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#Alaska 2019
thorsenmark · 20 days
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Autumn Tundra and Snowcapped Peaks of the Alaska Range (Denali National Park & Preserve)
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Autumn Tundra and Snowcapped Peaks of the Alaska Range (Denali National Park & Preserve) by Mark Stevens
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guiltyidealist · 4 months
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Togo (2019) gifs, courtesy of Movies in Short on YouTube
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Michelle Terri Tugatuk, 31
Last seen in Anchorage, Alaska in 2019.
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neverscreens · 2 years
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- LOOKING FOR ALASKA.
Famous Last Words, 263 Screencaps.
Tell Them I Said Something, 259 Screencaps.
I've Never Felt Better, 266 Screencaps.
The Nourishment Is Palatable, 269 Screencaps.
I'll Show You That It Won’t Shoot, 248 Screencaps.
We Are All Going, 221 Screencaps.
Now Comes the Mystery, 269 Screencaps.
It's Very Beautiful Over There, 298 Screencaps.
Find in GALLERY. Like or reblog the post of it was useful. Your interaction shows me that I should keep making screencaps. And if you want me to post some in separate posts, tell me! ♡
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musicalthought · 2 months
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not to be in love with drag queens on main yet again but uhhhh
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arcenergy · 1 year
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not to sound like a corporate shill but the Plane Company seems like a cool place to work because i Like Airplanes
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lonestarbattleship · 2 years
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USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) transits the Gulf of Alaska after participating in exercise Northern Edge 2019. Northern Edge was one in a series of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command exercises in 2019 that prepares joint forces to respond to crises in the Indo-Pacific region.
Photographed by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Erick A. Parsons on May 25, 2019, link.
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truecrimecrystals · 2 years
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Anesha Murnane vanished under suspicious circumstances on October 17th, 2019. The 38-year-old woman lived at MainTree Apartments in Homer, Alaska at the time of her disappearance. MainTree is a supported living facility that provides housing to individuals with disabilities and beneficiaries of the Alaska Mental Health Trust. Anesha was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was considered a dependent adult, but according to her family members, she was stabilized and doing well at the time she vanished. Anesha was last seen leaving the MainTree apartments shortly after noon on October 17th. Surveillance cameras captured her leaving the building at 12:13 PM. Anesha had a scheduled 1:00 PM appointment at the SVT Health & Wellness clinic on east End Road, and it is presumed that she was walking to that appointment when she left her apartment. Unfortunately, Anesha never made it to her appointment and has never been seen or heard from again.
After Anesha was reported missing, police sent search dogs along the route she would have taken to her appointment. Anesha's scent was tracked throughout the route as expected, but the scent trail ended in front of Pioneer Avenue area near Thai Cosmic Kitchen. Due to this, investigators believe that Anesha was picked up in a car at this location. Anesha's parents have believed that their daughter was abducted since the beginning of the investigation. She has not accessed her cell phone or bank accounts since her disappearance. Anesha also had applied for several jobs before she vanished, and she also had planned trips to Oregon and Mexico. Her plane tickets for both trips were never used.
In June 2021, nearly two years after Anesha vanished, a certificate of presumed death was issued. Under Alaskan law, a person missing for over five years is considered presumed deceased--but families can file a petition for the presumed death certificate before that under certain circumstances. A jury of six people in Homer listened to testimony from detectives, social workers, and from Anesha's parents. Afterwards, the jury ruled that Anesha is presumed deceased--and that she was likely killed by homicide. Although the ruling was bittersweet, Anesha's mother also stated that the ruling validated her belief that Anesha was abducted by someone she knew and then killed. Despite this belief, detectives stated that they currently do not have any suspects in the case. Homer Police are still seeking information about Anesha's disappearance. If you have any information that could help the investigation, please contact the Homer Police Department at 907-235-3150 or the Alaska State Troopers at 907-269-5511.
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redgoldsparks · 11 months
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Transcript below the cut.
instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble
Panel 1: For the second year in a row, Gender Queer was the most challenged book in the US, reported the American Library Association.
Panel 2: It’s been a weird two years. Number of unique titles challenged in the US by year. 2000: 378 titles. 2005: 259 titles. 2010: 262 titles. 2015: 190 titles. 2020: 223 titles. 2021: 1858 titles. 2022: 2571 titles.
Panel 3: It’s been a hard two years. The ACLU is tracking 469 anti-LGBTQ bills in the US.
Panel 4: Usually I prefer to wait until something is over before I write about it, so I have time to reflect. But this experience has not ended.
Panel 5: It has only gotten louder. (A series of screen shoots of news headlines about Gender Queer, book challenges and an obscenity lawsuit against the book being dismissed in the state of Virginia).
Panel 6: I’m constantly wondering, “When should I speak and when should I let the book speak for itself?”
Panel 7: I remember when I realized that the previous most challenged book spent five years in the top five.
2020- Melissa by Alex Gino at #1 2019- Melissa by Alex Gino at #1 2018- Melissa by Alex Gino at #1 2017- Melissa by Alex Gino at #5 2016- Melissa by Alex Gino at #3
Panel 8: Oh, I think I can take my time figuring out how to respond. I think I’m in this for the long haul...
Panel 9: Ways to support libraries and challenged authors: Check out and read challenged books. Vote for and attend library board and school board meetings. Report censorship to the ALA and PEN America. Vote to fund libraries. Speak up against legislation limiting the teaching of queer history, sex ed, abortion and the history of racism in the US.
Panel 10: Most challenged books of 2022:
1. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
2. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M Johnson
3. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
4. Flamer by Mike Curato
5. (tie) Looking For Alaska by John Green
5. (tie) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
7. Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison
8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
9. Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez
10. (tie) A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas
10. (tie) Crank by Ellen Hopkins
10. (tie) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
10. (tie) This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
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octobergemini · 1 year
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thorsenmark · 1 day
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Denali National Park...Providing Mountain Viewing Experiences for a Few Million Years!
flickr
Denali National Park...Providing Mountain Viewing Experiences for a Few Million Years! by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: This was one of the first views that I had of Wonder Lake along the namesake trail from the North Face Lodge area. I had just come through a saddle between two hilltops and had this open plain in front of me with it's amazing view. That is what I was attempting to capture with this image in angling my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward and bring out a sweeping view across the tundra to my front with its vibrant colors of red, orange and yellows. The eyes would definitely be drawn to the waters of the lake and take in the wonder of the snowcapped peaks of Denali and the Alaska Range.
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guiltyidealist · 4 months
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Happy Wolfenoot-- take a Togo (2019) climactic ice scene 1/2
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Tracy Lynn Day, 43
Last seen in Juneau, Alaska in 2019.
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musicalthought · 14 hours
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everytime alaska & willam talk highly of raja on race chaser..........LOVE hearing other people be absolutely in love with raja it's what I deserve
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Conspiratorialism and the epistemological crisis
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I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me next weekend (Mar 30/31) in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON, then in Boston with Randall "XKCD" Munroe! (Apr 11), then Providence (Apr 12), and beyond!
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Last year, Ed Pierson was supposed to fly from Seattle to New Jersey on Alaska Airlines. He boarded his flight, but then he had an urgent discussion with the flight attendant, explaining that as a former senior Boeing engineer, he'd specifically requested that flight because the aircraft wasn't a 737 Max:
https://www.cnn.com/travel/boeing-737-max-passenger-boycott/index.html
But for operational reasons, Alaska had switched out the equipment on the flight and there he was on a 737 Max, about to travel cross-continent, and he didn't feel safe doing so. He demanded to be let off the flight. His bags were offloaded and he walked back up the jetbridge after telling the spooked flight attendant, "I can’t go into detail right now, but I wasn’t planning on flying the Max, and I want to get off the plane."
Boeing, of course, is a flying disaster that was years in the making. Its planes have been falling out of the sky since 2019. Floods of whistleblowers have come forward to say its aircraft are unsafe. Pierson's not the only Boeing employee to state – both on and off the record – that he wouldn't fly on a specific model of Boeing aircraft, or, in some cases any recent Boeing aircraft:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/22/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever/#will-eventually-stop
And yet, for years, Boeing's regulators have allowed the company to keep turning out planes that keep turning out lemons. This is a pretty frightening situation, to say the least. I'm not an aerospace engineer, I'm not an aircraft safety inspector, but every time I book a flight, I have to make a decision about whether to trust Boeing's assurances that I can safely board one of its planes without dying.
In an ideal world, I wouldn't even have to think about this. I'd be able to trust that publicly accountable regulators were on the job, making sure that airplanes were airworthy. "Caveat emptor" is no way to run a civilian aviation system.
But even though I don't have the specialized expertise needed to assess the airworthiness of Boeing planes, I do have the much more general expertise needed to assess the trustworthiness of Boeing's regulator. The FAA has spent years deferring to Boeing, allowing it to self-certify that its aircraft were safe. Even when these assurances led to the death of hundreds of people, the FAA continued to allow Boeing to mark its own homework:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc
What's more, the FAA boss who presided over those hundreds of deaths was an ex-Boeing lobbyist, whom Trump subsequently appointed to run Boeing's oversight. He's not the only ex-insider who ended up a regulator, and there's plenty of ex-regulators now on Boeing's payroll:
https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/boeing-debacle-shows-need-to-investigate-trump-era-corruption/
You don't have to be an aviation expert to understand that companies have conflicts of interest when it comes to certifying their own products. "Market forces" aren't going to keep Boeing from shipping defective products, because the company's top brass are more worried about cashing out with this quarter's massive stock buybacks than they are about their successors' ability to manage the PR storm or Congressional hearings after their greed kills hundreds and hundreds of people.
You also don't have to be an aviation expert to understand that these conflicts persist even when a Boeing insider leaves the company to work for its regulators, or vice-versa. A regulator who anticipates a giant signing bonus from Boeing after their term in office, or a an ex-Boeing exec who holds millions in Boeing stock has an irreconcilable conflict of interest that will make it very hard – perhaps impossible – for them to hold the company to account when it trades safety for profit.
It's not just Boeing customers who feel justifiably anxious about trusting a system with such obvious conflicts of interest: Boeing's own executives, lobbyists and lawyers also refuse to participate in similarly flawed systems of oversight and conflict resolution. If Boeing was sued by its shareholders and the judge was also a pissed off Boeing shareholder, they would demand a recusal. If Boeing was looking for outside counsel to represent it in a liability suit brought by the family of one of its murder victims, they wouldn't hire the firm that was suing them – not even if that firm promised to be fair. If a Boeing executive's spouse sued for divorce, that exec wouldn't use the same lawyer as their soon-to-be-ex.
Sure, it takes specialized knowledge and training to be a lawyer, a judge, or an aircraft safety inspector. But anyone can look at the system those experts work in and spot its glaring defects. In other words, while acquiring expertise is hard, it's much easier to spot weaknesses in the process by which that expertise affects the world around us.
And therein lies the problem: aviation isn't the only technically complex, potentially lethal, and utterly, obviously untrustworthy system we all have to navigate. How about the building safety codes that governed the structure you're in right now? Plenty of people have blithely assumed that structural engineers carefully designed those standards, and that these standards were diligently upheld, only to discover in tragic, ghastly ways that this was wrong:
https://www.bbc.com/news/64568826
There are dozens – hundreds! – of life-or-death, highly technical questions you have to resolve every day just to survive. Should you trust the antilock braking firmware in your car? How about the food hygiene rules in the factories that produced the food in your shopping cart? Or the kitchen that made the pizza that was just delivered? Is your kid's school teaching them well, or will they grow up to be ignoramuses and thus economic roadkill?
Hell, even if I never get into another Boeing aircraft, I live in the approach path for Burbank airport, where Southwest lands 50+ Boeing flights every day. How can I be sure that the next Boeing 737 Max that falls out of the sky won't land on my roof?
This is the epistemological crisis we're living through today. Epistemology is the process by which we know things. The whole point of a transparent, democratically accountable process for expert technical deliberation is to resolve the epistemological challenge of making good choices about all of these life-or-death questions. Even the smartest person among us can't learn to evaluate all those questions, but we can all look at the process by which these questions are answered and draw conclusions about its soundness.
Is the process public? Are the people in charge of it forthright? Do they have conflicts of interest, and, if so, do they sit out any decision that gives even the appearance of impropriety? If new evidence comes to light – like, say, a horrific disaster – is there a way to re-open the process and change the rules?
The actual technical details might be a black box for us, opaque and indecipherable. But the box itself can be easily observed: is it made of sturdy material? Does it have sharp corners and clean lines? Or is it flimsy, irregular and torn? We don't have to know anything about the box's contents to conclude that we don't trust the box.
For example: we may not be experts in chemical engineering or water safety, but we can tell when a regulator is on the ball on these issues. Back in 2019, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection sought comment on its water safety regs. Dow Chemical – the largest corporation in the state's largest industry – filed comments arguing that WV should have lower standards for chemical contamination in its drinking water.
Now, I'm perfectly prepared to believe that there are safe levels of chemical runoff in the water supply. There's a lot of water in the water supply, after all, and "the dose makes the poison." What's more, I use the products whose manufacture results in that chemical waste. I want them to be made safely, but I do want them to be made – for one thing, the next time I have surgery, I want the anesthesiologist to start an IV with fresh, sterile plastic tubing.
And I'm not a chemist, let alone a water chemist. Neither am I a toxicologist. There are aspects of this debate I am totally unqualified to assess. Nevertheless, I think the WV process was a bad one, and here's why:
https://www.wvma.com/press/wvma-news/4244-wvma-statement-on-human-health-criteria-development
That's Dow's comment to the regulator (as proffered by its mouthpiece, the WV Manufacturers' Association, which it dominates). In that comment, Dow argues that West Virginians safely can absorb more poison than other Americans, because the people of West Virginia are fatter than other Americans, and so they have more tissue and thus a better ratio of poison to person than the typical American. But they don't stop there! They also say that West Virginians don't drink as much water as their out-of-state cousins, preferring to drink beer instead, so even if their water is more toxic, they'll be drinking less of it:
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/03/14/the-real-elitists-looking-down-on-trump-voters/
Even without any expertise in toxicology or water chemistry, I can tell that these are bullshit answers. The fact that the WV regulator accepted these comments tells me that they're not a good regulator. I was in WV last year to give a talk, and I didn't drink the tap water.
It's totally reasonable for non-experts to reject the conclusions of experts when the process by which those experts resolve their disagreements is obviously corrupt and irredeemably flawed. But some refusals carry higher costs – both for the refuseniks and the people around them – than my switching to bottled water when I was in Charleston.
Take vaccine denial (or "hesitancy"). Many people greeted the advent of an extremely rapid, high-tech covid vaccine with dread and mistrust. They argued that the pharma industry was dominated by corrupt, greedy corporations that routinely put their profits ahead of the public's safety, and that regulators, in Big Pharma's pocket, let them get away with mass murder.
The thing is, all that is true. Look, I've had five covid vaccinations, but not because I trust the pharma industry. I've had direct experience of how pharma sacrifices safety on greed's altar, and narrowly avoided harm myself. I have had chronic pain problems my whole life, and they've gotten worse every year. When my daughter was on the way, I decided this was going to get in the way of my ability to parent – I wanted to be able to carry her for long stretches! – and so I started aggressively pursuing the pain treatments I'd given up on many years before.
My journey led me to many specialists – physios, dieticians, rehab specialists, neurologists, surgeons – and I tried many, many therapies. Luckily, my wife had private insurance – we were in the UK then – and I could go to just about any doctor that seemed promising. That's how I found myself in the offices of a Harley Street quack, a prominent pain specialist, who had great news for me: it turned out that opioids were way safer than had previously been thought, and I could just take opioids every day and night for the rest of my life without any serious risk of addiction. It would be fine.
This sounded wrong to me. I'd lost several friends to overdoses, and watched others spiral into miserable lives as they struggled with addiction. So I "did my own research." Despite not having a background in chemistry, biology, neurology or pharmacology, I struggled through papers and read commentary and came to the conclusion that opioids weren't safe at all. Rather, corrupt billionaire pharma owners like the Sackler family had colluded with their regulators to risk the lives of millions by pushing falsified research that was finding publication in some of the most respected, peer-reviewed journals in the world.
I became an opioid denier, in other words.
I decided, based on my own research, that the experts were wrong, and that they were wrong for corrupt reasons, and that I couldn't trust their advice.
When anti-vaxxers decried the covid vaccines, they said things that were – in form at least – indistinguishable from the things I'd been saying 15 years earlier, when I decided to ignore my doctor's advice and throw away my medication on the grounds that it would probably harm me.
For me, faith in vaccines didn't come from a broad, newfound trust in the pharmaceutical system: rather, I judged that there was so much scrutiny on these new medications that it would overwhelm even pharma's ability to corruptly continue to sell a medication that they secretly knew to be harmful, as they'd done so many times before:
https://www.npr.org/2007/11/10/5470430/timeline-the-rise-and-fall-of-vioxx
But many of my peers had a different take on anti-vaxxers: for these friends and colleagues, anti-vaxxers were being foolish. Surprisingly, these people I'd long felt myself in broad agreement with began to defend the pharmaceutical system and its regulators. Once they saw that anti-vaxx was a wedge issue championed by right-wing culture war shitheads, they became not just pro-vaccine, but pro-pharma.
There's a name for this phenomenon: "schismogenesis." That's when you decide how you feel about an issue based on who supports it. Think of self-described "progressives" who became cheerleaders for the America's cruel, ruthless and lawless "intelligence community" when it seemed that US spooks were bent on Trump's ouster:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/
The fact that the FBI didn't like Trump didn't make them allies of progressive causes. This was and is the same entity that (among other things) tried to blackmail Martin Luther King, Jr into killing himself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter
But schismogenesis isn't merely a reactionary way of flip-flopping on issues based on reflexive enmity. It's actually a reasonable epistemological tactic: in a world where there are more issues you need to be clear on than you can possibly inform yourself about, you need some shortcuts. One shortcut – a shortcut that's failing – is to say, "Well, I'll provisionally believe whatever the expert system tells me is true." Another shortcut is, "I will provisionally disbelieve in whatever the people I know to act in bad faith are saying is true." That is, "schismogenesis."
Schismogenesis isn't a great tactic. It would be far better if we had a set of institutions we could all largely trust – if the black boxes where expert debate took place were sturdy, rectilinear and sharp-cornered.
But they're not. They're just not. Our regulatory process sucks. Corporate concentration makes it trivial for cartels to capture their regulators and steer them to conclusions that benefit corporate shareholders even if that means visiting enormous harm – even mass death – on the public:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/
No one hates Big Tech more than I do, but many of my co-belligerents in the war on Big Tech believe that the rise of conspiratorialism can be laid at tech platforms' feet. They say that Big Tech boasts of how good they are at algorithmically manipulating our beliefs, and attribute Qanons, flat earthers, and other outlandish conspiratorial cults to the misuse off those algorithms.
"We built a Big Data mind-control ray" is one of those extraordinary claims that requires extraordinary evidence. But the evidence for Big Tech's persuasion machines is very poor: mostly, it consists of tech platforms' own boasts to potential investors and customers for their advertising products. "We can change peoples' minds" has long been the boast of advertising companies, and it's clear that they can change the minds of customers for advertising.
Think of department store mogul John Wanamaker, who famously said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Today – thanks to commercial surveillance – we know that the true proportion of wasted advertising spending is more like 99.9%. Advertising agencies may be really good at convincing John Wanamaker and his successors, through prolonged, personal, intense selling – but that doesn't mean they're able to sell so efficiently to the rest of us with mass banner ads or spambots:
http://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism
In other words, the fact that Facebook claims it is really good at persuasion doesn't mean that it's true. Just like the AI companies who claim their chatbots can do your job: they are much better at convincing your boss (who is insatiably horny for firing workers) than they are at actually producing an algorithm that can replace you. What's more, their profitability relies far more on convincing a rich, credulous business executive that their product works than it does on actually delivering a working product.
Now, I do think that Facebook and other tech giants play an important role in the rise of conspiratorial beliefs. However, that role isn't using algorithms to persuade people to mistrust our institutions. Rather Big Tech – like other corporate cartels – has so corrupted our regulatory system that they make trusting our institutions irrational.
Think of federal privacy law. The last time the US got a new federal consumer privacy law was in 1988, when Congress passed the Video Privacy Protection Act, a law that prohibits video store clerks from leaking your VHS rental history:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/07/why-vppa-protects-youtube-and-viacom-employees
It's been a minute. There are very obvious privacy concerns haunting Americans, related to those tech giants, and yet the closest Congress can come to doing something about it is to attempt the forced sale of the sole Chinese tech giant with a US footprint to a US company, to ensure that its rampant privacy violations are conducted by our fellow Americans, and to force Chinese spies to buy their surveillance data on millions of Americans in the lawless, reckless swamp of US data-brokerages:
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/14/1238435508/tiktok-ban-bill-congress-china
For millions of Americans – especially younger Americans – the failure to pass (or even introduce!) a federal privacy law proves that our institutions can't be trusted. They're right:
https://www.tiktok.com/@pearlmania500/video/7345961470548512043
Occam's Razor cautions us to seek the simplest explanation for the phenomena we see in the world around us. There's a much simpler explanation for why people believe conspiracy theories they encounter online than the idea that the one time Facebook is telling the truth is when they're boasting about how well their products work – especially given the undeniable fact that everyone else who ever claimed to have perfected mind-control was a fantasist or a liar, from Rasputin to MK-ULTRA to pick-up artists.
Maybe people believe in conspiracy theories because they have hundreds of life-or-death decisions to make every day, and the institutions that are supposed to make that possible keep proving that they can't be trusted. Nevertheless, those decisions have to be made, and so something needs to fill the epistemological void left by the manifest unsoundness of the black box where the decisions get made.
For many people – millions – the thing that fills the black box is conspiracy fantasies. It's true that tech makes finding these conspiracy fantasies easier than ever, and it's true that tech makes forming communities of conspiratorial belief easier, too. But the vulnerability to conspiratorialism that algorithms identify and target people based on isn't a function of Big Data. It's a function of corruption – of life in a world in which real conspiracies (to steal your wages, or let rich people escape the consequences of their crimes, or sacrifice your safety to protect large firms' profits) are everywhere.
Progressives – which is to say, the coalition of liberals and leftists, in which liberals are the senior partners and spokespeople who control the Overton Window – used to identify and decry these conspiracies. But as right wing "populists" declared their opposition to these conspiracies – when Trump damned free trade and the mainstream media as tools of the ruling class – progressives leaned into schismogenesis and declared their vocal support for these old enemies of progress.
This is the crux of Naomi Klein's brilliant 2023 book Doppelganger: that as the progressive coalition started supporting these unworthy and broken institutions, the right spun up "mirror world" versions of their critique, distorted versions that focus on scapegoating vulnerable groups rather than fighting unworthy institutions:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine
This is a long tradition in politics: hundreds of years ago, some leftists branded antisemitism "the socialism of fools." Rather than condemning the system's embrace of the finance sector and its wealthy beneficiaries, anti-semites blame a disfavored group of people – people who are just as likely as anyone to suffer under the system:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_is_the_socialism_of_fools
It's an ugly, shallow, cartoon version of socialism's measured and comprehensive analysis of how the class system actually works and why it's so harmful to everyone except a tiny elite. Literally cartoonish: the shadow-world version of socialism co-opts and simplifies the iconography of class struggle. And schismogenesis – "if the right likes this, I don't" – sends "progressive" scolds after anyone who dares to criticize finance as the crux of our world's problems as popularizing "antisemetic dog-whistles."
This is the problem with "horseshoe theory" – the idea that the far right and the far left bend all the way around to meet each other:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/26/horsehoe-crab/#substantive-disagreement
When the right criticizes pharma companies, they tell us to "do our own research" (e.g. ignore the systemic problems of people being forced to work under dangerous conditions during a pandemic while individually assessing conflicting claims about vaccine safety, ideally landing on buying "supplements" from a grifter). When the left criticizes pharma, it's to argue for universal access to medicine and vigorous public oversight of pharma companies. These aren't the same thing:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/25/the-other-shoe-drops/#quid-pro-quo
Long before opportunistic right wing politicians realized they could get mileage out of pointing at the terrifying epistemological crisis of trying to make good choices in an age of institutions that can't be trusted, the left was sounding the alarm. Conspiratorialism – the fracturing of our shared reality – is a serious problem, weakening our ability to respond effectively to endless disasters of the polycrisis.
But by blaming the problem of conspiratorialism on the credulity of believers (rather than the deserved disrepute of the institutions they have lost faith in) we adopt the logic of the right: "conspiratorialism is a problem of individuals believing wrong things," rather than "a system that makes wrong explanations credible – and a schismogenic insistence that these institutions are sound and trustworthy."
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/black-boxes/#when-you-know-you-know
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Image: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/nrcgov/15993154185/
meanwell-packaging.co.uk https://www.flickr.com/photos/195311218@N08/52159853896
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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nolita-fairytale · 1 year
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comfort & chaos (carmy berzatto x fem!reader) chapter one: october 2019
summary: the five times carmen berzatto fell in love with you a little and the one time he finally told you: carmy, the recently promoted chef du cuisine at the best restaurant in the world, has no idea what he's in for when he accidentally spills his drink on the recently hired patissiere. (prequel to make my heart surrender)
warnings: swearing, no use of y/n, she/her pronouns, drinking & smoking, suggestive language. eventual smut.
word count: 4.5k
listen to: dover beach part 2 - baby queen | alaska - maggie rogers | less than i do - the band camino | 2 / 14 - the band camino
a/n: i'm back back back again! this is six part series will be a snapshot of carmy x reader's relationship in nyc that span across a three year period. i'm really looking forward to writing their friendship & so much repressed sexual tension it's not even funny. this is the first story i've published without it being almost or fully written so updates will maybe be more sporadic this time.
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October 2019 
“i was hoping somehow we'd end up together, outside, past midnight, and smoking cigarettes. the wallpaper inside my brain is decorated with your face. i'm lonely for you only, and i'm trying to convince you that i'm something you could love.” – dover beach (pt 2)
He hates you. 
You’re absolutely sure of it. 
You can see it in the way his body stiffens as you walk by – in the way he hasn’t stopped sending you long, piercing glares across the kitchen – in just how bright red his face turns when you catch him doing it. 
And for what? For being excellent? For being good enough to get a job after staging that one night?
Fuck that, you think to yourself.
You find Carmen Berzatto infuriating, and it begins to dawn on you that you may have had one too many gin cocktails to stomach the fact that you have to be here tonight. 
Here, at his promotion party. 
Here, at this stupid fucking bar that you hate. 
Here, because he’s sort of everyone’s boss now… and it’s something you’re just going to have to live with.
It hadn’t come as much of a surprise. There’d been talk of a leadership change (and Carmy filling the CDC position) when you had first started working here, but having a head’s up didn’t really help you now. You just hadn’t pictured having to go out for drinks to celebrate the man that seemed like he could barely stand being in the same room as you. But your friend Liz, one of the chef de parties at the restaurant, had insisted you come with, since she hadn’t wanted to go alone. You understood why you both had to go, so you’d invited your other best friend to help the both of you get through. 
You thank your lucky stars that your direct report is the head pastry chef and not Carmy. Using your boss as a buffer, you had used every excuse in the book to avoid interacting with him. 
Sure, he was brilliant. 
Sure, he was a wunderkind who had just gotten back from a three month stage at noma right before he was hired here.
Sure, he was kind of a total asshole. 
“Fuck that, man! C’mon. Just one shot. It’s your big night, motherfucker!” Nate calls out, practically shoving a shot into Carmy’s hand. 
“Oh, I- uh, I’m good, man,” Carmy stutters, trying to find an excuse not to take the shot. 
Truthfully, he hates shots… and he’s not much of a vodka drinker either. 
He’s just not in the mood to get hammered either, his thoughts consumed with tomorrow, his first day as chef du cuisine, going perfectly. 
You watch the uncomfortable interaction, almost feeling bad for the guy. Nate and the most recently promoted sous, Tim, are trying their best to corral Carmy into taking the shot as you walk by. You can see the uncomfortable look on Carmy’s face as he declines Nate’s offer for a second time. 
In fact, he seems like a different person tonight. He’s… boyishly awkward, almost, and you wonder if he’s maybe not so great in social situations. As you pass by, drink in hand, you hear a cacophony of sound. Carmy’s trying his best to dodge his friends’ next attempt, and before you know it, Nate’s practically pushing him towards Tim, sending Carmy backwards, tumbling right into you. 
You feel the wet liquid of your gin and tonic, along with the shot of vodka that’s flown out of Carmy’s hand spill all over your shirt. The shot glass shatters as it hits the floor, and the sobering feeling of ice cold liquid soaking through your shirt causes you to shriek. 
“Shit! What the fuck, Carmy!” you yell, angrily, as you push him off of you.
At this point, you could care less that he’s everyone’s new boss, and the drama of it all has caught the attention of almost all of the other restaurant staff that have come out tonight. Your friends rush towards you, searching for as many napkins as they can grab. 
“Fffffuck,” is all he says back and you can’t believe he’s yelling at you right now. You watch as his face changes quickly, from angry, to thoroughly shocked as he begins to stammer through an apology. 
“I-. I’m sorry I-. I didn’t mean to-.” 
He scrambles to help you, with one cocktail napkin as you push him away, your friends rushing to your side. 
“No! I don’t want your help,” you grit through a clenched jaw. 
“Shit, your shirt is ruined… C’mon,” Liz says, as she ushers you away shooting a glare in Carmy’s direction. 
“Damn, man. You could just ask her out,” you can hear Nate say, even though you’re too preoccupied with examining the damage of your totally soaked through t-shirt. 
So much for a chill evening. 
“Oh shut up, Nate,” Maya snaps at the sous. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” You nod, following her as she leads you away towards the bathroom. 
Back at the bar, Liz is trying her best to remedy the situation, trying her best to clean up the mess you left behind. She watches Carmy closely, trying to figure out whether she’s going to pay for this tomorrow. But instead of being angry, he just seems embarrassed… remorseful, even. There’s a small part of her that feels bad for the guy as it becomes clearer that he may just not be great in social situations.
As soon as you get to the single-room bathroom, you're swearing loudly and stripping off your shirt. It’s completely see through and you know you’re going to smell like a distillery until you can get home to shower. 
“I told you. He hates me,” you pout, examining your reflection in the mirror, a scowl glued to your face. You dap a few dry paper towels across your chest.
“I think it was just an accident, sweetie,” Maya says, sympathetically, as she tries her best to console you. 
“Yeah, I know,” you admit in defeat.
As much as you’d like to blame this on him, you know it wasn’t his fault. 
“Sorry I asked you to come tonight. If I knew it would be this much drama-,” you begin, before being promptly cut off. 
“Oh no, I’m all here for this drama,” she laughs, causing you to shake your head and lighten up a little about the situation.
As angry as you’d like to be with Carmy, you know that the truth of the matter is that he hadn’t meant to spill his drink all over you. You should be mad at Nate and Tim… but it just feels easier to be mad at Carmy considering. 
“Incoming!” you hear a voice say as Liz arrives. In her hands, she holds what looks like a white t-shirt, neatly folded up, that she hands to you. “Anyone in need of dry clothes?”
“Oh thank god,” you sigh with relief, glady taking it. 
“Good on you for having an extra,” Maya says. 
“Well, it’s a restaurant. You never know when you’re gonna need a change of clothes,” Liz shrugs, a glimmer in her eyes that Maya notices, as she says it. You find it a little strange that she seems to be watching you for a reaction, but you brush off the look she sends you, as you slide the dry t-shirt over your head.
The t-shirt isn’t much bigger than an oversized fit you’d buy for yourself – which makes sense because Liz is a bit taller than you. The cotton fabric hangs loosely over your form as your eyes flicker over to your completely soaked through shirt that lays crumpled up on the bathroom sink. 
“Well, ladies. We did our best,” you resign yourself, as you notice your still-very-wet bra begin soaking through the white t-shirt. 
“C’mon. Let’s see if we can get some more paper towels. Or uh.. See if the kitchen has a towel we can use,” Liz says, nodding her head towards the door. 
“We’ll be right back,” Maya reassures you, empathy in her eyes.
You watch as Liz follows her, leaving you alone in the bathroom. 
It doesn’t take long for the door to the bathroom to swing open again, which surprises you. You gasp as soon as you see who's come through the door, and you’re crossing your arms over your chest which may only make the wet bra, white t-shirt ordeal even worse. A very flustered Carmy stands in the doorway, his mouth hanging open as if he hadn’t expected you to be in here. 
“There’s uh… someone in here,” you scoff, unable to hide the irritation in the sound of your voice. You hug your arms closer to yourself, almost as if to cover yourself up. 
“No I-, yeah, I know I just-,” he stammers, his eyes shifting to the floor. He feels like he’s walked in on something he shouldn’t have, and he can feel all the blood rushing to his face, instantly regretting his decision not to knock first. 
“I actually, uh… I came to apologize,” he manages to get out, his words quiet. He says it as if there’s an unintentional question mark at the end of his sentence. You can see the way he runs his eyes back and forth, trailing over the fancy floor tile, searching for the right words. 
“I didn’t mean to- I just-. Sorry…”
His demeanor surprises you. At work, Carmy’s this confident, commandeering, talented chef, but tonight, he seems anything but.
Nervous. Shy. Like a fish out of water, even.
You take a breath, trying your best to relax.
You can feel some of your guard coming down as you begin to accept he really hadn’t meant to spill his drink on you. But you’re not eager to forget the fact that he’s been kind of an asshole to you since you started working here. Unsure of how to respond, you give literal effort to replying with a:
“It’s fine. Thanks.”
He knows you don’t mean it. 
In fact, he can hear how painful it is for you to get out those words. 
You wait for him to leave, but Carmy continues to stand in the bathroom with you, awkwardly. But he doesn’t say anything, so you figure that the least you can do is deflect a little with humor. 
“I’ll uh-, invoice you for the therapy session,” you say, trying to eliminate any malice in your tone so that he knows you’re joking. “Walking home in a wet shirt on the streets of NYC is gonna be… fun.”
“Oh uh…” he trails off, his face turning a darker shade of red. 
“I’m kidding,” you state, searching his face for any kind of expression. 
This man is impossible to read, you think to yourself.
His eyes are still glued to the floor as he begins to move, mumbling something you can’t quite hear in response to your failed joke. Carmy slides out of the denim jacket he’s wearing, before taking hold of it, extending an arm out to you. 
“Sorry um-. Here,” he says nervously, and it’s the first time he’s allowed his eyes to meet yours. “You can uh-. You can wear this. For your walk home.”
Well, that wasn’t what you were expecting. 
And had his eyes always been that blue?
Your face softens. 
You take the jacket hesitantly, holding it in your hands. This time you mean it when you say:
“Thanks.”
“Least I could do,” he shrugs, daring to meet your eyes with his again. 
You slip the jacket over your shoulders as the two of you stand a few feet apart. The air feels thick, and at this point, you’re not sure how to feel. Even though your bra has continued to soak through the white t-shirt, the way his denim jacket feels wrapped around your shoulders feels like an added layer of protection.
“After uh-. You know I-,” he stumbles through.
“Yeah. No I uh-. Thanks, again,” you repeat, cutting him off. 
Might as well put the poor guy out of his misery. 
“Anyways, I’ll make sure to get this back to you,” you interject, your voice much more reassuring this time. 
“Yeah,” he nods. 
You swear you can almost see the corner of his lips turn up, but you’ve never really seen him smile, so it’s not like you have much to compare it to. Carmy excuses himself, and you watch as he leaves, genuinely grateful for the peace offering. 
The way that Carmy’s jacket hangs heavily around your shoulders makes you wonder if it’s real denim. You notice that it smells like him too: a faint scent of cigarettes, Old Spice deodorant, whatever scented laundry detergent he uses that feels familiar. 
You and Carmy don’t speak again, save for a few short exchanges at work, but he’s been on your mind. Your interaction the other night had left an impression on you – albeit a strange one – and you’re not sure why you haven’t returned his jacket yet. 
It’s not till a few days later that you speak again, leaving another strange impression on you. You head into the walk-in to get a few quarts of heavy cream and as you pull the door open, you find a flustered Carmy standing there. He’s got his hands on his hips and eyes glued to the floor with an exasperated look on his face as he watches the plastic storage containers he’s just thrown clamor across the floor. You gasp, shocked by the loud sounds, and Carmy knows he’s not alone. 
As he turns to you with a glare on his face, you notice that Carmy’s eyes are puffy, his cheeks flushed red, and he looks sick as a dog. 
His eyes are wide with embarrassment for a moment, before returning to their normal, stoic focus, hardened by a less than positive interaction with the exec chef. 
“Sorry,” he mutters, uncomfortably. He gestures towards the storage containers on the floor, before running a hand through his neatly slicked back hair. 
“It’s uh, you’re good, chef,” you say, trying your best to put your wall of professionalism up. 
You had witnessed the demeaning encounter from the exec chef – everyone had. It had been impossible not to. He’d practically breathed down Carmy’s neck, taunting him for his lack of focus today, that he’s a little bitch for letting allergies get to him. 
To say that the man was emotionally abusive would be an understatement. 
You should leave – turn and go, and pretend that this never happened – that you’d seen nothing. But instead, you stay. 
“You good, chef?” you ask softly, a hint of concern in your voice.
He sniffles again, the searing headache that robs him of his focus only burning brighter after what just happened. 
“Yeah, no. I’m fine,” he snaps, refusing to look at you. 
You wait for him to say something more, only he doesn’t. You can see he’s not feeling well and that he must be feeling worse after his metaphorical public stoning in the town square. He’s not sure what the hell it is you’re waiting for, and he just needs another fucking second to himself. 
“Why are you still here?” he grits through teeth, his eyes fixed to the floor. 
You open your mouth to say something, but you’re honestly not sure why you’re still in the walk-in with him either. 
Maybe because you know that the exec chef is a total monster.
That he shouldn’t have talked to Carmy like that. 
That you can understand why he’d be upset. 
“Chef!” he says, raising his voice a little louder and flinging his hands towards the door. “Will you just-?”
You nod, a feeling of embarrassment filling your chest, as you realize he wants you to leave. You hurry out of the walk-in, closing the door behind you as you escape, your heavy cream quart containers in hand. 
“You good?” Liz asks, as soon as she sees you come out of the walk-in. She’s passing by to bring a few deli containers over to the dish station. 
“What?” you ask back in surprise, unaware that you look visibly shaken up.
“You look… flustered is all,” she points out. 
“Oh. Yeah. I just uh-, Carmy’s in there. Throwing a fit. He just uh… snapped at me is all. But what’s new?” you reply, trying your best to shake it off. 
She rolls her eyes in response, “Yeah, he can be like that. Thank your lucky stars that you don’t have to work under him.”
You let out an annoyed exhale. It’s a funny feeling – one that leaves you a little confused: one minute he’s this chivalrous guy that’s handing you his jacket to wear home and the next he’s practically tearing your head off to get out of the walk-in. You can’t quite figure him out. He’s so hot and cold, you’re not sure what to expect from him anymore. 
As you and Liz are about to part ways, you remember that you have to give her back her borrowed shirt. 
“Oh!” you say, calling her attention before she returns to her station. 
“I have your shirt, by the way,” you say. “From the other night.”
“Oh,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “Okay weird timing considering he’s being such an asshole today but uh…. Yeah. The shirt’s... not mine. I forgot to tell you.”
You send her a puzzled look as she shrugs. 
“I didn’t think you’d take it if I told you but… it’s Carmy’s. He pulled it out of his bag when he spilled the drink on you,” she informs, waiting to gauge your reaction.
“What do you mean?” you ask. 
“You were so mad at him that I just figured-, it doesn't matter. He pulled it out of his bag to give to you. I think he felt really fucking bad, babe,” she interjects, revealing the truth. 
Well now you’re really fucking confused. 
And after your little interaction with him in the walk-in, there’s no way you’re going to bring it up to him today. 
“Oh. Yeah um, got it,” you reply, feeling even more confused than when you started the day. 
You show up to work the next day with the t-shirt and his jacket tucked into a canvas tote bag you plan on giving to Carmy. You’d decided to wait till you had them both, and you’re also hoping that he’s in a better mood today. 
Only, Carmy’s not here today. 
“Yeah, he’s out sick. Looks like those allergies turned out to be a nasty head cold,” your general manager had informed you when you’d asked about where Carmy was. “Looks like Tim’s filling in today for him.”
“Got it. Thanks, Kate” you’d replied. 
Later on your mid-shift break, you’d then mustered up all the courage possible to ask if anyone had checked in on Carmy. Kate, your GM, had answered no, and had been more than happy to give you his address so that you could do so. You’re not sure why you feel like it’s the right thing to do, but between his act of kindness at the bar, and his outburst in the walk-in yesterday, you figure it wouldn’t hurt to show him a little kindness. Not that you feel like you owe him or anything. 
Maybe you just want to give him his clothes back and be done with it. 
Maybe you’re also deeply confused about who the hell Carmen Berzatto really is. 
Maybe the mystery of it intrigues you a little more than you’d like to admit.
Dinner service flies by quickly – a string of non-stop orders helps the time go faster. Carmy’s apartment is on your way home, so it’s a no-brainer to make the trip. You stop on your way at a deli nearby, picking up a quart of matzo ball soup, before heading over to his apartment. 
When you get there, you knock on the door three times, anxiety beginning to flood you.
What if he thinks this is totally creepy – that you just got his address from the general manager? What if he thinks you’re stalking him? What if he hates the fact that you’re even there in the first place? 
You wonder if you should just leave the soup at the door and run as fast as you can so that, by the time he answers the door, you’re gone. 
Just as you’re bending down to place the quart container down by his door, the door swings open to reveal a very congested Carmy. His curls seem wilder than normal as he looks genuinely surprised to see you crouching in the hall of his apartment. 
“Hi!” you practically shout, taken off guard as you rise to your feet. 
“Yo,” he says, blinking a few times to make sure he’s not dreaming. “What’s uh-, what’s going on?”
It’s weird – seeing Carmy outside of the restaurant, outside of his chef whites. His usually slicked back, out-of-his-face hair falls in the messiest most unruly curls around his face in a way that's surprisingly unkempt. He’s… almost human-like. 
“This is for you,” is all you manage to say, handing him the quart container. 
“Uh… thanks,” he trails off, taking it and checking out the matzo ball soup. 
You’re not sure where to begin, how to explain why the hell you’re here, so you just start talking. 
“I uh… your place was on the way home,” you begin. “I hope it’s okay but I got your address from Kate. I actually used to go to this deli all the time when I was a kid with my parents and I forgot that it was in your neighborhood so I just figured that I should pick something up on the way over since I heard you were sick and uh-.”
Carmy shoots you a look and he almost looks amused. 
“... I’m rambling, aren’t I?” you ask, a light blush running across your cheeks. 
“Yeah,” he nods, a dry laugh following.
You wait a beat, collecting yourself. You’re not sure why this is so weird, but it’s so weird. 
“I came by because…” you start, digging through your canvas tote bag that’s draped across your right shoulder. “... I wanted to return these to you.” 
You hold out the jacket and t-shirt folded up together to Carmy, his eyes following them. 
“Liz told me that the shirt was yours too. I just-, I know we don’t always… that you don’t-, I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I know it’s kind of weird at work sometimes but… I guess  I just wanted to say thank you. For these. Hence the soup,” you finally explain.
“No problem,” Carmy nods, taking them in his empty hand, before disappearing momentarily to place them somewhere inside of his apartment.  
You’re only a little disappointed by his short response, yet you’re not sure you expected anything else. He returns only seconds later.
“It’s uh-, Cool jacket,” you say. You can’t tell whether you’re making small talk or just saying something out of discomfort, but it seems to pique Carmy’s interest. 
“It actually reminds me of the denim jacket that John Lennon used to wear ”
“You know denim?” he asks, and you could swear that you see his eyes light up for a moment. 
“No, but I know music,” you reply. 
“Uh I mean. Yeah. It is…” he says, with a nod, a hint of excitement in the words that follow. “Not the actual one he wore but… it’s a 1950s selvedge Wrangler. Just like Lennon.”
So he wasn’t just a fine-dining robot. 
“Wow I didn’t know you were into all that,” you say, feeling some of the tension between the two of you melt. “Denim, I mean.”
“Something I picked up from my brother, I guess,” he shrugs, shyly. 
“That’s funny,” you chuckle. 
“Hm?” he hums in response. 
“Just… the thought of you having a brother,” you clarify, jokingly. “Thought you were like… grown in a lab at noma or something.”
And Carmy almost smiles, you think.
“Nope. Just Chicago,” he replies, enjoying the act of sharing something with you. 
“Ahhh,” you sound, following it up with another small laugh. “Well, I’ll let you get some rest. Enjoy the soup.”
“Yeah, uh. Thanks for this,” he says, holding up the brown bag. 
“Of course,” you reply, turning to go. 
But you don’t go yet, not ready to let go of the momentary connection you’ve built with Carmy 
"You know it doesn’t have to be like this,” you say, turning back to him. He's staring at you, just like he does in the kitchen. It’s another long, languid look that makes you realize that maybe they haven’t been hate-glares after all.
“We don't have to do this... start over every time we see each other.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” you agree with a nod. “I mean, I've already worn your clothes so… it’s a rather… intimate thing for us to just be strangers….”
He listens attentively. 
"We could… coworkers… friends, even,” you suggest, hesitantly.
“Me and you?” he asks, a puzzled look on his face. You’re not sure if he’s surprised by what you’ve said, or if he’s about to laugh in your face. 
“If you want,” you nod in response. 
He waits a beat, and you watch his facial expressions soften a little as he finally says, “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
You smile at him, the man you thought hated you, wants to be friends with you. You get a wicked idea, letting out a chuckle before continuing. 
“Great. There’s just one thing,” you begin playfully.
You can’t help yourself.
“Hm?” he hums. 
“It’s just… I haven’t made my mind up about you. So you should consider this your trial period, buddy,” you tease. 
He lets out a dry laugh, “Like a stage?”
Of course it’s all kitchen-related for him.
You laugh in response, “Yeah, like a stage.”
“Heard, chef.”
“Goodnight, Carmy.”
Carmy’s never had someone joke with him so sweetly. Between his family and, well, Richie… it’s always been callous humor and insults thrown back and forth lovingly. This feels… different: lighter.
As he watches you walk away, he looks down at the deli quart container that he holds in his hand. He’s never had anyone take care of him before – not like this – someone who wasn’t Sugar or Mikey, and certainly not his Mom. Not like this. Not without asking for anything in return. He can’t seem to identify the warm feeling that rushes through him, and wonders, for a moment, if this is what it feels like to fall in love. 
Not that he’s ever experienced that either.
By Saturday, he’s back to work and feeling much better (the soup definitely helps, he decides) but it’s not for another week that he musters up the courage to ask you what you’re doing between lunch and dinner service. 
“Chef!” he calls out to you as you’re cleaning up your station.
“Yeah, what’s up?” you reply. 
It’s not like you’ve been all buddy-buddy and friendly over the last week, but you’ve at least stopped thinking that he hates you. Sure you’ve decided to be friends, but it’s not like you’d expected wildly different behavior. 
“You uh… wanna grab a cup of coffee? On the break, I mean,” he asks, his blue eyes seeming… more brilliant than you’ve ever noticed. 
“I owe you one. You know. For the soup.”
You smile, “Yeah. I’d uh-, I’d like that.”
“Yeah?” he asks. 
“Yeah.”
read: chapter two
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