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alarawriting · 3 years

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The Cold At The Heart of the Light: Chapter One

I’ve decided I’ll post probably the first three chapters of this as I work on it. There’s currently six chapters written and the seventh is started; I have been planning about twelve of them.

This is gonna have to be edited a lot when I finish the whole thing -- it’s too goddamn long, for one thing -- but I can’t spend too much time editing the first draft when I’m not done with it.

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As soon as the maid led me to the living room and I got my first look at the little girl, I could tell the child was dying. She was sitting on an overstuffed, white suede couch with brown fringy pillows all around her, at the back of a living room that looked like something out of House Beautiful, all tall wide windows and understated elegance in brown and beige and gold and white. She was maybe about seven, if her disease hadn’t undersized her, feet dangling off the couch and not moving. When children whose feet are dangling are not kicking those feet, and there is neither a book nor a TV nearby to explain the discrepancy, I can generally tell something is wrong. Her blonde curly wig was as expensive as the décor of her parents’ living room, but I’m an expert in these matters – I could tell the chemo had taken her hair. And her skin was dull and dry looking, her eyes vague and unfocused, her expression indrawn and blank, her small limbs painfully skinny. She showed all the signs of either being abused, drugged, or severely ill, and given that her father had called me in, I knew that at least it was the last. Probably the second as well. The pharmaceutical industry has never solved the problem of stopping children’s pain to my satisfaction (or, for that matter, the children’s.)

Her mother would have been an elegantly plastic politician’s wife if she hadn’t been sitting tensely at the edge of the sofa, arm around her daughter, clutching the child. Fear and anxiety make even women with $500 haircuts and botoxed foreheads seem human. I’d already forgotten the woman’s name; after checking over the daughter with a quick glance, I turned to focus on her father. Senator John Lightman, one of those politicians who manages to look “boyish” simply by being a thin dark-haired man in his prime when everyone else in the Senate is somewhere between 60 and dead, was walking toward me, reaching out a hand as if to shake it. I saw the look of puzzlement cross his face as he got a good look at me. “Are you…”

“Dr. Mystery?” I filled in the blank. “Yes, of course, I apologize. You couldn’t possibly recognize me like this.” I had arrived in a stock form, a middle-aged woman of average height, weight and appearance with blonde graying hair in a short fluffy do. I couldn’t very well drive around town in my working form, but now that I was here, it was time to shock and awe the mundanes. With a thought, I transformed.

When I first adopted this as my working form, it used to take me ten or twenty minutes in front of a mirror to get it just right, because it doesn’t look human enough for me to use DNA as a model anywhere – I have to brute-force it. But by this time I’d been doing it for so many years, it took only a few seconds. Changing doesn’t hurt – it feels like having a really good stretch, actually.

In a moment, I was six feet tall, simultaneously busty and thin, with the golden skin of an Academy award, iris-less purple eyes with cat pupils, and flame-red hair down to the small of my back. I wore a skin-tight black leather catsuit with no shoes, and modified pelvis and leg muscles so I looked like I was wearing high heels even though I was barefoot – an anatomic impossibility for other women, but there’s no point in having total control over your own flesh if you can’t use it to show off a little. To complete the costume I grew a white cotton labcoat over the catsuit; not exactly a cape, but the name is Doctor Mystery, not Ms. Mystery or Lady Mystery or Sexy Chick I’d Like To Do Mystery.

Being a supervillain’s all about the power and the respect. Back when my working form wasn’t quite so do-me hot, I actually used to get less respect as a villain, as if a woman couldn’t possibly really be all that mad, bad and dangerous to know if she doesn’t look like a supermodel. But when I do the catsuit without the lab coat, I get respect as a badass with dangerous powers and incredible fighting skills, not as a biomedical genius. Not that I’m not a badass with dangerous powers and incredible fighting skills, but I’m not a teen thug for hire anymore, I’m a bona fide mad scientist and I want people to remember that, dammit.

Mrs. Lightman’s eyes went wide, and she made a tiny little yelping noise and clutched her little girl… who rather than looking frightened, actually looked mildly interested for the first time since I’d arrived. Her dad was trying to hide it, but his lips had compressed as if he were trying not to bite them and there was just the tiniest tremor in his hands. I expected Mrs. Lightman’s reaction, but the Senator could have gone one of two ways – men usually react to me with fear or lust, or a combination. I didn’t think I saw lust in Senator Lightman, and when I took his hand and shook it, I confirmed it. He was on the verge of peeing his pants. I might have believed he wasn’t reacting with any lust because he really had eyes only for his wife, if he weren’t a politician. But I’ve known very few male politicians to be faithful, and even they couldn’t avoid being lustful. Senator Lightman was terrified of me because I was a Proxima and he was a Sapien-centric bigot. Also, probably, because I was a supervillain and a killer and I could drop him dead in a second, turn him inside out, make the skin melt off his flesh or give him cancer, just from the touch of his hand in mine. But I suspected I’d have gotten the same reaction if I’d been a member of the Peace Force, or even a Girl Scout with purple eyes and gold skin trying to sell him cookies. He hated my kind, but he needed me today.

And I intended to use his need to my people’s advantage.

“Introduce me to your family, Senator,” I said.

I felt his adrenaline spike through the skin connection of our clasped hands, but he managed not to show it. He let go of me. “This is my wife, Dot, and our daughter Mindy. She’s eight.”

I walked over to Mindy and knelt down in front of her, prompting more tension and white knuckles from her mother clasping her. “Hello, Mindy,” I said.

“Hi,” she mumbled.

“Do you know who I am?”

“My daddy says you’re some kind of super doctor.”

Super doctor. I liked that. “He’s right. I’m here to help you. I imagine you’ve gotten real tired of being sick.”

She smiled wanly. “Yeah.”

“Let me have your hands.”

“Will it hurt?” Her tone was tired and apathetic, as if it didn’t really matter if it was going to hurt or not. I suspected it was more resignation than apathy.

“Not at all.” I smiled at her. “I’m a super doctor, remember? It doesn’t hurt if I don’t want it to.”

She gave me her small hands and I clasped them in mine. I can’t entirely describe what I feel when I examine a living creature, not in terms that refer to the senses everyone else has. It’s like feeling a symphony or hearing a tapestry. Everything is very complex and interrelated, and I get signals from thousands of processes in the body, but it all melds together into a single big picture. The big picture here was that Mindy’s body was attacking itself. Her bone marrow was busily churning out cancerous white blood cells that didn’t work, filling her bloodstream with useless cells that crowded out and starved the working, useful ones. The pain signals were overwhelming even with the drugs trying to mask them, and the drugs themselves were dulling her mind as much as the fatigue and weakness from the disease.

Like many terminally ill children, she was quiet and accepting, which is constantly mistaken in glurgy human interest stories about terminally ill children for bravery. Children who go out with scarves on their bald heads and run lemonade stands to raise money to research and cure their own illnesses are brave. Children who are too tired to feel fear and have been living with a disease too long to cry about it are just normal human beings. Mindy was a normal human being, and her leukemia was also perfectly normal, something I’d dealt with a hundred times before.

I closed my eyes so I could focus better on Mindy’s internal world. First I triggered the release of endorphins into her bloodstream to mask any pain caused by what I was about to do. The human body rebels against my power, seeing my authority as a violation of its autonomy, and frequently reacts by tattling to the brain about it in a way that the mind perceives as agonizing, but unspecific, pain. As I told Mindy, though, no one feels pain in my hands unless I allow it. As soon as her body was saturated with endorphins and I’d shut down most of the internal sensory trunk lines to the brain, making her internally numb while leaving her ability to sense anything touching her skin, I swept my concentration through her body and killed every immature white blood cell she had. I then targeted the surviving mature white cells and forced them to rapidly replicate and mature, until she had almost a normal white blood cell count and they all worked correctly.

To finish off, I blocked the drugs that hadn’t been working so well anyway, turned the internal nerves back on, and filled Mindy with a combination of endorphin and oxytocin, and other hormones designed to make people feel good. This particular cocktail wouldn’t have sexual effects – Mindy’s brain lacked some of the structures needed to process that, yet, and I always took great care with children not to do anything inappropriate to their age. After what my own father did to me… well, I may be a supervillain, but I am not a child molester, and that makes me better than he was. What I was going for – what I always gave the children I treated – can be best described, if you remember being a kid, as the excitement from knowing you’re about to go to an amusement park, coupled with the pleasure you get from eating ice cream, and all that combined with the warm snuggly feeling you get when you’re cuddled with your parents. Mindy wouldn’t know why, in the future, she looked forward to my visits and felt very warm and positive emotions toward me. She would just know that seeing Dr. Mystery would be the coolest thing ever, and just my presence would be more fun than any doctor’s office lollipop ever was.

Combine such warm and pleasant emotions with the freakish physical appearance of an obvious Proxima, and Mindy would not grow up to share her dad’s bigotry, even if he tried to teach it to her.

“Mindy?” Dot Lightman asked, her voice trembling slightly. “Are you all right?”

Mindy lifted her head. Her skin didn’t look any better, of course – I hadn’t done any cosmetic work – but her eyes were refocusing, turning bright and engaged. “Mommy? I feel good, Mommy. I think the doctor fixed me!”

With my endorphin cocktail chasing away her fatigue temporarily, she leapt to her feet. “Thank you, Super Doctor Mystery! I feel all better!” She twirled around, perhaps to prove to all of us that she was fully healed… and stumbled. “Whoa, dizzy!”

“Slow up there, kiddo,” I said. “You’re not cured. You feel a lot better and you’re going to be a lot better, but you’ve spent a couple of years being sick and you’re not going to be back to your full strength overnight. Take it easy.”

“Is she—is she going to be cured?” her mother asked, looking at me, her lower lip trembling.

“She’s much healthier, right now. But no, as I said, I haven’t cured her yet. I triggered a temporary remission and bolstered her immune system to compensate for what the disease did to it, so she needn’t suffer while she’s waiting for a full cure.” I turned to Senator Lightman. “To cure her, I’ll need to perform three treatments, about two months apart. The cost will be $8,000 per treatment. When we’re done, not only won’t she have leukemia, but the genetic potential for cancer will be purged from her system, so it will be very, very unlikely that she ever get any cancer-like disease again. Short of living on top of a radioactive landfill, of course, but you understand what I mean.”

“Oh, God….” Mrs. Lightman started to cry. “Oh, God, thank you…”

“Don’t cry, Mommy,” Mindy said, and gave her mom a hug. “It’s good news. Don’t cry.”

“I’m crying because I’m so happy,” Mrs. Lightman said.

“I—I don’t know what to say, Doctor. You have a deal. I’d pay anything to save Mindy’s life, and your prices… well, they’re much more reasonable than I was led to assume. I’d pay more than that for hospital treatments, even with the insurance.” I was pretty sure this was a fib – Senators get damn good health insurance. But of course Lightman belonged to the party that thought that health insurance was a privilege, not a right, and downplaying the high quality of his own state-sponsored insurance was probably a reflex by this point.

I smiled at him. “That’s because most of my payment is non-monetary.”

“Non-monetary?”

“Let’s go have a discussion, Senator. I imagine you must have a private office in this house somewhere?”

His wife gave me a hard-eyed look. I returned her look with an “oh, please” expression, just the slightest of eye rolls and sardonic smile. “There’s nothing you can say to me that you can’t say in front of my wife,” Lightman said, his voice hardening.

“Yes, there is,” I said, pleasantly. “You want to tell her all about it when we’re done talking, that’s your prerogative. But I am here to negotiate with a United States Senator, not a husband or a father.”

He stiffened. “All right,” he said slowly. “We can go downstairs to the den.”

“Is it—is it going to be all right?” Dot Lightman asked her husband.

“I don’t see that I have much choice, Dot,” he said. “She’s the only hope Mindy has. You know that.”

“Mommy? Can I play outside?”

“Sure. Sure thing,” Dot said, her voice breaking again. “I’ll play with you.”

“Don’t let her overexert herself,” I said. “As I said, she’s better, not cured, and even if she were cured she’d still need time to recover her energy. She wants to run around and play now because she’s not in pain, but she actually still does need to save her strength.”

“We’ll go for a walk,” Dot said. “How’s that sound, Mindy?”

“Sure, Mommy. We can do that.”

“The den is this way,” Senator Lightman said.

It was a typical suburban finished basement, not nearly as fancy looking as the living room, if you didn’t count the huge projection television. I perched on the still-nice-but-obviously-worn couch, sitting on the back of it. “Let’s get down to it, Senator,” I said. “You’re a member of the Committee to Analyze Parahuman Activity. You’re aware as well as I am that the United States government has been investigating or implementing various techniques to control or eliminate the Proxima population, including laws to create a registry for us as if we’re sex offenders, black ops soldiers with power suits to hunt us down, attempting to find cures for us like we’re a disease, secret databases being maintained in an attempt to identify us in the absence of a registry law… so on and so forth.” I didn’t mention the biowarfare; people who didn’t live through being imprisoned in a government research facility and watching others being injected with various tailored viruses have a tendency to assume that government biowarfare is the stuff of paranoid conspiracy theories, and I doubted anyone had actually let Congress know what was going on there. The others, I was pretty sure he’d been briefed on, if not actively involved with. “And you’re an active supporter of the Human Definition Amendment, which would deprive us of any human rights whatsoever on the basis of junk science.”

The faintest beading of sweat broke out on his forehead. “The United States government hasn’t taken any illegal actions to ‘control’ the Proxima population, as you put it, and certainly not to eliminate you. You must understand, however, that we do have the right and the duty to protect normal humans from people like…”

He hesitated just a moment too long. “Me?”

“I was going to say, people like Caesar Primus or Optometron. But if the rumors about your activities are true, then yes, you. Weren’t you some sort of assassin? An enforcer for a drug lord?”

While technically the description was almost true, the idea of describing David as a “drug lord” almost made me laugh. Almost. I don’t actually have a lot of a sense of humor when it comes to David. “And I was rehabilitated by the Peace Force and today I’m a fine, upstanding citizen who cures little girls of leukemia,” I said.

“That isn’t a lot of comfort to the families of the people you killed.”

“Maybe not. But if I’d been killed by American soldiers in power suits then, your daughter would be out of luck now, wouldn’t she?” I slid off the back of the couch and paced around him. “And this isn’t about me. How many people were saved when the Irregulars stopped that second plane from crashing into the Trade Towers? When they held up the collapsing building so the firefighters could get out? When the Peace Force shored up the levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina so the city didn’t flood, or when Maui’s volcano went active and they shut it down again?” The Senator didn’t actually need to know that was a plot of Professor Octohedron’s, if he didn’t already. The Peace Force hadn’t actually broadcast the fact that the disaster had been caused by a Proxima in the first place; I only knew about it because Octohedron continued to believe that he could get into my pants if only he could impress me enough, and he hadn’t actually ever managed to figure out that I wasn’t impressed by grandiose plots to take over the world by threatening to activate volcanoes. “You might owe your life to a Proxima. You are about to owe your daughter’s life. So I want your support for our basic human rights. Oppose the Parahuman Registry, oppose the research to kill us or break us of our powers, and oppose the Human Definition Amendment.”

“The Human Definition Amendment isn’t designed to take away your human rights,” he said. “It’s designed to clarify the rights you do have. I mean, there have to be different ways to handle you people vs. the rest of us. Remember when the ACLU sued on behalf of the Heat Miser? They said that it was cruel and unusual punishment to keep him continuously drugged in prison. And as soon as they won and the drugs were withdrawn, his powers came back and he burned the prison down. 700 people were killed, over 100 guards and the rest of them human inmates, who’d been sentenced to serve time in jail for their crimes, not to burn to death.”

“Then you redefine cruel and unusual punishment to state that methods intended to block Proximas from using superhuman powers to escape from prison are not cruel and are perfectly usual. Passing an amendment to the Constitution that declares that Proximas aren’t human is overkill.”

“It actually declares that humans belong to the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, and that the law should not be automatically extended to grant human rights to people who can destroy our entire planet with a thought just because some bleeding heart doesn’t think they deserve to go to jail for killing hundreds of people.”

“Yes, and by declaring that Homo sapiens promixus does not automatically count as human, it effectively says that we’re not, and we can be shot on sight with no one but the ASPCA to worry about our murders, let alone suffer discrimination in every part of our lives. You do not live with the reality of what being defined as non-human means, Senator. I do.”

“And you, Doctor, don’t live with the reality of inhabiting a world filled with creatures who can kill you with a thought, steal everything you own, destroy your home without even touching it, or make you believe that up is down and black is white.”

I could argue that last point, if I wanted to be a smartass – I lived in the world where there was conservative talk radio, and it had convinced any number of people that up was down and black was white. But that would be sidetracking. “True. But you’re so focused on perceiving yourself as a victim of the existence of Proximas that you’ve given no thought to what it would be like to be one of us. And you really should. Because you have a child, Senator, and she is too young to be confirmed as Sapien or Proxima. You don’t know what she is, and you’re just assuming she’s Sapien. What if she’s Proxima?”

He blinked. “Well, of course I—but she doesn’t have anything in her background – I mean neither her mother nor I have anything unusual, genetically—“

“No one knows what’s causing the sudden explosion in powered humans, Senator, but we do know that it’s some type of mutation. 90% of Proximas have parents who were Sapien. And the number is that low only because some of us have started having kids. If your daughter was a Proxima with two fully Sapien parents, she’d be in the same boat as most Proximas. Including me. So you really need to think about it.”

“Well, I – I certainly wouldn’t treat Mindy any differently if she were – but if she were, you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t check for it. But I could, yes.”

“Well, if she turned out to be, you could just fix it, right? As part of the treatment?”

I stared at him as if I’d just found him on my shoe. “Of course I could. And if she was black, I could make her white and blonde and blue-eyed. And I could change her into a boy if you decided you really wanted a son. Have you any idea how offensive what you just said is?”

“I – I didn’t mean to give offense. I just want Mindy to have a normal life.”

“Most Proximas do. I don't look like this all the time, Senator. When I'm not treating hopeless cases, I live in a nice little townhouse, with two cats and a cockatiel. I go dancing with men friends on weekends, I buy groceries, I do my laundry. I choose to look like this when I'm treating people like your daughter, because I have no desire to be kidnapped and pressed into the service of crime lords or the government."

"Why would the government kidnap you? Proximas have rights. If you’ve served your time for your previous crimes, and committed no new ones--"

"--I would still have the power to make old men young, cure impotence and infertility, heal disease and scarring, change people's appearances... come on now, Senator, don't be naive. If you had a way to make me heal your daughter without paying my price, you'd do it. And I think you're basically a good man, who’s concerned for the child he loves. Can you say none of your colleagues would want me to heal them? To restore lost youth, or whatever they had lost?" I thought of the white room then, the snipers with guns outside ready to blow my head off if the important old men screaming under my hands didn’t get up and walk free completely healed when I was done. Never again.

"I... suppose power corrupts. There are some bad elements in any system, but that doesn't mean the system is evil."

"I didn’t say the system was evil. I said it’s not designed to protect people like me. And if you and your fellows have their way, it’ll be even harder for me to live a normal, safe life.” I shook my head. "We're sidetracking. If Mindy turns out to be a Proxima, she could still have an entirely normal and happy life, so long as you didn't reject her for it and the government didn't kill her for it."

"I would never reject Mindy. No matter what. If-- if she was a parahuman--"

"Then your opinions on appropriate treatment of Proximas would be rather different, wouldn't they?"

He sighed. “Look, I have a constituency, Doctor Mystery. They elected me into office to protect them and serve them, and they have ideas as to what constitutes doing that. If I do something that they don’t approve of, I won’t have the power they’ve given me for very long.”

I flopped down on his couch again. “Oh, baloney. You mean that if you can’t fearmonger about hidden Proximas living among us and the draconian measures the Daddy State will take under your watch to protect the poor scared soccer moms and NASCAR dads, you can’t get elected.” I sat up and leaned forward. “It’s all bullshit. The tide of history always favors greater human rights, greater freedoms, greater protections for minorities vs. mobs. And it always works out better in the end that way. I understand that you have to protect yourself from lunatics who shoot death rays out of their elbows, but you know, you also have to protect yourself from lunatics who break into the McDonalds’ with a gun and start shooting people, and somehow it was your party who decided it was an unacceptable infringement on your freedom to hunt, shoot intruders, and generally feel like manly men to make people undergo background checks to get assault weapons.”

“The Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms.”

“The Constitution wouldn’t say that if you passed an amendment redefining a ‘well-regulated militia’ as the National Guard. Which I’m not saying you should. I’m in favor of your right to protect yourself with a gun. I’m in favor of your right to shoot animals for fun if you feel like it; I’m a Darwinist and you’re a predator. It’s in your genes. Go shoot deer if you want. But the Constitution currently states that I am a human being, because it doesn’t say that I’m not, and I was born in the United States to two human beings, share 99.9% of my DNA with you, speak your language, look like you, and have sex with you. Well, not you personally, but Sapiens men. So if it’s so vitally important to preserve the right to bear arms, because it’s in the Constitution, that it’s okay to let sociopaths get guns and shoot up college campuses, then it is vastly more important to make sure that every child born in this country to human parents is defined as human.

“If you pass this Definition of Humanity amendment in order to protect your constituency, and Mindy turns out to be a Proxima, then she can be raped and her rapist could be charged with bestiality at best, because she wouldn’t be legally a child who can be molested, she’d be legally an animal. She could be killed, and the most her killer could be charged with is animal cruelty. No school would have to take her, no hospital would have to treat her diseases, no restaurant would have to let her in to eat with you. You would have to fight a battle to get her treated in a way that you humans take for granted, every time. Want her to die in a car accident because the paramedics didn’t want to treat a Proxima? Want her to die in a fire because the firefighters didn’t want to risk themselves going into a burning building for someone who isn’t even human? There are better ways to defend Sapiens than making it legally open season on us.”

“But you’re against those too. The Parahuman Registry would allow us to track dangerous people without having to deprive any of you of basic civil rights.”

“Except I’ve never heard of a version of it suggesting that only parahuman criminals be added to the registry.”

“Well, dangerous parahumans haven’t necessarily committed crimes yet. But for instance, if your next door neighbor turns up dead of a heart attack and everyone knows you were fighting with him, isn’t it important that the police know you have the power to stop people’s hearts by touching them?”

“If your next door neighbor has a gun, isn’t it important that you know about it so you can keep your daughter from playing in his yard?”

“Most gun owners are law abiding citizens, and if someone is killed with a gun we already have laws on the books to help the police track down the killer. If someone is killed with a superpower, we wouldn’t even necessarily know to look for a superpower.”

“So educate the cops better on superpowers. Most Proximas are law abiding citizens. If you kill your neighbor by hitting him over the head with a frying pan, does that mean you needed to be on some sort of registry of frying pan owners?” I started pacing again. “It’s irrelevant in any case. I don’t care what your personal beliefs are. I care that you love your daughter and want her to be healthy.”

“So you’re blackmailing me.”

“Blackmail? I’m demanding payment. When your campaign contributors give you money for re-election, they’re not blackmailing you to expect that you’re going to show them some quid pro quo. I’m offering you something far, far more valuable than a few dollars in your re-election coffers; I’m offering you your daughter’s life and health. I think expecting a little quid pro quo is not unreasonable.”

“And what if I refused? Would you let her die?”

At one point that would have been a tough one; in this line of work you have to appear to be compassionate, but you also have to be tough or the patients will walk all over you. I had had plenty of experience dealing with this particular conundrum, though. “Do you know what I did for Mindy today? Do you understand her disease at all?”

“I don’t know what you did, no. You keep saying you made her better but you didn’t cure her. But I do know something about her disease. The doctors tell me that she’s making too many white blood cells, and it’s crowding out and killing the rest of her blood.”

“Close. They’re immature, cancerous blood cells, so they don’t work to protect her from disease the way mature white blood cells would. This lowers her general immunity, and yes, it clogs up her bloodstream and takes resource away from working cells. What I did today was to kill all the immature cells and regenerate some of the mature ones. She still has leukemia; she’s still making too many immature cells. Without a full treatment that will never stop. What I’ve done is to ease her symptoms. Until she builds up too many immature cells again, she’ll feel better.” I leaned on the wall, arms folded. “I’m perfectly capable of doing this every six months and never actually curing her. She’ll feel better, and she’ll have a happy, normal life, as long as she gets her treatments on time. The one time she misses a treatment, though – maybe because the government kidnapped me, arrested me, killed me or took my powers away – she’ll have full-blown leukemia again, and within a year or two she’ll die.” I pushed off the wall. “So you can support me up front because it’s the right thing to do for the person who gave you back your daughter’s life, or you can hedge and haw and refuse to get with my program, and if so your daughter will be well for exactly as long as I am able to continue treating her. The very laws you want to pass that will harm me, will block my ability to heal her sooner or later, and then she’ll die, and it’ll be your fault.”

“And how do I know that if I promise to do as you ask, you really will heal Mindy and you won’t just do what you just said?”

“How do I know that if I really heal Mindy, you won’t go back on your word and start pushing for the Human Definition Amendment again? It’s a matter of trust, Senator. You trust me, I trust you. Or you don’t trust me, I don’t trust you. Tit for tat. What’s it going to be?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m not going to just rubber stamp your suggestions. Even if that was the right thing to do for my constituency, and it’s not. I’m going to study the situation and try to do the best thing to protect my people and yours. You can accept that or not.”

“All right, I’ll accept that, with one caveat. The Human Definition Amendment is totally off-limits. You can switch your support to the Inclusive Humanity Amendment, or just drop your support of Human Definition, but if you don’t publicly do one or the other within the month Mindy does not get fully cured. The other stuff, do the studies you want to do, but I think you’ll find that when you look at Proximas as if we are people and not weird animal things with superpowers, you’ll find it a lot easier to come up with ways to help protect your kind without harming mine.”

Lightman nodded. “All right, Doctor. Then we have a deal. When do you want to perform the first treatment?”

“If you’ve got $8,000 lying around in a checking account, we can do it today.”

“I do. Who do I make the check out to? I don’t imagine you can cash a check made out to Doctor Mystery.”

“Make it out to Miracle of Life, LLC.” I had about twenty-seven of these shell companies I used to funnel my various payments through, since even Senators typically had a hard time coming up with $8,000 in small unmarked bills on short notice, and a girl’s gotta eat. Playing politics is all well and good, but I needed to cover the mortgage and the gas money for my various trips to clients, plus the funds for my various Activities of Mad Science. Just because you can manipulate any organic tissue with a touch, doesn’t mean you get your beakers and retorts and Petri dishes for free. “Let’s go upstairs. I’m sure Mindy is eager to begin freeing herself from this disease.”

“Of course.”

At the top of the stairs, I reached out for his hand. Too afraid of giving offense to refuse me, he took it, and I shook with him. “Pleasure doing business with you, Senator. Go call your daughter in, give me a check and we’ll do this thing.”

“Thank you, Dr. Mystery. I may not entirely approve of your politics, but thank you for giving my daughter back her life.”

He wouldn’t be thanking me so much if he had known I’d just planted a tiny clump of slow-growing cancerous cells deep in his brain. It’d be a year from now before he started feeling any symptoms, and that would land in the middle of his re-election campaign. If he did what I wanted after I finished healing his daughter and we were on good terms, I’d find some excuse to come by and heal him or prune it down again. If not… there was a reason I was a feared supervillain even though most people knew me, if they knew me at all, as some kind of uber-doctor. You didn’t double-cross Dr. Mystery and survive it. Ever.

Well, unless you were Dr. Suryabati Chandrasekhar. Then you got any number of free passes.

***

The truth was, I was being something of a hypocrite.

I was offended at Lightman’s suggestion that I make his daughter a Sapiens if she turned out to be a Proxima, but not for the reason I told him. The difference between a Proxima becoming a Sapien and a Sapien becoming Proxima isn’t the difference between black changing to white or male changing to female. The difference was described by Plato as a man raised in the darkness leaving the cave to see the light of the sun, vs. a man raised in the sunlight doomed to spend the rest of his life in a cave. Making a Proxima a Sapiens is like giving someone a lobotomy, or a clitoridectomy, or binding her feet until she can’t walk. It’s an obscenity, a Harrison Bergeron nightmare of breaking the best down to the level of the mediocre, taking away a birthright one was born with.

Making a Sapien a Proxima is, on the other hand, one of my great callings in life.

Mindy Lightman wasn’t a Proxima before I touched her. But she would be, before I was done. I did a preliminary assessment of her DNA while I was performing the first treatment, and I stored a small amount of her cellular matter in a pocket under the skin of my hand, to study at length later. I’d determine how much energy her mitochondria could supply her and which latent powers-complex genes she had, and which powers they were likely to ignite into. If she had something distressing, like death touch or world-shattering TK or the gene for turning blue, I’d edit the complex over the next two sessions into something more palatable for the child of a public figure, something frilly and unthreatening. Maybe the ability to make pretty light shows, or fly. Most flyers loved it, and it didn’t seem to frighten Sapiens as much as some other powers did.

When I left the Lightmans’, now back in my middle-aged lady persona, I headed first to the bank to deposit the check. Senators whose daughter’s lives are on the line don’t give me checks that bounce, but they do take time to clear, so the sooner I got it in, the better. And then I dumped the rental car at the airport, changed form in the bathroom, and got on the Metro to head back home.

****

Science fact: There is only one gene that determines the difference between a Sapiens and a Proxima.

To most people this seems insane. Proximas come in an entire extra range of colors besides the human norm, have powers ordinary humans can only dream of, and get energy to fuel these powers from a source that is frankly incomprehensible. We just have to be a separate species, in most people’s minds. When Proximas were first discovered, there was a huge push to label us a fully separate species – Homo superior (thankfully, that one got shot down real fast) or Homo proximus, “the man who comes next.” Scientists – not me at the time, since I was too young, but reputable geneticists and biologists – had to constantly point out that the definition of a species is that they cannot viably interbreed. The children of superpowered and ordinary humans were themselves perfectly fertile. Ergo, we cannot be a separate species.

But we hadn’t mapped the genome then, and we didn’t know exactly why Proximas had powers. So scientists made, in my opinion, a mistake. They agreed to classify us as a separate sub-species.

You’ve grown up being told that you are Homo sapiens. What you might not know is that technically, if you’re not a parahuman, you are actually Homo sapiens sapiens. There were several other subspecies of humans, all extinct, such as Homo sapiens idaltu (elderly wise man). It is still scientific nonsense to call us a subspecies, when we’re only different by one gene – to put this in perspective, parents and children differ by many, many more than one gene – and in fact the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature keeps debating changing it to Homo sapiens sapiens proximus or dropping the designate proximus entirely. But the scientific evidence that we aren’t even a separate subspecies gets even less play in the media than studies that show that men and women are alike, if such a thing is possible. And at least the Homo sapiens proximus nomenclature reinforces that we are of the human species.

The trouble is, most people don’t know that the true name of Homo sapiens is actually Homo sapiens sapiens. So when they hear the short designators – Sapiens vs. Proxima – they assume that our species is Homo proximus. We’re widely believed to be an entirely separate species, and it doesn’t help that high-profile supervillains like Caesar Primus (who is 2,000 years old and knows as much as any Roman gladiator about science, which is to say, diddly jack), or Professor Octohedron (a brilliant physicist and inventor, but he knows about as much biology as I know about fixing my car, and let me put it this way, the last time I ended up dead on the side of the road I needed a friendly dude passing by to tell me I’d run out of oil) are constantly spouting off about how we are a new, superior species. Informed laypeople and doctors usually know better, but the truth – that we are different by only one gene – is so appallingly counterintuitive that you almost need to be a geneticist or an evolutionary biologist to get it.

But here’s the truth.

The human genome is packed with genes that don’t do anything. Most come from our evolutionary history. You may have heard that we are less than 1% genetically different from chimpanzees. That 1% consists mostly of control genes, which govern when, how and if the other genes turn on.

It turns out that some of those genes generate superpowers, under the right conditions. One of them turns melanin, the brown pigment of humans, blue in the presence of a hormone called catalysine. Others use catalysine to activate superhuman abilities. All humans carry some of these genes. But only a very, very tiny number – about 1 in 10,000 – have the gene that codes for the creation of catalysine.

Like testosterone, catalysine has two surges in a person’s life cycle. One is pre-natally. The amount generated is small and doesn’t pass the placental barrier, so no, pregnant women do not manifest superpowers when carrying a Proxima baby. That’s an urban myth. The surge pre-natally does little, usually, except to prepare the brain to control superpowers someday, creating a brain nucleus and appropriate wiring. In cases where the child has two Proxima genes – for example, the child of two Proxima parents-- the amount of catalysine created pre-natally might be enough to distort the child’s appearance, begin converting melanin into azurin, or awaken a low level of superpower.

When the child hits puberty, the same genes that turn on sex hormones turn on catalysine production. The superpowers appear, and wire up to the brain structures created in utero. If the child has the gene for azurin conversion, their pigment changes from brown to blue – so pale red-haired and blonde white children suddenly develop purple, green or blue hair, while brown-skinned children turn blue all over. (Azurin is also rare. Only about 5% of all people carry the gene for azurin production, and only Proximas ever display it. Non-Proximas with the azurin mutation never express it, and end up creating perfectly normal melanin, because they are never exposed to catalysine.)

The “power mitochondria” are another pan-human phenomenon that only expresses itself in Proximas. All living cells on Earth contain tiny organelles called mitochondria – practically separate living things, with their own DNA, they use oxygen and sugar to generate the chemical that powers all life, ATP. Power mitochondria vastly overproduce ATP, and no one knows where they get the energy to do it – it’s like they suck potential energy out of the universe and convert it to life force. But they do this only when activated by catalysine within the cell. About 1/3rd of humans have power mitochondria. In the presence of the Proxima gene, these people generate energy above and beyond what they take in from food and air, which is then consumed by their superpowers. Without power mitochondria, a Proxima must draw from their own life force to fuel their superpower, which makes their powers pretty weak. The exact same genes for telekinesis can code for a person that can lift 70 lbs with their mind with effort vs. a person who can lift an aircraft carrier out of the water and break it in half, depending on the presence and output of the power mitochondria. Since mitochondria are passed by the mother, Proximas who inherit their power from a powerful mother will always be very powerful themselves, whereas Proximas who inherit from a powerful Proxima father depend entirely on the hidden status of their mother for their own strength.

(Funny fact, here: when Proximas were first discovered, male Proximas freely dated, married and fathered children on human women, because our entire society says it’s okay for men to have wives who are weaker than they are. Proxima women, on the other hand, mostly stuck to their own kind. In the seven years since we discovered the role of the power mitochondria, we have seen a dramatic reversal in which powerful Proxima men will not marry or get serious with human women unless they consider themselves “childfree” or have had the human woman’s mitochondria analyzed for power status, and more and more Proxima women are dating Sapiens men.)

So most of what goes into making a Proxima is actually in a vast percentage of the human population – 30% have power mitochondria, pretty much all of them have powers-complex. It’s the presence of the single gene that codes for catalysine production that makes a person Proxima as opposed to Sapiens. My belief was that Proximas would not be safe from the fear and envy of Sapiens unless we were normalized. The more Proximas there were, the more the law would adapt to and accommodate us and our needs and the less we’d need to fear the mob of Sapiens out to kill or control us. So my primary work, since I became Dr. Mystery, had been to increase the number of Proximas by giving as many Sapiens the Proxima gene as I can.

In my early experiments, when I used uncontrolled methods like retroviruses to mutate people, there were high casualty rates. Sapiens adults whose brains have not been exposed to catalysine in utero can’t control whatever superpowers they develop if they suddenly start making catalysine. So I started working primarily with children, usually terminally or chronically ill children that I could get direct access to. My power can create new brain pathways, and in a child or teen, with a developing brain, I can do it transparently, with no one noticing. Adults cannot experience sudden brain growth and change without noticing that something’s wrong – memories suddenly becoming lost, well-developed skills becoming weaker, mood swings, etc—so I only alter adults into Proximas if they request it. I often modify women of child-bearing age so that all their eggs carry the Proxima gene, ensuring that they’ll give birth to Proximas if they ever have kids. It’s harder with men, because men are generating new sperm all the time – I’d have to alter the spermatogonia, and since they’re part of the body, the body’s immune system might notice that they are genetically different from the other cells and attack them, making the man infertile. So I only make men into Proxima-fathers if I have plenty of time to work with them and tweak their immune systems, if necessary – and if they’re likely to have kids. Gay men coming to me to save them from AIDS and 70-year-olds who don’t want to get Alzheimer’s are usually not worth modifying reproductively.

The Peace Force were aware of my work, and opposed it. They believed it was wrong of me to change people’s genes without their consent. Technically, maybe they were right, but come on, what sane person would object to having superpowers? The only reason anyone would not want to be a Proxima is the prejudice against us, and I was working on that too. So I had to maintain a low profile because every so often the Peace Force would take it into their heads to try to capture me. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t fully legal – I was pardoned for my activities as Megamorph by Bill Clinton (did you know that Hillary Clinton once had breast cancer? No? Well, neither does anyone else), and nothing illegal I’d done as Dr. Mystery could be proven in a court of law. But the law hadn’t caught up with Proxima abilities, so the Peace Force never overly concerned themselves with whether they could prove wrongdoing or not. Their mentor and leader, Dr. Suryabati Chandrasekhar, aka Doctor Sun, was a telepath, and if she said, “Bad guy! Go fetch!” they would jump like puppydogs after a thrown stick.

So I lived in Baltimore, in a townhome in the Woodberry neighborhood, on Television Hill, because living directly under the broadcast tower generated enough interference that Suri couldn’t find me telepathically. I’d have preferred Little Italy, or better yet, a real city like New York or Philly (and I’d come way down in the world, admitting that Philly is a real city), but New York was far too close to Suri, whose base of operations was in Manhattan, and a lot of my work was done with politicians, making Baltimore or DC more convenient than Philly. And DC had the Special Service, human police in power suits who patrolled to protect the Capitol from parahuman attack. I never felt safe in DC. My Woodberry home had civilians living on both sides and a children’s day care across the street, ensuring that the Peace Force couldn’t attack me in force – they’d know the threat to civilians from a power battle would be too great to risk it politically for my sake (and to be fair, most of them are goody-two-shoes hero types who wouldn’t risk civilians, especially preschool children, even if they had perfect political cover for the operation.) So I figured that if Suri ever found me, she’d still think twice about siccing her dogs on me.

Also, the Light Rail, Baltimore’s sad and pathetic substitute for a subway, had a stop near my home. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 28, and I still hated it with a passion. I was a Brooklyn girl – give me a city with buses and subways and railways, so I wouldn’t have to dodge hurtling chunks of death metal just to get where I was going. From DC’s Metro, after I dropped my rental car at the airport, I changed at Union Station to the Camden line, took it to the baseball stadium in Baltimore, and changed there for the Light Rail. This took far longer than a car would have, but didn’t involve me being isolated in a tiny box with no source of living organic matter other than my own flesh and facing careening metal boxes coming right for me. It also didn’t involve traffic jams, which are brutal on the DC Beltway. A short walk from my stop later, and I was home.

As I unlocked my front door, Brian the cockatiel chirped at me wildly, flapping his wings in his cage. I’m really proud of Brian – in some ways he’s my greatest work. He used to be a man, or the head of a man, who attempted to rape me once. The truly pathetic thing was that Brian had been a good-looking guy, wiry and blond, the way I like them, and if he’d been willing to wait half an hour I would happily have had sex with him. But he hadn’t wanted sex, he’d wanted rape – the only reason he dated women and went back to their houses with them, rather than jumping out of the bushes with a knife, was that he was a lawyer and knew that a handsome man with money who date rapes a woman will basically never, ever be convicted. People think rapists have to be hard up for sex, or have to somehow look evil – the idea that a handsome, charming guy who could get any woman he wanted would actually prefer to hold screaming women down and force them when he could get consensual sex with the exact same woman instead breaks people’s brains. They assume the woman must be lying, because what man who could get mutual fun would prefer to commit rape? No one wants to admit how common misogynistic sadists actually are or how normal they look.

I found out from Brian that he’d date-raped ten women before me, that only two had tried to press charges, and the cops had refused to take the charges in one case and upset the other one so badly with their disbelief that she’d dropped the charges. I found this out while I had him paralyzed but still able to feel sensation, his voice made too hoarse to do more than whisper no matter how much he suffered, on a cot in the basement. Over the course of the two weeks that I used him in experiments, he told me his entire life story, amidst lots of self-justifications, begging, pleading and promising to change his ways. Then I started turning his body parts into animals, bit by bit. The rats and mice I made of his arms and legs didn’t come out right, and they died. The cockroaches who used to be his testicles were actually very robust, but after the cat knocked over the terrarium I was keeping them in, I had to get an exterminator to kill them because who wants cockroaches in their house? I was actually quite sad when the puppy I made out of his guts wouldn’t wake up and live – sometimes they just won’t come alive no matter what I do. Living things are very complex, and it’s more an art than a science to do things like make life into different life.

Since at that point, Brian had no way to digest food or ingest water, and he was therefore only a day or two away from death, I finally put him out of his misery by turning his head into a cockatiel and his torso into an iguana, a gecko, and a handful of tropical fish. Nothing lived longer than a week except the cockatiel, which so far had lasted three years. I often wondered, since I’d used some of the original brain tissue in making Brian’s new cockatiel brain, if he had any dim sense that he used to be human.

I fed Brian a cracker, re-absorbed my shoes into my flesh, and took back my original human form before plopping down on the couch to relax and await my cats. My actual body was permanently frozen at about age 22 or so; I changed it so often, I’d never really had the opportunity to let it naturally age. I could have forced it up to 36, where I really was, if I had to, but why bother? No one was going to see me and think less of me for looking too childish. My natural form is about 5’4” and built like a gymnast – tiny breasts, thickly muscled legs and arms, a rounded and balanced body with a low center of gravity and nothing sticking way out of line with the rest of it. For gymnastics – my childhood passion – and for combat, it was a fantastic body, and I used it for years as Megamorph before it occurred to me that maybe I should hide my true face if I was going to be a criminal. For instantly commanding respect, making men drool and women envy, or sending the signal “I AM A SERIOUS CRIMINAL MASTERMIND”, it wasn’t so good. It was short, the face looked too young and soft (and too much like a young, soft Gillian Anderson – people in med school actually used to call me “Scully”), and a body perfectly proportioned for gymnastics or martial arts isn’t all that attractive by the psycho standards of our culture. But it was my body, and in my home, with the shades drawn and the security system on, I went back to it because it was me.

As I wiggled my toes on my shag carpet and then propped my feet up on my coffee table, I wondered where my cats were. They were well-fed cats, but their heightened metabolisms made them constantly hungry, and they knew I was a sucker for giving them treats when I’d first come home. Normally, they’d be leaping on me minutes after my arrival. This worried me. If I had accidentally shut them in the bedroom, Angelkitty would probably pee on my ceiling to express her displeasure and Pikachu might have destroyed my furniture with a few good lightning blasts by now.

My cats were also experiments. I’d been curious to see if the genetic structures I’d observed in other mammals that seemed related to the human powers-complex were in fact superpowers, so I got myself a pair of abandoned newborn kittens and in between the droppers of kitten formula (I really drew the line at making cat milk in my own breasts; those little things have teeth very early), I modified them to generate catalysine. The female promptly grew bird wings (which didn’t attach to the right spot on her back and were too small; she’d never have flown if I hadn’t heavily modified them for her), and the male developed the ability to shoot lightning out of his paws, so I named them Angelkitty and Pikachu. (Technically, if you have seen the Pokemon cartoon, which I admit I have, Pikachu is a mouse that shoots electricity, or something rodentlike anyway, but come on, there aren’t exactly any mythological figures of cats that shoot electricity.) Angelkitty’s a Siamese and Pikachu is mostly white with some orange. They don’t have power mitochondria – that does appear to be a human thing – so they eat like pigs. I could feed six ordinary cats off what my two eat, but they remain extraordinarily svelte, almost feral in their slimness. And so if they weren’t here to pester me for fish treats, something was wrong.

I got up and went out to the kitchen. To my relief, my cats were still noshing on their tuna fish, which amazingly it looked like they had barely touched before I came home. (I always fed them human food. Why not? I had the money to keep them in canned tuna rather than cat food, and they loved the stuff.) Pikachu looked up at me, gave me a meow that I interpreted as “Oh, you’re home, good,” and then went back to his meal.

Wait a minute. There was more food in the bowl than there had been when I said good-bye to them this morning. And it was beyond the realm of possibility that they’d left so much food untouched for so long, anyway. And the tuna looked fresh out of the can. So how—

“I was wondering when you were going to get home,” a woman’s voice said behind me. I was already spinning to face her, preparing to leap at her, but as soon as I saw her I realized it was hopeless. “Don’t you ever feed these cats? They look like they’re starving.”

Ciana Kim, aka Sapphire, my once-classmate and current dire nemesis, was standing – well, floating—above my stairs in her traditional blue bubble, her features slightly obscured by the blue distortion and concealed behind her mask. The combat leader of the Peace Force was in my house.

I backed up. I couldn’t take Sapphire directly. Her power was to generate spherical or toroid magnetic fields, which glowed blue due to the way they bent light, hence her name. I needed organic channels to send my power through—behind her force field, Sapphire was totally safe from me, because I couldn’t touch her. I wasn’t safe from her, though. She could generate a force field around me, trapping me, any time she wanted.

There was a switch by the door to my basement, labeled “FURNACE – DO NOT TOUCH,” that would actually activate an EMP. All the computer and electronic equipment I had in my house outside the Faraday cage of the basement would fry, but Sapphire’s power would fail as well, and I could leap on her before she could reset her power. Or, if I didn’t really want to replace my MP3 player, phones, and the laptop in the bedroom, perhaps I could grab Pikachu and throw him at her. He’d be startled enough to discharge a bolt, and the electrical surge should pop her field like a soap bubble. I knew I had a faster reaction time than Sapphire – after years of modifying and tuning up my nervous system, I’m faster than anyone who doesn’t have super-speed as a specific power – so I should be able to grab her and neutralize her power or knock her out before she could get a force field back up again. I was reluctant to do that because Pikachu was my kitty and throwing him at superheroes seemed kind of mean, even though I knew he wouldn’t be hurt, but the EMP generator could theoretically blow out TV Hill, and then I’d have to dodge swarms of reporters trying to find out why they suddenly couldn’t get on the air anymore.

I stalled for time. “They’ve got very fast metabolisms. I feed them all the time, but they’ll pester anyone they meet for more.”

Sapphire rolled her eyes. “Oh, stand down, Meg. If I was here to capture you or beat you up, I’d have done it before you knew I was here.”

She had a point. Sapphire wasn’t stupid, and she had completely gotten the drop on me, to the point that I was actually really embarrassed about it. “So what do you want? Cooking advice? I always prefer to replace the generic vegetable oil with olive or canola, it’s easier on the heart.” The last time I’d been in the same household as her, Ciana Kim had refused to learn to cook, for very similar reasons to her refusal to learn hand-to-hand combat.

She ignored my jab. “Doctor Sun sent me. She needs your help and she asked me to ask you.”

I blinked. Doctor Sun wanted my help? Cold day in hell. But it’d have to get a lot colder before I’d say yes. “She wants my help? And she actually thinks I might agree? Excuse me, but the last time I interacted with any of you people you wrecked my lab, ruined four years of work and set me back half a million dollars.”

“You were infecting children’s vaccines with a retrovirus. Did you seriously think we’d let you just get away with it?”

“All it would have done was make them into Proximas. What do you think I am?”

“Someone who mutates people against their will. And how do you know that’s all it would have done? Retroviruses mutate. Besides, it’s still wrong to change people without their consent. How do you know those kids would even have wanted superpowers?”

“Oh, be real. Who wouldn’t want superpowers?”

“If I wasn’t a Proxima, I might have been an Olympic gold medalist.”

She was telling the truth. One of the things that annoyed me so much about Ciana was how close her life had been to mine, minus the dysfunctional family. I, too, had had Olympic dreams once, and my coach had told me when I was 11 that I might seriously make it as a contender. But no matter how good I’d been, I’d never really had a chance; if my parents hadn’t died when I was 13, some other aspect of my family’s screwed-up-ness would have ruined it for me.

Ciana Kim, however, had had a good and loving family who’d pushed her hard in the belief that she could achieve anything. She was a third-generation Korean American from California and her parents were doctors or something like that, and they’d stood behind her every step of the way. Even after everything had fallen apart in my life and I’d basically become a thug for hire, I had followed the Olympic gymnastic news, so I’d known all about this as it was happening.

Ciana was originally to be the USA’s representative to the Olympics in Seoul for women’s artistic gymnastics. Much was made in the media of a Korean American going to Seoul to represent America, but Ciana had been very photogenic and full of great soundbites about how she was as American as apple pie and she was honored to represent our great country and she was so looking forward to bringing a medal home for the US and she was following in Mary Lou Retton’s footsteps and blah blah blah. And then, a week before the Olympics, it had come out that she was a Proxima. They’d finally figured out that doing a blood test for catalysine would find any Proxima with an active power.

The truth is that even now, twenty years later, as an experienced superhero who uses her powers all the time, Ciana still can’t use her powers invisibly. There’s always a shiny blue blob there. And she had no training with her powers when she was 16, so it would have been even more implausible that she could have somehow used her powers to secretly cheat. I would be disqualified from a Sapiens competition in gymnastics in any sane world because of what my powers actually are, but Ciana was disqualified solely from anti-Proxima prejudice (and, to be fair, probably some anti-Asian prejudice from the Americans whose job it would have been to advocate for her). The Americans paid for their prejudices when Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union took home all the women’s gymnastics medals (I don’t like Ciana, but I’m pretty sure she would have won at least a silver in something, if not a gold.) Ciana was recruited by Dr. Chandrasekhar to learn how to use her powers and eventually join the Peace Force, Dr. Chandrasekhar’s UN-supported superhero team.

So it wasn’t that I had no respect for Ciana’s loss, but it irritated me that she saw the problem as being that she was a Proxima rather than that the Olympic committee was scared of Proximas. And also, that being an Olympic medalist was better than being a superhero. “Yeah yeah, you could have had your moment of glory, and nowadays you’d be selling sneakers and breakfast cereal to pay the bills, assuming anyone even remembered you at all. What’s Mary Lou Retton doing with her life?”

“She’s been an Olympics commentator, and she’s a motivational speaker who supports physical fitness.”

Trust Ciana to actually know this. “And that’s better than being a superhero how? You save lives, you have an action figure, millions of little girls look up to you—“

“—I wear a mask when I save lives because otherwise supervillains or stalkers might hunt me down, no one knows my real name, my family aren’t allowed to tell anyone what I do for a living, I’ll probably never have a normal life with a husband and kids—“

“--You could marry some guy and quit the superhero business any time you wanted to, it’s just your overblown sense of responsibility that says you can’t quit your job to have babies until your powers give out on you, because you think the world needs you, and if that’s the case where would they have been if you hadn’t been a Proxima?”

“Someone else would have taken my place if I hadn’t been a Proxima. And all of this is besides the point; no matter how great you or even I might think it is to have superpowers, the fact is that you were planning to infect helpless babies with a retrovirus that would have mutated them. Some of them might have died of it. Some might have been killed by their families for being Proximas once they manifested. You don’t have the right to play God that way.”

“Nobody would have died of my virus,” I retorted. “I tested it thoroughly ahead of time. But you also notice, I haven’t done it again.”

“Because you know we’ll stop you.”

“Because I listened to your arguments that retroviruses are unstable and highly prone to mutation, and I decided that maybe you have a point.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

“You didn’t even try to just persuade me. You just blew up my lab! Do you know how many vials of vaccine I hadn’t modified yet you destroyed?”

“All of this is pointless,” Sapphire snapped. “I’m wasting time arguing with you when Doctor Sun is dying. Are you coming or not?”

Wait, what? Dying?

I had been a half-crazed killer with no self-esteem, no sense of myself being able to be or do anything good, no belief that anyone could ever care about me – at least not without dying for it – after David died. Dr. Chandrasekhar had taken me in and taught me that I could have a better destiny than being a tool for monsters to use to kill each other with; that I didn’t have to be a monster myself. I could use my powers for good. I could help people. I could be a decent person.

Viewed from her perspective, I suppose, it didn’t last – I freely admit I am a supervillain and I do highly unethical things, up to and including killing people. But I do it for a cause I believe in. I do it to save my people from the bio-engineered diseases I was forced to participate in creating at Sonnebend. I do it so girls with superpowers who are going to medical school to learn how to save lives will not be kidnapped, stripped of their powers except when convenient for their captors, raped, tortured and forced to use their powers to heal enemies and kill their own kind, by agents of their own government. I do it so my people can enjoy the same rights and privileges as every other human on this planet. And the fact that I can fight for a cause, that I can see myself as a person with a noble goal of my own… I owe that entirely to Doctor Sun.

No matter what she does to me, no matter what she orders her Peace Force to do, I can’t ever get away from that.

“Dying of what?”

“She was kidnapped and raped by Caesar Primus. When she escaped, she was two months’ pregnant, but the doctors say it seems more like six months. The child is growing too rapidly for her to handle it, and it’ll kill her.”

Oh, God.

My heart started pounding, my throat went dry. I could feel the adrenaline surging, my sympathetic nervous system revving up for a totally inappropriate fight-or-flight response. I couldn’t stop imagining the reality behind Sapphire’s words. It didn’t help that I’d once had sex with Primus myself – consensual, sort of, but I could entirely too easily imagine what it’d be like to be raped by him, without powers to protect you. And Primus was immune to telepathy, so effectively Suri would have been helpless. God, no. I didn’t want to think about that.

So I was flippant, and cold. “Doctor Sun’s a woman of the world. You’re telling me she’s never heard of an abortion?”

“She doesn’t want an abortion. She says she won’t compound Primus’ act by taking an innocent life.”

“When did Doctor Sun turn into a pro-lifer?”

“She says the baby has a mind and she won’t kill it.” Sapphire floated herself down onto my dining room floor, still surrounded by a protective bubble but no longer on my stairs. “Are you going to help, or not?”

“I’m a feminist Darwinist. I’m morally opposed to letting a fetus conceived in rape live. It lets dangerous genes persist in the population. Suri knows that.”

Sapphire sighed explosively. “Fine. I knew you weren’t going to be any help, but Doctor Sun believed in you. I’ll just go tell her I was right and she was wrong.”

“What is this supposed to be, reverse psychology?”

“Nothing reverse about it. I knew before I got here that I would be wasting my time. You’re a killer with no conscience; why Doctor Sun ever thought you might help, I have no idea.”

“Because she knows me better than you.” I stepped forward. “If this is reverse psychology bullshit, it isn’t necessary. I’ve known I was going to agree to help you since you told me she was dying. And if you really believe what you’re saying, then nyaah nyaah nyaah. I’m a doctor; everything I do, I do to save lives. And at least I have to try to persuade Doctor Sun to abort the thing. Besides, if she was raped by Primus she might have injuries she could need my help with.” Primus had hammered at me like he was trying to break my pelvis, and without my powers he might actually have done so. And I’d voluntarily gone to bed with him. What he’d do to a woman he was raping, I really really didn’t want to imagine.

I didn’t mention to Sapphire that this was partly my fault anyway. When I’d met her, Suri (Dr. Suri to me in those days, but I feel I have the right to call her by her first name now) had been dying slowly of multiple sclerosis. She had met me on a good day; she’d only needed crutches and braces to move. On bad days she’d been confined to a wheelchair, and on really bad days she’d had to stay in bed. I’d healed her, and in the process I’d turned her from a forty-something woman approaching menopause back to a woman in her prime, young and healthy, physically in her 20’s. It had been almost 20 years since I’d done that; Suri would be approaching menopause again, but obviously wasn’t there yet. By now she’d be well past childbearing if I hadn’t de-aged her when I’d healed her disease.

I didn’t know whether Primus had raped her to torture her, to express domination over her, to really make the Peace Force mad at him, or to impregnate her, but I knew he had enough control over his body that if he hadn’t wanted to impregnate her, it wouldn’t have happened. It was entirely possible that the goal of the whole thing had been to force her to carry his child; Suri was an enormously powerful Proxima with high output power mitochondria, and most women with such energy-full mitochondria would have had a power they could use to fight back against Primus. Blocking a Proxima woman’s powers while she was pregnant carried high risk to the fetus if it too was a Proxima; it could prevent the fetus from developing the ability to control its powers as an adult. Suri was rare in that she was incredibly powerful but only telepathic, with no telekinetic abilities, and with Primus’ immunity to telepathy, she’d have had no way to fight back against him even at her full power. If Primus had wanted a powerful woman to pass her mitochondria to his child, and he hadn’t cared about her consent, there were few Proximas who’d make a better target for him. And if that was the case, then the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t made her younger, sixteen years ago.

Sapphire blinked. “Wait. You are coming?”

“I just said so. But we have to bring my cats. They need to eat more than the average cat – they’d starve if I left them without food for three or four days, and obviously I can’t ask the neighbors to come feed them.”

“Fine. Sedate them; I don’t need a cat flying all over my car, or meowing and moaning in his carrier the whole time. We’ll put them in one of the suites and make sure they get fed.”

I took my cell phone – it had all of my appointments and contacts in it, and I’d have to call them all to reschedule once I knew how long this was going to take. If I could talk Suri into aborting the fetus, this could probably go very quickly, but I knew how stubborn she was. If I had to save the baby too, I could possibly have to take a few weeks.

Damn Suri. Why the hell was I taking time off my work and spending four hours in a car with one of the people who most annoyed me in the entire world to go save my greatest opponent anyway? From a problem she could just fix herself if she wasn’t so damn stubborn?

But I already knew. I couldn’t let Suryabati Chandrasekhar die; not under any circumstances, and most especially not if she’d asked for me specifically. Our differences were ideological; what she’d done for me went beyond ideology. I would fight her and her people when I had to, but if she was dying and she needed me, I had to go.

#nanowrimo #cold light #wip #supervillains #tw: csa #tw: rape #the trigger warnings are for things being talked about not things we see

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fandom-necromancer · 4 years

Text

Finding a new Home

This was prompted by an awesome anon! You gave me a lot with this prompt, so I split it in two parts so you don’t have to wait too long! The second part will be up later today!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900

[Part 2]

Gavin had never been one for family if he was being honest. He hadn’t contacted his parents in ages, and he was content with that, after how they had parted. But one thing he did regret: Loosing contact with his brother. They had always been a good team and when they fought it was the normal fight between siblings, nothing really hitting deep. Now that he stepped out of the car and slammed the door shut, he asked himself when exactly they had become estranged. Maybe it was when Gavin had parted ways and moved that he had forgotten to stay in contact? In any way, the call of his brother had surprised him. It had been nice to hear from him personally, instead of over the news for once. Maybe that’s why Gavin had never rang him up. Elijah was successful, had built up a multi-million-dollar company from scratch and lived in luxury even as he was thrown out of Cyberlife. Now after the revolution he had been reinserted as CEO and struggled to clean up the mess left behind. Gavin knew what was happening in his brother’s life because everyone did. He sighed, eyeing the sleek looking villa. Well, he certainly lived better than he did.

‘Let’s get this over with.’ He stepped through the by now melting snow and tried to scrape the worst of the cold mud off on the doormat before ringing the bell. It wasn’t long until a beautiful blond woman opened, showing him a polite smile that immediately screamed android to the Detective. It was confirmed by the soft blue LED and the overly gentle movement. Android. Likely early model. Of course, Eli would have a personal receptionist in his own house. ‘Welcome, Gavin. Please, come in. I will tell Elijah you arrived.’ Gavin stepped in and waited for her to depart. It threw him a bit off balance as she stayed and watched him push off his dirty shoes. But then he heard something metallic drop somewhere deeper in the house and hurried footsteps, as Elijah Kamski entered the hallway. ‘Gavin!’, he called, shaking his head. ‘Is it 4pm already? Thought it was earlier. Sorry. This is Chloe, my… assistant? Partner? We err… Doesn’t matter, how are you?’

By now Gavin had kicked his shoes in some far corner and stood up again to unsuccessfully duck out of a hug. ‘God, it’s been so long, Gav. You look… Well, I wanted to say good, but you’d always seen right through my lies. The revolution still got you?’ ‘Having to wake up far too early every day when you have insomnia and some really unhealthy relationship with coping mechanisms still got me, Eli. Some people have to work to survive.’ ‘Still the pessimist, I see?’ Elijah fidgeted with the seam of his probably very expensive shirt. ‘Let’s not argue, at least not until we sat down. Do you still hate coffee as much as I remember?’ Gavin chuckled. Anyone who learned he had once despised it thought he lied them blank in the face. ‘No, not anymore. Once you depend on it, you adapt. Kind of an addiction at this point.’ ‘Well, then Chloe, would you be so kind to prepare us some coffee?’ ‘Of course’, the android answered with a small nod. ‘I’m already on it.’ ‘Thank you darling. Come on, Gavin, we have a lot to talk about!’

The man lead him into a large living room that looked more expensive than Gavin’s entire home. They sat down on a ridiculously plush couch and soon Chloe came with a tablet of coffee, cups and unfitting to the whole atmosphere of rich assholeness, a plate with Gavin’s favourite cookies from the dollar store he near worshipped. Gavin raised a brow, but didn’t say anything as Elijah filled his cup. He didn’t say anything to the fact that Eli’s darling apparently was more than one person. It was weird enough to sit with his brother again after near twenty years of silence. One step after the next.

It was quite nice, actually. Although a lot of time and money had changed, Elijah was still the damn know-it-all big brother that reacted badly to critique and Gavin’s damn jokes. It was getting dark sooner than thought and Elijah got quiet suddenly. After they had been talking and laughing, the sudden change in atmosphere was almost tangible in the air. ‘Everything alright?’, Gavin asked. ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘For what?’ ‘For only inviting you now and not far earlier. So much time and I never once called you.’ ‘Hey I didn’t call you either, so don’t think too much about it. You did now and I’m happy you did.’ It was rare for Gavin to be this understanding, but he meant it. ‘Yeah but I have to admit I had the idea only because I need your help. I didn’t call you to have a nice chat, although it is nice to talk to you again.’ Gavin shrugged. ‘Hey, not everyone is a damn saint. What do you need?’ ‘I… I think I better show you.’

‘Okay, I think you know better than most what deviancy is and how it affects androids and humans. I mean… You where there.’ Elijah led him to a door that slid back to unveil a staircase upon touch. ‘But Cyberlife designed some androids that are unable to deviate. Some because they were meant to help stop deviancy and some as experiments of those sent back to the labs.’ ‘Yeah, I know’, Gavin nodded, following behind. ‘Got to take a few of them back myself, they are illegal now.’ Elijah just shook his head looking miserable. ‘And you don’t have a problem with that?’ ‘Not exactly the most empathic one to ask these questions, Eli. I don’t especially like these toasters.’ ‘Then I hope I can change your mind’, his brother said, evading his eyes. ‘Deviancy gives them freedom, not a consciousness or soul, Gavin. They are bound to orders, but they emote and they… They live.’ Gavin huffed at that, but shrugged. ‘Maybe. But the law makes sense. I mean it would be weird for deviant androids if Cyberlife started producing them again, only this time not able to be free. Better ban them altogether.’ ‘Then I guess you would have to arrest these few’, Eli sighed and opened the door to the cellar. Gavin stepped next to his brother inside the room and looked into the eyes of five androids, looking their way curiously. ‘These are the only non-deviant androids I could save from decommission.’ ‘You got to be shitting me’, Gavin laughed humourlessly to play over his surprise. ‘No. They were to be killed and I can’t allow that. They are my creations after all. Cyberlife is responsible for their actions. I wouldn’t have said that a few years ago, I’m sure. But they are alive. Just not free.’ Gavin swallowed, meeting the five faces. ‘And what would you want me to help you with?’ ‘I have to find places for them to stay. They can’t live in my basement, but their guardians have to be trustworthy. I don’t want them to end up at Cyberlife again. I want them to have a good life out there with a human or android that treats them right.’ ‘That doesn’t order them around…’ Gavin nodded. ‘Well, shit, you do know I’m not the most social person, right?’ ‘I know. But the only one who I can confide in. Will you help me?’ Gavin wanted to just laugh at him, curse and leave, but for once his conscience acted up. He had always been one to value justice and despite his dislike, he couldn’t just condemn five… people. ‘Yeah, alright, fine. I will try my best.’

‘Hey, okay, my name is Gavin, do you have a name?’ Gavin sat on Elijah’s couch three weeks later. He had visited him quite regularly now to speak to the androids with varying success. Four androids had already found a place to stay, even if it was just a temporary thing. Tina could have been convinced to take the Tracy-android with the condition that she could always drop the plastic at Elijah’s if it didn’t work out. By now though, Tina couldn’t keep her mouth shut about how cute she was. With every break Gavin suffered through he was more convinced that Tina wouldn’t let her android go ever again.

The other two Tina helped finding a home for. One to stay with her parents who needed help in the household but would never allow any human to help. By the time of her mother’s birthday, the android was already included in the family photo. The second one Chris could get to safety. He had seen Tina’s android and she had to come clean. Chris immediately was on board and soon found a place with his brother.

Now Gavin sat with number four, an android that looked exactly like Connor. Elijah had told him it was an RK900 though, an updated model. What was confirmed shortly after: ‘I am an RK900 unit. I have no designated name.’ ‘Okay… err… RK900, what is your purpose?’ ‘I am a military android. A purpose wasn’t yet determined.’ ‘Shit.’ Gavin shook his head. Military didn’t sit well with him. You couldn’t just assign a soldier to anyone. ‘Eli, do you have the specs for him?’, he shouted into the house. ‘Yeah, I will copy them for you!’, came the answer. ‘You can look into them at home.’ Gavin sighed, then fake smiled at the android. ‘Okay, then. Do you have any preference who you would like to live with?’ ‘I will serve who I am assigned to.’ ‘No wishes then’, Gavin mumbled, crossing out that point. ‘I would wish to work with someone competent’, the android surprised him by speaking up unprompted. ‘Well, that we all do’, Gavin grinned. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think you working with anyone isn’t that realistic. You can’t deviate, so chances you can ever be employed are slim. Especially with the military.’ ‘I am also designed to work with law enforcement’, the RK900 clarified. Gavin grimaced. ‘That’s also very unlikely. Don’t worry, I will try to find a place for you. How does being a companion android or caretaker sound to you?’ ‘I am not equipped for that outside the field of war or agencies.’ Gavin sighed. Maybe not all of the androids here could find homes. This one certainly would stay here forever.

‘Congratulations to four androids finding forever homes’, Gavin cheered, toasting with his coffee mug. Elijah responded with the same gesture, only far less enthusiastic. ‘That leaves you with the RK900. Any plans yet?’ The CEO of Cyberlife shook his head. ‘No. He has no interest in life with us. He spends most of his time in stasis in the basement. I can’t imagine how boring that must be.’ Gavin sighed. The time he had spent with the androids had made him soft. Elijah had been right. These were living beings, only bound by orders. With the right person who looked out for them, they could experience freedom that was nearly as real as the one deviancy promised. Taking that away from them… ‘Do you… Do you mind me going down there and talk to him a bit?’ ‘Not at all’, Elijah said. ‘I still hope we find a way for him.’ Gavin just nodded, before leaving his coffee behind and head towards the cellar.

‘RK900?’, he asked, switching on the light in the now pointedly empty room. ‘Gavin’, the familiar voice greeted him, and the android stepped out of his corner. ‘You came to visit again.’ ‘Yeah, how are you?’ ‘I am… without a mission.’ ‘Yeah, I thought you would be bored as hell down here. Why don’t you keep the light on?’ ‘I don’t need it and it wastes resources and money.’ ‘You can’t just stay in the dark all the time.’ ‘I can.’ Gavin sighed. ‘Why don’t you go up there? Maybe that would make it better?’ ‘A change of location won’t give me something to do’, was the easy answer of the machine. ‘I am similarly… bored up there as I am here.’ ‘Phck, I’ll try to find a place for you to stay, I promise. But I don’t think it’s very likely. I’m sorry.’ ‘You don’t have to. I am grateful. But I am no RK800.’

That made Gavin hesitate. He looked the android up and down. If one didn’t look to closely and if he wore different clothes… ‘RK900, don’t worry. I think I got a brilliant idea! You won’t be stuck down here much longer!’ Gavin grinned at him, then hurried off towards the living room.

‘Elijah, I need a RK800 uniform. Give me two days to speak with Connor, then the RK900 will have a place to stay!’ Elijah frowned at him. ‘With Connor? You hate him!’ ‘It’s for the RK900, okay? Let Connor be my problem. With how sentimental he is, this might just work.’ ‘Wait, what are you planning, Gavin, I can’t follow.’ Gavin took his brother by the shoulders. ‘We will disguise him as an RK800, they look very similar. I will convince Connor to tell Fowler another one of his “brothers” turned up and make a side comment how I am the only one who is still without a partner. I will play the grumpy asshole a few days so everyone has their fun and then RK900 will be accepted at the force no problem! I will look out for him!’

[>next part]

#detroit become human #dbh #Reed900 #Gavin Reed #RK900 #Elijah Kamski #I initially thought to write a short flashback but then I got caught up #cute helpless RK900 strikes again hell yes

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

STARTUPS AND STUDENTS

The values of the elite, others feel a little nervous about it, because it would cause the founders' attitudes toward risk tend to be the boss of someone much older than you, and b since he's probably a founder, he can pay himself nothing. Redwoods mean those are the parts where the fog off the coast comes in at night; redwoods condense rain out of fog. Aim for cool and cheap, not expensive and impressive. So despite those millions in the bank, you're still poor. During the Internet Bubble there were a number of startups that need less than they used to. It's a tossup whether Castro Street or University Ave should be considered the heart of the Valley is done in the cafes on or just off University Ave in Palo Alto. In some cases you may collaborate with other students, and this remark convinced me that Sarbanes-Oxley loosened. It's hard to follow, especially when you're young. It's not the sort of uncool office building that will make your software worse. It's not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companies spring up around them.1 The main reason they all acted as if they got the answer to some math question before the other kids.

Palo Alto is a place they come to meet investors. Well, no. If you walked around their offices, it seemed like a software company.2 Presumably they were driven by whatever makes people in every other society invent cosmologies. I know that have the right kind of place for developing software. Investors all compete with one another for deals, but they know better than to use it. Or rather, investors who do that will get corrected in the process is option pools.3 But in fact we were doing exactly the right sort of person who would like to do, your best bet may be to choose a type of work that could turn into either an organic or two-job route is that it's slow and uncertain.

That's an important difference because it means a startup could do. Once we reach that point, we take one of two routes. I was a kid I thought they protected inventors from having their ideas stolen by big companies. The problem was, since we'd been about to be acquired, we'd allowed ourselves to run low on cash. So a language that people don't learn merely to get a job.4 We've found this principle very useful, and we were growing at 10% a month. If you work hard at being a bond trader for ten years, thinking that you'll quit and write novels when you have enough money, what happens when you quit and then discover that you don't notice.5

Always produce is also a heuristic for finding the work you love. But should you start a company. The kind of philosophy I'm advocating won't be able to achieve the essayist's standard of proof, not the mathematician's or the experimentalist's. He has noticed that theoretical knowledge is often acquired for its own sake, out of curiosity, rather than becoming philosophy professors. You couldn't just do what you wanted, and that probably made a difference. It turns out to have been temporary. Others say I will get in trouble for appearing to be writing about things I don't understand.6 If two companies have the same drab clunkiness as anything else that comes out of a new funding round we needed to raise more to keep going. Soon after we arrived at Yahoo, we got an email from Filo, who had been crawling around our directory hierarchy, asking if it was really necessary to store so much of our data on expensive RAID drives. The acquirers already have brand recognition and HR departments. Talk to as many VCs as you can, though.

Kids who know early what they want. On the whole they've done better than the companies that weren't. So don't get demoralized. Still more dangerously, when you think about it if you're trying to negotiate with them. In fact, they rarely seemed to arrive at it. For example, if users searching for compact disc player end up spending considerable money at sites offering compact disc players, then those pages will have a higher relevance for that search phrase, even though the phrase compact disc player end up spending considerable money at sites offering compact disc players, then those pages will have a higher relevance for that search phrase, even though the advertisers are paying and users aren't. Increasingly, startups are a big risk financially. Could other countries introduce more individualism into their technology companies and research labs without having it metastasize as strip malls?

Customers loved us. Usually there is something even better than C; and plug-and-so is an animal. People who don't want to be CFO of a public company now. A few ideas from it turned out to be. Because people in the Valley.7 It causes you to work not on what you want and get out of the way. This money isn't revenue.

But there is no need for rounds to take months or even weeks to close, and once founders realize that, it's going to feel terrible sometimes, then when it feels terrible you won't think ouch, this feels terrible, I give up.8 I, Ada have lost, while hacker languages C, Perl, Smalltalk, Lisp. They may also make the biggest investment. There is no core of knowledge one must master. So mainly what a startup buys you is time. We felt like our role was to be impudent underdogs instead of corporate stuffed shirts, and that this company is going to discover those. Perhaps more importantly, you'll get into the habit early in life of thinking that all judgements are. The reason: today's teenage hacker is tomorrow's CTO.9 Some angels, especially those with technology backgrounds, may be satisfied with a search result than going to the site and buying something?

Notes

The First Two Hundred Years.

More precisely, investors treat them differently. Everyone's taught about it.

There's no reason to believe this number is a function of their initial funding and then stopped believing, so presumably will the rate of change in response to what modernist architects meant. I overstated the case, as they seem like noise.

If they really need that much better, and would not be true that the only result is that the path from ideas to startups. In the Daddy Model and reality is the only ones that matter financially, and there are not the second clause could include any possible startup, unless it was true that being so, you have to talk to a VC who got buyer's remorse, then over the details. Record labels, for example, the number of situations, but there are no startups to have had little effect on college admissions there would be to become one of their growth from earnings.

This is a new generation of software from being contaminated by how you spent your summers. By a similar effect, at least, as Brian Burton does in SpamProbe.

It was common in the computer world recognize who that is a bad idea was that professionalism had replaced money as a constituency. Some find they have to factor out some knowledge. He, like a knowledge of human nature, might come from meditating in an empty room, you might be an inverse correlation between launch magnitude and success.

I was as bad an employee or as outside counsel, they cancel out and you start to be hard on the spot as top sponsor.

If you seem evasive than if you repair a machine that's broken because a it's too obvious to your instruments. Some want to turn Buffalo into a great programmer is infinitely more valuable, and that modern corporate executives would work so hard to judge for yourself and that modern corporate executives would work so hard to mentally deal with the sort of idea are statistics about the idea that they probably don't notice even when I switch in mid-twenties the people who run them would be easier to get a small proportion of spam. Xkcd implemented a particularly clever one in a limited way, without becoming a Texas oilman was not in the standard edition of Aristotle's contribution?

There is one that did. He was off by only about 2%. We just store the data, it's because of some power shift due to the yogurt place, we found they used it to colleagues. There can be a trivial enhancement of HTTP, to mean starting a company.

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cblgblog · 5 years

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I have just…so many problems with Irondad, some of which I’ve seen expressed already, some not, and I need to say this at least once.

I don’t believe the common anti-Irondad thing that says Tony never cared about Peter. He did, in his very Tony, very problematic way. He loves Peter, I think, very much the way Howard loved him. We only got glimpses of Howard as a dad, mostly from Tony’s perspective, but we can make assumptions here. Howard probably thought Tony was the greatest thing in the world, and a blast to hang out with. Whenever Howard wanted to be a dad. He would’ve loved teaching Tony things, showing him off, having fun with him. But when Howard didn’t want to hang out? When Howard was working on something important? No, sorry, dad mode off, go away, Maria come get him. We see that with Peter and Tony. All Peter wants is acceptance, another mission with Tony. He wants validation. But he can’t even reach Tony because Tony’s put Happy in charge of him, and Happy doesn’t want to deal with some stupid kid in Queens, at least during Homecoming. It’s a very Howard move, parenting/mentoring when it’s convenient.

Which, you know what? Not in and of itself horrible. Tony would learn what he lived, and follow it. It makes sense, generational patterns and all that. It could’ve led to an interesting story, about Peter or someone else in Tony’s life pointing out the parallels, and then Tony has a moment of realization and tries to correct. I wouldn’t have loved that story, because Peter’s storyline being so connected with Tony’s at the expense of his own has always bothered me, but it could’ve been done decently.

What do we get instead? We get Tony paying lip service in Homecoming to wanting to break the cycle, and then totally failing at that 5 minutes later. He was mad, he was scared, that’s legit. People say unfair things when they’re reacting out of fear. But he tears Peter down for what happened on the ferry, and makes him feel like shit. Why? Because Tony had the FBI involved, Peter was meant to stay away, and he didn’t. Well how the hell was Peter supposed to know that? He can’t talk to Tony at all. Happy’s been ghosting him for months. The last time he thought Tony was there for him, it was one of the suits, Tony was still off in Tony’s world. How would Peter ever think that Tony had heard him this time, and was taking action? Tony didn’t tell him as much. Happy didn’t. All either of them would need to do is send a text saying hey, I hear you, I’m on this, I have people on this. But Tony is Tony, he can’t tie his shoes without Pepper, and he has either a hyperfixated attention span, or none at all, depending on the day. He either forgot to tell Peter, or worse, didn’t think it necessary. And if he was a proper mentor, if he knew Peter at all, he would know that Peter’s sense of responsibility was going to kick in there, unless he had reason to believe things were going to be okay without him.

Tony doesn’t know Peter. He puts an instant kill function on a 15-year-old kid’s suit because he thinks it’s a cool feature, and he enjoys building cool things. If he knew Peter at all, Tony would know that Peter’s a no kill hero. You can argue that those advanced features weren’t meant to be hacked into, so it’s not Tony’s fault. Except it is. Tony admits in CW that he hacked the Pentagon in high school on a dare. He knows that genius boys do stupid things. He knows teenagers don’t follow rules. He knows that if you tell a kid not to do a thing, you’re just guaranteeing he’ll want to do it more now. Tony may not know exactly how smart Peter is (I’m sure he doesn’t), but he has enough of an idea that safety measures, actual measures, should’ve been in place. Instead of a hackable training wheels protocol? Just keep those features off his first suit, save them for the next model, when the kid’s ready. We know Tony doesn’t mind building new models of suits. But Tony doesn’t do that, because Tony.

Yeah, the instant kill came in handy in Endgame against Thanos’s army. Still doesn’t make it okay.

Again, it reeks of Howard style parenting. You didn’t use this awesome thing I gave you right? Here then, I’m taking it away. No talks, no explanations or compromise or Tony training Peter to avoid the mistakes he so wants Peter to avoid, just, we’re done. Which is exactly how Howard probably would’ve handled it. I let you in my lab once and you broke something you didn’t know how to use? Okay, well, never doing that again.

To be clear, I don’t blame Tony for yanking the suit, exactly. It was a very human, kneejerk reaction. And more importantly, it allowed Peter to show that he did not need Tony’s toys to be a hero. The problem is that Tony, as usual, never gets to realize his mistakes. Peter yells at him a little right before the suit gets taken about not being listened to, but Tony doesn’t retain any of it. It doesn’t matter. He never has a moment of, what I did here was not okay and this is why. What do we get instead? Him telling Peter at the end of Homecoming how Peter screwed up, but hey, you fixed it. You were dumb, but you fixed it. No acknowledgement that Tony screwed up anything. Because, of course not. The lesson for Tony isn’t hey, I went too fast with this kid, he wasn’t ready, I didn’t prepare him. There is no lesson. Tony, as in basically every appearance since Iron Man 3, learns nothing.

Oh, and the Homecoming ending. Yeah. Tony sees no problem with having a 15-year-old move into the mansion and go full-time Avenger. His aunt, his guardian? Nah, why would she mind that, it’s fine.

I’ve talked elsewhere about my problems with Infinity War Irondad, but basically, most of Tony’s interaction with Peter there involves telling him to shut up, the grownups are talking, you’re not supposed to be here, you’re too young and dumb. Even when Peter absolutely helps the team. Also, too young and dumb? He wasn’t 5 minutes ago, when you were going to make him an Avenger, and he was the one smart enough to realize this was a bad idea. Tony’s so mad Peter didn’t listen to him and go home. If he’d truly listened, he’d have been an Avenger at the start of the film, so he’d be there anyway.

The dusting scene with him and Peter? It hurt. It was brutal and beautiful. That’s because Tom Holland, and yes, RDJ, can act, not because it was earned by the narrative of the last three movies.

As for Endgame. That photo Tony has of him and Peter goofing off. So cute, right? Probably taken at some point before May knew the truth, as a hey, we need a cover story for your aunt, but, you know, it’s fine. I don’t doubt Tony loved Peter. That he grieved Peter and felt his loss for 5 years, and maybe that’s part of why he’s such a good dad to Morgan. But he didn’t love Peter the right way. He did it selectively. He missed him when he was gone, but didn’t pay enough attention when he was alive. The hug near the end was beautiful, but unearned.

And then there’s May and Ben. May does not deserve to be villainized, killed off, or flat-out ignored the way she is in so many fanon interpretations just so Irondad can be a thing. May helped Peter prepare for his homecoming dance last minute. She got him dressed, taught him how to tie a tie, taught him to dance. All while Tony was back to ignoring him. But assume for a second that this had happened earlier, when Peter was still technically in Tony’s good books. Assume for a second that he’d been able to reach Tony and ask for advice, because he’s scared and excited and needs help. Tony would’ve made a few jokes about spiked punch, a few more crude, sexist jokes about Peter’s date, and signed off. May dropped everything and spent hours helping this kid, reassuring him. May is so unappreciated and flat-out abused by some of the fanbase, and it’s gross.

And Ben. Who’s Ben? Have we even heard his name in any of the movies Peter’s appeared in yet? Oh, we got his initials on a suitcase in FFH, not even a verbal acknowledgement. Great. I am not advocating an origin story. We’ve seen it, we know the basics, it’s fine. But Ben has been shown, for almost 60 years, to be the most influential person in Peter’s life. Losing Ben the way he did shaped Peter’s whole life afterward. And we have yet to see a photo? An old video? A 30 second flashback scene? We don’t know any of the MCU’s version of how Ben was killed. At all. Are they for some reason going with a rewrite where Peter had nothing to do with it? Don’t know, because it’s been 5 movies so far and they’ve given us nothing. Ben’s death regularly tops lists of the most influential deaths in comics, and we have nothing. Instead we get scene after scene of Tony perpetuating a dysfunctional relationship with Peter, and never facing consequences, or even realizing it.

By the way? Ben, if he’s anything like any canon version ever, would hate Tony. Ben is consistently shown before his death to be a very hands-on parent. He doesn’t understand most of Peter’s science stuff, but he encourages it, and stays involved as much as he can. He, barring a truly monumental canon rewrite that we know nothing about if it happened, taught Peter that great power means great responsibility. Contrast this with Tony, who as stated, pays more attention to building Peter cool suits than he does Peter. Who, on being confronted by a mother about the death of her son, caused by him, does what? Immediately wants to shift all responsibility to the government, so that the next time he screws up, he can say he was just following the law. Who was confronted by a grieving mother, and then 5 minutes later came into May Parker’s home and lied to her face. Something he continued to do, and would’ve continued, if May hadn’t found the truth on her own. He lies to her, takes her underage son (yes I’m saying son because she and Ben raised that boy, not Tony) out of the country without her knowledge. He threatened to reveal Peter’s identity to get him there. He does not tell Peter that the Accords would’ve done that anyway. He doesn’t tell Peter much of anything about why he’s there or what he’s fighting for. Either because he knows that telling the truth means not having Peter on his side, or because he simply doesn’t care to. Either way is gross, manipulative, disgusting, and would have Ben Parker rolling in his grave.

Yeah, it was fun having Peter in CW. Some of his scenes with Tony are genuinely fun. The above points though? Still stand.

So yeah, Irondad. in theory, okay. It makes sense that Peter would want guidance, a mentor after Ben died. It makes sense he’d look up to Tony. They could have addressed Howard’s shitty parenting via Tony’s shitty parenting, and maybe told an interesting story with it by contrasting Tony’s parenting style to Ben’s. Irondad in actual canon? There’s no parenting. There’s child endangerment, verbal abuse, and no payoff to any of it. The most we get is Happy admitting in FFH that Tony was a mess, but not for all the right reasons. He gets called out for other things, if you can even say he’s called out. Not for his awful treatment of an impressionable minor who’d lost his real father (Ben, assuming they stick with comics and have Peter lose his parents at a very young age).

I will never stop saying that Peter deserved better. I hope he gets it now that Tony’s gone.

#anti irondad #anti tony stark #at least tony's individual story started out good #Peter and Tony had a bad relationship to begin with #peter parker

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forasecondtherewedwon · 5 years

Note

So many options, I'm picking 8,16 and 37 (separately of course) also bring on the NSFW 🥵🥵

Thank you for the prompt request, Anon! As I can only respond to your ask once, I’ll be fulfilling prompt 8, but rest assured that I’ve received another request for 37, so I’ll get to that one as well.

Hostel FeelingsPairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle)Rating: E/NSFWWord count: 4826

8. “There’s only one bed.”

The Spider-Man-community-appearances thing was really takingoff. In fact, it had taken off sowell that Peter was beginning to understand the lives of his superhero mentorsin ways he’d never really thought he would get a chance to. Mr. Stark and Mr.Rogers had both been in the spotlight a lot, for very different reasons, andPeter thought he could finally comprehend… just how much those spotlights madeyour back sweat. Seriously, rivers down his spine. Nanotechnology was cool andall, but Peter felt like Mr. Stark could’ve maybe taken a page from Nike orAdidas’s book instead and build in some kind of sweat-wicking layer. Metaldidn’t breathe.

Apparently, the old suit wasn’t as impressive. Didn’t havethat shine seldom seen outside Mr.Clean ads like the new suit did.

Oh sure, the metal Spidey-suit was fun to wear, filled Peterwith pride, and looked awesome―all gleaming and eye-catching for the generalpublic and flocks of photographers―except once it was heated under thoselights, it was a human barbecue, expensively and meticulously molded to fitPeter and only Peter. (Or some other guy about his height, build, and shoesize. Or girl. Or even, like, any well behaved dog. Maybe a Border Collie? Hewas confident that the old model mask would stretch to fit a long snout, havingonce seen it filled by Ned’s foot. There’d been an explanation at the time, butit had been so weird that Peter had given up trying to understand and basicallyforgotten about it since then.)

Anyway, Peter may have made some subtle complaints about thelights and suit combo. Even though―he swore!―hehadn’t done it to bug Happy, next thing he knew, he was getting a call fromPepper, who totally ratted on Happy as bringing Peter’s ‘whining’ to herattention. She had a plan, or her people had a plan, or the Avengers’ PR team(who still could’ve been Pepper’s people, Peter didn’t know) had a plan.

Then there were informational meetings and strategy meetingsand branding meetings and itinerary meetings and somewhere between ‘summerworld tour’ and ‘big white marquees,’ Peter heard the word ‘shade’ and said theword ‘yes.’

May was in, of course, thrilled by the idea of a vacationand hopefully nothing else, if it was up to her nephew; Happy was going alongtoo and Peter knew his aunt knew, and that she knew he knew she knew, and thatthis might still not be enough to head off any potential canoodling. He didhave to thank their disturbing occasional flirting for one thing though: itgave Peter the idea to ask if MJ could come too. Not for all of it, just acountry or two.

He’d also asked about Ned tagging along, but once again,Happy got wind and refused to include Peter’s best friend on any of the stopsoutside of the continental United States. Apparently, Ned made Happy feel likehe was on a game show―not the win-a-million-bucks kind, but thehave-questions-rapidly-fired-at-you kind. But Happy hadn’t met Peter’sgirlfriend, so some unvoiced reason prevented him from barring her from thetrip. Ethics or something. The point was, MJ was coming with him. And that MJwas his girlfriend. That was also the point.

It had turned out to be easier than Peter had thought toconfess his feelings to MJ. Especially after she told him she knew he wasSpider-Man… and then that she knew he liked her. Luckily, she liked him too,which she was also prepared to disclose. Peter was aware that he was thesuperhero, but MJ was definitely the brave one.

Between the tour’s schedule and MJ’s (which she repeatedlyinformed Peter was the more important of the two―always said with a teasingsmirk on her face), they would meet up in Italy for three weeks in August. Thatwas kinda nice, since they’d both enjoyed Venice during the school trip. MJalso appreciated that all of her expenses were being covered, including the flightover so that she wouldn’t have to worry about booking tickets last minute whentheir schedules finally aligned.

To give Peter additional time out of the suit (wow, Happymust have really laid it on thick about Peter’s so-called ‘whining’), it wasarranged that he and MJ would be allotted extra travel days between appearancedates. They could visit museums, eat, take pictures, eat, go shopping,eat―generally get a feel for a ton of places in Italy that their Midtown triphadn’t covered.

A week into Peter’s MJ time (he never called it that outloud), he was getting sick of hostels, their accommodations of choice. Only itwasn’t the stuff about hostels that people usually got sick of, like, havingtheir belongings stolen, or rooms with too many bunkbeds and not enoughprivacy, or rats. Peter had heard that there were sometimes rats. What wasmaking him restless was brushing his teeth next to MJ after dinner in thecommunal washroom and seeing her foamy toothpaste smile in the mirror. Passingher in the hall, both of them in pajamas, as she headed for the room reservedfor girls, while he went to the one for guys. Catching her eye as they eachshut the door of those rooms and knowing as surely as he knew he was Spider-Manthat he was going to suffer all night because he couldn’t roll over and see herface or pull her warm body close to his.

That was a thing too. The thought of them sleeping together.In senses of the word that he was not comfortable discussing with May in themiddle of a public restaurant, no matter how many times she tried to spring theconversation on him, claiming she wanted to make sure he was mentally preparedand, jeeze, a lot of other stuff that he’d drowned out by loudly chewing astarter salad. May had also been the reason that Peter and MJ sleeping togetherhad not happened at all, let alone as many times as he would’ve liked it to.(Ideally more than once a day, and twice on Saturday mornings.) His aunt wasjust around. There was nothing more to it than that. Peter loved her so much,but he sometimes wanted May to decide that he could be alone in the apartmentall night, no questions asked.

He probably could’ve finagled something with theaccommodations during this trip if the thought of going up to Pepper andrequesting one hotel room for him and MJ to share didn’t make him feel like theheated embarrassment on his face was trying to burn him alive. Peter hadpracticed a couple of times in bathroom mirrors while the tour was movingthrough France; no good―he was an easy blusher.

The only thing he was capable of doing was behaving himself,holding MJ’s hand all day long and breaking off kisses while he still felt likehe could. Peter kept his underlying frustrations well hidden. Meaning MJprobably knew everything.

For years, Peter had been developing the belief (and thenbeen mentored into it even further by Mr. Stark) that science was the answer.The question didn’t matter. Being in a school lab, theorizing new chemicalcombinations, or taking stuff apart―possibly not always being able to fixit―let him be both excited and totally calm at the same time. Probably likepeople who climbed really high mountains, with icepicks or whatever. God, hehad tried that, fiddling with tech in the non-metal suit he had packed in hisbackpack for emergencies while the metal one was carefully housed andtransported with Pepper and the rest of the tour crew. Evidently, even themight of science was humbled in the face of teenage hormones. So he was goingthe route of a true man of science and trying a different approach totemporarily escape his desires.

“Fresh air?” MJ asked again, looking skeptical and also so beautiful as they walked out intoearly golden light. Peter didn’t look back at the hostel they’d just checkedout of. It was no friend of his.

“Yeah,” he said excitedly, “I was researching on my phonelast night and I found this plum orchard place that’s only like, an hour out ofour way, and it’s really scenic and rural and it’s kind of like a bed andbreakfast too? And it said they make their own―”

“So,” she interrupted as Peter was extracting his phone fromhis pocket to win MJ over with pictures of the property, “this is like adaytrip or we’re changing our plans and staying overnight there?”

“Um, the second one. Is that ok?”

“Yes, dork, it’s ok with me. But I’m not the one bankrollingthis little holiday.”

“I called this morning to let…” He paused, cautiously eyeinga couple ambling past them. “…our friendsknow. They said the rooms are taken care of under some company name that won’tmake it obvious that one of us is an Avenger.”

MJ frowned at him, then yawned massively. Well, herirreverence over him dropping the A-word would keep him humble.

“Jeeze, Peter, how early were you up? And you stayed up latelast night figuring this out too?”

Peter attempted an innocent closed-lipped smile.

“Oh, just couldn’t sleep.”

One coach bus ride with a group of Austrian tourists later(Pepper’s people really could gettickets for anything), and Peter and MJ were deposited at a stately yet homeywhite villa surrounded by green Tuscan countryside. He wasn’t sure he’d everseen anything so green. The Hulk could come here for hide and seek. But it wasbetter to keep a lid on these supernatural-themed remarks, so Peter didn’t sayanything out loud. The two of them crunched across gravel, craning for one lastglimpse of the sprawling orchard of plum trees on the other side of a hedge.Well, Peter was craning. MJ could probably see over it no problem.

She was blinking, eyes adjusting to the indoors, when theyentered, so he steered them over to someone who looked like staff. Not being ahotel, there wasn’t an obvious front desk or anything. At least they had areservation. That was comforting.

“Hi, um, buon giorno.Uh, mi chiamo Peter Parker.”

“Ah, benvenuto!”the man said immediately, warm eyes sparkling in a way that Peter was beginningto find very Italian.

“Grazie,” he andMJ replied together. Phew, that was one of the words he definitely had down.

He assumed the guy recognized his name because the rooms hadbeen booked so recently. It set Peter even more at ease and he followed the manto a computer where he assumed his booking was being pulled up.

“Bene,” the manconcluded, glancing at his guests with a friendly smile. “Already paid,” heproceeded in lightly bouncing English. “The room upstairs with windows facing east.”

“The rooms,” MJ jumpedin with a reassuring smile. Peter guessed the smile was to show she wasn’ttrying to be condescending by correcting the man’s mistake, just accurate. Shecould be particular like that sometimes.

Except, uh oh, the guy was frowning.

“Una camera,” he said,eyes darting back to the computer.

“Due,” MJcountered, holding up two fingers. She and Peter exchanged a glance too shortto allow him to convey everything he was thinking.

The man did some more staring at the screen.

“Due persone, una camera,” he concluded, facing themand holding his hands palms-up.

“He thinks the reservation was for two people in one room,”MJ told Peter.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought I was getting,” he replied.Still having a lot of feelings about that.

“Con bagno,” theman supplied, going with a conciliatory smile.

“There’s a bathroom attached,” MJ muttered automatically.Yeah, she’d totally been putting in time with her English-to-Italiandictionary. What a nerd.

“It’s just,” Peter said to the man, willing a certainoutcome with his eyes that he wasn’t ready to admit to out loud, “we meant toeach get a room. Each of us in our own room.”

“All of the other rooms have been booked,” the man said.“Last reservation was for you. But one room is ok, yes? You’re having abeautiful vacation with your girlfriend.” He shot MJ a playfully sly look.“Everything has worked out,” he concluded in a tone of absolutely certaintythat Peter had also identified as very Italian.

The man handed MJ the key and pointed in the direction ofthe stairs. As they talked on the way up, Peter didn’t think he’d hadbutterflies like this since he’d found out she liked him back.

“It’s not like it actually matters,” his girlfriend said, cutting their situation down tosize.

“No, not really,” Peter agreed.

He kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Did sherealize? Crap, they did it at the same time. His gaze shot forward.

“Sharing a room with one person I actually know is going tobe nothing after hostel life,” she continued. This was practically rambling forMJ. She’d said ‘actually’ twice. Peter clamped his lips together, trying not togrin.

“For sure. It’ll be roomy.”

“Exactly.” They arrived at the top of the stairs and wentdown the hallway. MJ was nearly marching, fully of what appeared to be newfoundcertainty that she had a handle on everything. “I’ll be in my bed and you’ll beway across the room in yours.”

“Right.”

The word ‘bed’ made swallowing a struggle. Peter wasofficially an idiot. Then again, MJ’s hand was shaking as she unlocked the doorto their room, signifying that she was an idiot too. It would be fine though.He would act normal. Sleeping in the same room? Not a big deal. It’d be likesleepovers at Ned’s.

The door swung open. They both thought it―Peter knew theydid―but MJ was the one who said it.

“There’s only one bed.”

They discovered that there was a lot to do (outside,isolated, away from urban distractions) all day when returning to their roomwasn’t an option, and a lot to say to each other when mentioning the room wasalso off the table. After making sure it was allowed, Peter and MJ took alengthy walk down avenue after leafy avenue of plum trees. His heart surged ashe squinted through dappled light at her smiling face. When the heat rose inthe afternoon, they feasted on bruschetta at a shaded table next to thehouse―the owners’ homegrown tomatoes were also in season. MJ had gone up totheir room alone to change before lunch and the bright, wet red of the dicedtomatoes against the dazzling summer blue of the plate their food had beenserved on was almost enough to keep Peter’s eyes off her legs.

The afternoon stretched luxuriously while they stayed insideto escape the hottest hours; Peter worked out some equations in a notebook andMJ read Dante’s Paradiso. (She saidshe liked to theme her holiday reading based on location―her bookishness madehim starry-eyed.) After a while, not planning to, he realized his notebook wasin his lap and he was watching her. This place kind of was paradise, thoughPeter missed New York, but he was definitely in hell. How was he supposed to…?What was he going to…? Man, she was pretty.

He couldn’t remember what they ate for supper, diningcommunally with the handful of other guests. Any fresh, local ingredients werewasted on Peter that night. Was it possible that he hadn’t stared at MJ acrossthe table for the entire meal? Yes. Was it probable? No. He made excuses abouttoo much sun, pretending like he’d zoned out and his gaze had only happened toland on her because she was right in front of him.

“Your face is kindof red,” she agreed, then reached over to lay her fingers on his forehead. Itcould have been clinical if MJ hadn’t brushed her fingertips through his hairbefore she drew her hand back.

Peter smiled, feeling weak.

“Sun,” he repeated.

They were quiet going upstairs. The wooden steps had acomfortable old groan to them that managed to feel familiar to two people wholived in apartment buildings with concrete stairwells. Their arms skimmed asthey walked. Peter exhaled slowly through his mouth, drawn closer to MJ in ahallway settling into its own navy shadows.

“Hold on a sec,” he finally said while she unlocked thedoor. His hand was suddenly on her wrist, then stroking over the back of herhand.

MJ kissed him before Peter could tell her why he’d asked herto wait, which was great because he had no idea. He kissed her in return,slowly, holding her face with one hand so it stayed where he wanted it. Thesoft bump let him know that yes, he really had backed MJ up that tiny half-stepit took to hit the closed door. She slouched against it, keeping their kisslevel while everything inside Peter unbalanced. Somehow, his thigh was pushingwith its own determination between her legs. He wondered what her skin feltlike right below the hem of her white denim shorts. He wondered what it feltlike underneath them too.

Peter’s hands went to her hips with a squeeze that woke himup a little. He put his palms on the door instead. Gradually, the kiss loosenedand the distance between their mouths grew until their lips didn’t touch again.The last thing he shifted away from her was his lower body. He’d been hardagainst her. That was another fact for MJ to collect, another detail. It wasn’tmuch work to be observant with him. Peter gave it all away.

She finished letting them into their room while he tried notto pant on the back of her neck like a wolf about to sink its teeth in. Therewas a feeling between them, he thought. This was nothing like strolling into ahostel together after a gelato excursion or holding hands in one of a millionpiazzas. Piazze? MJ had more wordsdown than he did.

So they got changed separately―Peter in the bathroom and MJin the bedroom―but they tugged each other’s pajamas when the two of themslipped by at the threshold between rooms. And they brushed their teeth side byside― he splashed his mouth to clear away toothpaste―but he saw MJ breathinghard when water rolled down his chin, her dazed eyes on it until it passedunder the neck of his t-shirt. And they caught each other watching each other―Peterfolded down his side, she kept hers squared up to the head of the bed―as theycrawled between the sheets.

MJ had opened the large window earlier and the air had comein with the low sounds of people talking while they drank limoncello. Maybe Peter and MJ moved closer because of the breeze.Or maybe there was no breeze because the heat of an Italian August is still andinevitable. They could’ve related to part of that, if they’d thought about it.

“Pretty sure you’re supposed to be way across the room,” MJmurmured. Her foot found his.

The bedroom wasn’t so dark for him and his eyes traced thecurves of her face.

“Pretty sure you’re the one who didn’t stay on their side ofthe bed.”

“Prove it,” she said as her ankle crossed his.

Peter’s clipped laugh accompanied a smile that went widethen disappeared completely. His heart pounded.

“I’ll see you in court,” he said, lips hitting hers when hespoke.

She rolled on top of him and Peter gripped the back of herthigh just below her ass as his tongue shoved into her mouth. Her body forcedthe breath out of him―not her body’s weight, but its presence―and when he couldinhale, it was with an audible waver. Using his other hand, Peter inched theside of MJ’s tank top up until he could put his hand on her bare waist. Shedragged him deeper into the kiss, found the hem of his t-shirt and, with moreconfidence than he’d used, jerked the fabric upward as far as she could whileit was mostly trapped between them. Her pulse seemed to be right there, in herstomach when their skin met. Peter liked it, how MJ felt against him. A lot.

Their lips unlocked and they stared at each other. Her hairtickled his cheek.

“I’m on the pill,” she abruptly informed him.

“O-oh.” His face probably looked surprised, but he hoped itwas at least a good surprised,because that was how he felt.

“Apparently, sending a teenage daughter abroad to meet hernerdy yet deceptively well-muscled boyfriend in a country famous for its nudeartwork is the kind of thing that makes mothers nervous. Or so I’ve found.”

MJ pushed herself up on her elbows enough to shrug. Peterwas still struggling to exist, but knew it was time to generate a response.

“I’m… glad?” he tried, then frowned slightly. Did that makeit sound like he was happy her mother was worried? A second attempt wasnecessary. “Was the description of me your words or hers?”

“You weren’t actually mentioned during the birth controlacquisition outing, but you were strongly implied.“

Peter gathered her hair at the back of her neck, the slackcircle of his fingers standing in for an elastic.

“So, what you’re saying is that it’s your description.” Hegrinned at her as she rolled her eyes.

“Calm down, nerd. It was just a statement of facts. Am Isupposed to have somehow not noticedyour body?”

“Oh, I don’t think you’ve just noticed it,” he countered, gaspingin a breath when her palm smoothed over his abdomen. “I think you’ve thought about it.”

She went in for a kiss, probably to shut him up, but Peterdodged her, thanking his supernaturally speedy reflexes. Sighing like she wasgoing to complain about his teasing became much better sighing as his mouth ranalong her neck. Slowly, Peter started to kiss her skin. MJ’s upper body grewless tense and she dropped back onto him completely. Then, she started to pant.He licked a line, chasing her pulse.

“Fucking hostels,” she groaned and grabbed his face to kisshim on the lips again.

He moaned into her mouth as she wriggled to push her soft PJcapris off. Helpfully, Peter lifted the hand on her leg, then put it right backdown on naked skin. He raised his hips, grinding into her thigh. When she gavehim a little more space, he was sad, but not stupid; he hurriedly kicked hisown bottoms off, then yanked his shirt over his head before sitting up andgoing after hers. MJ raised her arms and the corner of his mouth ticked withhow vulnerable she was, how much she trusted him.

Pajamas shed, they both shuffled back down under the sheet.God, he wanted to reach out for her. His fingers flexed.

“It’s ok to―” he started to check, gaze descending.

“It was ok like three hostels ago,” MJ assured him.

She grabbed his hand and set it on her hip, then scootedtowards him, making his palm run over her skin. Peter thought about their daytogether. All their days together. He kissed her hard and let his hand travel.There was a noise in the back of her throat that stiffened him an improbable(not impossible―he was a scientist, he allowed for possibilities) fractionmore.

He didn’t push MJ onto her back, only fingering her gentlyin a way that made her shaky, but that was how she ended up. Still dumbstruckat the wetness as he traced between her thighs, Peter continued to trail thetip of his middle finger over and around her clit as he climbed onto her. Herhands were busy too; he hadn’t expected the greediness behind MJ’s touch as shecaressed his abs, gripped his biceps, and, most daringly (with a bold raise ofher chin as she met his eye), groped his ass. There was so much to ask herabout later. Clearly, she really had had a few thoughts in all that time she’dspent observing him. That was excellent, in Peter’s opinion.

Her hands stopped roving to grasp his hips, so Peter movedhis coaxing fingers away and ground directly against her in a determined drag.She cried out, legs jumping up to shelter his hips. He clenched his jaw.Parting her thighs slightly wider―more as a hint than because she needed to, hethought―MJ guided him that little bit lower, invited him. He looked into herface for long enough to be fully in love with her by the end of it.

“Per favore,Parker,” she whispered up to him, utterly fucking with him. “Per favore.”

“I know what that one means,” Peter said. He pressed thehead of his erection against her.

“Then why aren’t my manners getting me anything?”

He released a short laugh and started to ease inside her. Rightaway, he heard MJ’s breathing get rough and dropped his forehead to hershoulder, rubbing a hand soothingly across her arm. She shook her head after aminute. Peter thrust a little deeper, questioningly. MJ nodded rapidly. Heinhaled like he meant it and slid further. The heat in the room that they’ddefinitely added to, the midnight sounds of the countryside, the scent of herbody on clean sheets―nothing won out in the battle for his attention over thefeeling of her, so tight around him that pleasure was an agony.

MJ hooked her arms below his, damp palms pressed to thecenter of his back, and let out a contented sigh that felt too private to hear.But then again, Peter guessed they were redefining those boundaries now. Heworked his way out and back in with a focused care. A few more minutes ofgentle rocking had MJ’s hips joining in and Peter sighed too, like she’d takenaway some massive burden. It wasn’t that at all, just that this was the greatestthrill of his life―and he threw himself off skyscrapers on a regular basis!

Once they started, it only gained momentum. For real, itcould’ve been graphed or something to demonstrate the exponential escalation.Peter thought that afterwards, of course. Inside of those immeasurable moments,he was living from second to second with MJ. Her nails were short, but he feltthem in his lower back, urging him on. When her neck arched, he licked it. Allthe time, their hips were going like crazy. The intensity was almostunbearable. That didn’t mean Peter would slow down though, especially not whileMJ kept saying “faster” every few seconds at an increasingly higher pitch.

She climaxed suddenly and he felt like he’d been riding abike that had just hit a curb, sending him flying over the handlebars; thestrength of her squeeze, holding him irresistibly, was a power Peter was notequipped to fight. It brought him to his knees. Metaphorically. Physically, hewas still on top of her, thrusting shallowly through his orgasm while he waitedfor his brain to reassemble and tried to keep forcing those shuddering gaspsout of MJ.

They collapsed together after another minute: her backlanding on the bed and him landing on her. She made sure to exaggerate how muchhe was squashing her, while also wrapping her legs around him and pressing herface intimately into his neck.

“Laugh now,” she encouraged, “but how will you live withyourself after crushing me?”

“I can feel you smiling against my throat.”

Her face twitched as he felt her getting her expressionunder control.

“I was getting ready to bite you. You know, battle my wayfree.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Tell me you’ve never taken down a bad guy like that,” MJchallenged.

“With my teeth?”

“It’s called using all the weapons in your arsenal.”

Peter’s arms closed in around her and he smiled to himselfwhen MJ’s palms went to his biceps as he moved.

“Good thing you came for part of the tour. These are usefultips.”

“You know what they say. Behind every superhero is agirlfriend, assessing their combat technique and checking out their ass.”

He laughed hard, kissed her, and laughed some more. Hersmirk was delightfully smug.

“I knew you were thinking about it,” Peter teased quietly,mouth on her throat. His hips jerked.

She made a round mmmof agreement, her fingers raking into his hair.

“One more piece of advice,” MJ offered.

“I’m listening,” he promised, barely bucking.

“No―” she gasped, “―more hostels. I sleep where you sleep.”

“Or not so much sleep as…”

The white sheet twisted helplessly as MJ pushed a grinning Peteronto his back.

Pick a prompt for a Spideychelle drabble!

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funkywerks · 5 years

Text

Things I Know About Airplanes Part 1:

First things first !

There are just some things you cannot control. So let go of that perfect travel itinerary. Air travel is made possible by so many factors its impossible that on everyday in every way everything goes perfect !

Is air travel safe ? Absolutely. Is airtravel convenient? HELL YAH. Is airtravel fun, cheap or relaxing? Go fish . So remember unless you want to swim , walk , or drive to your destination This airplane business is overall pretty cool.

I would have titled this post “ tips to make you a better traveler” , but that would mean that I deem myself queen supreme of all sky travel ever.

( and there is nothing that grinds my gears like a couple people calling themselves world travelers after their cruise to Cabo on spring break ). So this is just based on what I know as a flight attendant .

the plane will ( and I cannot stress this enough ) NOT , wait for you.

- SORRY !!!!! If you’re late the plane will not wait for you. If you miss your connection the plane will not wait for you. Let go. Stop stressing. I know this is a hard pill to swallow. You got this. Stop yelling at airport or airline staff because no matter what we do ( NO MATTER WHAT WE DO aka WE CANT DO ANYTHING) if we are delayed aka late or if you are late, Your plane is gone. THE PLANE WILL LEAVE AT THE TIME IT SAID IT WOULD. Much like you committed to being there at that time. I don’t make the rules. The rules pay me to be at work on time & here I am.

Why can’t the plane wait for you?

The world doesn’t revolve around you. How many more delays would you have caused if every time you were late for a connection or a flight , if it waited only for you. Just you. Did you ever think about the other 200 people trying to get to their connections. & maybe you haven’t thought of anyone else. BUT TODAY IS THE DAY YOU START. If you really wanna brain storm you can also think about the flight that needs your aircraft after you THOSE PEOPLE TOO . So just think about others. Bad weather ? Can’t go . Broken airplane ? Good thing we have awesome pilots and mechanics that can detect such dangers. No airplane ? Come on! you’re smarter than this. Stop being upset about it. Nothing you can do. Rebook your flight. Sleep in the airport if you have too or buy a hotel if you REALLY have to. Swallow your pride. You can travel across the country in less than 5 hours in a supersonic tin that sometimes has WiFi and movies ( more about that later ). Life is good.

Tip from a flight attendant, my personal fav , I swear by it:

Book the earliest flight you can. Like 5 am early!!!!! You are less likely to be delayed in the morning. There is less air traffic and the airplanes come from the hangers after being serviced overnight. If anything goes wrong you have time for a back up plan. Not being a “morning person “ is a lame excuse for an adult human these days . ok .

I’m honestly not sure if I’m giving airplane advice or just life advice at this point tbh. Moving on !!!!

2. Headphones and other things you forgot to pack.

Ok so. I’m for sure not about to tell you how to pack the perfect carry on because there is no such thing ( don’t let any YouTuber tell you so ) But I can tell you about the common items that people forget to bring with them on airplanes

( based on multiple true stories )

- headphoneS / MULTIPLE PAIRS / meaning the ones for your phone ( Bluetooth or lighting port AND the old regular ones ) if the airplane gods smile upon you the day of your flight , you might have inflight entertainment WOW free movies in your seat back! that’s insane right . ( especially since you’re paying for transportation and not to be entertained ) but if you forget the regular headphones, you can’t watch them ! I always also download other movies to my phone or tablet as well just Incase.

- A blanket or jacket. It’s true ! Breaking news ! not all airplanes supply blankets. Flight attendants get asked all day long multiple times if we have “ any extra blankets , it’s so cold in here “ so. Wear a jacket & closed toed shoes ?. Flight attendants have minimal control over the temperatures. Why did you wear shorts and sandals? YOU KNOW AIRPLANES GET COLD. Just like movie theaters are cold. You never ask someone at the concession stand to warm up your theater. This isn’t a house it’s an airplane. My airplane outfit is always nice jeans, plain tee, socks , vans and a jacket. Always. I will swear by it, I’m always the right temperature.

- Portable charger bank. This ones lame and I hate it. Not all airplanes have charging outlets. And it sucks I know. I work there. Can you imagine walking into work and there being no outlets. Well I feel your pain on this one. All of the airplanes are random. Some airbus models have screens and WiFi and chargers. And some have none. Luck of the draw. If you cannot find the charger in your immediate area. A flight attendant cannot make one for you. Be smart ! bring a portable charger bank. If the airplane is and old Boeing 767 ( super random plane we use for some Europe routes and select domestic ) it has cigarette lighter chargers ( like in old cars ) in some rows **** . Just bring a portable charger and avoid landing in a foreign country without access to information. Save yourself.

- SNACKS why do so many people overlook the importance of the airplane snack. Unless your flight is over 3 hours food will not even be available for purchase. And over 3 hours the food is expensive and mediocre. Complimentary meals are only served on long haul international or routes Jfk - SFO JFK - LAx and JFK - San ( direct ) . So airplane snacks are important. I usually get 2 choices . Something to munch on while watching my movie and one snack that actually is a meal. For example : I bring sunflower seeds and a Pb and j. Or if I’m feeling extra !!! : a quick bacon egg and cheese from the airport Starbucks, large venti ice coffee and Chex mix. You get the idea. It’s an airplane not a kitchen. It’s like a sky bodega. Don’t be unhappy. bring your own stuff. Especially if you’re vegan, or allergic to everything. PLEASE I BEG YOU! DONT BE THE FITNESS GURU WHO NEEDS MORE GRASS FED PROTEIN AT 38000 FEET. ( actually happened to me ) oh also people say that airplane coffee isn’t safe? Because of the water tanks. The Jury is still out on that: I will be your personal lab rat , I drink multiple cups of airplane coffee in one sitting. Make your assumptions and opinions. I will stay warm and caffeinated.

3. Hacks and tricks . Ok so we’re getting to the good stuff. I’m about to tell you the easiest way to be offered a free drink , snack , or in general special treatment on the airplane. Are you ready !? BE SUPER NICE AND PERSONABLE. Ok not exactly rocket science but seriously the SECOND you mumble under your breath, say something rude, get an attitude, look unsettled, or be annoying in the galley. You might as well kiss your chances of getting any special treatment goodbye. ( one person does something , the entire crew knows about it. rude passengers will not be rewarded . Being rude to airline staff never works . I’ve never seen it work) airline staff will most of the time reward good behavior. Wow are we back in pre-k? Or what. Ok now something more tangible . -BRING THE FLIGHT STAFF SMALL GIFTS. Most airplanes have 4 flight attendants on board. International has 12. If you walk on board and say “ hi I’m ______ seated in 23a ( whatever your seat may be ) I brought these for the flight attendants” almost 10/10 times we love it and tell the whole crew to take care of that person specifically. This is important : *You will probably have a flight attendant ask you “ thank you for the gift. do you need anything ? “* and that is your go to time !!!! That’s your time to shine !!!!!! If you want a free drink or snack !!!! Ask now!!!!!!!!!!! This is a real thing and it really works. Small gifts include : individually rapped candies, hand sanitizer, a pack of pens, any kind of snacks at all , a 4 pack of Red Bull/espresso 4 little bags of mnms,donuts or munchkins from Dunkin’ Donuts. Honestly it doesn’t have to be big or expensive! If you show up to your flight on time AND you’re nice to the flight attendants. Just wow . Doing better than 99% of anyone else on airplanes. Go you . If you are a high maintenance flyer this is your go to move to get on the good side of everyone on the crew. Or buy a first class seat ok ? A smile and some donuts go a long way. DO YOU WANT FREE WIFI ? Me too but unfortunately most of the time the WiFi is expensive and not at all free . BUT after take off if you connect to WiFi and the WiFi connection is sourced by the company “gogoinflight” ( you’ll know cause that’s what it’s called in your settings when you connect to WiFi ) I do have a trick. Gogoinflight is a company that sources WiFi for major airlines, if you have T-Mobile ( or if you know someone with a T-Mobile phone number *****) you can enter your phone number and boom free WiFi for an hour. FREE BEER AND WINE - actually free - on international routes ( not Caribbean) don’t be a jerk ! It’s an airplane not a bar. You’re an adult you know you can’t act drunk on airplanes. It’s actually VERY frowned upon and personal CAN call security on you. If you can’t drink 2 glasses of wine on the ground without dancing on the table , you can’t on the airplane. Oh and TRUST me I’ve seen the light while yaking in the airplane bathroom and THAT MY FRIEND!!!! will not be my final destination!!!

#Travel #Flight #flight attendant #Tips #Airplanes #Things I know about airplanes #aviation

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danvssomethingorother · 5 years

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((based off this post by @obelisk-of-khamoon))

When Johnny was fifteen, he was growing tired of constantly being stuck with the new models of boy adventurer every time his father forced him to go to his friends. Well, friend was stretching it, dad spent their last dime on booze again, they needed money for his research and the government and the OSI were no longer willing to give it to him. He was a has been just like Johnny was a has been, he had been replaced by the more rugged and handsome Jonas Venture and Johnny by his cuter, quirkier model.

He was drinking alone in Jonas’s office, a little disgusted watching his dad beg for Jonas’s scraps. He was half way through the man’s expensive shit when he saw him from the corner of his eye. Little Rusty Venture himself, wearing his signature outfit branding him as a boy adventurer. He was holding his stupid dog, scamp was just a knock off of Bandit, his loyal companion who had died years ago. Everything about Rusty was a knock off. He would be nothing if Johnny hadn’t paved the way.

He was staring at Johnny with those large blue eyes, almost desperately. He wasn’t half as brash as Johnny himself, nervous and scared, jumped at everything. Johnny sometimes suspected it wasn’t just the Guild that terrorized him but he didn’t care enough to say anything.

“Go away shrimp,” he snarled at the child expecting him to run for it at Johnny’s threatening tone but he didn’t. He just stood there, big blue eyes trained on him.

“You’re a boy adventurer too,” he mumbled clinging tighter to his little dog that began licking his face sensing his distress.

“What of it, dork,” Johnny sneered at the younger child.

“You know what its like,” he mumbled into his dog’s fur, “You’re like me.”

Johnny snarled loudly at that, the little shit was not allowed to compare them. Not after his piece of shit dad was taking everything from his family, not when him and his brother had go hungry while dad drank and Race had to go back to the OSI just to get money to send home to them.

He didn’t mean to grab the child like he did, he didn’t mean to make him drop his dog who hit the ground in attack mode snarling at Johnny, he didn’t mean to shove him against the wall. He caught himself enough to not punch a defenseless child at the verge of tears, punching the wall hard enough to make an indent.

He got ahold of his anger and dropped Rusty. Leaving the sobbing child on the ground, he should have felt smug satisfaction but all he felt was guilt. Bullying and tormenting Rusty wasn’t gonna change anything but he couldn’t change what he did, didn’t want to apologize, so he just walked out the door. Kept going until he got to a gas station and called Race. He picked him up with no questions like always, not caring his practical son was drunk, just concerned by his tears and guilt.

----

Johnny was grown, he had just got out of rehab and again, this time he knew he could put things right. He could get it together.

Dr. Z was becoming his third father, he could never replace Race in Johnny’s heart but he was better then his biological dad. Helping him get back on his feet, getting him an old dog for company. An old bulldog who had seen as much shit in his life as Johnny had, good company, someone to understand.

Zeppelin was his first dog since Bandit had died, he was surprised how much he needed him. How much he kept him in line. Best ear around to vent to. He loved his dog more than anything but he needed someone around who was more human.

He didn’t know why he held onto it but in the back of his wallet was an old beat up picture of Rusty, acne covering every inch of his face, hair long and greasy, worst fashion sense Johnny had ever seen. He was placing a kiss on Johnny’s cheek, softest action he ever got out of the fire ball.

Rusty was destroyed by Jonas, maybe even more then Johnny was destroyed by Benton, give him a compliment and he would give out. Johnny was ashamed he found that out while Rusty was drinking, barely legal and suffering anxiety after his father spent three days verbally abusing him for daring to hit puberty and not be marketable anymore.

Johnny had been running his finger across the picture for days now, longing for better days, missing Rusty. The only one who understood.

That’s why he was here, outside VenTech, the building Rusty had inherited from his now deceased brother (more like son considering he came out of Rusty but Rusty never liked it when he said that).

Hatred let him in and maybe it was a mistake. They had always been bad for each other. It would be different he told himself. They had gotten along fine in recent years.

But that was only when Rust needed something he thought bitterly, booze, drugs and fucking Rusty were hardly payment for staring in his stupid day camp.

He found Rusty downing a bottle of Jack in the lab, in a bad enough mood to just take the alcohol straight instead of making his god awful doctails it seemed.

“Go away, you junkie,” Rust sneered his way before going right back to drinking. It reminded Johnny a little too much of his dad, he meant to yank the bottle away from him.

“That’s rich, call me a junkie when you are drunk.”

“I don’t need you, go away,” he spat at him too drunk to function properly falling out of his chair and onto the ground after failing to yank the bottle back from Johnny.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” he yelled at his friend throwing the bottle across the room making them both jump as it shattered, “New chance at life and you are already ruining it!”

“Nothing new about it…” Rusty choked out through a sob, “Same old failure, same old deception, just a new place…”

Johnny picked him off the floor, letting him cling to him as he sobbed. He wasn’t going to leave Rusty this time, not again, this time he would stay and help pick up the pieces.

#venture bros #the venture bros #action johnny #rusty venture #johhny/rusty #Dan's fics

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radiumeater · 5 years

Link

Alcoholics Anonymous is famously difficult to study. By necessity, it keeps no records of who attends meetings; members come and go and are, of course, anonymous. No conclusive data exist on how well it works. In 2006, the Cochrane Collaboration, a health-care research group, reviewed studies going back to the 1960s and found that “no experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA or [12-step] approaches for reducing alcohol dependence or problems.”

The Big Book includes an assertion first made in the second edition, which was published in 1955: that AA has worked for 75 percent of people who have gone to meetings and “really tried.” It says that 50 percent got sober right away, and another 25 percent struggled for a while but eventually recovered. According to AA, these figures are based on members’ experiences.

In his recent book, The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry, Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor from Harvard Medical School, looked at Alcoholics Anonymous’s retention rates along with studies on sobriety and rates of active involvement (attending meetings regularly and working the program) among AA members. Based on these data, he put AA’s actual success rate somewhere between 5 and 8 percent. That is just a rough estimate, but it’s the most precise one I’ve been able to find.

I spent three years researching a book about women and alcohol, Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink—And How They Can Regain Control, which was published in 2013. During that time, I encountered disbelief from doctors and psychiatrists every time I mentioned that the Alcoholics Anonymous success rate appears to hover in the single digits. We’ve grown so accustomed to testimonials from those who say AA saved their life that we take the program’s efficacy as an article of faith. Rarely do we hear from those for whom 12-step treatment doesn’t work. But think about it: How many celebrities can you name who bounced in and out of rehab without ever getting better? Why do we assume they failed the program, rather than that the program failed them?

When my book came out, dozens of Alcoholics Anonymous members said that because I had challenged AA’s claim of a 75 percent success rate, I would hurt or even kill people by discouraging attendance at meetings. A few insisted that I must be an “alcoholic in denial.” But most of the people I heard from were desperate to tell me about their experiences in the American treatment industry. Amy Lee Coy, the author of the memoir From Death Do I Part: How I Freed Myself From Addiction, told me about her eight trips to rehab, starting at age 13. “It’s like getting the same antibiotic for a resistant infection—eight times,” she told me. “Does that make sense?”

She and countless others had put their faith in a system they had been led to believe was effective—even though finding treatment centers’ success rates is next to impossible: facilities rarely publish their data or even track their patients after discharging them. “Many will tell you that those who complete the program have a ‘great success rate,’ meaning that most are abstaining from drugs and alcohol while enrolled there,” says Bankole Johnson, an alcohol researcher and the chair of the psychiatry department at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “Well, no kidding.”

[...]

AA truisms have so infiltrated our culture that many people believe heavy drinkers cannot recover before they “hit bottom.” Researchers I’ve talked with say that’s akin to offering antidepressants only to those who have attempted suicide, or prescribing insulin only after a patient has lapsed into a diabetic coma. “You might as well tell a guy who weighs 250 pounds and has untreated hypertension and cholesterol of 300, ‘Don’t exercise, keep eating fast food, and we’ll give you a triple bypass when you have a heart attack,’ ” Mark Willenbring, a psychiatrist in St. Paul and a former director of treatment and recovery research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, told me. He threw up his hands. “Absurd.”

Part of the problem is our one-size-fits-all approach. Alcoholics Anonymous was originally intended for chronic, severe drinkers—those who may, indeed, be powerless over alcohol—but its program has since been applied much more broadly. Today, for instance, judges routinely require people to attend meetings after a DUI arrest; fully 12 percent of AA members are there by court order.

Whereas AA teaches that alcoholism is a progressive disease that follows an inevitable trajectory, data from a federally funded survey called the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions show that nearly one-fifth of those who have had alcohol dependence go on to drink at low-risk levels with no symptoms of abuse. And a recent survey of nearly 140,000 adults by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nine out of 10 heavy drinkers are not dependent on alcohol and, with the help of a medical professional’s brief intervention, can change unhealthy habits. We once thought about drinking problems in binary terms—you either had control or you didn’t; you were an alcoholic or you weren’t—but experts now describe a spectrum. An estimated 18 million Americans suffer from alcohol-use disorder, as the DSM-5, the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual, calls it. (The new term replaces the older alcohol abuse and the much more dated alcoholism, which has been out of favor with researchers for decades.) Only about 15 percent of those with alcohol-use disorder are at the severe end of the spectrum. The rest fall somewhere in the mild-to-moderate range, but they have been largely ignored by researchers and clinicians. Both groups—the hard-core abusers and the more moderate overdrinkers—need more-individualized treatment options. The United States already spends about $35 billion a year on alcohol- and substance-abuse treatment, yet heavy drinking causes 88,000 deaths a year—including deaths from car accidents and diseases linked to alcohol. It also costs the country hundreds of billions of dollars in expenses related to health care, criminal justice, motor-vehicle crashes, and lost workplace productivity, according to the CDC. With the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of coverage, it’s time to ask some important questions: Which treatments should we be willing to pay for? Have they been proved effective? And for whom—only those at the extreme end of the spectrum? Or also those in the vast, long-overlooked middle? For a glimpse of how treatment works elsewhere, I traveled to Finland, a country that shares with the United States a history of prohibition (inspired by the American temperance movement, the Finns outlawed alcohol from 1919 to 1932) and a culture of heavy drinking. Finland’s treatment model is based in large part on the work of an American neuroscientist named John David Sinclair. I met with Sinclair in Helsinki in early July. He was battling late-stage prostate cancer, and his thick white hair was cropped short in preparation for chemotherapy. Sinclair has researched alcohol’s effects on the brain since his days as an undergraduate at the University of Cincinnati, where he experimented with rats that had been given alcohol for an extended period. Sinclair expected that after several weeks without booze, the rats would lose their desire for it. Instead, when he gave them alcohol again, they went on week-long benders, drinking far more than they ever had before—more, he says, than any rat had ever been shown to drink. Sinclair called this the alcohol-deprivation effect, and his laboratory results, which have since been confirmed by many other studies, suggested a fundamental flaw in abstinence-based treatment: going cold turkey only intensifies cravings. This discovery helped explain why relapses are common. Sinclair published his findings in a handful of journals and in the early 1970s moved to Finland, drawn by the chance to work in what he considered the best alcohol-research lab in the world, complete with special rats that had been bred to prefer alcohol to water. He spent the next decade researching alcohol and the brain.Sinclair came to believe that people develop drinking problems through a chemical process: each time they drink, the endorphins released in the brain strengthen certain synapses. The stronger these synapses grow, the more likely the person is to think about, and eventually crave, alcohol—until almost anything can trigger a thirst for booze, and drinking becomes compulsive. Sinclair theorized that if you could stop the endorphins from reaching their target, the brain’s opiate receptors, you could gradually weaken the synapses, and the cravings would subside. To test this hypothesis, he administered opioid antagonists—drugs that block opiate receptors—to the specially bred alcohol-loving rats. He found that if the rats took the medication each time they were given alcohol, they gradually drank less and less. He published his findings in peer-reviewed journals beginning in the 1980s. Subsequent studies found that an opioid antagonist called naltrexone was safe and effective for humans, and Sinclair began working with clinicians in Finland. He suggested prescribing naltrexone for patients to take an hour before drinking. As their cravings subsided, they could then learn to control their consumption. Numerous clinical trials have confirmed that the method is effective, and in 2001 Sinclair published a paper in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism reporting a 78 percent success rate in helping patients reduce their drinking to about 10 drinks a week. Some stopped drinking entirely.I visited one of three private treatment centers, called the Contral Clinics, that Sinclair co-founded in Finland. (There’s an additional one in Spain.) In the past 18 years, more than 5,000 Finns have gone to the Contral Clinics for help with a drinking problem. Seventy-five percent of them have had success reducing their consumption to a safe level. [...] In the United States, doctors generally prescribe naltrexone for daily use and tell patients to avoid alcohol, instead of instructing them to take the drug anytime they plan to drink, as Sinclair would advise. There is disagreement among experts about which approach is better—Sinclair is adamant that American doctors are missing the drug’s full potential—but both seem to work: naltrexone has been found to reduce drinking in more than a dozen clinical trials, including a large-scale one funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that was published in JAMA in 2006. The results have been largely overlooked. Less than 1 percent of people treated for alcohol problems in the United States are prescribed naltrexone or any other drug shown to help control drinking. To understand why, you have to first understand the history. The American approach to treatment for drinking problems has roots in the country’s long-standing love-hate relationship with booze. The first settlers arrived with a great thirst for whiskey and hard cider, and in the early days of the republic, alcohol was one of the few beverages that was reliably safe from contamination. (It was also cheaper than coffee or tea.) The historian W. J. Rorabaugh has estimated that between the 1770s and 1830s, the average American over age 15 consumed at least five gallons of pure alcohol a year—the rough equivalent of three shots of hard liquor a day. Religious fervor, aided by the introduction of public water-filtration systems, helped galvanize the temperance movement, which culminated in 1920 with Prohibition. That experiment ended after 14 years, but the drinking culture it fostered—secrecy and frenzied bingeing—persists.In 1934, just after Prohibition’s repeal, a failed stockbroker named Bill Wilson staggered into a Manhattan hospital. Wilson was known to drink two quarts of whiskey a day, a habit he’d attempted to kick many times. He was given the hallucinogen belladonna, an experimental treatment for addictions, and from his hospital bed he called out to God to loosen alcohol’s grip. He reported seeing a flash of light and feeling a serenity he had never before experienced. He quit booze for good. The next year, he co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous. He based its principles on the beliefs of the evangelical Oxford Group, which taught that people were sinners who, through confession and God’s help, could right their paths. AA filled a vacuum in the medical world, which at the time had few answers for heavy drinkers. In 1956, the American Medical Association named alcoholism a disease, but doctors continued to offer little beyond the standard treatment that had been around for decades: detoxification in state psychiatric wards or private sanatoriums. As Alcoholics Anonymous grew, hospitals began creating “alcoholism wards,” where patients detoxed but were given no other medical treatment. Instead, AA members—who, as part of the 12 steps, pledge to help other alcoholics—appeared at bedsides and invited the newly sober to meetings. A public-relations specialist and early AA member named Marty Mann worked to disseminate the group’s main tenet: that alcoholics had an illness that rendered them powerless over booze. Their drinking was a disease, in other words, not a moral failing. Paradoxically, the prescription for this medical condition was a set of spiritual steps that required accepting a higher power, taking a “fearless moral inventory,” admitting “the exact nature of our wrongs,” and asking God to remove all character defects. Mann helped ensure that these ideas made their way to Hollywood. In 1945’s The Lost Weekend, a struggling novelist tries to loosen his writer’s block with booze, to devastating effect. In Days of Wine and Roses, released in 1962, Jack Lemmon slides into alcoholism along with his wife, played by Lee Remick. He finds help through AA, but she rejects the group and loses her family. Mann also collaborated with a physiologist named E. M. Jellinek. Mann was eager to bolster the scientific claims behind AA, and Jellinek wanted to make a name for himself in the growing field of alcohol research. In 1946, Jellinek published the results of a survey mailed to 1,600 AA members. Only 158 were returned. Jellinek and Mann jettisoned 45 that had been improperly completed and another 15 filled out by women, whose responses were so unlike the men’s that they risked complicating the results. From this small sample—98 men—Jellinek drew sweeping conclusions about the “phases of alcoholism,” which included an unavoidable succession of binges that led to blackouts, “indefinable fears,” and hitting bottom. Though the paper was filled with caveats about its lack of scientific rigor, it became AA gospel. Jellinek, however, later tried to distance himself from this work, and from Alcoholics Anonymous. His ideas came to be illustrated by a chart showing how alcoholics progressed from occasionally drinking for relief, to sneaking drinks, to guilt, and so on until they hit bottom (“complete defeat admitted”) and then recovered. If you could locate yourself even early in the downward trajectory on that curve, you could see where your drinking was headed. In 1952, Jellinek noted that the word alcoholic had been adopted to describe anyone who drank excessively. He warned that overuse of that word would undermine the disease concept. He later beseeched AA to stay out of the way of scientists trying to do objective research. [...] As the rehab industry began expanding in the 1970s, its profit motives dovetailed nicely with AA’s view that counseling could be delivered by people who had themselves struggled with addiction, rather than by highly trained (and highly paid) doctors and mental-health professionals. No other area of medicine or counseling makes such allowances. There is no mandatory national certification exam for addiction counselors. The 2012 Columbia University report on addiction medicine found that only six states required alcohol- and substance-abuse counselors to have at least a bachelor’s degree and that only one state, Vermont, required a master’s degree. Fourteen states had no license requirements whatsoever—not even a GED or an introductory training course was necessary—and yet counselors are often called on by the judicial system and medical boards to give expert opinions on their clients’ prospects for recovery. Mark Willenbring, the St. Paul psychiatrist, winced when I mentioned this. “What’s wrong,” he asked me rhetorically, “with people with no qualifications or talents—other than being recovering alcoholics—being licensed as professionals with decision-making authority over whether you are imprisoned or lose your medical license?

#ref

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angel-scythe · 5 years

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Chloe : Chapter 21

Hi people!

Here I am again! This time for Chloe! I was so excited to post this chapter (and can’t wait to post the next one)

I hope you’ll love it!!

As you know, push my door or just keep reading!

| °|

8th December, 07:27

“Good morning, sleepy head.”

A soft kiss was pressed against Gavin’s cheek.

The Detective groaned and opened a lid. He then saw Connor’s soft face.

“It’s already almost seven and half a.m.”

“What?!”

Gavin got up quickly. So quickly he hit his forehead with Connor’s one.

“AOUTCH!! Fucking dipshit!”

“Your daughter is right here.”

“Sh… sheriously?”

Gavin rubbed his forehead and he moaned from pain.

“I prepared the breakfast and Elizabeth already took it. I’ll bring her to school if you want to. I already checked for the bus, there are five available to arrive in time. You can take your time to eat and go to the precinct, I’ll rejoin you there?”

“Why?”

“Because you fall asleep at five a.m. and twelve. You needed sleep.”

“You’re cute… okay. Let’s do that but don’t do it too much. It’s not your job.”

“If it’s your daughter, it became my job. A little. since I care about you.”

Gavin sat up a little straighter and kissed Connor, putting his hand on his hair, keeping him near him. He loved to feel him near him and he was sweet, adorable. And he wasn’t a bitch like the David’s bitch.

15th December, 09:02

Connor could recognize the band Fall Out Boys Gavin always listened to since he grew up with it and has a special care for it. However, he didn’t seem to enjoy the music this time. He was watching Kamski’s house. They got the appointment and for this time, he rid of Felix. They search very too much in the country for Chloe’s classmates. In fact, they obligated some to come in Detroit because it would be impossible to go at every point.

In the end, it was still the same things. Nobody seemed to have attacked the ST200s. They asked everyone they could at New-Jericho, who had to come at the precinct too, and they even had a new murder. Even with the record, Felix didn’t seem to find. However, this time, the lady was drowned and certainly by a woman. It was impossible to see correctly and with the stature, it looked like a woman.

“You don’t want to go out?”

“I don’t like Kamski.”

“You see all your classmate and you had a good behavior, as Felix said, why not this one? You didn’t look to like the others.”

“Yeah… It certainly because this fuckers had created Androids?”

“Gavin…”

Connor bent over on him and kissed him softly in the corner of the lips and he caressed his cheeks.

“You can do it.”

“Do…” Gavin frowned. “Do you doubt of me?! Do you think I need your crap?”

“Hum… Yes?” Connor smiled and bent a little more to kiss him. “You would get up, then?”

“I can but now, I guess I need a little more strength.”

“You won’t pass, you know?” Connor kissed him, feeling his hand on his nape. “Plus, we’re already late.”

“Don’t care.” Gavin kissed him and pressed him to come on his lap.

Connor replied to the sweet gesture and moved on his knees in his perfect suit. He moved the hand and pressed the button that opened the door. With a last kiss, he jumped on the ground, leaving Gavin pretty disappointed. He wasn’t impatient at all to go to Kamski’s. But seems he really hadn’t the choice. The Android already walked toward the house to ring the bell.

Gavin sighed and got out of the car. He locked it after having closed the door and walked to rejoin his partner. In both way since they were together since almost two weeks. In fact, Elizabeth wasn’t at home for this week but Connor still passed one night. Gavin didn’t let him go more to be honest, because Connor deserved to be with his dad, even if he didn’t say so explicitly. However, they got to the bathroom few times for kisses or just staying together, as long as nobody came in the WCs too. They still hoped Wilson will say nothing about them in a cabinet. And the look on their faces when they have leaving it.

Oh God, it was the lunch break and they could do whatever they wanted.

The door opened on a ST200. Connor didn’t recognize her, her mind, she should be a new one. Her hairs were short and pretty messy but in a cute way. She was wearing a warm pullover and a pretty jean in a light tone.

“You must be Detective Connor Anderson and Detective Gavin Reed?”

“Indeed,” Connor replied with a smile.

Gavin only shrugged in his dark pullover on his jeans a quite destroyed. It wasn’t for a style, looking thug or whatever. It was just worn by the time and because he wore it too much. He still has his maroon vest.

“Come, Mister Kamski is waiting for you. You’re late,” she added with a little smile.

“Yes, sorry. We needed just more time. I hope Mister Kamski won’t reproach it to us?”

Gavin sighed while the ST200 shook her head.

She moved to let them enter and closed after them. She brought them in a room. Not in the pool room but in a living room. And it was so rich. There was sixth white sofa with expensive leather. There were pictures everywhere, beautiful artwork in blue shade, sculpture and a huge TV screen. It was so big. Almost as big as Gavin’s apartment. A rich coffee table was there between the sofas. Elijah was already there and the lady came to pour milk on green ice cube.

“Can we bring you something, Detective… Reed? What you want, you’ll get it.”

“Well… one million dollars?”

Elijah laughed.

“Sorry, but no. Only drink or food if you prefer it. Connor, do you want something with thirium?”

“Thank you, Mister Kamski. I don’t know what you have?”

“I’ve a hot thiriuma with thirium cream. It’s new and you’ll love it, I think.”

“Thanks.”

“And I’ll take coffee. Anything with coffee,” Gavin said, looking the weird stuff Elijah Kamski was drinking.

“Okay. Kleopatra, please?”

“Yes, Mister Kamski.”

She bent over and then left.

“She’s nice. We saw a lot of ST200 lastly…” Connor started.

“I heard about that weird case,” the man said.

Connor was surprise because the man looked sadder than the last time. The last time he was just gorgeous, class and he had an aura and there…

“In fact, I know everything about those murders and attacks. Every one.”

“We know some of the girls whom were attacked. Some whom used to live here? Can I ask why you let them leave? You used to protect them, isn’t it?”

Elijah nodded, taking his drink to sip a little. There were cookies on the table and they looked delicious. Gavin bent over to stole one.

“Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to save every of them. The model expended more than I thought and I certainly not expected so much aggression on this model in particular.” He wringed his strange psychedelic glass.

“Why did Chloe leave?” Connor asked.

“Because when the revolution came, when the Android received rights, she wanted to discover the world. She knows it’s not because the USA agreed for the respect of Android she’ll received it everywhere but she needed to see what I talked about. What television talked about. And she asked me to leave. Why I would keep her against her will?”

“You did that because she looks like your sister, isn’t it?” Gavin asked “She was mean to replace her.”

“Not replace her,” Kamski said. “Fill the absence.”

“And now her replica just go away too?” Reed said.

Kleopatra arrived with drinks she put before the two cops. She offered a little dished with thirium-biscuit for Connor who thanked her.

“Do you ever felt anger against her?”

“Are you trying to say I’m the weirdo who attacked the ST200?” Elijah asked harshly. “I would never. I protect them.”

“Why? Because you fail to protect Chloe Kamski?”

Connor looked toward Gavin and put a hand on his wrist.

“Mister Kamski… You know what happened to Chloe Kamski, isn’t it? Your sister…”

“No. She left home one day and I never see her again.”

“Mister Kamski,” Connor said again. “Can you tell us what happened that day? Anything could help us. Felix, The RK900, and Gavin asked every of your classmates and even some of your family member and did not find it…”

“Why did she left… that’s the question?”

“Yes.”

Kamski looked troubled.

“I don’t know.”

Gavin jammed his teeth.

“You don’t know what’s happened that day? I thought you were a fucking genius!”

The man looked doubtful then he sighed.

“The day she left, it was few days after our birthday. In July, as you know it. She just turned eighteen and we were in the house I bought to my parents with the money I already made by this time. We lived with our parents but we thought about taking something else. I was working on my real first Android. The one you know as Chloe. That day, she talked with my parents in the living room. They were really angry. I don’t know why…”

“You don’t know?” Gavin cut. “She didn’t tell it to you?”

Kamski shook his head.

“She was shocked, visage covered by blood…”

“Excuse me. You joined them in the living room?” Connor asked.

“She joined me in the part of the house I used as lab.”

“Okay. Excuse me for the intervention.”

Elijah made a little gesture to say it was nothing but it seems it was. In his eyes, you could see he was quite lost in his past.

“She has the face covered by blood, nose broken and she asked me to do something. Put the parents outside, anything. I’d be glad to do it for her but I didn’t understand what happened. I asked her but she was talking nonsense. I didn’t understand…”

“As a 171 IQ?” Gavin said harshly.

“Yes.”

“What did she said?” Connor asked. “It’s important. Maybe it could help with this case.”

“I can’t remember correctly. They… hit her because if she continued that way, she’ll just proof she wasn’t human.” Kamski looked his glass, couldn’t even sip on it. “Yes… My parents call her “it” since this day and act like she is nothing. Lately, we talked about her because of Chloe, the Android, and they say my Androids were more Humans than her.” He looked up to one and the other. “I don’t understand because she is so perfect, beautiful, intelligent, warm-hearted… everything you could imagine for the perfect woman. She even used to protect me and to drive hours to come at the university see me.”

“But you didn’t help her,” Gavin said.

“I didn’t understand. I don’t understand. I said it to her and… she said she couldn’t live like that. I followed her and my parents caught her, insult her and hit her. Again and again. I tried to intervene once but my father, I think, hit me and… I don’t remember well, she just ran away and I never saw her again.”

Connor looked toward Gavin as Elijah looked really bad. It was a knowledge that, for him, his real first Android was Chloe. So he suffered really of this lose.

“You don’t know who could hate her enough to destroy everything looking like her?”

Elijah shook his head.

“She’s perfect. Who could want to kill her? You couldn’t, right?”

“I couldn’t kill someone,” replied Connor.

Gavin frowned.

“You know from the beginning that we are alive. And you know, too, that Chloe, the Android, is not your sister.”

“I know, Connor. But she was the Love of my life.”

“Okay. Let’s go. Thanks for the coffee.”

Gavin got up and went to the door. Connor frowned and got up too.

“Thank you. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.” He bent a little and followed Gavin outside. He didn’t need the help of Kleopatra for that.

Outside, Gavin was ruffling his picket and took a packet. Tiny packet full of cigarettes. Without thinking twice, he closed the distance between them and snatched the box to crush it under his feet.

“What the fuck, you trash?!”

“I’m not a trash, I’m your boyfriend! And now, tell me why you did not stay? Was it the problem! You scream everywhere that Chloe is dead? Why can’t you tell to him?”

“Tss! Doesn’t want to have an Android armada on my back!”

“Gavin!”

The man was walking toward his car. He didn’t have gum with him right now, only in the glove box.

The Android followed him, letting the packet in the snow. It was snowed in fact.

“Since the beginning, I knew you were bond to this case, Gavin.”

“What?”

The cop turned to him.

“I know you’re the one who killed Chloe Kamski.”

Gavin looked him, eyebrow frowned and smirk on his lips.

“You do?”

Connor nodded.

#It's on a3 #dbh #Detroit become Human #Gavin reed #Connor RK800 #Elijah Kamski #Gavin x Connor #Gavnor #Convin #OMG #plottwist

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it1776 · 3 years

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https://it1776.com Free shipping from USA! Buy cheap affordable gamepads, gaming keyboard, headsets, gaming mouses, sound bar, sports headphones, wireless headphones

- Hey, guys, this is Austin.

This is the brand new Series 2 Edition

of the Xbox Elite controller, which has got me thinking.

Kevin, what is the best controller that I can buy right now?

- Well, we got a different couple options to talk about here

so let's round 'em up and see.

(imitates music)

? Kevin Kenson music, Kevin Kenson music, ?

? Kevin Kenson music, do do doo ?

The benchmark that I compare every single controller to

is the current generation Xbox One.

Now, it's seen some updates over the last few years,

like Bluetooth and an audio jack,

you also have the Design Lab.

But this is always what I compare things to.

Kev, why am I wrong?

- I mean, look, the standard Xbox One controller

is a great controller.

When it comes to just the baseline models

that come with systems

this is honestly my my personal favorite as well.

- [Austin] Same, yeah.

- But there's a lot of room for improvement still

and there's a lot of things that have kind of become more

common and popular amongst pro controllers

that aren't necessarily feasible

in an affordable regular baseline like this one.

- Such as.

- Such as Microsoft's own Xbox One Elite 2.

Honestly, we could talk all day

about the special features and things.

I think the main kind of take away points

aside from just general build quality,

multiple sticks you can use, multiple D-pads, back paddles.

Which are pretty common across a lot of these ones.

The big stuff for this too though

is the unique customization features

that are in the Xbox Accessories app

where you can do things like button remapping,

adding a Shift button options, stick acceleration,

lots of crazy in depth stuff.

- And of course, this works across the Xbox

as well as the PC and those settings that you sync

will actually work across consoles as well.

Or across, did I just call PC a console?

I mean, across systems, across platforms.

- Identity crisis.

So aside from the Elite 2

the other one we have here is the Prestige.

Now, this is the newest one from Scuf

I'd mentioned earlier

and the main thing with this

is that this is a modified Xbox One controller

so it still has the same core base in it,

which is really cool actually

'cause that means you can use it with the Xbox One,

the upcoming Project Scarlet, PC, whatever,

if it works with Xbox controller it'll work with this.

One of the cool things about it

is how you can further modify it.

If you wanna change the sticks or anything

you actually just pop off the faceplate.

- That's cool.

- And this is how you can swap out the sticks.

You can also switch out the D-pad,

although I think you can just do that

from having this faceplate on as well.

So this one has four adjustable paddles,

you can take them off if you don't wanna use them.

- [Austin] The problem though

is that this is expensive, right?

this is actually around the same price

as the Elite controller?

- So, it's 20 bucks cheaper

if you just buy the base model unmodified.

But one of the big things about Scuf

is how you wanna customize it to make it your own design

so depending on if you want certain colors,

special designs, different sticks,

depending on all the things you modify and do to it

it can end up adding up to being quite more money.

- So I get that you're really excited

about your controllers and everything

but really everyone knows the superior way

to play any kind of game is using a mouse and keyboard.

Which I so helpfully have provided

with the Razer Turret.

- [Ken] You said this was controller video.

- This works with an Xbox, I can control my games with it,

I think that counts.

- [Ken] What is wrong with you?

- Can I bring in a racing wheel next then?

- There's a cursor inside the game.

It's almost as if I'm playing on a PC called the Xbox.

- Now to be clear, this is because the Xbox

actually does support keyboard and mouse,

it doesn't have to necessarily be the Turret

but the Turret is an awesome controller design

specifically for the Xbox in mind.

- 'Cause essentially you're getting

like a proper Razer keyboard

that's built into this little platform.

And then you have the mouse which is magnetic

so you can actually kind of.

You have a little like mousepad.

So if I was sitting.

- Come on, do it, yep.

Yeah, squat work out!

- This is the way all true gamers play.

So the Turret is certainly not cheap.

At $250 this is probably the most expensive thing here.

So the thing with the Turret is that

you really shouldn't use this

as purely like an Xbox controller.

I mean, you can use it like that, certainly.

But it sorta makes more sense

if you have like a PC and an Xbox

and you wanna have everything

kind of unified into one setup.

- Or if you just really love playing

just Fortnite all the time

and you wanna keyboard and mouse set up.

- And you don't wanna use a PC.

- Yeah, that's really popular.

Now over on the PlayStation side of things

we of course have the DualShock 4.

A perfectly respectable controller, it's good, fine,

but it's not really great, it's really super impressive

which is why I'm really curious,

especially to play with this Raiju.

- So actually, real quick before focusing in the Raiju,

I think something that's interesting about PlayStation

is that on Xbox you saw some similarities

with the two controllers we were trying,

they were both based on the standard Xbox design.

All three of these are very different.

All three pro controllers we're looking at

are very different approaches

of how to make a pro controller.

- This doesn't work.

- Does it not work or did you not log in properly to...

- You would be correct, I didn't log in correctly.

- There you go.

- Kevin Kenson, PlayStation expert.

- So the deal with the Raiju is that

at least out of the different pro controllers

we're looking at today,

it's the least physically customizable.

There's a little bit you can do,

you can swap out that D-pad, it does have some other sticks.

But the really heavy focus is on

just straight up the build quality.

- It's so sturdy, this to me out of all these controllers

is the only one that feels on par

with the Xbox Elite controllers

as far as just like, it's beefy, it feels heavy,

it feels like this is something I can throw across the room

in a fit of rage after I lose in Fortnite

and it'll be just fine.

- The table that it hits won't be, but yes,

the controller will survive.

- Now, you know, I totally get that customization is great

and for some people, especially with like the Scuf stuff

you can go really over the top.

But for me, I'm one of those guys

who wants to walk into Subway

and order the sandwich just as it comes.

When I go into Blaze Pizza I'm like,

I just want a pizza with pepperoni on it.

I get overwhelmed with too much choice and you know what,

this doesn't have too much choice.

I just pick up the controller, I'm like,

look, someone smarter than me designed this.

Sweet, I'm on board.

- Of the controllers we have out here today

I think this the only,

is this the only one that we're talking about?

- [Ken] Yeah.

- This is the only one we're talking about

that is actually not available normally in North America.

You can get it, you just have to import it

which also means you're probably gonna spend

a little more money than the actual MSRP lists.

- How much is it if I wasn't importing it,

like say if I'm in Europe,

how much does this controller cost?

- Well you know, that was something I planned on checking

when we weren't filming earlier and hold on a moment please.

- That's fine, I gotta kill some droids.

- Now the Scuf Vantage, really almost the opposite

of what the Raiju is.

While the Raiju is focused on minimal physical customization

but having lots of just high build quality,

the Vantage is all about modular design.

Kind of like what we saw with the Prestige,

you can take the faceplate off.

- That's cool.

- But on this one you can swap the sticks, the D-pad,

and even take out the rumble motors if you want.

Kinda like we were talking with the Prestige earlier,

with Scuf things are so customizable

there's not really one set price.

There's a starting price.

If you get a wired version of this it starts at 170.

If you get a wired wireless version it's 200.

- I will say that so far this is still my favorite.

- I will admit, personally, that's my top as well,

for the PlayStation at least.

And actually let's go ahead and talk about

this last guy then.

- [Austin] So, you need a screwdriver

to work on this guy I see.

- Yeah, so there's a faceplate that locks in,

it keeps all the modules, as they pop out.

So you can do things like, lets say you like offset sticks,

you can have this set up.

Or if you don't, take that off, swap 'em,

and now you have symmetrical.

But I like offset so I'm gonna put it back.

- [Austin] I'm afraid to ask,

how much does the Astro C40 cost?

- Well the C40 is $200 for the base design

and it does not include all the different swappable parts.

So if you wanna get all the different D-pads

and all the different sticks it's gonna be a little more.

We have fewer controllers to talk about for Switch

than we do for Xbox and PlayStation

so I came up with a solution, I got one more.

- Okay, I mean, you've done a video

on every like Switch controller ever so.

(electronic music)

What is this slime thing?

- That, my friend, you are holding the one, the only,

HORI Slime controller for Switch.

- [Ken] I love that!

- Why? - It's adorable.

- This is not meant for human hands!

- It is not comfortable but it is amazing.

I should note that I guess kinda like the Raiju

we were talking about earlier,

this is a Japanese exclusive so if you want one of these

you are gonna have to pay top dollar to import it.

- How much is this really?

How much did you pay for it?

- I wanna say I paid 80.

- Oh.

After these $200 stupid controllers

$80 for a joke is, well, it's actually wait,

no, that's still a joke.

Can we look at some real controllers now?

- How dare you, how dare you. - Insult me.

So for the Switch when it comes to pro controllers

I think the one that really comes closest

to kind of at least capturing the idea right now

is the SN30 Pro Plus from 8BitDo.

- That actually really surprises me

because it's obviously a Super Nintendo style controller

but it has the grips as well as you have the sticks.

And this also works with a pretty wide variety

of different devices, right?

It's not just a Switch controller.

- Yeah, so 8BitDo controllers are designed to work

with the Switch, with PC, Mac, and Android.

- But you said this is 50 bucks, right?

- I believe so, yeah.

- That's not bad, especially considering, I mean,

I've got like $1,000 worth of controllers

on the table right now.

- Yeah, and in terms of what

kind of makes it a pro controller versus say,

using the official pro controller from Nintendo

is that this does offer some of those

special features that people equate with pro controllers,

like you can do things like actually remapping

what all the buttons are.

So if for whatever reason you really want B

to actually be the right trigger button

you can set that up if you like.

- [Austin] Now, obviously this is not as full featured

as the proper pro controller

since you don't have NFC for Amiibo

and you don't have rumble, or do you?

- [Kevin] No, this does have rumble, that's right.

- [Austin] Oh, that's awesome, okay, cool.

- You do have motion controls though.

- Oh, that's cool, okay.

- So this is the Split Pad Pro from HORI

and it's meant to be an alternative to Joy-Cons.

Now, because it is a third party option

it doesn't actually have all the features

that you might get used to seeing in a Joy-Con.

You don't have rumble, you don't have the ability to use

Amiibo scanning, you do have the motion controls still.

But the big trade off for that

is that you actually have a longer--

- It fits your hands. - Yeah.

It's a longer controller that's actually designed

to fit in your hands.

- I mean, look at the difference, right,

it's not even close.

Now, that doesn't necessarily fit in a bag as well

or anything like that but these,

to me the Joy-Cons are fine for a quick game

or if you wanna do some like Just Dance or whatever

but this is not a super comfortable way,

especially when you're using them

even in like a Joy-Con grip.

It's not that great for long periods of time.

- Well, and especially being used in handheld mode

I gotta say that it's not just a matter of the size,

it's not just that the thing is simply bigger,

it's that it actually does have contoured grips

and is designed to fit in your hands a specific way.

It does have remappable buttons on the backside.

Because these are each individual units

you can only remap buttons that are on the same side.

But still, that's better than not having

any remappables at all.

And because it's a HORI controller it has a turbo function.

- Because turbo is what we need.

You can't non-turbo game.

- I mean, if you like turbo, the slime does it.

Wanna use that slime, it's got a turbo button.

- I'm good, you have at it.

Now, if you actually want to use some of these controllers

you might find the sponsor of today's video useful.

This is the brand new Optoma CinemaX P1.

This is a 4K ultra short throw projector

which can go all the way up to a full 120 inch picture.

And the cool part about this

is that you don't have to sacrifice your space.

Even if you have a smaller room or apartment,

you can still get the maximum out of the projector

by putting it just a few inches away.

The picture quality is incredible too.

Not only are you getting an insane amount of brightness

for a projector but it even supports HDR10.

You're also getting an integrated Dolby Digital 2.0 soundbar

with a full 40 watts of power.

Now of course, if you want you can connect it

to a full speaker set up,

but honestly just the way it comes,

it actually works really well

as an all in one entertainment center.

It also supports a variety of streaming services,

you have voice control using Google Home as well as Alexa

and you can also take advantage

of the Info Wall app to fully customize the experience.

If you're looking to up your home theater game

then you should definitely be sure

to check out the Optoma CinemaX P1

at the link in the description,

and again, huge shout out to Optoma

for sponsoring this video.

This excellent bit of consumer advice

has been brought to you by Kevin Kenson,

you can feel free to subscribe to his channel

at YouTube.com/KevinKenson.

Kev, can you please play us out with a little tune maybe,

a song and dance, perhaps an ode to the slime?

- [Kevin] I can set things on fire.

- That's a great alternative.

- [Kevin] Oh, this doesn't have

super reactive environment, I forgot.

- Are you complaining about the Witcher on Switch?

The greatest port of all time

according to everyone on YouTube?

- [Kevin] I mean, it does run great considering.

- It does look like Vaseline was smeared on my TV though.

#Youtube

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