Selena offered as she used the box of tissues near her to soak up her grateful tears as Ravus was also grateful and relieved and moved by the gesture as well as he hugged Wilson and Tammy quite hard before Sylva hugged them too before Wilson and Tammy both hugged Selena as hard as they dared.

“Thank you guys, so, so much for this.” Ravus thanked them gratefully.

“Oh and you should know, that this has nothing to do with who you’re engaged to. Every client you’ve helped out with has had nothing but the highest praise for you and your already wonderful talent, so you earned this on your own Selena, you should know that.” Wilson insisted.

“Ditto.” Tammy grinned as she handed Selena one of her pens as Selena took the pen and happily tried to sign her initials with her left hand.

“Congratulations on the promotion, now, there is nothing left for you to do but become familiar with all the programs on your own time and schedule as you want to. And whenever you do get to a point where you’re fully healed, just let us know when you’re ready to come into the office. But otherwise, don’t worry about anything but healing and recovering. And watch for those insurance cards and things in your mail and as long as you can log into the programs about once a week or so, just to sign in, you don’t have to do anything other than sign in but that signing in is all we need for the systems to recognize that you’re still working so the paychecks can still be cut on a weekly basis and the insurance can still cover you because it’ll show you up as a current employee, who is salaried rather than hourly.” Tammy offered.

“You guys are the best, thank you so, so, so much.” Selena offered.

“Well you’re going to be the best too. We’re the lucky ones to have you, just get better ok Sweetie? That’s all you got to do now.” Tammy reassured her as she squeezed Selena’s left hand reassuringly before Selena’s grandparents and other family came into the room, with more flowers and cards in hand.

“Well let’s get out of your hair. You got more company. You call us if you need anything ok? Anything at all, we’re happy to help any way we can.” Wilson insisted as he tugged on Tammy’s sleeve so that she could see that Selena’s family had come in as Tammy took the contract out of the folder to scan it into her systems and folded it to put it into her purse but left everything else there for Selena and Ravus to go through when they got a chance.

“Thank you, oh I should introduce you guys, this is Wilson and Tammy Foster, the owners of Foster’s Design, Architecture and Construction Incorporated, Selena’s employers, they came to personally deliver the best news...” Ravus introduced Wilson to Selena’s grandparents and the rest of her family before Selena told her family what the Fosters had done for her as her family practically squealed in delight as William and Tammy were immediately pulled into big hugs and emphatically thanked before they were taken to Sabrina’s room with Dorian as word spread quickly as Selena laid in bed and smiled relief, because laughing would hurt too much, feeling a weight she hadn’t realized she was carrying being lifted off of her.

“See? It’s all working out.” Ravus urged his fiance as he settled in next to her again before he took a look at what all she had signed and grinned when the offer itself was exceedingly generous before Regis came into the hospital and asked to pull Wilson and Tammy aside and talk to them about an idea he had about helping Selena as well that Wilson and Tammy immediately and eagerly agreed before he came into Selena’s room as Sylva revealed what Wilson and Tammy had done for Selena.

“Yes, I know I passed them in the hallway and Selena’s family told me all about it already. I also came to tell you some good news…” Regis began.

“So I know this is your senior year. However, because you were smart enough to get all of your requisite courses done as of last year, that meant that this year could be spent getting your miscellaneous credits in, like arts and drama and any “fun” classes you wanted to take. So because of that, I talked with your teachers who agreed to greatly reduced work considering your accident and current conditions and I compiled it onto this single piece of paper, so you have until December, which I know is only a couple of months away, but if you will complete these four projects, which shouldn’t take you much time or energy to do so, so no rush on these. But I asked Wilson if he would sign off on having you spend what time you’ve had at his place of business count as extra miscellaneous credits, which he and Tammy agreed to sign off on as well so that means, that if you can complete just these four little projects by December 15th. You can graduate early and get your diploma and all that as well.” Regis offered as he handed Selena the slip of paper that had the projects and their components filled in as Selena started crying again as she nodded.

“Thank you so much.” Selena thanked Regis as Ravus got up and hugged Regis tightly, getting choked up too as Sylva was already crying too.

“Thank you so much Dad.” Ravus thanked his step father genuinely.

“You’re welcome, I’m so sorry she’s hurt but it’s the best I can do to help.” Regis offered into Ravus’ embrace.

“It means the world to us, thank you.” Ravus reassured him as he pulled away and wiped his grateful tears away but his smile was so bright and thankful as Selena gestured for Regis to come closer so she could hug him too.

“I swear to God if the dean at the community college comes in next and says I just graduated with honors, I’m screaming.” Selena joked which got everyone to laugh, including herself before she clutched her side before Sylva looked at the time and went ahead and gave her more pain killers a few minutes early and put it into the computer.

“Well I did actually contact your college and informed them of the updates in your current condition.” Ravus confessed.

“As did I.” Sylva confessed.

“As did I.” Regis added.

“Oh Jesus.” Selena grinned with a playful roll of her eyes but a grateful and appreciative smile nonetheless.

“You are loved, completely and unreservedly by everyone around you, you just get to feel as well as know that you are right now.” Sylva explained with a bright, knowing smile as she reached over and squeezed Selena’s shoulder before there was a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” Selena asked, almost wearily.

“It’s just me, Nancy, your nurse, here to make sure that the tube in your side is still draining excess liquid from around your punctured lung.” Nancy said as she came into the room with her special cart as Sylva pulled herself and Regis out of the way so that Nancy could work on Selena in privacy.

“This is looking really good actually, oh to be young with a really healthy immune system again.” Nancy gently teased as she took the soaked dressings off and replaced them before making sure everything was still working correctly and pulled some blood for panals from Selena's picc line in her left arm so that she wouldn't have to keep getting injections or moving her IV and as she made sure none of her other scrapes or bruises or anything was getting infected before she noticed that Sylva had given Selena her pain meds early before she administered an anti- nausea medication to go along with the pain medication and because having a concussion can cause extreme nausea.

“And some good ol’ promethazine for nausea so you can eat, you guys should order lunch while you have the chance.” Nancy suggested.

“Ooh, yeah, definitely.” Selena said as she got the menu from the drawer of her tray table and looked over the menu as Selena picked out what sounded somewhat good to her as Ravus did the same before Ravus called it in.

And in the afternoon, when their various friends came to check up on them, they were also overjoyed to learn about the news and developments and offered their congratulations to Selena for the “promotion” and her “early graduation” which left Iris to announce that she was also graduating early, in December as well so that she could work with her mom with the K-9 units full time so that in December, they were all free of Lucis High as Craig especially was so happy relieved to find out what his uncle and aunt had done for Selena.

Within the week, Sabrina had made a good recovery, enough to be released from the hospital. Selena though was still considered “ICU” and still received round the clock care and had gotten no less than three Project Recovery sets in that week, as Ravus practically moved into her hospital room with her and the only times he left her side was to go to the bathroom and get a shower as their friends and family took turns doing Ravus’ laundry and had cleaned out their fridge so that nothing would rot into their refrigerator as their dogs “took turns” being snuck into the hospital, wearing “support animal” gear as all of Ravus’ and Selena’s animals seemed instinctively become aware that Selena was wounded and hurting and offered as much comfort they could for their visits.

Bunny, the black newfoundland being the most comforting as she tried to jump into the bed itself but having Selena and Ravus keeping her from doing so as Selena rolled over to her left side and did her best to pet and soothe Bunny the best she could as Ravus held Bunny up, who was only 6 months old at this point, but already massive as Bunny, who was named that by Dani, was so happy and grateful to see her again, even Duchess was brought in, also wearing a “support animal” harness which she wasn’t thrilled about but she came and laid near Selena’s chest and purred loudly as Luche and Ada had gladly taken all the pet’s food and toys and beds and things and moved them over to their house since they were right next door to continue to care for their pets while Ravus and Selena were in the hospital.

Thankfully after two and a half weeks, Selena was downgraded from “ICU” status so that the nurses and doctors were not coming in almost every hour or even two hours during the night as Selena was encouraged to sleep as much as possible to help recover as Ravus continued to keep Selena company, working from his laptop only when absolutely necessary when Selena would take multiple naps throughout the day but otherwise was voracious in his own reading and gaining as much medical knowledge as he could to understand what his mother and the other medical staff were saying while in the room so he could fully understand what the impact to Selena had been and would continue to be going forward but because of his “overprotective” nature. He soon got a reputation himself with the staff.

“Knock, Knock, it’s Dr. Gentiana Glacian, you can just call me Anna though,” Anna greeted as she came into see them as Selena and Ravus were just finishing up eating their lunch.

“Hey,” Selena greeted as Ravus was happy and relieved to see her too.

“So, how are you holding up Selena?” Anna asked as she snagged a chair and sat down.

“I hurt all over. It hurts to breathe, to move really, but the concussion healed so yay- no more hallucinations or ridiculous nausea.” Selena confessed.

“Yeah, concussions can do that. And with having a near death experience, that’s a lot of trauma in itself. So besides the physical pain, are you experiencing any mental pain? Anguish? Anger? Resentment? Bitterness? Spitefullness? Aggression? Confusion?” Anna asked casually beore Selena turned to Ravus and gave him a pointed and meaningful look.

“All of the above.” Ravus confessed guiltily.

“Tell me about it.” Anna invited as she pulled a little notebook and a pen from her pocket to make notes.

“Uh, well, I went to school with Billy and Chad and they were friends with Andrew and Andrew was a psychopath and Billy and Chad were jocks and self entitled pricks who took bribes to hurt her brother, like actually tried to maim him and were stupid and reckless and nearly killed Selena because they were having a stupid pissing contest.” Ravus explained, despite the relative calm in his voice, there was a real rage whirling in his chest and still a seething bite to his tone.

“Which is all valid and correct.” Anna nodded.

"And what about you Selena? How do you feel about what happened?" Anna asked thoughtfully.

“Honestly I just feel like my mom and I were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think it was just a coincidence that they were the ones that hit us. I don’t think they thought any of it through and were just being stupid, reckless teenagers, and even though it was horrible, I don’t think they meant any malice to me or my family inparticularly at least in this instance. With Nyx, that shit was made personal because of Andrew and his past toxic relationship with Luna. Gladio told me the day after the accident, that both of them and their families nearly crapped their pants when they found out that it was me, Ravus’ fiance and my mom that they hit and I have already heard that they reached out to Sylva to try to see if Ravus and I would even accept an apology from them and Sylva has used me ICU status to keep from giving them an answer.” Selena offered.

“An apology isn’t going to fix your liver or your lung or your broken arm or your concussion or your brain damage. They need to pay for what damage they have done.” Ravus insisted adamantly as Selena looked even more exasperated and exhausted as Gentiana could tell that they had had this conversation privately at least a few times by now.

“And they will. They’re paying for it right now with their own injuries and their own insurance premiums are about skyrocket because everyone who was hurt by their recklessness is going to be doing a class action lawsuit against them, which we are going to be doing and you are already pressing charges against them personally and they will be persecuted to the fullest extent the law allows. I’m just afraid that that won’t be enough for you and you’re going to want to go full- eye for an eye, pound of flesh kind of thing. If it had been any other people who were not Andrew’s friends, who did not used to go to school with you when you were in your own 'stupid teenager phase', who had not taken bribes from currently dead- psychopaths, who you yourself used to be friends with and that guilt still to this day, eats at you and it’s rearing it’s ugly head right now and I think you’re taking this way more personally that it needs or should be.” Selena insisted to Ravus as she held his hand and squeezed it three times for emphasis as Ravus practically pouted and frowned at her.

“Honestly if it had been anyone else, anyone else in the world, I think you would be satisfied with the class action lawsuit, and be done with it, if they were from any other school, I don’t think you would be this adamant that they pay drop of blood for drop of blood, because I’ve heard you huffing and puffing and grumbling and seething curses at them when you think I’m sleeping. I think you’re trying your hardest to take revenge on my behalf, which Luna and Nyx didn’t even get a chance to do, even though with Nyx, it was a personal attack and he never got to see justice and I know you like to think that this is your best way to get revenge and get justice for him too, but even he and Luna have let that go when Andrew died and Andrew’s former friends and associates all came clean about all of the shit he was into because he could no longer go after them and Nyx already got an apology from them and I think we should do the same, accept the apologies with grace, because even though we personally have never done anything like this, I think we can show a little more sympathy for 'stupid things- stupid teenagers do', forgive them for their mistakes and accept their payment for said mistakes, with again- grace and a little humility and mildness.” Selena suggested as Ravus just flushed with shame because she was right as he scrunched up his face in a reluctant scowl.

“And I know you love me immeasurably. I know you love me more than anyone else in the world and I know you got really scared that you almost lost me and how you were going to implode if you did and probably take up drinking again and most likely drink yourself to death without me. And I think this experience is proving to be more traumatic for you, than it is for me. I mean you won’t leave my side for any other reason but to bathe and relieve yourself, you refuse to even go to the cafe to get coffee or tea because the bathroom is the farthest you have gotten from me and you don’t fall asleep before I do and you wake yourself up before I do and you are barely getting any sleep because you wake up every time anyone knocks or comes through that door and you’re grilling every nurse that comes in and keeping everyone on their toes and walking on eggshells and you’re making everyone anxious around you and you're scaring everyone, including me, because their nervousness makes me nervous.” Selena pointed out.

“Why is that Rae?” Anna asked.

“Because I’m terrified that if I leave, she’ll get a bad nurse or doctor who doesn’t know what the hell their doing or get a blood clot or have a complication or could die and she needs to have the best of the best looking after her and I’m worried that if anything could go wrong- I won’t be here, my place is here with her and I’m not leaving this room unless you are leaving this room with me and we get to go home.” Ravus insisted to Anna and then to Selena.

"Ravus, I'm literally in the VIP section of the hospital, your mother's hospital, hell it practically is your hospital too, I might add, I even look at this call button and I have three people coming in here to help with anything I could ever ask for. They're not letting any rookie fresh out of medical school anywhere near me. I'm already having the best of the best taking care of me and they are doing wonderfully. We have a butler for crying out loud. What part of any of this gives you any reason to think or feel that I won't be taken care of?" Selena pressed.

“I just...I have a fear that if I don't keep vigilent, another accident will happen." Ravus admitted.

"Which is a valid trauma response." Anna pointed out.

"So do you think that because Ravus wasn't in the accident himself, he shouldn't have a trauma response?" Anna questioned Selena.

"...ok. Maybe I didn't fully realize that he would be that traumatized too." Selena admitted.

"Well Ravus has already lost parent, and in that instance, he was helpless to do anything about it. And with your accident, that put him in the same exact situation again, yet here he is with one, two, three..five medical text books on that stand next to the couch." Anna pointed out.

"Ok, I'm sorry, I didn't see it that way. However I still feel that it’s a bit much, like it’s overcompensating and I think it’s coming off as the way those obsessive, controlling boyfriends who can be abusive because all of my nurses conveniently wait until you’re in the shower to ask me if I’m ok or need help and they have all gone to your mother to voice their concerns that you’re one of those types. I know you aren’t coming from that place but it’s coming off that way regardless. Plus, even if you had taken off of work and picked me up and had been driving me yourself and had taken that route which the route we were taking was the best route for time, we still would have gotten in that accident and you would be in the room next door instead of my mom and then both of us would be losing our minds with worry for the other.” Selena answered.

“And I know you’re not usually this obsessive or controlling but you’re turning into it. And it honestly scares me and it’s scaring everyone else.” Selena insisted as Anna was writing as fast as her hand could let her.

“....ok I didn’t realize I was coming off that way. I'm sorry.” Ravus finally admitted.

"And I'm sorry that I haven't seen how this has affected and traumatized you too." Selena offered.

“And I’m very worried that you’re going to overcompensate some more by not letting me get behind the wheel, ever again or ride with anyone but you and you will turn into the most defensive driver on the planet going ten under the speed limit and blaring that horn if anyone even inches towards the center line.” Selena voiced.

“....I...ok, you may have a point, I may, I may be looking at replacing our cars with hummers.” Ravus admitted.

“Only because actual tanks aren’t legal?” Selena questioned, albeit a little sarcastically.

“Maybe.” Ravus stuck his tongue out teasingly which got Selena to crack a wry grin which got Anna to smile fondly as she continued to take notes.

"So here is what I would like to see, it was awesome that you guys could come to an understanding about the current situation and see things from each other's perspective. That's wonderful that you were able to do that. Selena, again, be mindful that this traumatic event isn't just traumatic for you, but for everyone else involved, especially Ravus because you are his everything." Anna reminded Selena.

“And Ravus, do remember my advice to you when you were going through your own “stupid teenager phase” as Selena so beautifully put it?” Anna asked.

“To listen to the women in my life? Like my sister and my mother?” Ravus recalled with a wince.

“Guess what? I’m gonna repeat that advice. Only I’m going to ask that you consider and carefully evaluate all of Selena’s advice because Selena is hitting all the nails on the head here besides not recognizing your own trauma. So here is what I personally advise. Apologies are in order, but before you accept Billy and Chad’s apologies and the apologies from their families, with grace. I want you to apologize to all of Selena’s doctors and nurses for doubting their capabilities and thus their intentions with grace as well, because the number one rule is “do no harm” and not everyone is out to hurt you or your family. Like Selena said, this instance wasn’t personal to her. And the guilty parties are paying for their mistakes with their own injuries. And you need to make peace that that will be enough, Selena is clearly at the “acceptance” stage of grief which is amazing and I applaud you for it. Also, when Selena does make a full recovery. I suggest that maybe you two should get into defensive driving courses, maybe make it something fun like learning how to drive like a stunt driver kind of thing. But don’t let this traumatic experience torture you mentally and emotionally. Because the physical impact is more than enough. Also, Ravus I’m prescribing a sleep aid. Because you need at least 8 hours of good, restful, restorative sleep because Selena does deserve your best. However no one can pour out of an empty cup, you need to take care of yourself, eat, sleep, and don’t burn yourself out. Otherwise you will be admitted to the hospital yourself in the room right next door for exhaustion because I can see how exhausted you are from where I'm sitting and you are at your limit. So before it get's to that point, take the sleep aid, relax, you can stop being hypervigilant, it's ok to trust that even while you're getting some much needed rest, Selena's very high level of care will continue on and I want you to practice leaving Selena’s side for just a few moments, like go down to the cafe, get a cup of coffee or something and trust that Selena is going to be just fine when you come back. She’s not on ICU status anymore, she’s not touch and go, her life no longer hangs in the balance so we don’t need to be hypervigilant and not miss a single second of everything. It’s going to be ok.” Dr. Gentiana Glacian advised.

"So let's start right now, Ravus, do you trust Selena with me?" Dr. Gentiana asked.

"Well of course, because I know you're never gonna hurt her." Ravus answered.

"Then entrust her with me, go down to the cafe down the hall and get yourself something, get Selena something and when you come back, you'll see if you were right to trust me with her." Anna suggested.

"You can do it. I'll be ok. Get me a macaron, I heard they have those down there." Selena urged him.

"...ok, fine." Ravus said before he slipped his feet into his loafers and left the room and walked down the hall, forcing himself not to speedwalk or run.

“Thank you.” Selena thanked her gratefully.

"You're welcome. Anything else you want to say while you don't have him breathing down your neck?" Anna asked as she stood and put her notes and orders into the computer by the bed.

"If I thought he was attentive before, that's all dialed up to 11 in here. I just breathe differently and he's right there. I want him to relax because his hypervigilance is exhausting me, I don't know how he isn't exhausted too." Selena confessed.

"He is exhausted, he just thinks that your needs come above his own, he always has since day one. So he is suppressing his own for your sake. I would give it another day or two before he would need some medical attention for exhaustion, that's why I'm giving him a muscle relaxer, a mild anxiety medication plus a small mood stabilizer and a sleep aid and putting it into the system for the staff to keep an eye on him for exhaustion and because it's coming from me, he shouldn't put up much of a fuss or a fight in taking them." Anna added with a grin and was done by the time Ravus came back with a little box of macarons in hand and offered one to Selena.

"And?" Anna prodded.

"And she's ok." Ravus admitted.

"She is, and she should only get better from here, both of you should relax, eat some good comfort food, get some good sleep tonight, I'll check in- in a few days to follow up ok?"

"Thanks Anna." Ravus offered.

"Yes, thank you Anna." Selena parroted.

"You're wecome." Anna waived before she saw herself out of the room.

[iamtrebleclefstories]

help, ‘cause I need saving - part one

six times Jo and Alex saved each other from horrible dates and the one time they didn’t 

a two-shot fic taking place in a Season 9 alternate universe

One

“Yeah, you know I just really think it’s weird for a woman to be a surgeon. I don’t know, it just doesn’t sit right with me. I feel like your skills would be of better use in…”

Jo drowned out the voice of the man sitting across from her, willing herself to not give an outburst as a result of her date’s misogynistic comments. She should’ve known that he would be a sexist asshole the moment she heard his name. No self-respecting guy goes by Trent. But no, William Trenton III, insisted on being called Trent because Billy was his grandpa and Will was his father. 

She wanted to bang her head against the table and throw a tortilla chip in Trent’s eyeball. Her patience was quickly fading and Jo was struggling to think of a good enough reason to bail on this guy that Stephanie had set her up with. From the corner of her eye, she watched as Alex Karev walked into the bar. Despite what she’d originally told him about she’d never sleep with him, Jo couldn’t deny that she was extremely attracted to him. It honestly wouldn’t take much from his part to get into her pants. Especially since she’d started spending more time on his service, learning from him and growing as a surgeon. They weren’t exactly friends, but ever since she had shared her tragic backstory with him, there was a sort of kinship between the two doctors. 

Hoping he would catch on to the hints she was dropping, Jo looked over at her superior with a desperate expression on her face. Locking eyes with her, Alex tilted his head in question at the intern. Jo motioned to her date with her head and mouthed the words “help me” as discreetly as she could. Alex raised an eyebrow and his lips twisted up into a smirk as he realized the situation. 

Schooling his expression, Alex walked over to the table with a serious look on his face, “Wilson!”

“Dr. Karev,” Jo feigned surprise. “Is something wrong?”

“Hate to break up your date, but we’re being paged for a trauma. Let’s go,” Alex pointed towards the door. “Now.”

Jo scurried up from the table, grabbed her purse, and mumbled an insincere apology to Trent as she exited the booth and followed Alex out the door. Once they were outside, Jo let out a sigh of relief, “Oh God, thank you so much. I thought my brain was going to melt if I kept talking to him for one more second.”

“That bad huh?” Alex chuckled. “You looked pretty miserable there.”

“It was horrible,” Jo leaned against the outside brick wall. “He kept talking about how the OR was no place for a woman and that my skills would be of better use in the kitchen when I told him that I’m a surgeon. He was a sexist asshole that I hope never has any children because his daughters will grow up oppressed and his sons will grow up to be oppressors.”

Alex nodded, an amused expression on his face, “So, it was worse than bad. Got it.” He leaned against the wall next to her. “Well, I’m glad you got out of that horrible date, but now you owe me a drink.”

“What?” Jo raised her eyebrows. 

“I was going on there to get a drink to wind down after a long day but instead I had to fake a page to get you out of there. I can’t exactly pop back in. So, now you owe me a drink to make up for the one I gave up to help you,” Alex stated, hands in his pockets.

“That’s fair,” Jo conceded. “Well, I know this place near my apartment that does buy two, get one half off beers. It’s not as nice as Joe’s but it’ll do the trick for one night.”

“Lead the way Wilson.”

+++

Two

He wasn't quite sure how he got here. But after friending an old high school classmate on Facebook, Alex found himself on probably one of the worst dates he'd ever been on with Britney Bowers from his high school English class. He was glad that he told her to meet him at Joe's so that he could fake a patient emergency and never call Britney back again.

“I think it’s just so important to eat healthy and live a clean lifestyle. People are so focused on all the illnesses there are nowadays but they refuse to see all the wonderful things that nature has to offer us. I guarantee you that none of that modern medicine stuff is necessary if people just ate the right foods. You see it all comes down to your gut. That’s the root of all the diseases. If we eat healthy then we don’t get sick and there’s no need for medication or vaccines or the healthcare field,” Britney’s ignorance seeped through as she voiced her opinion in conversation. “It’s such a scam, all of it. It’s just Big Pharma that wants your money and everyone is in on it. Why do you think doctors make such good money? I bet half the time they treat you, there’s nothing wrong with you or there’s something that can be remedied naturally that they’re refusing to acknowledge because it takes away from drug companies that stuff money in their pockets.”

“You do know I’m a surgeon, right?” Alex stared at her incredulously. 

Britney laughed awkwardly, "Oh, I'm not talking about you. I'm sure you aren't trying to scam people for their money. I'm just… you must know a lot of people who do."

"Nope, I don't," Alex shook his head. "Most of the people I work with are just trying to save your life, not take your money. We aren't the ones in charge of billing." 

"Huh," Britney stared at him dumbly. 

Much to his luck, Jo had been sitting at the bar witnessing the travesty and found it in herself to be merciful. She walked up to the table with her best innocent expression and spoke, "Dr. Karev, I'm so sorry, you told me not to bother you tonight, but I was monitoring Lily Phillips vitals and I noticed that her SATs started dropping again. I know her parents were hoping not to have to operate again, but I think you should come in and see if there's something more serious going on."

Alex’s eyebrows shot up when he saw who had come to his rescue. Realizing that this was his out, Alex stood up, “Crap. Yeah, lets go.” He turned to face Britney. “Listen, it was great catching up, but I’ve got to go.” 

“Oh, no worries, I get that you’re busy,” Britney flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder. “You can always call me and we can continue this another day.” 

“Sure,” Alex smiled awkwardly, trying not to glare when he heard Jo’s quiet snort. “Goodbye.” 

As soon as they were outside, Jo burst into laughter, “Wow, that was hard to watch. ‘There’s no need for medicines or vaccines or the healthcare field.’ Please, if it weren’t for modern medicine, natural selection would have weeded her out a long time ago.”

Alex laughed along with Jo, “You’re not wrong.” 

“How did you even meet her?” Jo asked as they walked over to their cars. 

“We went to high school together,” Alex huffed in annoyance. “She found me on Facebook and sent me a message. I answered like an idiot. She said that she moved here a couple months ago and was surprised to see that I was living here too. She asked if we could meet up and since I didn’t want to be a complete jerk, I said yes. I also kind of had a thing for her back in the day, so I guess I wanted to see what she was like after all these years. Not making that mistake again.” 

“Yikes,” Jo grimaced. “Well, on the bright side, now you know that you wouldn’t have worked anyway, being that she believes we’re in cahoots with Big Pharma.” 

“You’re right,” Alex chuckled. He looked over at Jo gratefully. Ever since Bailey’s wedding when they fake cried their way into a stranger’s hotel room two weeks ago, they became fast friends. Honestly, Jo was probably one of the people he trusted most in the world. Not to mention she was really hot, which was clouding Alex’s head with all kinds of confusing things, especially when his friends were hell-bent on insisting that he and Jo were more than friends. All he knew was that he enjoyed her company and found himself wanting to spend more time with her. “What do you say we go get some pizza and beers and eat them at my place?”

“Sounds great to me.” 

+++

Three

“So… I’m going on a date tonight.”

Alex raised his eyebrows as he looked over to Jo who’d come up next to him by the fourth floor nurses station, “Okay… and?”

“And, I need you to be on-call in case I need to get out of there,” Jo rested her chin in her hands. 

“You want me to sit by my phone all night waiting for you to call me just in case your date goes bad?” Alex made a face. “If you’re so worried, why are you going out with this guy anyway?”

“Because my drunk ass may have agreed to go on a date with him after you left me alone at Joe’s last night,” Jo narrowed her eyes. “This is why you can’t leave me alone while I’m drunk. I can’t be trusted. I make stupid decisions while drunk.”

“It wasn’t like I wanted to leave. I got paged,” Alex rolled his eyes.

“Ah, yes. I’m sure you tell all the girls that,” Jo grinned sarcastically. 

“Shut up,” Alex sighed and placed the chart down on the counter. “Where’s your date and what time is it at?”

“It’s at the movie theater ten minutes away from here,” Jo answered. “I haven’t been on a movie date since I was sixteen. That’s how I know that it’s going to be interesting…”

“Fine. I’ll be at Joe’s with my ringer on and a bottle of beer, trying to think of a creative way to bail you out,” Alex crossed his arms. “But if an hour goes by and you still haven’t called me, I’m going to assume it’s not horrible and I’ll worry about myself. Maybe I’ll pick up some chick and get laid.”

“You’re the best! I’ll text you later,” Jo smiled brightly as walked away to finish her shift. 

Sure enough, later that evening, Alex snorted when his phone lit up with a message from Jo. 

J: Save me please 

A: Dude, you haven’t even been there for 20 minutes

J: I know but I need to get out of here ASAP. He’s creepy and I feel uncomfortable.

   His name is Brock. BROCK! 

A: Don’t panic 

    I’m coming.

    What do you want me to do? Interrupt the theater?

J: Yes. I don’t know… just help me. And the movie hasn’t started yet. We’re just watching the previews. 

A: I’ll be there in ten minutes 

    I’m going to call and text you fifteen times now

    Don’t answer, it’s part of my plan

Ten minutes later, Alex was standing in front of the ticket booth bargaining with one of the workers. 

“Listen man, I don’t need to sneak into a movie. I’m a surgeon. I’ve got the twelve dollars you need to get in, but I’m telling you, this is an emergency.”

“I’m sorry sir, but I cannot let you in there. Especially now that the movie is about to start any second,” the young ticketmaster said. 

“Dude, you’re not getting it. I’m not asking to go in there. I’m asking you to get someone to interrupt the theater before the movie starts and get her,” Alex huffed. “Her phone is on silent, so she probably hasn’t realized that she had about twenty missed calls. Her brother was just in a car accident and might not live to see tomorrow. I think you can make an exception just this once.”

The teenager looked back and forth between Alex and the theater and sighed, “Fine. What’s her name again?” 

Back in the screening room, Jo was bouncing her leg anxiously as the lights began to dim, signaling the start of the film. She looked at Brock warily as he attempted to rest his hand on her thigh. She brushed it away and chewed on her lip, hoping that whatever plan Alex had in place would begin soon, so that she would have to be stuck watching the movie with this creep. 

Suddenly, the lights brightened again, and she watched as one of the teenaged workers walked into the front of the theater. 

“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, but I’m looking for a Josephine Wilson.”

The moviegoers grumbled at the interruption, but Jo shot up in her seat, “Yes. That’s me!” 

The worker walked up the steps to her level and spoke, “I’m so sorry, ma’am. But your friend Alex is outside. He says he’s been trying to contact you and you haven’t answered.”

“We’re on a date, of course she hasn’t answered the damn phone,” Brock sneered. “What the hell could be more important than this?”

The teenager looked down apologetically, “He said that he’s called you about twenty times. It’s an emergency.”

Finally catching on to Alex’s plan, Jo suppressed a laugh. She looked down at her phone and indeed saw all the missed calls that he’d warned her not to answer, “Oh my God. It says he called me nineteen times. What happened?”

“Ma’am, your brother has been in an accident,” the worker—Vinny, as described by his name tag—gave her a sympathetic look. “I was told it was really bad.”

“Oh God,” Jo pressed a hand to her mouth and got to work on her fake tears. “Is… is he alive?”

“I’m not sure,” Vinny shook his head. “But I think you should come outside and head over the hospital with your friend. 

“Yes, yes of course,” Jo nodded as a couple tears made their way down her face. 

“I’ll go with you,” Brock stood up from his seat. 

“No!” Jo said, almost too quickly. Shaking her head, she held a hand up. “No. It’s alright. Stay here. Enjoy the movie. We can always go out another day.”

“Okay…” Brock sat back down and watched as Jo walked out of the theater, not realizing that he had no way of contacting her until it was too late. 

When Jo exited, she kept up her façade and ran straight into Alex’s arms, fake tears staining his shirt. He rubbed her back soothingly, “Hey. It’s okay. We’re gonna go see him now.” Alex looked back at the kid. “Thanks for your help.”

“No problem,” Vinny waved his hand. “I hope everything works out with your brother, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” Jo sniffed and wiped a couple tears. She looked up at Alex. “Can we go?”

“Yeah,” Alex led her out of Vinny’s view and into the parking lot. 

As soon as they entered the car, Jo and Alex both burst into laughter. Jo held her stomach as she laughed, “When I said yes to interrupting the theater, I didn’t think you’d actually do it.” Jo wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “My brother was in a horrible accident? Do you know how hard it was not to laugh at that? I don’t have a brother.”

“It was the first thing I could come up with,” Alex took a few deep breaths in an effort to calm his laughs. “You were great in there, though. The crying was very convincing.”

“Thanks,” Jo giggled. “You know he tried to come with me? Brock.”

“That right there—his name—should’ve been a red flag from the get go,” Alex chuckled. “You were right though, fake crying gets you out of everything.”

“Stick with me and maybe I’ll teach you some other tricks,” Jo grinned.

They stared at each other with mirth in their eyes for a few moments. There was no denying that there was something brewing between the two of them. As much as they tried to ignore it, there was this connection that neither of them could quite explain. It was comforting but electric at the same time. But neither of them were bold enough to take it any further. 

“What do you say we get some fried chicken and eat it in the car like we were raised to do?” Alex suggested. 

“I’d say… I think I love you,” Jo joked. “In all seriousness though, let’s get out of here before Brock comes looking for me.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea.”

+++

Four

“So you know how helping each other get out of dates now is our thing?” Alex said as he fell into step with Jo as she exited the intern locker room. 

“Is it now?” Jo raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Didn’t know that.”

“Oh come on. I’ve helped out get out of two really bad dates already, and I expect you to return the favor,” Alex gave her a sideways glance. 

“Mhmm,” Jo hummed. “What kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time, Karev?”

“I haven’t gotten myself into anything yet,” Alex placed his hands on his hips. “I’ve got a date tonight with this blonde chick named Tiffany. I met her last night while I was out grocery shopping. She seems pretty nice, normal, but then again, I met her in the frozen food section so who knows what she’s like. Anyway, I was hoping you’d be available to get me out of it in case things go horribly.”

“I’d love to, but it all depends on what time I get out of here tonight,” Jo sighed. “I’m on Medusa’s—I’m sorry, I mean Dr. Grey’s service today.”

“No you’re not,” Alex shook his head. “I switched with her.”

“What? Why?” Jo scrunched her eyebrows as they approached the elevator. “Is this because you want me available to bail you out?”

“No. Well… yes, but it’s not the only reason,” Alex pressed the elevator button. “Murphy was on my service and I know it’s been months but she still gives me those creepy, weird looks and I don’t feel like dealing with her today.”

Jo snorted in laughter, “You are such a douche.”

“Whatever. She knew what she was getting into when she slept with me,” Alex shrugged. “So, if I let you out when I leave, will you hang around in case I need you.”

“I guess,” Jo faked annoyance.

“Great, thanks.”

By the time the date rolled around, Alex had been pretty optimistic. Sure, Tiffany wasn’t the girl he wanted to go out with, but since he couldn’t date the one person he wanted to date, Alex was doing his best to try to find someone he could make it last with. So far, he wasn’t having the best luck.

It started out normal, great even. So great that for a while there, Alex thought about texting Jo and letting her know that maybe he wouldn’t need her tonight. He discovered that he was very wrong rather quickly. 

Tiffany was beautiful, he couldn’t deny that. But she was too clingy. To the point that it was actually scaring him. He was sure if this went any further and they broke up, he’d have an ex who wouldn’t take no for an answer—or worse, a stalker on his hands. 

Sending a quick text message to Jo under the table, he waited for a reply. 

A: Definitely going to need your help tonight

J: what happened?

A: She’s too clingy. Bad clingy. Creepy clingy. 

    Take a lock of my hair and clone me later clingy. 

J: Yikes. Where are you again?

A: The club across the street from that diner we like to eat at. 

    I should’ve known it would be bad when she suggested going to a club on the first date 

J: You think?

    I’ll be there in fifteen

A: Please hurry 

True to her word, fifteen minutes later, Alex watched as Jo entered the club and took a seat at the bar. He spent about five minutes looking back and forth between Tiffany and Jo, who’d taken to flirting with a couple guys that had come up to her in the short time since she’d arrived. Bouncing his leg impatiently, Alex sent another angry text to Jo. 

A: What the hell are you doing?

    You’re supposed to be helping me, remember? Not trying to get laid.

“Is everything okay?” Tiffany asked. “It’s just, you keep looking at your phone.”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Alex rubbed a hand on his neck awkwardly. 

In that moment, Alex heard a gasp from his right side. Jo had materialized and wore an angry expression, “You!”

“Me?” Alex pointed to himself, confused as to what her play was. 

“Oh my God. You don’t even remember me,” Jo clutched her drink in her hand. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re a hump ‘em and dump ‘em kind of guy.” 

“What did I do?” Alex widened his eyes as he waited for Jo’s cue. 

“What did you do? What did you do!” Jo’s eyes hesitated for a split second before she threw her drink in his face. “Thanks for the syphilis, you ASSHOLE!” She turned to face Tiffany before walking off. “Don’t waste your time!”

Sitting there in shock, Alex watched as Tiffany rose from the couch they'd been sitting on to look at Alex with a face of disgust, “And to think, I had picked out our kids names.” 

Once Tiffany grabbed her face and exited the club, Jo came back with a semi-apologetic, but mostly amused face, “I’m so sorry about your shirt, but that was awesome! I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Yeah, I bet you’re having the time of your life right now,” Alex glared.

“Hey, you told me to get rid of her and that’s what I did,” Jo defended, a shit-eating grin on her face. “Come on, I have one of your old t-shirts in my car.”

“Why do you have one of my t-shirts in your car?” Alex scrunched his face in question. The thought of her having one of his shirts in her car did things to his brain that he wasn’t even sure how to vocalize. 

“It’s from the last time I crashed at your place on the nice, comfy couch I bought you,” Jo smiled. 

“Yeah, with my money.”

“Semantics,” Jo waved her hand. “Anyway, let’s get out of this hell hole and go to watch movies at your house.”

Alex rolled his eyes at her antics, “Fine.”

+++

Five 

Alex should’ve said no the moment April Kepner offered to set him up on a date. Knowing Kepner, he should’ve known what kind of thing he’d be getting himself into. But when she came up to him with a request from a former patient’s daughter who thought he was attractive, he found himself having trouble saying no and ended up agreeing to the date.

That’s how he ended up spending the past 20 minutes staring across the table at a woman who might as well have been the carbon copy of Izzie Stevens. 

He’d truly tried to give the woman a chance and not associate her with his ex-wife, but the longer they spoke, the more freaked out he was getting by the whole situation. Especially when she started talking about her love of baking.

“I’m gonna go use the bathroom real fast,” Alex started to stand from his seat.

“Oh yeah, no worries,” the woman waved her hand. 

The moment he stepped foot into the bathroom, Alex searched for his cellphone in his pocket and dialed the one number he needed to get him out of this situation. It rang four times before a voice came through the speakers.

“Hello?”

“Dude, I need you to get me out of here right now,” Alex whispered into the phone. “I’m at the bar and grill 20 minutes away. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t stand this for another minute.”

“What’s wrong with this one?” Jo chuckled on the other line. 

“She looks like my ex-wife,” Alex hissed into the phone. “She’s got strawberry blonde hair but they have the same face. Their brown eyes are the same. Sure her tits are smaller than Izzie 's were, but they even have the same creepy, overly perky laugh. And her name is Katherine. That was Izzie’s middle name. But she insists on me calling her Kitty Kat.” 

Jo snorted into the phone, “Gosh, you really know how to pick them. What do you want me to do? How are we going to play this?” 

"First of all, I didn't pick her," Alex paused. "Kepner set me up."

"Mistake number one right there," Jo giggled in amusement. "Okay, again, how do you want to play this?"

“I don’t know,” Alex shrugged helplessly. “Pretend you’re my girlfriend and come in here kicking and screaming at me because I’m a cheating asshole or something.” 

“Wow, you’re really desperate this time aren’t you. Aren’t you traumatized from what I did last time?” Jo laughed at his expense. “Okay, I’m changing out of my scrubs right now. Give me half an hour. I’ll figure out a story on my way there.”

“Thank you,” Alex sighed in relief. 

He made his way back to the table giving Kathrine an awkward smile as she continued to yap on and on about some cooking show she’d almost been a contestant on. He was about ready to gouge his eyes out with his fork when he saw Jo walk towards the outdoor area where he and Katherine were sitting with an oddly shaped bundle in her hands. 

“What the hell Alex? Tell me why I just got off the phone with your mother only to find out that you were supposedly at dinner with me, when you told me you were working late,” Jo exclaimed, causing the bundle in her arms to let out a cry. 

Alex stared at her in shock, wondering where the hell she had gotten a baby from. He hoped the very real confusion on his face would come across as shock to Katherine, who was sitting there, jaw dropped and eyes wide, watching the scene unfold. Alex opened his mouth, "Jo—"

"Don't, Alex. Just don't," Jo held up one hand as she rocked the now screaming baby. "I know things have been difficult since the baby was born, but I really expected more than this. I don't know when you stopped loving me, but I expected more respect as the mother of your child. I thought you'd have the decency to at least tell me the truth! Instead of lying to me and your mother, about where you were and who you were with."

Alex looked back and forth between Jo and Kathrine, unsure of what to say. Jo was really selling it this time and he did not want to throw her off by saying the wrong thing, "Jo, I—"

"Shut up, Alex. Just shut up and hold your son," Jo shoved the crying baby into his hands only to scoff when the child stopped crying immediately after landing in Alex's arms. "Of course! Of course he calms down as soon as you hold him. I'm done!" Jo threw her hands up in the air and turned on her feet back towards the car. 

Alex cradled the child close to his chest and looked up at Katherine, “I should go…" 

Much like Izzie used to do, Katherine turned up her nose indignantly, "Yes, and I think it's best if we never see each other again."

"Yup," Alex nodded sheepishly as he made his way out of the outdoor seating area and to Jo's car.

Rocking the small infant in one arm, Alex opened the car door with his free hand and sat inside the passenger seat, staring at Jo who smiled at him. 

“How was that for a rescue?” 

“Where the hell did you get this baby from?” Alex scrunched his face in question. “Please don’t tell me you stole some stranger’s baby.”

“I didn’t steal the baby,” Jo shook her head, a smile playing at her lips. She bent over to stroke the baby’s head. “I signed up to be one of the people that picks up the safe haven babies after they’re dropped off at the fire stations. I got the call about this little guy two minutes before you called me to get you out of your date. I picked him up and came to get you. Which honestly, I would’ve interrupted your date regardless because I wanted you to be the one to give him a check up. I’m supposed to head to the hospital with him now.”

Alex watched as Jo became entranced with the little boy currently resting in his arms. She was a natural when it came to kids, and it showed now as she fussed over a whole bunch of details he hadn’t thought of himself. He opened his mouth in confusion, “Wait, so you used a kid abandoned by his mother at a fire station to play our fake son and get me out of my date with my ex-wife’s doppelganger?”

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up,” Jo took the infant from his hands and looked at him lovingly. “Come here you little guy. I know it must be scary to be away from your mommy, but I have to believe she did this because she thought she was giving you your best chance. She might not have been able to give you a home, but I will make sure that you end up in a very nice home, with some very nice people, who can give you all the love you deserve.” 

Seeing this side of Jo was incredibly sweet. She was so tender with the child resting in her arms, cuddling him so that he’d never know that he’d been abandoned; so that he would be surrounded with love. Alex knew instantly she would be an amazing mother one day. What scared him though, was that he’d begun picturing himself in that position with her. 

Jo sighed dreamily, “Okay. We’ve got to take him to the hospital for a check up and contact a social worker. If we don’t do it now, I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with him and take him home with me.” 

A crooked smile pulled at the corner of Alex’s lips, “Here, I’ll get him into the car seat and sit in the back with him. You drive.”

+++

Six

“That’s going to be fun. I’m especially excited for that kid’s next eighteen years.” 

They had just finished monitoring a newborn with the most difficult set of parents Alex had ever gotten a chance to work with. When he and Jo were paged down to OB for the case that morning, he never would’ve guessed that the parents would end up being coworkers who hated each other, hooked-up once, and ended up with a baby. But hey, not much surprised him these days. Still, the success of the little boy making it past the benchmark was a special moment for the two parents, who despite their differences were able to come together to make a decision in favor of their child's health. 

The situation inspired a conversation between Jo and Alex regarding workplace relationships. If Alex was being honest, he was a bit biased when it came to his answers. Ever since Jo had all but dragged him into that linen closet to celebrate their win against Cahill with powdered sugar donuts last night, he could not get her out of his mind. Working with her today made him realize just how much he enjoyed her company. They'd grown so close in the last couple months and if he let himself, he could see them potentially becoming more.

Deciding to take initiative, Alex turned towards Jo, “Hey, do you want to go get a beer?”

“Oh, I would love to. Especially after today, but I actually already have plans," Jo waved over to a guy standing in the hallway wearing pink scrubs. "Tomorrow night? Is that cool?”

“Yeah… yeah that’s cool,” Alex looked at the guy suspiciously. "So, you have a date tonight? With someone from OB?"

"Yeah," Jo smiled nervously. "I've been wanting to ask him out for a while now, but, well you know my luck when it comes to dating. Anyway, I finally got the balls to do it today. We’re just going to Joe’s."

“Huh,” Alex nodded. For the first time, Alex felt strange knowing that she would be going out on a date with someone else.  “Well, if you need help getting out of it, I’ll probably be hanging around the bar too.” 

“You know, I don’t think I’ll need you this time. I feel really good about this one,” Jo beamed. She looked over at the doctor in pink scrubs before turning back to Alex. “Jason is waiting for me. I’m going to go change for my date. I’ll see you later.” 

“Yeah, see you later,” Alex waved lamely at her. 

He seriously considered forgoing a drink at Joe’s altogether. He didn’t want to see the girl he was falling for having fun on a date with some guy that wore pink scrubs to work on a daily basis. But another side of him wanted to keep an eye on Jo and make sure she was okay. He wanted to be around in case something happened or that Jason guy tried to pull something fishy. 

When Jo first saw Jason, she was immediately attracted to him. Who wouldn’t? He was hot and delivered babies for a living. After going on failed date after failed date over the past few months, Jo wanted a win. Besides, she needed a distraction from the thoughts invading her head about Alex. Because it definitely was not appropriate to think of your friend in the way she’d begun to think of him over the past few months. Especially when said friend was a pediatric surgeon who held babies on a daily basis and she’d begun picturing what he’d look like holding their own child. Yeah, that was a glaring warning that she was treading into dangerous territory with Alex. 

What she hadn’t banked on was Jason being the worst date she’d ever been on. From the outside, they looked like a normal, carefree couple, but something within her was raising some giant, blaring red flags. Maybe it was the way Jason had insulted and disapproved of her close friendship with Alex the moment they walked out of the peds wing earlier that evening. Maybe it was the way he mansplained everything and spoke down to her. Maybe it was the way he roughly grabbed her arm and raised his voice when she said something he disagreed with. 

She needed an out and she needed one fast. 

Alex was standing in the corner of the bar playing darts, periodically glancing at Jo and the guy she was with. He made sure to get a really good look at this Jason guy, memorizing his face enough to imagine it on the dart board as he flicked his wrist and hit a bullseye. One second he was pulling a dart out of the board and taking a swig of his beer and the next, someone was tugging on his arm to get his attention. 

“Kiss me,” Jo looked up at him with wide eyes. 

“What?” Alex sputtered his drink. 

“Jason. He’s the worst one Alex. The worst. And he’s at the bar getting more drinks and I need to get away from him,” Jo rambled. 

“I still don’t understand how—”

“Just kiss me,” Jo blurted, eyes desperate. “Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable.”

“Yes, they do,” Alex responded dumbly, still unsure as to what was going on. 

He didn’t have any time to think about it though, because as before he knew what was going on, Alex was being pulled into a searing kiss. While this wasn’t the way he’d pictured his first kiss with Jo going, he wasn’t complaining. Not when he could feel her this close to him. Not when her tongue met his own. Not when he could hear her whimpers as she deepened the kiss. 

They could’ve kept going. They would’ve kept going, if it weren’t for Jason’s angry interruption, “You little bitch. I should’ve known you were a liar when you said that there was nothing going on between you and Karev.”

“Jason—” Jo attempted a weak protest. 

“No, you know what? I dodged a bullet with you Wilson. I don’t need to be dating a whore,” Jason’s fists balled up at his sides. 

Seeing the red in Jason’s eyes and his fists ready to strike, Alex intervened, “Don’t you dare call her that or any insult ever again. She’s not your girlfriend, she’s not even your friend. She didn’t cheat on you. So, if I hear you ever disrespect her like that again, you’re gonna want to skip town and that’s a promise.”

Jason glared at them in disgust before turning on his heels and walking out of the bar. 

It wasn’t until Jason was long gone that they were reminded of what had happened minutes prior. Staring up at each other with the strangest expressions on their faces, Alex and Jo waited in silence for a moment. Because what were you supposed to say when you kissed your best friend and you liked it?

The question was, where do they go from here? 

With the surfacing of Jo’s thoughts about Alex blaring 

loudly in her mind, Jo mumbled a small, “thank you” in order to avoid the very real possibility that she’d just thrown this friendship down the toilet. 

Alex nodded awkwardly at her appreciation, “Yeah… don’t mention it.”

And for the first time in months, the end of a horrendous date was not celebrated with Jo and Alex hanging out. It was spent alone. 

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #19- Ambulon and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

We got a major reveal at the end of last issue, and now it’s time to put the rest of the pieces together so we can finally understand the mystery that is the Ultra Magnus situation.

So back when Magnus’ seemingly lifeless body stole a shuttle, fucked off into space and landed on the moon, Tyrest was there to greet him.

And by “greet him”, I mean punch through the windshield and carry him bridal style, as if he weighed no more than a baby bird, into his moon base.

Pharma did his thing with his crazy new hands, Magnus was saved, and he woke up shortly after his lifesaving operation. Then Tyrest punched Magnus in the face, because fuck the healing process. He’s an engineer, not a doctor, he doesn’t deal with the SOUL and FEELINGS or anything like that.

In the here and now, Rodimus is still trying to comprehend the fact that his SIC isn’t dead, and is also actually another, much smaller guy with a mustache. Minimus Ambus attempts to explain just what the hell is going on, and we get back to our flashback.

After some good old-fashioned face violence, Tyrest showed Magnus around the place, specifically the terminal he’d set up for his on-the-fly, real-time law amending. With how many war crimes the Cybertronian race has committed in the last several million years, I’m sure it was needed.

Dang, wonder who pissed off Big Brother.

Magnus is more concerned about how it is exactly he isn’t dead right now, and also why his boss looks like a swiss cheese party platter.

Turns out that Tyrest isn’t actually mad at Magnus, just disappointed. He went and read his diary while the operation was happening, and in the 18 months that the Knight Quest has been running, Tyrest has deemed the work done to be unsatisfactory. Instead of arresting criminals, Magnus had been handling infractions so minor, most people wouldn’t have even noticed them. Tyrest doesn’t know where he went wrong.

Well, Tyrest, it was probably the anxiety that manifested itself as OCD, because you picked someone without factoring what the end of the war might do to them. Magnus needs structure to flourish, and if he cannot find it, he will make it himself. I mean, look at all this:

No wonder he was struggling on the chaos engine that is the Lost Light.

Still, Tyrest wants nothing to do with someone who’s cracked under the pressure (lack of pressure?) and the deal was that Magnus only got to be Magnus if he did what Tyrest wanted. Tyrest divests him with the literal push of a button.

Good grief, he’s naked!

As Minimus Ambus mourns over the loss of his stature, both literal and position-wise, we get back to the present, in a double-page spread no less, as Minimus tells everyone about the storied history of the Magnus Armor. Ultra Magnus was originally an actual person, but then he died, and Tyrest was kind of bummed out about that, so he decided to make up a lie (lying, while perhaps morally dubious is not illegal, so he’s allowed to do that) that Magnus faked his death, and then built the armor. There were at least a few wearers of the armor prior to Minimus, some of who were even known by the other crew members. Whenever someone got offed, their hand would spasm and press a recall button in their palm, which would bring the Magnus Armor, and the dead body inside, back to Tyrest.

You can tell he’s still real shaken up about losing the Magnus Armor, because he’s truncating his words. Poor guy.

Minimus asks what exactly happened after he got stabbed, seeing as he was too busy dying to really pay attention to the Overlord plot. Rodimus tells him it’s been handled. Brainstorm jumps in, wanting to know about the other things on Minimus’ resume, which leads into Minimus revealing the fact that he is a Point One Percenter, and something known as a Load Bearer. Load Bearers circumvent that niggling little issue that we saw presented in the “Shadowplay” arc, where spark strain due to not being able to handle a different frame type would outright kill you. Minimus doesn’t have that problem.

Tailgate wants to know how exactly it is that Minimus isn’t dead, seeing as he was clearly on his way out prior to his grand theft auto. Tailgate may have a personal interest in that sort of information, what with still being terminal and all.

Everyone’s real handsy this issue.

Minimus lets Tailgate know that Tyrest’s medical equipment is off the hook, and we get a reminder that Tailgate’s got basically a day left to live. Harsh, Roberts.

Back in Minimus’ flashback, Tyrest sort-of apologizes for punching him in the face, and laments on the loss of one of his greatest Enforcers of the Tyrest Accord.

Oh, so you DID know that this was a possibility, and instead of ordering your subordinate to go make that follow-up appointment with the only therapist on Cybertron- which, while being borderline sectioning, would have at least kept Minimus from sending emails to Rodimus about how he was spiraling- you just let it happen. The Vector Sigma pulse wave went all over the galaxy, there’s zero possibility you didn’t hear about the end of the war before Magnus loaded up on the Lost Light and didn’t call for a year and a half.

Anyway, so Tyrest’s got a new Enforcer lined up, seeing as he’s going to retire the Magnus Armor after all the shenanigans Minimus got dragged through while wearing it. Let’s see what we’re working with.

I thought we were supposed to have separation of church and state, what the hell?

In the present, Rodimus has questions, mainly about why there are so many people in this prison cell. Minimus admits that he asked to be put in here, to try and prove Rodimus and friends’ innocence on the charge of harboring a criminal, by recording their conversation and proving that they had no idea what SKIDS deal was.

Yep, Skids did a bad, and Tyrest wants him in jail.

Minimus also drops the bomb that everyone else in this cell is going to get he death penalty for that whole “crimes against creation” thing. I mean, all Tyrest has to do is wait for a little while and Tailgate will be dealt with, no sweat.

Minimus pulls a device out of his hip compartment, uses it to disrupt the electro-bars of the cell (it’s cool, he was an undercover cop for this whole thing and can therefore break out of prison without it being a crime), and goes to have a chat with his boss about all the weird new stuff he’s shoved into the Autobot Code in the last year and a half. Rodimus doesn’t really want him to leave, but there’s no time for that, because the cell just got a little more full.

Uh oh, Swerve’s badge has gone missing again. Rung, why don’t you slap yours on his crotch, that way Minimus won’t try to murder him when he gets back?

While this is happening, Whirl and Cyclonus are standing on the rim of a smelting pool, absolutely not having a dick measuring contest.

Luna 1 said Bi Rights.

There’s a structure built over the pool that looks an awful lot like living quarters, but is probably actually a prison that violates the Geneva convention. Whirl suggests they find some weapons and go hog-wild, but Cyclonus is more concerned about finding something. When Whirl asks what in the hell he could possibly be looking for in this sort of crisis, Cyclonus turns into a moody teenager.

Well, at least he’s respecting Tailgate’s wish to keep his looming demise under wraps. Not that Cyclonus tells anyone anything anyway.

Over in the Luna 1 medibay, Ratchet is being subjected to having his very fucking soul threatened with a paring knife. Pharma’s having what probably an inappropriate amount of fun, especially since he’s realized that Ratchet took his goddamn hands after the shitshow that was Delphi.

It turns out that every single piece of tech that Ultra Magnus ever repossessed is floating around on Luna 1, even the stuff that really ought to have been destroyed. This is why they were able to save Magnus from certain death at the start of the issue. Somehow I’m not surprised that Tyrest kept all those toys for himself. Corruption of an authority figure? In my Cybertronian Justice System? It’s more likely than you think.

Some of the little art quirks in MTMTE are added in by Milne- see Brainstorm holding any handgun ever if you’d like an example- but I know for a FACT that Pharma humping Ratchet’s headless body was specified by Roberts.

Ratchet, unimpressed and likely mildly queasy by the display going on before him, proposes that Pharma’s afraid of failure, which is why he hasn’t taken his hands back. Pharma disagrees, and a wager is set to see who the better doctor is- winner gets to keep the hands.

Over with the fly boys, alarms are going off in a deserted building, as Whirl struggles to open a door with his claws. Cyclonus takes over on door duty, and asks why Whirl hasn’t gotten his shit fixed yet.

Whirl’s worried that if he gets help for his trauma, he’s going to lose a huge part of himself as a person, and then where will he be? Of course, he says it in a much more Whirly fashion, full of vitriolic self-blame, but reading between the lines is fun. Whirl fires the “let’s get into each other’s personal issues even though both of us hate talking about ourselves and also each other” missile right back at Cyclonus. He wants to know about Cyclonus’ facial situation.

Cyclonus doesn’t like this question.

Then he gets stabbed with a sword.

Back with the docs, it’s apparently much later, as Ratchet’s just woken up from surgery and has a body again. He gets up from the operating table and finds that Pharma’s gone ahead with setting up their gentleman’s wager.

First Aid seems less than pleased with the current situation. Ambulon’s arms are long as hell in this panel, and he doesn’t seem entirely present in the moment. Maybe he’s practicing Rungian Re-Experience Therapy.

Pharma wants to cut both of the boys in half to see who can put the pieces together back the fastest. Ratchet tries to deescalate the situation, because he’s usually pretty good at it, but Pharma’s set on using his chainsaw attachment on someone today.

Ratchet attempts to console his coworkers, saying that their Springer-on-Pova treatment be over soon, and they’ll get a nice lollipop at the end for being such brave little robots.

Then Pharma cuts Ambulon in half, in a way that Ratchet hadn’t accounted for.

We’re gonna need a little more than some bandaids and a kiss to make it feel better for this one. It’s amazing what censorship laws will let you get away with when the blood isn’t red.

Speaking of blood, Cyclonus is more or less okay with being stabbed, because Whirl did him a solid and chopped his assailant in half- lengthways- with a super sweet sword he found in the armory they just opened up. Cyclonus pulls the blade out of his midriff and we finally find out what happened to the Circle of Light.

Back in the prison cell, Perceptor’s been given the job of doctor, even though Rung, Swerve, and Chromedome are all here and at least somewhat closer to being general practice doctors than our science sniper.

Seems like Swerve filled everyone in on the situation on the Lost Light off-panel, which is good, because they’ve been in the dark up to this point.

Chromedome hypothesizes that the reason Skids is a wanted man has to do with that mysterious gun he was holding when he fell out of the sky all the way back in issue #2. This is the point where Skids wakes up from his stabbing and admits that this is probably what happened, even though he still has no recollection of ever stealing the gun or even it existing up until he entered the story, but he apologizes for the trouble anyway.

Shh.  Someone’s coming down the corridor. It’s Star Saber, and he’s brought yet another prisoner to stuff in this cell.

And there’s something else. Can you hear it?

Is… is that music?

Are those the beginning synth riffs of “Tainted Love" by Soft Cell?

Over with Minimus, we’re treated to a taste of Tyrest’s personal brand of disinterest, then get a quick run-down of the birds and the bees. The forging process is a little more convoluted than originally implied, needing Primus to send out a pulse wave through Vector Sigma in order for the Hot Spots to be ignited.

Then the pulse waves started to slow down, Nova Prime had a little freak out, and cold construction was invented to prevent the Cybertronian race from becoming an endangered species.

Minimus of course knows all of this, because he, like basically half of the cast of MTMTE, is old as shit. What he DOESN’T know is that cold construction isn’t managed the way that anyone thought that it was, because there was a government coverup going on about the whole thing. You don’t splice sparks to make a new one, you use the Matrix to create new life.

I know, it’s crazy.

Tyrest was on the team that fiddled around with the Matrix until it started spitting out robot zygotes, and he’s now convinced that they bled the Matrix dry. Nobody tell him what happened to the thing after the war ended.

Wait. If the pulse waves have stopped, and the Matrix is busted beyond repair, doesn’t that mean they can’t make any more Transformers? Once they finish up on their stockpile of sparks, that’s it. No more. The Transformers are a protected species now, we’ve got to treat them like giant pandas.

One of his team members stole the Matrix and hid it in the black market, so its strange, mystical baby powers could never be used again. Except someone obviously found it later on, because we have half of it on the Lost Light. Minimus isn’t sure why any of this is actually relevant to the current situation, or why Tyrest feels guilty about pulling a Eugenesis Fulcrum and finding out where babies come from.

Tyrest is convinced that by draining the Matrix, his team somehow corrupted it, and all the sparks made by this corrupted Matrix are straying further and further from Primus. This is why Rodimus and friends have been charged with crimes against creation- some of their party were created in a way that predisposes them to crime. Or so Tyrest thinks.

I thought we were supposed to have separation of church and state, what the hell? This is still the same guy who was appointed as Chief Justice by the space pope because of his levelheadedness, right?

Yes, actually, but this sudden flip in priorities and personality has been induced by the guilt he felt during the Aequitas trials. Tyrest turned to self harm to deal with the weight of it all, and one day tried to go for what in most species would have been a suicide, by drilling with his drill fingers into the spot between his eyes. Instead, he most likely gave himself a lobotomy and became a religious zealot, fully believing that the gods are real, and he can go visit them by using his super-cool space portal.

Outside the moon base, Whirl and Cyclonus have freed the Circle of Light, and everyone’s ready to kick some ass. Both the fly boys have found themselves a Great Sword to play with, further cementing Cyclonus as our replacement Drift. Rodimus will be so thrilled.

Dai Atlas, the leader of the Circle of Light, tells our boys that there used to be a lot more of his group, but a lot of folks ended up being used to build Legislators.

Hm. I’m sure that’ll never be brought up again, and won’t paint future events in a much darker light. Nope. Absolutely not.

Cyclonus thinks that they need to get a move on, because if that sort of horrific shit can happen to the Circle of Light, it can also happen to Tailgate and the others. He does specifically name Tailgate in his dialogue, but it’s not like he actually cares about the guy, right? Feelings are for nerds.

Then the Legislators show up and it’s party time.

Wonder how that’s going to work out for you, Whirl.

Back with Tyrest, it’s revealed that Tyrest’s plan has a small snag- only people completely absolved of their guilt can go to Cyberutopia to hang out with Primus and the gang, and Tyrest is feeling awful guilty. Not about his weird space-eugenics thing, but about inventing cold construction. Now, how in the world is he going to handle this?

By committing a genocide.

Minimus is, understandably, not a fan of this plan. Tyrest had anticipated that the Universal Killswitch wouldn’t be universally appreciated, and has some of the new law come into play.

And that’s a series wrap on Minimus Ambus! Let’s give him a hand, folks!