#synanon au

[runawayballista]

the post with the really long wawa au timeline

ok. more wawa au for the first time in a long time because i'm not sure i ever charted out the timeline for this au. there are some gaps to be filled in but this is what i have done thought of so far. this got incredibly long. it was originally in bullet point form but apparently it got too long for that

validar is the leader of a fringe religious cult. think synanon-esque wrapped in a wellness MLM called GrimaLife. he has been grooming robin to be his protege since childhood, has an alarming amount of control over her while she retains the illusion that she has some sort of agency in her life. robin's maiden name is grimason. rhymes with "freemason"

robin and lon'qu meet while robin is in grad school and lon'qu is working at a froyo joint. after a long campaign to become friends that could legally be called harassment and involved flicking a lot of fruit toppings across the store, lon'qu quits the froyo joint.

by pure coincidence robin and lon'qu discover they go to the same gym (robin isnt stalking him she swears!!) and, despite lon'qu's objections, become gym buddies. Friends Lite. like they occasionally give each other a lift home but they do not hang out outside the gym. until one day robin's apartment floods and absolutely no one else she knows can put her up for the night and because lon'qu is not completely heartless he lets her stay for a couple of days. unfortunately for him he begins to develop Feelings

robin and lon'qu commit perjury so lon'qu can use a power saw

lon'qu wrestles with this for a while. robin is completely oblivious. lon'qu texts basilio asking "how do you talk to women". the last text he sent basilio was 4 months ago and said "how do you get women to stop talking to you". lon'qu WILL NOT elaborate on this to basilio at first but basilio is like my guy i cannot give you any advice without details. it goes something like this:

basilio: the ladies like it when you're subtle. try to be smooth about it lon'qu (thinking of when he worked at the froyo joint): i don't think that will work on her. she's not very bright basilio: i thought you said she was a genius lon'qu: she is a genius. at some things.

lon'qu scrapes together the courage to tell robin how he feels but he is humorously interrupted or foiled repeatedly. robin remains oblivious. eventually he has to shout it into her ear over a fireworks display because it is the only private opportunity he gets and robin takes so long to compose a reply that he's not even sure she heard him. this is torture. why is he doing this to himself. she says yes to a date though things proceed! this is not Ideal to validar but its fine. he knows this will not last because his daughter has standards and when she finishes grad school she will dump this high school dropout with a sealed (not that sealed) juvie record and come home :) when validar tries to voice his Fatherly Concerns though it rolls right off robin. her father will understand when he meets lon'qu, she knows it!

well before she is going to finish grad school, robin announces she is marrying lon'qu. there is nothing validar can actually do to force her to break it off without disrupting the years of effort hes put into grooming robin as his personal political weapon to unleash upon the world

before they were dating lon'qu knew very little about robin's personal upbringing and how uhhh non traditional it was and its around the time they get married (in the traditional way of robins family, on validars insistence) that lon'qu realizes hmmmmm. i think my wife may be in a cult and she doesnt know it

however 1) lon'qu is clever enough to know that trying to convince robin that she's in a cult and that her father is probably a dangerous person would probably only drive a wedge between them, it would be better for him to just support her how he can 2) who are we kidding lon'qu's so ride or die for robin at this point that its fine that shes in a cult. its fine

the wedding delays the completion of robin's phd. so does the unexpected announcement that she and lon'qu are expecting! obviously validar is thrilled to have a grandchild to manipulate but he knows that the longer robin is away from the cult and out in the world (and with lon'qu) it will be harder to get her to move back into the cult. robin finally finishes her phd around when morgan is a toddler, but she's like you know we might stay out here for a while. the university offered me a position and lon'qu has a good job now and we're not so far we can't visit often :)

when it becomes apparent that validar has let robin have a little too much agency in her life, he uses the convenient new foothold for manipulation in her life: her child. validar still has enough of a hold over robin that he convinces her over time that lon'qu is planning to leave and take morgan with him, enough that he's able to persuade her to take morgan and run back home around the time morgan is 5. that's programming, baby

lon'qu is understandably shattered by this because he has a hard time believing robin actually wants to keep him away from their child, even when he's served divorce papers. he tells validar he'll comply with the divorce if robin personally shows up in court and tells him that's she wants. lon'qu never hears from validar again

fast forward a few years when morgan is around 9 and robin is starting to realize, oh my god, she's been raised in a cult. she is the daughter of a prominent cult leader. she needs to take her kid and Get Out Now

robin calls on the only people outside the cult she knows she can trust: her old grad school crowd. her phd advisor is mark because i love to tie fe7 into fe13 for fun tatician reasons and also because i love the fe7 guys and i think robin should be allowed to hang out with matthew and serra. with their assistance she's able to flee with morgan, and matthew & leila get them set up with fresh new identities on the other side of the country, along with a faculty position at a university waiting for robin for which mark pulled a cascade of invisible strings. robin makes them promise never to tell lon'qu about this; she knows now he never actually meant her any harm, but getting into contact with lon'qu would potentially put him in danger, and it'd probably lead validar right back to her and morgan, and the safety of her kid remains the most important thing to robin

the newly christened robin & morgan jones start building their new life. it's not easy. they left pretty much everything behind and there's a lot of counseling involved. validar did his level best to get into morgan's head while they were both still with the cult, and he succeeded in ways that robin is now able to recognize. ouch. it's hard without lon'qu; leaving him along with her father was not a fun or easy decision, even if she knows it was the smartest one, and morgan's only just now starting to understand that his father isn't the person validar was bent on making him out to be. fortunately morgan's bond with robin has always been strongest, and this experience just reinforces that. they are inseparable.

on the plus side all of this therapy means morgan figures out he's trans around the time he is 10 :)

lon'qu can only assume his wife and child are still alive but he has no way of contacting them or even confirming that fact. after a while remaining in the house he married robin & started to raise their child in becomes too painful so he packs up and moves back east, where basilio hires him at the new regna ferox circle k. he will not talk about what happened and basilio doesn't pry too far because he has only ever seen lon'qu this fucked up over someone one time before and it was a bad time!

robin & morgan continue to live their lives in the murkily defined PA/NJ/NY tristate area. robin has been homeschooling morgan this whole time for a number of reasons, such as 1) he's always been homeschooled. do you think the cult let him go to a public school 2) robin's perfectly qualified to oversee this level of education 3) it's very hard to remain indefinitely vague about your extremely weird backstory when you are in the fifth grade and it's not that robin thinks morgan doesn't understand how important the secret is it's just that he's 10 years old. there's also an element of this that's just. robin wants to keep morgan where she can see him for a while, that's all

fast forward another several years to when morgan is around 16 and the two of them are in a bad but non-fatal car accident and emerge with almost identical presentations of amnesia: they can't remember anything about their lives except each other (and even the details on that are fuzzy). the fact that they don't have any photos or diaries or artifacts of their lives from before morgan was 9 years old is just a huge, gaping mystery, and no one robin worked with at the university knows anything useful either. her attempts at tracing back the letters of recommendation that got her the job and weirdly they are all dead ends. the university doesn’t let robin go; instead they put her on sabbatical because uhhh she’s a great faculty member and all but maybe she should take some time to recover with her son and come back when she can remember what she was actually teaching

let’s take a moment to appreciate the amnesia. they haven’t lost all functional knowledge of how to live in the world, but they don’t know anything about themselves, nor do they remember much about popular culture. functionally neither of them has ever seen a movie. robin figures that watching movies & TV with morgan might help them find surer footing in the wake of all this, but not recalling ever having seen a single movie, they are going by what is on the box alone. you can imagine the first movie they watch would color their perception of all media that follows it which is how robin & morgan develop the boss baby problem except with super mario bros (1993)

not having work or school and just having like, rehab and therapy is not really good for either of them and the third weekend in a row that morgan emerges from his bedroom to find that robin has turned the living room into an escape room he’s like “mom this is really cool but i think maybe you need a job”

morgan thinks he’d like to go to regular school when it starts up again in the fall even though, as far as they can tell, he has never been to real school. as much as robin doesn’t really want him out of her sight, this is probably a good move for both of them on many levels. they also discover a brochure for a summer camp they had apparently been thinking about sending morgan to and morgan is SO excited by this prospect that robin can’t bring herself to tell him no. she DOES call the camp every single day to make sure he’s OK though. and in the meantime. Robin Gets A Job At Wawa

this is already so long so to condense what i’ve said elsewhere: chrom manages a super wawa (ok. frederick is technically an assistant manager but we know he does all the paperwork). other folks who work there include sully & sumia (married), lissa (married to maribelle) and vaike (this is not an exhaustive list). maribelle is studying for the bar exam and virion (divorcee of olivia) is some kind of wealthy broker or whatever high society job lets you spend a lot of time on yachts talking to people about which part of the ocean has superior lobsters*. cordelia works at the wawa also despite having a masters degree (in. something) and is married to gaius, who definitely does not work and is constantly getting up in little scams. he also taught severa how to shoplift. olivia also works at the regna ferox circle k with lon’qu; they both have histories with basilio pulling them out of bad situations, so while they are both too flighty with one another to be Friends, they get along enough to work together. olivia initially quit the circle k when she married virion but as soon as divorce was on the table flavia and basilio offered her job back

morgan meets owain at summercamp, and they become fast friends. and also fast boyfriends. they have their first kiss in a tree after which owain falls and breaks his arm. inigo absolutely refuses to believe this is the true story of why owain started the school year with his arm in a plaster cast until it turns out owains imaginary summercamp boyfriend…is in their homeroom class??? how is inigo supposed to be snide about it to owain when morgan is the most sincerely & relentlessly cheerful person he’s ever met

various hijinks ensue. for various reasons robin is never at the wawa whenever lon’qu happens to go (not often) and he never makes the connection to the new boy at school olivia’s son has just made friends with, because last lon’qu checked he had a daughter? i can’t remember if/how i decided lon’qu eventually connects the dots and realizes his long-lost abducted-back-into-the-family-cult wife has been working at the super wawa for the last several months but it happens

unfortunately reuniting with his long-lost wife doesn’t go as planned because she has absolutely no idea who he is. she’s robin jones. who’s robin grimason? wait, hang on, here’s the first person robin has met since the car accident that seems to know anything about her more than 10 years in the past and she latches onto that because MUST know more. she sort of initially steamrolls over the fact that this guy is her husband because she’s really fixated on Answers. at first lon’qu was incredibly relieved to find out robin and morgan are alive and well, and actually he still is, but it turns out when your wife looks at you like you’re a stranger, it’s kind of painful!

things with robin and lon’qu are incredibly Fraught because how do you navigate this situation. lon’qu wants something robin can’t give him, and robin knows that; simultaneously, robin can’t tell if any feelings she might have for lon’qu are stirred by memory or just the awkward feeling of obligation to reciprocate, because if they were married before, then surely…? there’s a lot of stop-and-start. lon’qu thinks he wants this but it’s so hard. robin is also thinking about morgan, who obviously wants to know his dad, and probably wants his parents together, and she’s always thinking about her kid. lon’qu is still struggling with the fact that the teenager he’s seeing is the same 5 year old he last saw over 10 years ago, except that morgan is SO much like his mother that it also feels weirdly familiar. Everything Is A Huge Mess and lon’qu and robin take a long time to navigate very difficult territory

morgan ropes owain, cynthia, inigo, and severa into doing some kind of parent trap nonsense to get his parents back together. inigo, child of divorce, does not believe this will ever work but someone has to keep an eye on these idiots (he doesn’t realize he is one of these idiots but he is correct in this being a terrible idea)

OK I THINK THATS IT. FOR NOW? this is the important stuff. this was initially an excuse for really cute modern AU morgan/owain but i got super invested in the angst-rich lon’qu/robin cult-and-amnesia drama

#fembles #fire emblem awawakening #I LOVE. THIS AU #realizing belatedly i left this out but aversa has a role in this and its Replacement Daughter. no one is happy

[jpbjazz]

LÉGENDES DU JAZZ

LA MUSIQUE AU SERVICE DU CHANGEMENT SOCIAL : CHARLIE HADEN

Né le 6 août 1937 à Shenandoah, en Iowa, Charles Edward Haden avait grandi dans un environnement musical. La famille Haden aimait beaucoup la musique et jouait de la musique country et du folk sur les ondes de la radio KMA sous le nom de Haden Family. Charlie a d’ailleurs fait ses débuts professionnels comme chanteur sur l’émission de radio de sa famille alors qu’il avait seulement deux ans. Charlie chantait aussi du yodle, ce qui lui avait mérité le surnom de ‘’Yodle Charlie.’’ Charlie avait continué de chanter avec sa famille jusqu’à l’âge de quinze ans lorsqu’il avait été atteint d’une forme de poliomyélite qui avait paralysé ses cordes vocales.

Charlie était âgé de quatorze ans lorsqu’il avait commencé à s’intéresser au jazz après avoir entendu Charlie Parker jouer dans l’orchestre de Stan Kenton. Après avoir recouvré la santé, Charlie avait commencé à étudier la contrebasse. L’intérêt de Charlie pour la contrebasse était loin d’être limité au jazz, puisqu’il se passionnait aussi pour les harmonies et les cordes qu’il avait entendues dans les compositions de Jean-Sébastien Bach. Déterminé à s’installer à Los Angeles afin de devenir musicien de jazz, Haden avait décidé de se trouver un emploi afin de financer son déménagement. Haden se fit éventuellement embaucher comme bassiste-maison à l’émission ‘’Ozark Jubilee’’ qui était diffusée l’antenne du réseau ABC à Springfield, au Missouri.

LA NAISSANCE DU FREE JAZZ

Haden avait souvent déclaré qu’il était déménagé à Los Angeles en 1957 afin de rencontrer le pianiste Hampton Hawes. Après avoir refusé une bourse du Oberlin College (celui-ci ne disposait pas de programme de jazz à l’époque), Haden s’était inscrit au Westlake College of Music à Los Angeles. Haden avait fait ses débuts sur disques avec le pianiste Paul Bley. Les deux musiciens avaient travaillé ensemble jusqu’en 1959. Haden avait aussi collaboré avec Art Pepper durant quatre semaines en 1957.

En 1958-1959, Haden avait enfin réalisé son rêve de jouer avec Hampton Hawes. Haden avait rencontré Hawes par l’entremise de son ami, le contrebassiste Red Mitchell. Pendant un certain temps, Haden avait partagé un appartement avec un autre contrebassiste, le légendaire Scott LaFaro. En mai 1959, Haden avait enregistré un album au titre prophétique, ‘’The Shape of Jazz To Come’’, avec le quartet du saxophoniste Ornette Coleman. D’une certaine façon, les influences folk d’Haden étaient complémentaires des influences blues de Coleman. Plus tard la même année, le quartet de Coleman avait déménagé ses pénates à New York où il avait décroché un contrat de six semaines au Five Spot Café. C’est lors de cette période cruciale que le free jazz était né.

Les musiciens du quartet de Coleman jouaient tout par oreille, car aucune pièce n’était écrite. Comme Haden l’avait expliqué plus tard:

“At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that's when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”

En 1960, Haden, qui avait développé une dépendance envers les narcotiques, avaient dû se retirer du quintet de Coleman. En septembre 1963, Haden s’était fait désintoxiquer dans les différentes branches de Synanon House à Santa Monica et à San Francisco, en Californie. C’est durant son séjour à Synanon House que Charlie avait rencontré sa première épouse, Ellen David. Le couple s’est installé dans le quartier Upper West Side de New York où leurs quatre enfants étaient nés. Vint d’abord un fils, Josh, né en 1968, puis des triplettes, Petra, Rachel et Tanya. Charlie et Ellen s’étaient séparés en 1975 et avaient divorcé un peu plus tard.

En 1984, Haden avait rencontré la chanteuse et ancienne actrice Ruth Cameron. Le couple s’était marié à New York. En plus de devenir la gérante d’Haden, Ruth avait co-produit plusieurs de ses projets avec lui. Le couple était demeuré ensemble jusqu’à la mort d’Haden en 2014.

Après avoir repris sa carrière en 1964, Haden avait travaillé avec le saxophoniste John Handy et le trio du pianiste Denny Zeitlin. Il avait aussi joué avec Archie Shepp en Californie et en Europe. En 1966-1967, Haden avait collaboré avec Henry ‘’Red’’ Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott et le Thad Jones|Mel Lewis Orchestra. Après avoir enregistré avec Roswell Rudd en 1966, Haden était retourné jouer avec le groupe de Coleman l’année suivante. Le groupe avait poursuivi ses activités jusqu’au début des années 1970. Le quartet de Coleman avait sans doute cruellement ressenti l’absence de Haden, car celui-ci était connu pour savoir lire dans les intentions de Coleman dont la musique était dans la plupart des cas improvisée et non écrite.

De 1967 à 1976, Haden était devenu membre du trio du pianiste Keith Jarrett et de son ‘’American Quartet’’ formé du batteur Paul Motian, du saxophoniste Dewey Redman et du percussionniste Guilherme Franco. Haden avait aussi été un des membres fondateurs en 1976 du collectif Old and New Dreams, avec Don Cherry, Dewey Redman et Ed Blackwell, tous des anciens membres du groupe de Coleman. Le collectif devait son nom au fait qu’il jouait des compositions de Coleman en plus de ses propres compositions.

LE LIBERATION MUSIC ORCHESTRA

En 1970, sur la recommandation du chef d’orchestre Leonard Bernstein, Haden avait obtenu une bourse de la Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition. Au fil des années, Haden avait d’ailleurs reçu plusieurs prix de composition.

Ce n’est qu’en 1969 qu’Haden avait fondé son premier groupe, le Liberation Music Orchestra, avec la pianiste et arrangeuse Carla Bley. La version originale du groupe était composée de Haden, de Bley, des saxophonistes Gato Barbieri et Dewey Redman, des trompettistes Don Cherry et Mike Mantler, du batteur Andrew Cyrille, du joueur de trombone Roswell Rudd, de Bob Northern (au cornet et au tuba), d’Howard Johnson (au tuba et au saxophone basse), du clarinettiste Perry Robinson et du guitariste et luthiste Sam Brown.

Comme son nom l’indique, la musique de l’orchestre était expérimentale, et explorait tant les frontières du free jazz que de la musique traditionnelle ou politiquement engagée. Le premier album de l’orchestre traitait de la guerre civile espagnole. Cette dernière avait particulièrement marqué Haden. Charlie, qui avait été inspiré par la turbulente convention du Parti démocrate de 1968 à Chicago, avait superposé des pièces comme ‘’You’re a Grand Old Flag’’ et ‘’Happy Days are Here Again’’ à des morceaux traditionnels comme ‘’We Shall Overcome’’ (Nous vaincrons).

Un si grand nombre de musiciens avaient collaboré avec le Liberation Music Orchestra qu’il était devenu avec le temps un véritable ‘’who’s who’’ du jazz. Les membres de l’orchestre provenaient aussi souvent d’horizons culturels différents, reflétant ainsi les préoccupations internationalistes de Haden pour l’avenir de la planète. Parmi les autres musiciens qui avaient fait partie de l’orchestre, on remarquait les noms d’Ahnee Sharon Freeman et de Vincent Chancey au cor français, de Tony Malaby et de Chris Cheek au saxophone ténor, de Miguel Zenon au saxophone alto, de Joseph Daley au tuba, de Seneca Black et de Michael Rodriguez à la trompette, de Curtis Fowlkes au trombone, de Steve Cardenas à la guitare et de Matt Wilson à la batterie. L’orchestre s’était mérité plusieurs prix en 1970, plus particulièrement en France, où il avait remporté le Grand Prix du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros, et au Japon, où il avait décroché le Gold Disc Award décerné par le Swing Journal.

Haden était en tournée avec Ornette Coleman au Portugal (ce pays vivait alors sous une dictature militaire) en 1971 lorsqu’il avait dédicacé sa pièce ‘’Song for Che’’ aux révolutions anticolonialistes qui avaient lieu dans les colonies portugaises de Mozambique, d’Angola et de Guinée. Le lendemain, Haden avait été arrêté à l’aéroport de Lisbonne, mis en prison et interrogé par la police secrète portugaise, la DGS. Hadem n’avait été libéré qu’après que Coleman et les autres musiciens aient porté plainte devant l’attaché culturel américain. À son retour aux États-Unis, Haden avait été interrogé par le FBI.

La dédicace de Haden n’était certainement pas innocente. Haden avait décidé de fonder le Liberation Music Orchestra au milieu de la guerre du Vietnam, car il était furieux que son gouvernement consacre autant de temps, d’argent et d’énergie à faire la guerre alors qu’il faisait face à plusieurs problèmes sociaux sur son propre sol comme la pauvreté, la lutte pour les droits civils, les problèmes de santé mentale, la dépendance face aux narcotiques ou le chômage. Le but de Haden en fondant le Liberation Music Orchestra était de s’en servir comme moyen d’expression des peuples opprimés qui n’avaient souvent pas de voix pour se faire entendre. Haden voulait aussi exprimer sa solidarité envers les mouvements politiques progressistes à travers le monde en jouant une musique qui encourageait le changement social.

L’album de 1982 ‘’The Ballad of the Fallen’’, publié sur l’étiquette ECM, avait de nouveau abordé la guerre civile espagnole, tout en dénonçant l’intervention américaine en Amérique latine. Le Liberation Music Orchestra avait fait d’importantes tournées à travers le monde durant les années 1980 et 1990. En 1990, l’orchestre était retourné en studio pour enregistrer ‘’Dream Keeper’’. La pièce-titre, qui était basée sur un poème de Langston Hughes, faisait aussi appel à la musique gospel américaine et à la musique sud-africaine afin de dénoncer le racisme aux États-Unis et le système d’Apartheid toujours en vigueur en en Afrique du Sud. Le Oakland Youth Chorus participait également à l’album. En 2005, l’orchestre avait enregistré un quatrième album intitulé ‘’Not In Our Name’’, une protestation contre l’invasion et l’occupation américaine en Irak.

Grand pédagogue, Haden avait aussi fondé en 1982 le Jazz Studies Program au California Institute of the Arts à Valencia, en Californie. Ce programme, qui mettait particulièrement l’accent sur les petites formations, insistait particulièrement sur le caractère spirituel de la création artistique. Il encourageait aussi les étudiants à découvrir leur propre son et à développer leurs propres mélodies et harmonies. Haden avait éventuellement été élu ‘’Jazz Eductation of the Year’’ par la Los Angeles Jazz Society pour son implication dans le programme. Les étudiants d’Haden à Valencia comprenaient le fils de John Coltrane, le saxophoniste ténor Ravi Coltrane, le trompettiste Ralph Alessi, ainsi que le pianiste et compositeur James Carney et le contrebassiste Scott Colley.

DES COLLABORATIONS DIVERSIFIÉES

À la suggestion de son épouse Ruth, Haden avait formé en 1986 le groupe Quartet West. L’alignement original du groupe était composée d’Ernie Watts au saxophone, d’Alan Broadbent au piano et de Billy Higgins à la batterie. Higgins, un collaborateur de longue date d’Haden, avait été remplacé plus tard par Laurance Marable. Lorsque Marable était devenu trop malade pour performer, le batteur Rodney Green avait été ajouté à la formation. En plus des compositions d’Haden et de Broadbent, le répertoire du groupe comprenait des ballades populaires des années 1940 qui avaient été réinterprétées dans un style bop. Une brève collaboration avec le saxophoniste ténor Joe Henderson et le batteur Al Foster avait aussi contribué à replacer le groupe d’Haden dans un contexte plus jazz. En 2010, le quartet avait enregistré l’album ‘’Sophisticated Ladies’’, qui mettait en vedette des chanteuses issues à la fois du jazz, de la musique classique et de la musique populaire. En tout et pour tout, le quartet a enregistré quatre albums de 1987 à 1993.

Déterminé à conduire le Quartet West jusqu’au prochain millénaire, Charlie avait écrit sur son site web: "We have developed an intuitive sense musically and spiritually. Just like the Modern Jazz Quartet, we've developed a sound that has come from playing together for a long time." Lorsque le quartet avait enregistré ‘’The Art of Song’’ en 1999, Charlie avait déclaré: "I wanted to gather together a collection of complete melodies that tell a story in the music and the lyric and that have rarely been recorded. Plus, I wanted them to be sung by vocalists who are masters at exploring the depth of a song. I'd always hoped to work with Shirley [Horn] and Bill [Henderson], who are both singers who perform at the creative level of Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker."

En 1989, Haden avait inauguré la série ‘’Invitation’’ du Festival international de jazz de Montréal avec une série de huit concerts mettant en vedette des musiciens qu’il avait lui-même choisis. Les concerts avaient été enregistrés et furent publiés plus tard dans un coffret intitulé ‘’The Montreal Tapes.’’ En 1994, Ginger Baker, le batteur légendaire du groupe rock Cream, avait fondé le Ginger Baker Trio avec Haden et le guitariste Bill Frisell.

Haden a souvent joué en duo, car il adorait l’intimité procurée des petites formations. En 1995, Haden avait enregistré l’album ‘’Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs’’ avec le vétéran pianiste Hank Jones. Le disque était basé sur des chansons de gospel traditionnelles et sur des chansons folkloriques. En plus de jouer sur l’album, Haden avait également agi comme producteur. À la fin de 1996, Haden avait collaboré avec le guitariste Pat Metheny dans le cadre de l’album ‘’Beyond the Missouri Sky’’. Sur ce disque, les deux musiciens avaient exploré la musique qui avaient influencé leurs enfances respectives en Iowa et au Missouri. Haden a remporté le premier prix Emmy de sa carrière pour sa participation à l’album dans la catégorie de la meilleure performance de jazz instrumentale. Ce n’était d’ailleurs pas la première fois qu’Haden collaborait avec Metheny, puisqu’il avait participé notamment à l’enregistrement des albums ‘’80|81’’ et ‘’Rejoicing’’, un album en trio avec le batteur Billy Higgins enregistré en 1984 et mettant en vedette les compositions d’Ornette Coleman.

En 1997, le compositeur classique Gavin Bryars avait écrit un adagio spécialement destiné à Haden. Intitulée ‘’By the Vaar’’, la pièce comprenait une instrumentation diversifiée incluant notamment des cordes, une clarinette basse et des percussions. La pièce avait été enregistrée avec l’English Chamber Orchestra et avait été incluse sur un album intitulé ‘’Farewell to Philosophy’’ (Adieu à la Philosophie). L’adagio était une sythèse de jazz et de musique de chambre et imitait le jeu d’Haden à la contrebasse. En 2001, Haden avait remporté un Latin Grammy Award pour le meilleur CD de jazz latin. Le prix lui avait été remis pour son album ‘’Nocturne’’ qui contenait des boléros de Cuba et du Mexique. Deux ans plus tard, Haden s’était mérité un second Latin Grammy Award pour la meilleur performance de jazz latin sur son album ‘’Land of the Sun.’’

Haden avait reformé le Liberation Music Orchestra en 2005 pour l’enregistrement de l’album ‘’Not In Our Name’’ réalisé sur étiquette Verve. L’album, qui avait été enregistré principalement avec de nouveaux musiciens, abordait surtout la situation politique aux États-Unis sous les gouvernements de Ronald Reagan, de George Bush Sr. et de George Bush Jr.

En 2008, Haden avait co-produit avec son épouse Ruth Cameron Haden l’album ‘’Charlie Haden Family and Friends : Rambling Boy.’’ Comme son titre l’indique, l’album mettait en vedette des membres de la famille immédiate d’Haden. Parmi ceux-ci, on retrouvait son épouse Ruth Cameron, ses trois filles musiciennes, les triplettes Petra, Tanya et Rachel, son fils Josh, et le mari de sa fille Tanya, le chanteur et multi-instrumentiste Jack Black. Le banjoéiste Béla Fleck, les guitaristes Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello et Rosanne Cash, et le claviériste Bruce Hornsby participaient à l’album avec d’autres musiciens importants de Nashville. Le disque avait permis à Haden de faire revivre l’époque où il jouait de la musique country sur l’émission de radio de ses parents. L’idée d’enregistrer ce genre d’album était venue à Charlie lorsque sa femme Ruth avait réuni la famille Haden pour le 80e anniversaire de naissance de sa mère et avait suggéré de chanter la chanson ‘’You Are My Sunshine’’ dans le salon. L’enregistrement de l’album avait aussi pour but de rapprocher les différentes générations de la famille Haden. Le disque comprenait des chansons popularisées par les frères Stanley, la famille Carter ainsi que par Hank Williams, en plus de chansons traditionnelles et de compositions originales.

En 2009, le réalisateur de cinéma suisse Reto Caduff avait produit un film sur la vie d’Haden intitulé ‘’Rambling Boy.’’ Le film avait été présenté au Festival du film de Telluride et au Festival international du film de Vancouver en 2009. À l’été 2009, Haden avait retrouvé son ancien partenaire Ornette Coleman au festival de Meltdown à Southbank, près de Londres. Au cours de cette période, Haden a aussi produit et enregistré des albums en solo avec le pianiste Kenny Barron, avec qui il avait enregistré l’album ‘’Night and the City.’’ En février 2010, Haden et le pianiste Hank Jones avaient collaboré dans le cadre de la production de l’album ‘’Come Sunday’’, une sorte de suite au disque ‘’Steal Away : Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs.’’ Jones est mort trois mois après l’enregistrement de l’album.

En plus de souffrir de la poliomyélite depuis son plus jeune âge, Haden avait de fréquents acouphènes, une maladie qu’il avait attribué à une exposition constante à la batterie et au son élevé des concerts auxquels il avait participé à la fin des années 1960. On avait découvert plus tard qu’Haden souffrait d’hyperacusis, une hyper-sensibilité au bruit qui l’obligeait à placer un Plexiglass entre lui et le batteur. Charlie Haden est mort à Los Angeles le 11 juillet 2014 à l’âge de soixante-seize ans. Les causes de sa mort ont été attribuées à un syndrome post-polio et à des complications consécutives à une maladie du foie. Il laissait dans le deuil sa femme Ruth, son frère Carl Jr., sa soeur Mary Davidson, ses enfants Josh, Petra, Rachel et Tanya, ainsi que trois petits-enfants.

On a rendu hommage à Charlie Haden lors d’un concert tenu au New York City's Town Hall le 13 janvier 2015. Le concert avait été produit et organisé par sa femme Ruth. Haden avait su transmetre sa passion de la musique à ses enfants. Le fils de Charlie, Josh Haden, est bassiste et chanteur du groupe Spain. Ses filles Petra, Tanya et Rachel Haden, sont toutes trois chanteuses et instrumentistes. Petra joue du violon et Rachel joue du piano et de la basse électrique. Quant à Tanya, qui est artiste visuelle, elle joue du violoncelle. Les trois soeurs, qui se produisent dans un groupe surnommé The Haden Triplets, ont enregistré un album éponyme en 2012. Le comédien, acteur et musicien Jack Black est le gendre de Tanya.

Charlie Haden a remporté de nombreux honneurs au cours de sa carrière, dont un Jazz Masters Award. En 2013, la carrière d’Haden avait été couronnée par la remise d’un Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Haden a aussi été reconnu‘’Jazz Master’’ par la National Endowment for the Arts en 2012. En 2014, Haden avait également été nommé Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres par le ministre de la Culture de France. Une cérémonie posthume en son son honneur avait eu lieu en janvier 2015 à New York.

En septembre 2014, trois mois après la mort de Charlie, les disques Impulse, qui venaient de renaître de leurs cendres, avaient publié l’album ‘’Charlie Haden-Jim Hall’’, un enregistrement de son concert en duo de 1990 au festival international de jazz de Montréal. Même s’il était mourant, Haden avait contribué à la réalisation de l’album. En juin 2015, les disques Impulse avaient récidivé avec l’album ‘’Tokyo Adagio’’, un disque en duo avec le pianiste cubain Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Haden avait également collaboré à la publication de l’album.

Même si Charlie Haden n’avait jamais été d’adepte d’une religion en particulier, il s’était toujours intéressé à la spiritualité, car il croyait que comme musicien, c’était sa responsabilité de rendre le monde meilleur.

Un peu comme Archie Shepp, Haden s’était servi de sa musique pour faire progresser les causes qui lui tenaient à coeur, sauf que contrairement à Shepp, Charlie Haden se préoccupait davantage du sort de la planète et de l’humanité en général que de celui des Afro-Américains. c-2023-2024, tous droits réservés, Les Productions de l'Imaginaire historique. SOURCES

  ‘’Charlie Haden.’’ Wikipedia, 2022.

‘’Charlie Haden Biography.’’ Net Industries, 2023.

JARENWATTANANON, Patrick. ‘’Remembering Jazz Legend Charlie Haden, Who Crafted His Voice In Bass.’’ NPR, 11 juillet 2014.

#jazz

[peterparkers7evilexes]

I’m getting older too [winterspider cult AU - T]

Chapter warnings: guns, descriptions of physical violence and blood, descriptions of cult-like gaslighting

[Part 1]

Group therapy was hell.

All it had taken was one crazed man grasping for straws, and before long everyone knew Bucky’s life. ‘Negligent, selfish, violent’, they chanted. ‘Abandoned your sister, lost your way, purposeless and useless’. It wasn’t a unique treatment. Everyone got ‘broken down’ like this, everyone was debased and humiliated in front of the whole room. It was supposed to be part of the healing process, Emrys insisted. Only by breaking one down to his core vulnerabilities could he be rebuilt. “Today,” he said, cupping Bucky’s face in his withered old hands, “is the first day of the rest of your life.”

Gazing up at Emrys through blurred tears, Bucky ground his teeth hatefully and wished him death. It was hard to not let their words get to him, and there was only so much violent brainwashing he could withstand.

Having Sam and Peter around helped - to a degree. Peter had been able to pull some strings and get Bucky moved to their cabin, and just having a safe place away from the pervasive cult mentality was a relief. But the group therapy sessions didn't seem to hit the other two nearly as hard.

"Just let it roll off you man," Sam said, not unkindly. "Water off a duck's back."

"They don't actually know you," Peter added. "Nothing they spout in there is true. You're stronger than them, Bucky."

And yet, Bucky only felt weak and broken after group therapy. Rebecca had always been the stronger of the two of them and he felt certain that his little sister, all four feet nine inches of her, would have laughed in everyone’s faces and let their words bounce off her like so much wasted breath.

On one night after a particularly rough group therapy session, Bucky had laid sullen in his bunk, useless tears slipping down his cheeks as he thought of Rebecca and how badly he’d failed her.

He wasn’t expecting it then, when a soft voice broke the silence. “We’ll get out of here.”

“What?” he said, hating how his voice came out a little nasally, betraying his weakness.

“This isn’t forever.” Peter’s head popped down from the bunk above, his brown hair flopping messily around his face as he gazed at Bucky upside-down. “This place is designed to break you. But we’re gonna get out of here.”

“I know,” Bucky said automatically, wiping the wetness from his eyes and sitting up in bed.

Peter stared at him for a long moment, cocking his head to one side. He nodded to himself and, with a little ‘oof!’, swung down from the top bunk and fell gracelessly into Bucky’s lap, long legs smacking him in the face. “Scoot,” he whispered, thankfully blind to the way Bucky was suddenly flushed bright red at their positions.

Bucky pressed himself against the wall, staring quizzically as Peter laid down next to him, his body a line of warmth against his side.

“Hi,” Peter said, tucking his toes under Bucky’s calves and giggling when the older boy tried to squirm away. “What’re you gonna do when we get out of here?” He asked conversationally, keeping his voice down as to not disturb Sam who was snoring gently in the other bunk.

“Oh, I dunno.” Bucky murmured, throwing half of the blanket over Peter’s legs. When Peter just nudged his shoulder patiently, Bucky sighed. “I’m gonna find my sister. I’m getting her out of the foster home and we’re gonna take care of ourselves.”

“That sounds nice.” Peter curled into a little ball on his side, dark eyes blinking at Bucky. “You’re a good brother.”

Bucky shrugged, staring at the underside of the top bunk. He didn’t feel like he was. “How about you? Did you ever live… not here?”

Peter nodded, his fingers tracing an unidentifiable pattern on the sheets between them. “With my aunt and uncle. They were good people, took me in after Dad split. But they died a few years ago, so I got sent here to live with him anyways.”

“You don’t seem anything like him,” Bucky mused. “You’re not… not as--”

“Evil? Maniacal? Power-drunk?”

Bucky laughed. “Yeah. All of those things.” He turned to look at Peter, his heart rabbiting in his chest at the way the kid stared at him, curious and unguarded. “What about you?” he croaked. “Where are you going?”

“Dunno,” Peter said, tearing his eyes away from Bucky. “Always wanted to go to school, but… That’s probably not realistic. Not for awhile, anyways.”

“You never know,” Bucky murmured, pushing down the fear of uncertainty rising up his chest. “You’re smart, Queens. You could figure something out.”

Peter gave him a tentative smile, nodding and burrowing into the blankets. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Hey, Brooklyn.”

Bucky looked up from the potato he was scrubbing. Peter was leaned up against the steel worktable in the commune kitchen, grinning at him and holding up a peeler.

“What’re you doing here?” He didn’t see much of Peter around the farm during the daytime - while he and Sam were relegated to the kitchens or the garden, Peter was usually put to work in the infirmary or helping out with the weekly task scheduling.

Peter bumped his hip, grabbing the thoroughly scrubbed potato from his hand. “Got done with stuff. What, can't I just wanna see your pretty face?”

Bucky grinned, glad for the company. “You're a terrible liar, Parker.” He dumped another basket of potatoes into the sink, setting to work scrubbing that batch too. Looking around the kitchen to be sure everyone else was heads down on their own tasks, Bucky said in a low voice, “Everything set?”

“Yeah.” Peter smiled sincerely at him, managing to look completely charming while elbow-deep in potato peels. “Got you on the schedule as a delivery hand tomorrow, and Sam for later today. Once you’re in the rotation, the Guard will be more relaxed about letting you guys out on runs.”

Security had gotten considerably tighter after the first riot. Emrys formed a militia called the Community Guard and equipped them with rubber bullets and police grade batons, and of course every violent cult member with aggression issues had immediately signed up to enlist in the Guard.

Within a week of the Guard’s formation, six more teenagers were sent to the infirmary with severe concussions and there was no more whisper of escape attempts. At least, not outside of their cabin.

It felt like a slice of normalcy, sitting on Peter’s bed while the three of them talked through their plans and what they'd do afterwards - laughing and talking quietly amongst themselves, like they were normal kids instead of planning a secret escape from an isolated cult. Bucky didn't know what would become of their friendships once they got out. Sam had parents he wanted to return to, and Bucky had Rebecca. He thought about asking Peter to stick with him - at least until he figured something more permanent out. But whenever Bucky thought to mention it, his tongue sat heavy in his mouth and he couldn't quite summon the words. He'd wait until they actually managed to escape, he told himself. Get out of this hellhole first, then they'd figure out where to go.

Their plan moved forward into action. With Peter pulling the strings behind the work schedule, Bucky and Sam became regulars on the delivery rotation.

It was dull work mostly - perched in the back of a pickup truck with another farmhand, Bucky was responsible for hauling produce to the various farmers’ markets and isolated towns far flung from the rest of civilization. The buyers never looked at Bucky, didn’t even really like interacting with the drivers, it seemed. They’d fork over a wad of cash and take the bags of produce without so much as a ‘thank you’, all adhering to some unspoken rule not to engage with anyone from the compound more than was absolutely necessary.

On one occasion, the farmhand Bucky was working with - another kid who’d been discarded from the juvenile center - dared to ask a woman at the market to use her phone. She had looked nervously between the boy and the pickup driver, and made up some excuse about not having her phone on her. (Bucky didn’t miss the faint rectangular outline in her apron pocket.)

When they got back to the compound, the driver grabbed the kid and marched him in the direction of Emrys’ quarters, and when Bucky reported on what he’d seen, Peter confirmed grimly that he’d been asked to pull the kid’s name from any future delivery rotations.

Sam and Bucky kept their heads down, did as they were told while out on delivery, and they pretended to swallow Emrys' lies. It was all to get back to Rebecca, Bucky told himself firmly. It wasn't forever.

Their opportunity finally came a week later. "Schedule's set," Peter said breathlessly, bursting into the cabin after the nightly sermon, his face pink from running across the compound. "You two are out on delivery with Joe tomorrow, but I'm gonna take care of him during breakfast."

Sam sprung up from his bunk in excitement and ran at Peter, hugging him and twirling him around in a celebratory circle. "Thank God!” He bellowed, and Peter batted at his shoulders, laughing even as he shushed him.

“We’re getting out,” Bucky said in amazement, sitting stunned at the edge of his bunk. “This time tomorrow, we’re gonna be out of here.”

Once Sam let him down, Peter crouched down on the cabin floor and pulled a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket. “Okay, it’s not the prettiest,” he said, flattening the sheet, “but this is a general map of where we oughta go tomorrow. The first market stop is here,” he pointed to a dot on the traced map. “And the closest town is fifty miles south of that, Clear Creek. All we gotta do is make it to Clear Creek, then they can’t touch us if we’re in someone else’s jurisdiction.”

“How do we know Clear Creek’s law enforcement won’t just turn us back over?” Sam asked, looking down at the sketch.

“We don’t,” Peter admitted, looking up at them. “So we try not to get caught and keep going if we can. Think of Clear Creek as our waypoint marker.”

“Sounds risky,” Bucky said, meeting Peter’s eyes. “Let’s try not to get caught then.”

Peter grinned. “That’s the plan.”

The following morning, Bucky was thrumming with nerves and anxiety. He made his way to the dining hall through a light misty rain, keeping his head down low and flicking his eyes from side-to-side, terrified that any moment, a Community Guard would pull him aside, their plan discovered.

The morning sermon went on without incident though - as he filed through the breakfast line, Peter gave him a little smile before slopping some oatmeal on his tray, but that was the only acknowledgment they made to one another.

Rain was still falling light and dewey across the compound, shallow mud puddles squelching underneath his boots as he made his way to the car port. He caught sight of Sam already hauling burlap sacks of carrots, sweet potatoes and onions into the bed of a dirty white pick-up and began helping out, neither daring to speak to the other just yet.

Peter ducked out of the car port a moment later, shielding his face from the rain. “You boys ready?”

Bucky bit back a nervous laugh and nodded. Sam jumped up into the bed of the truck and perched himself among the burlap sacks of produce, extending a hand down to help Bucky up as well. Catching his eye, Sam gave him an anxious grin and squeezed his hand reassuringly.

“Let’s go,” he called, knocking the top of the cab.

Peter got up into the truck cab and turned the ignition over, looking up into the rearview mirror. His eyes locked with Bucky's in the mirror, and then they drove off.

Mud splattered thick and viscous all around them as Peter drove through the compound, caking the wheels and leaving deep wet tracks in the earth behind them. The rain drizzled on, flattening Bucky's hair against his face and he had to squint to see more than a few feet in front of the truck, so his fingers tightened around the edge of the truck bed when he felt them rolling to a stuttered stop.

"Hold up," called a voice, and Bucky felt his stomach plummet as a Community Guard strolled up to the cab, rapping his rubber baton against the hood.

Peter leaned across and cranked the window down, smiling at the guard. "Hey!" he greeted him cheerfully, fingers wrapped tense around the steering wheel.

"I didn't think you were cleared for driving," the guard said in a gruff voice, squinting back to where Bucky and Sam sat in the pickup bed.

"Yeah, just got trained," Peter said.

"Is that so?" The guard's eyes lingered on Bucky, then on Sam, taking in their stiff posture and nervous silence.

"We got a couple deliveries to make, can we go?" Peter asked, an edge of impatience creeping into his voice.

"Hold on." Bucky watched with mounting dread as the guard's hand strayed down to the gun at his belt, a clear threat. "I don't want you driving out in this weather if you're new at this. I'm gonna check the schedule, see if someone can switch shifts."

Sam and Bucky exchanged a panicked look. "We already asked," Sam shouted quickly. "Clint was gonna, but he said he wasn't feelin' too good. Something about stomach cramps.” When the guard gave him another dubious look, Sam said, “Look, we're already gonna run late with the rain, but if we slow down anymore, half these people won't even buy this stuff. You know how they hardly trust us," he added ruefully, with a commiserating shake of his head.

The guard gave an annoyed sigh, but his hand lowered from the gun at his belt. “I still don’t like you driving out in the rain,” he scowled. “Let me drive ‘em, your dad’ll kill me if I let you get into a wreck.”

For a hair of a second, Bucky saw Peter’s eyes flick up to the rearview mirror again and meet his, terror communicated between them wordlessly. “Please Rollins, c'mon," he pleaded, pasting on a charming smile. "If I never drive in these conditions, how'm I supposed to learn?" When the guard's forehead furrowed in doubt again, Peter leaned forward, throwing out their last hail Mary. "Come along for the ride. Just let me practice," he wheedled.

Rollins chewed at his lower lip thoughtfully, then sighed, his shoulders slumped in defeat. It worked. "Yeah, okay," he relented. "Budge over."

Peter gave him a winning grin and threw the car door open, letting him in.

The door slammed shut behind them and Rollins cranked the window back up, leaving Bucky and Sam to stare at one another in quiet dismay as the rain fell around them.

Slowly, the pickup drove on away from the compound, the fields and shacks of the isolated community fading into the gray afternoon mist as they went on with their escape, complications and all.

"What are we gonna do?" Sam murmured in a low voice, his fingers clenched tense around his knees.

"We gotta get rid of him along the way. Maybe… Maybe make some emergency, so he has to get out of the cab." Bucky dug around the truck bed, looking for some kind of tool. "Fuck, should've brought a shovel or something," he mourned.

"We could use a big carrot," Sam said drily.

"Come on, Sam," Bucky said fretfully, but as he looked around the truck, wielding produce seemed more and more like their only option. "Fuck," he said again.

All too quickly, they made it into their first stop, a small market far flung from the compound and still well beyond any incorporated town to speak of.

Sam and Bucky got to work hauling bags of produce off the truck, unable to speak with Peter with the guard sitting idly in the truck cab. It was as Bucky was summing up the price that he saw Sam fiddling with one of the vendors' wooden stalls. Sam was leaned casually against the post like he was just sheltering himself from the rain, but Bucky caught his fingers twisting something under the wooden slats of the stall.

His heart pounding in his chest, Bucky stuttered over the numbers, losing count. "Shit, sorry," he mumbled, scrubbing his face and smiling apologetically at the vendor. "Never was good at numbers."

The vendor made a derisive sound under her breath but just tapped her foot impatiently while she waited for Bucky to count again.

He summed the prices up, watching Sam out of the corner of his eye. Sam tucked his hands into his pockets and headed back to the truck, stooping to retie his boots. Only when he had hopped back up into the truck bed did Bucky give her the total, holding back his sigh of relief.

The vendor scanned over the numbers doubtfully, but finding no flaw, sneered and handed over the cash.

Bucky smiled and thanked her, and jogged back to the truck, joining Sam among the sacks of produce.

“What took you so long?” Rollins asked in an annoyed growl, jerking the passenger side door open just enough to take the wad of cash out of Bucky’s hand.

“Bad at math,” Bucky shrugged.

“Fucking delinquents,” Rollins muttered scathingly, slamming the door again as the truck rumbled on.

“Thanks, man,” Sam said quietly.

As Peter drove them on, Bucky tilted his head to the side, hearing an odd metallic clanking like something was rattling underneath the truck. “What did you do?” he asked.

Sam grinned, uncurling his fingers and showing Bucky a long, rusted screw. “Messed with the exhaust pipe,” he murmured. “Mostly harmless, but it’ll sound like something bad is fucked up - hopefully fucked up enough that Rollins gets out to check.”

Bucky grinned at him.

Sure enough, Rollins started shifting in the cab, looking around in annoyance and at points, leaning over the dash to check what he could see.

Not wanting them to get too close to the second stop, Bucky rapped on the back window of the cab. “Hey!” he called, and the truck rolled to a slow stop, tires squelching in the mud.

The rain was falling harder now, a consistent downpour that soaked Bucky and Sam to their bones, although the adrenaline pumping through him kept the cold at bay. Rollins reluctantly opened the cab door and got out, hunching himself under his jacket. “You guys hear that rattling too?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, wiping the rain from his face. “It sounded like it’s comin’ from underneath the truck, I think.”

Rollins scoffed, looking disgruntled as he circled the vehicle. “Yeah, that’s where all the car parts are, genius. ‘Course it’s coming from underneath the truck.”

“I know something about cars,” Bucky volunteered, hopping out of the bed. Rollins raised an eyebrow but stepped back to make room for him. “Probably something with the, uh, serpentine belt,” he fished, wincing when Sam gave him an unimpressed look. Thankfully, Rollins didn’t call him on his bluff.

Feeling a little emboldened, Bucky crouched by the side of the truck, his eyes flicking up to where Peter was sitting in the cab, brown eyes blinking curiously at him. “Here, I’m gonna try tightening the muffler valve. Can you get close to the exhaust pipe -- yeah, just kinda next to it, and can you tell me if you hear something hissing?”

Rollins grimaced, clearly not relishing the thought of taking orders from the new kid, but he went to the back of the truck, stooping just a bit.

Bucky seized his opportunity. Jumping up to his feet, he kicked at the wet earth, spraying thick mud into Rollins’ face and making him roar.

Sam hefted up a sack of carrots and flung it at Rollins, knocking the man off balance and flat into the mud. “Go, go, go!” he roared, just as Bucky grabbed onto the passenger side door, barely hauling himself into the cab in time as Peter slammed on the gas pedal.

“Fuck!” Peter cried, but he was laughing hysterically as they peeled away, tires spitting up mud in their wake.

“Tighten the muffler valve!” he could hear Sam howling, his own laughter bubbling out of his throat in amazement.

As he watched Rollins stumble to his feet in the rear mirrors, he swore as he realized Rollins was pulling his gun from his holster. A loud crack rent the air and Bucky ducked his head instinctively. “He’s fucking shooting at us,” he shouted indignantly.

“Don’t worry,” Peter called back, “they’re rubber bullets! Shit, I dunno where we’re going, can you get my map--”

Another crack sounded, this one louder than the last. Bucky’s ears were ringing, and he realized with almost slow-motion comprehension that glass was sprayed all across the truck cab, shards of it discarded across the peeled leather seats.

He hauled himself upright, staring as Peter’s eyes found his, wide and frightened. “You’re okay,” he said instinctively, wanting to comfort the other boy, and then the truck veered to the side, too fast for country roads and Peter slumped bonelessly into his lap.

Bucky’s hands went to cradle his head, adrenaline dragging time to a crawl. “Hey,” he started, his fingers slick and wet in Peter’s hair. He didn’t understand - Peter hadn’t gone in the rain, why was he wet - and as he pulled his fingers away, he stared uncomprehendingly at the thick red rivulets running down his palm.

“Bucky!” Sam roared behind him. “Drive!”

“Oh god,” he heard himself say, and when another crack sounded through the air, Bucky snapped back to himself. He cradled Peter’s head as best as he could and slid into the driver’s seat, his body twisted awkwardly as he rammed down on the gas pedal while trying to keep Peter in his lap.

Another two gunshots rang out, one embedding itself in the metal of the truck, but Sam kept screaming, “Drive, don’t stop driving!” so he curled his arms tighter around Peter’s fragile body and kept on the gas, numb and trembling until his vision was blurred with the pouring rain.

#winterspider #peter parker/bucky barnes #bucky barnes/peter parker #bucky barnes x peter parker #peter parker x bucky barnes #synanon au #fic #longpost #tw:cults #tw:physical violence #tw:gun violence

[thatsnotcanonpodcasts]

Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast and Zealot

Happy April Fool's Day! Our Castologists jokingly thought it would be funny to do a Religion theme on this prankiest of days because it seemed like a good idea at the time. And because none of them are remotely religious they've uncovered some podcasts with some sort of spiritual component... Also it's nearly Easter so just go with it OK? Liz found enlightenment in the words of J.K. Rowling with Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, Zane gets down to worshipping false gods with Zealot, and Patrick gets controversial with The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast.

Liz Recommends - Harry Potter and the Sacred Text

"On this podcast, we ask: What if we read the books we love as if they were sacred texts?"

This podcast is all about looking at the Harry Potter book series as if it were a sacred text and finding out what we can learn from each chapter. The hosts pick a central theme through which to explore the characters and context, always grounding themselves in the text. Through this, they unearth some wonderful lessons we humans can take from the famous plight of the Boy Who Lived. The hosts recommend reading along with them to get the most out of the works but it is not mandatory.

For both: Whatever book you remember/chapter/theme takes your fancy.

Pat Recommends - The Jordan B Peterson Podcast

Jordan B Peterson is a clinical psychologist at the University of Toronto. He has quickly become one of the most controversial and polarising figures in popular academia. His podcast usually consists of interviews with guests, Q&A's, and recordings of lectures and conferences. Since this is a very special religious episode I have recommended his psychological significance of the bible series For Zane & Liz: The psychological significance of the bible lectures.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?mt=2

Zane Recommends - Zealot

Infringing a little bit on Liz's territory Zealot is a true crime-ish podcast about cults. This is another Australian podcast, each episode Jo Thornely talks to a comedian/performer friend about a different cult from Scientology to Synanon to The Universe People.

For Pat: 17: The Family with Shelley Stocken

For Liz: 21: Universe People with Patrick Lenton

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/zealot

Subscribe to us on ITUNES, STITCHER, SPOTIFY, RADIOPUBLIC or your podcatcher of choice.

Find us on FACEBOOK, TWITTER or INSTAGRAM.

#podcast #podcasting #podcaster #podernfamily #review

[peterparkers7evilexes]

Winterspider - cult of Synanon au [pt1]

THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM AM I RIGHT 

This is another idea I had for another ship that got stalled, and anon you actually kickstarted my brain because it works so much better for Winterspider thank you 💕 I know it’s not quite fluffy at the end just yet, but there will be a pt 2!

2.3k words - this is based off of the real life cult of Synanon, look ‘em up if you’re into weird cult shit, it’s horrifying ---------

He got caught trying to steal canned soup. With his baseball cap down low and a faded gray hoodie on, Bucky had thought it was safe. He smuggled two cans of Campbell’s vegetable soup into his hoodie pockets and strolled out the door. The cops were waiting for him beyond the corner, and he never made it back to the foster home where Rebecca was waiting for him.

Juvie was hell. It was an improvement in some ways - he got three hot meals a day, had a lumpy but warm bed, and the detention center even had a little library with some mangled books. But being separated from Rebecca, that was the worst feeling he’d ever experienced in his entire life. Even worse than finding out their parents were dead was the guilt of knowing that he’d failed them, failed Rebecca, left her to fend for herself in a negligent foster home. He tossed and turned in his cot for the first few nights, plagued by thoughts of his little sister hating him, or worse, of her quiet resignation as yet another person failed to protect her like they’d promised.

He didn’t sleep until the third night, when his bunkmate Sam told him, “You ain’t helping her by killing yourself like this.” That and the complete exhaustion lulled Bucky into a dead slumber.

This, Bucky thought, was the worst feeling in the world.

Then a month into his incarceration, the detention center was audited and to no one’s surprise, it was deemed dangerously overcrowded. A lovely farm upstate had volunteered to take on a few juveniles, they said, and Bucky and Sam were ordered onto a school bus that shuttled 50 of them five hours north.

The detention center dropped them off in the middle of a farm, isolated for miles around, wiped their hands of those pesky delinquents, and drove back to the city. “This is a cult,” Sam realized as they were herded through the compound, and Bucky nodded in quiet agreement.

That night, the ‘community leader’, a lean man in his 40s with deceptively warm, brown eyes who introduced himself as Emrys, spread his arms and beamed at his sullen audience. “Your paths are laden with sin. I sense a great deal of violence in your pasts. But you’re home now. You’ll be expected to do your part for your new family, but in return, you’ll find meaning and purpose - a calling that you used to fill with drugs, violence and sex.” He smiled genially at them. “Things are already better for you, I promise.”

Things didn’t get better. The cult, in between preachings of cleansing and forgiveness, emphasized breaking down the ego to rebuild anew. This mostly consisted of ‘group therapy’ where community members were gathered into a room and berated for each of their flaws and ugly histories. Bucky watched as the cult members screamed and called each other drug addicts, whores, junkies, shitty mothers and useless sons. At the end of each session, Emrys swooped in, touching a gentle palm to their foreheads and ‘built them back up’, murmuring about how his beloved children had an opportunity to repent, a second chance at life here. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” he said each time, and those inoculated would weep, clutching at Emrys’ jacket sleeves and thank him for believing in them.

As they worked in the gardens, Bucky and Sam exchanged what they saw. “We gotta get out of here,” Sam hissed, his eyes flicking from side to side for the supervisors. “This is straight up Jonestown in the making, you know how that ends, don’t you?”

Bucky bent over, pretending to pull out weeds. “There’s nothing for miles around, where would we even go?”

Sam shrugged, the line of his shoulders tensing as the supervisor strolled closer to their section of the garden. “There’s some talk in my bunk,” he continued in a low voice. “Remember Winston, the ginger from juvie?” Bucky nodded slowly. “He’s talking to others, saying they’re gonna try and make a break for it later this week, while everyone’s at community prayer.”

“That’s a stupid idea,” Bucky said immediately, glaring up at Sam from where he was hunched on the ground. “Doing it while everyone’s gathered in one place? Everyone’s gonna know right away. Plus Winston’s a fucking moron, you really think he’s got a good plan going?”

Huffing out a sigh, Sam kicked at Bucky’s boot. “You got a better plan?”

Bucky pursed his lips and shook his head. “Don’t do it, Sam,” he said quietly. “I’m serious.”

Stretching his arms over his head, Sam looked up at the dusky sky. “I won’t,” he said slowly. “But we can’t stay here forever, Buck. This place is evil, and you know it too.”

That Friday night, things got worse.

During community prayer, Bucky kept scanning the crowd for Winston and his crew, and of course he saw no sign of them. Standing at his podium at the front of the temple, Emrys spread his arms wide, his brown eyes glittering with some smug satisfaction as he preached about young lambs who needed to lose their way before they could be saved. As Emrys gazed over his followers, his dark, omniscient eyes landed briefly on Bucky, and a horrible chill shuddered down his spine.

But it wasn’t until after everyone went to bed that all hell broke loose.

Bucky was lying awake in his bunk, staring at the ceiling and thinking of Rebecca as usual when he heard distant shouting and the barking of dogs. He sat up in his bed, looking to the door of the cabin. “What’s that?” He asked quietly.

Two of his bunkmates were asleep, but another kid was awake as well. He shook his head at Bucky in confusion.

Stepping into his boots, Bucky got up and crept to the door. The yelling came closer, and among the voices he could hear higher voices - mostly teenagers’ screams. Dread sunk cold in his chest, and he looked back at his bunkmate. “I’m gonna see what’s going on.”

Outside, a scene of chaos was unfolding. The would-be runaways were being rounded up back to the compound, their clothes disheveled and muddied and, Bucky realized with a jolt of horror, gashed with blood. A pack of dogs herded them along, snarling and barking at the stragglers. Bucky recognized the community’s sentries hemming in the runaways on all sides, striking at them with bats and flashlights.

“Hey!” called a voice, and Bucky turned, seeing a scrawny brunet boy he vaguely recognized standing outside another cabin and watching. The boy’s call went unnoticed and a sentry struck one of the runaways across the forehead, sending him crumpling to the ground. “Stop it!” cried the scrawny boy, and he ran into the fray.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky muttered under his breath, breaking into a run as he watched the sentries start on him as well. “Get off, he’s injured!” he shouted, throwing an arm up to shield his face. The scrawny boy ducked under Bucky’s arm and grabbed the unconscious kid under his armpits, starting to drag him away. “Stop, you’re killing them,” he roared as a bat landed hard on his back. Furious, he turned to his attacker and punched him in the face. He didn’t get the chance to do anything else - he heard the heavy thunk of a bat before the pain registered, splitting agony down his skull. As Bucky’s vision swam and went fuzzy, all he could hear was the howling of dogs.

This was the worst feeling in the world.

Sharp, thudding pain pulsed behind Bucky’s eyeballs, and he briefly wished someone would knock him out again so he didn’t have to be awake anymore. “Fuck,” he muttered, and he heard a startled yelp to his right side.

“Oh thank god,” came Sam’s voice, and Bucky cracked his eyes open, wincing at the low lighting. To his surprise though, it wasn’t Sam leaning over him. At first, in his addled state, Bucky felt certain that he had died, and this was an angel peering down at him.

Large brown eyes blinked owlishly at Bucky. It was the scrawny boy from earlier, his soft brown hair haloed in a golden corona from the lamplight. “You’re not Sam,” Bucky said intelligently, and the boy laughed.

“You’re alive,” the boy said with relief, smiling at him. He had a pretty smile, a nice laugh, Bucky noted dimly.

Sam came into view then, crossing his arms and looking down at Bucky quite unimpressed. “You would’ve died if Peter hadn’t saved your ass,” he informed him.

Bucky gingerly touched his skull. “I wouldn’t have had to save your ass in the first place if you hadn’t run out there,” he complained, shooting a rueful look up at Peter.

Peter flushed pink. “They were killing him,” he said meekly.

His little frown made Bucky feel like he’d just kicked a puppy. “I’m just giving you shit,” he said gruffly, sitting up and looking around Sam’s and Peter’s cabin. “It was brave. But stupid.”

“You’re both brave and stupid,” Sam said firmly. “We barely dragged your lifeless body back in here, you know.”

“What happened?” Bucky asked, groaning as pain throbbed dully over his back and shoulders. “What happened to the other kids?”

Peter and Sam exchanged a look. “They got taken to isolation,” Peter said quietly. At Bucky’s questioning look, he grimaced. “You’re newer. You wouldn’t have heard of it. They don’t like people knowing about isolation until they’re… y’know.”

“Brainwashed,” Sam supplied helpfully.

“Yeah.” Peter lowered his eyes, picking up a damp washcloth and soaking it in a little basin. He lifted the rag and held it out, gently patting it across his forehead. Bucky blinked, seeing the rag come away pink with his blood. “They put addicts in there to force them clean. It’s awful.”

“Will they be okay?” Bucky asked, dread unfurling cold in his chest again.

Peter shrugged. “They’ll get out, but they won’t be the same. If you think what happens up here is brainwashing, the stuff that they do in isolation…” He shuddered, dipping the rag back into the basin. “You don’t get out until you’re without a doubt converted.”

“Fuck. We gotta get out of here,” Bucky said, his breath coming in short now. “I gotta get back to the city.”

“Oh, now you agree with me?” Sam crossed his arms over his chest, unsympathetic.

Bucky flipped him off and to his surprise, Peter’s face broke into a wide grin. He was adorable. “I got to thinking,” he started, looking carefully at the door as if to check for eavesdroppers, “Winston’s plan was stupid.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said emphatically, flinching when another spike of pain shot through his head.

“Lie back,” Peter huffed, and he pressed his small hands down on Bucky’s chest, flattening him against the lumpy cot. Bucky let himself be tucked into bed, and he watched with some amusement and disbelief as this skinny, angelic boy bustled about the cabin, unperturbed by his delinquent company as he dumped out the dirty basin water and fetched a clean pillowcase. “Just running will never work. They’ve got hunting dogs and cars--”

“They’ve got cars?” Sam hissed in outrage. “They’ve been makin’ us haul feed two miles in the blazing sun, talking about work ethic and purity of the mind--”

“So we need to get out with their approval,” Peter continued. “They have to willingly let us off campus, either as missionaries or running errands.”

“But that will only get us so far,” Bucky said, raising himself so Peter could tuck a fresh pillow under his head.

Peter’s face lit up in another smile. God, he was pretty. “We don’t have to make it all the way back to the city. We just need to make it out of their jurisdiction.”

“You’ve thought this all through,” Bucky realized. “Why wait until now? Why didn’t you do this before, before Winston and his crew? Security’s going to be way tighter now that there’s already been one escape attempt.”

Peter met his eyes, warm brown and wide with fear. “I was waiting for the right people,” he admitted. “I only get one chance at this. If I get caught, Dad’s gonna kill me. Literally kill me.”

“Dad?” Sam repeated, squinting at him.

With a jolt, Bucky realized where he recognized those dark brown eyes - deceitful and dominating where he’d seen them before, but heartfelt and kind in Peter. “Oh shit,” he breathed.

Peter nodded, his face determined. “Any objections to breaking out with the cult leader’s kid?”

Sam and Bucky looked at one another, nodding their silent agreement. “Well Emrys Junior,” Sam said, clapping Peter on the shoulder. “Looks like you’re our best bet, so we don’t got much of a choice, do we?”

Peter wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Please, his name’s Rick. I wanna get out of this festering hellhole as bad as you two. You know he doesn’t let us watch movies? I just wanna watch King Kong.”

A laugh came unbidden from Bucky’s lips, startling him for a moment with how foreign it felt. He sat back up, ignoring Peter’s concerned face and grabbed the kid’s hand in his. “Peter, you get us out of here and I’ll take you to the movies every day,” he said seriously.

Flushing pink again, Peter looked down at their joined hands, then back up at Bucky. He nodded seriously, his eyes warm and earnest. “I will. We will,” he promised softly.

Things weren’t great. Bucky was still trapped in a cult hundreds of miles from his sister and he had a headache that felt like an axe was wedged between his ears, but this was hope.

Things were better.

#winterspider #synanon au #let me know if you wanna be tagged for pt 2! #might not be for a bit because i have a lot of writing on my mind but it's comin #i love this prompt anon thank u #my shit #longpost #tw:cults #tw:substance abuse mention #tw:physical violence #anon #ask #also fuck you tumblr #fic

[runawayballista]

fe13 wawa au keeps sprawling and most of it is in scattered twitter threads or just floating around my brain. time 2 put it all in one place before i start forgetting the good stuff. i love to hyperfixate

this started out as a morgan-centric AU for the purpose of cute & funny morgain/owain (and eventually also cynigowaingan) and then ofc i got WAY invested in the backstory of robin & morgan being escapees from a modern-day wellness spirituality cult who only recently lost their memories. when i tried to figure out what all the adults were doing tama suggested "chrom is robins work buddy from the 7/11" and then i decided Everyone Works At Wawa. thank you tama for that big-brained seed of an idea it is growing into a beautiful and unwieldy tree

*just to be clear this is called "wawa AU" but they work at a super wawa. ok. thanks

MORGAN & ROBIN are escapees from the modern day cult of grima, which is a fringe religious cult wrapped in a vaguely synanon-esque wellness cult wrapped in an herbal supplement MLM a la herbalife and YES it is called grimalife. the deeper you go, the weirder and more controlling and isolating it gets. it started out as a weird religious cult in the southwest US, but fueled by the sheer power of "well, no one's stopped me so far", validar starts grooming his only child into a protege he can eventually manipulate to gain further influence beyond the cult. folks, that's programming

the grima family's surname is grimason. rhymes with "freemason"

robin has her major "ah fuck, i really was raised in a cult" breakthrough and escapes with morgan when he's around 9, and with the help of some old friends, flees to the other side of the country and starts a new life for them under new identities as robin and morgan jones. they're able to live their lives in relative peace, uninterrupted by validar or anyone from the cult. it seems like they've actually escaped for good. fast forward several years when they are in a car accident and wind up with identical presentations of near-total amnesia: they can't remember anything about their lives except each other. they're only able to learn so much about themselves from the available information and can't explain why they don't have any photos from before when morgan is 9. robin finds out she's a faculty member of a local university of moderate prestige (field: game theory) where she started working around the time they apparently moved here, but when she tries to research how she got the job she winds up with mostly dead ends. the university is like hey… you should take a sabbatical… take some time off to be with your family and recover. also, you can’t remember your own syllabus so how are you going to teach right now anyway

as far as they can tell robin’s been homeschooling morgan his entire life, and he’s 16 now, so robin’s like hmmmm. i think maybe you should start going to a regular school this fall. it’s important that you get a good education and i’m not sure an amnesiac academic should be responsible for your curriculum and you should probably uh. be around kids your age? morgan is fine with this! the idea of going to school is actually really exciting. ALL of this is so exciting. in fact he really wants to try going to the summer camp they found a brochure for in the kitchen! robin is so immensely relieved to have a kid with this outlook because she is Struggling with the existential implications of not remembering anything from before you were 40.

unfortunately you can't just tell people like robin and morgan to "take it easy and relax", and eventually robin gets so bored and stir crazy that the third saturday in a row morgan emerges from his room to find that his mother has turned the den into an escape room he's like "mom this is so cool but i think you really need to get a job" so. while morgan is off at summer camp, robin gets a job at the super wawa

(ROLL CREDIT TITLES)

uhhh fuck i have no idea how to organize the rest of my thoughts on this. morgan goes to summer camp with owain where they become insta buddies, they spend a lot of time larping in the woods and then on the last day of camp they kiss in a tree, and owain falls out of the tree and breaks his arm. Classic camp experience. when he gets home from camp he will NOT shut up about the new friend he made, who inigo is convinced doesn't actually exist. what, you mean like your girlfriend in canada

smash cut to the first day of school and guess who is in their home room class!! haha it's wild owain and morgan spent so much time coordinating playing an online game together that neither of them thought to ask where the other one lived

i have not figured out everyone's Deals yet but most of the shepherds work at the wawa. chrom is like, technically the general manager here but let's be real, frederick is the one running the show. sully & sumia work the food and drink bar, sumia makes your milkshakes with a smile and sully glares at you when you ask if shes SURE theyre out of bacon (theyre married). cordelia also works there bc despite getting her masters degree she follows chrom to every customer service job he works. lissa also works there but her wife maribelle is currently working on her law degree. maribelle has never worked at the wawa and she never will. her wife has nothing but respect for her for dealing with the unwashed masses all day and still coming home with a smile, but there simply is not enough money in the world to convince maribelle to put on a mass-produced polo and visor

cordelia is married to gaius, who is constantly getting people caught up in little scams, just for fun, but also, there isn't enough good dental insurance in the world. he has been up in MULTIPLE MLM schemes because he knows how to work them and get out. he absolutely sells some GrimaLife brain pills for a while and even gets hooked on the kids gummy supplements until he realizes how many of these contain lead. severa learned to shoplift from watching you, dad

virion does NOT work at the wawa. he is inigo's dad and some kind of rich dude, its not important what kind, its only important that that cherche is the head of his legal counsel department and she represented olivia in the divorce :)

THE REGNA FEROX CIRCLE K is simply my new favorite combination of words to say. the shepherds are the wawa, and regna ferox is the lone, weirdly displaced circle K in the murky PA/NJ realm this takes place in. olivia has worked for basilio & flavia since she was a teenager after they were kind enough to give her a hand when she really needed it!! she quit when she married virion. she was rehired immediately after the divorce

lon'qu also works at the regna ferox circle K, similarly got a job there as a Troubled Youth and basilio kind of took him in, although for a while he wandered off on his own to go somewhere no one knew him. that's where he met robin! they're married! were married? he's morgan's dad but hasn't seen his wife OR kid in over 10 years. i think that may be a separate post because this is getting so long. lon'qu's only hobbies are working out & woodworking

#fire emblem awawakening #まとめ #fe13 #fembles #oh there's SO MUCH of this rattling around in here