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faebriel · 3 years

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ok ok I'm insane and couldn't pick one so have two (no need to answer both if you don't want to)

“You talk to him.” Not kindly, but he does.

“I’m used to him,” he shoots back. “I’m the only person who is.”

That makes Niki feel something, some uncomfortable tug in her chest. She mentally kicks herself. It’s not jealousy, she reminds herself, because despite the near-cliff jumping and the long nights without food and the nuclear fallout that has punctuated her last few months, being jealous of Tommy would be the least reasonable thing she’s allowed herself to be, maybe ever.

“You don’t believe me,” Tommy says flatly. “You never - eugh.” He cuts himself off with another ragged sigh, running a hand down his face. “Look, Niki, it’s - we were all together in Pogtopia, right? But I was there first. With him. And you didn’t see the start of it, it was horrible, and I’m glad no one else saw the beginning of it either but it was still just so shit and he kept saying all these terrible things about Tubbo and Fundy and you and,” he takes a shaky breath, “then, when I died, I saw him.”

Her breath catches in her throat.

Well, the voice in the back of her head whistles. If you were still wondering about all this afterlife bullshit, if you want to know where you’re going after your third life, here you go.

and

“You didn’t even - this isn’t about L’Manberg, Wilbur!” Niki shouts.

And then he stops, breathing hard, and he looks at Niki the same way he does whenever her voice is being drowned out in a crowd - the way he does when he wants to hear her, when he wants to know what she has to say.

“What else is there?” he asks.

Niki freezes. Stock still, unable to move, unable to breathe, ice threading its way through her gut, her chest, her shoulders, chilled down to the bone. With slow-dawning horror, she can feel hot tears welling up behind her eyes, sitting in her throat, threatening to spill over into a sob. She swallows - to keep her cool, to stay calm, to keep it together -

And then, something in her chest just snaps.

“You said you’d come back for me!” she cries, and her voice hitches on the lump of tears at the back of her throat and god, she sounds absolutely pathetic. Wilbur’s face softens immediately, which somehow just makes her feel even worse. “In Manberg. When Schlatt put me in prison, and you and Tommy were in Pogtopia, you said you’d break me out when it was safe. I waited for weeks , Wilbur. It was… it was horrible.”

“Niki…” a kaleidoscope of emotions flicker across his face, and he seems unsure which to settle on. “We got you out though, right? After the festival.”

“You looked for the button first,” she says quietly, and he stills.

Her sniffling sounds embarrassingly loud against the quiet background of night.

thank you sm!!! i’m gonna put these under the cut because they got a little long sorry (tw for discussion of suicidal ideation)

to preface: tommy is kind of the accidental but incredibly necessary invisible support beam for niki and wilbur’s making amends in bitter. niki cannot accept wilbur’s actions and apology without first acknowledging her own actions and making steps towards an apology, because otherwise it kind of falls flat? in that ending scene niki finally gets what wilbur is feeling and wilbur finally gets that someone else knows how he feels (it’s not perfect 100% yet, but…. that’ll get explored later)

onto the actual snippet! “tommy talks to wilbur - not kindly, but he does” was very important to me! tommy has stuck by wilbur ever since pogtopia, but the tragedy is that he is not equipped to deal with wilbur’s issues, and it shows. wilbur’s first stream after revival depicts this really clearly, where tommy tails wilbur around the whole time but insults him, is still stuck on calling him the villain, physically fights him at some point, etc. on one hand this isn’t healthy but on the other hand tommy is actually around, which is more than can be said for basically any other ally wilbur has had on the dsmp, maybe excluding his dad, who literally killed him lmfao.

this whole issue is exacerbated by the fact that tommy believes that he is the only person who properly understands wilbur, the only person who gets what happened to him, and feels like wilbur is generally his burden to bear. he failed to stop wilbur from both 1. hurting other people and 2. killing himself after the pogtopia-manberg war - and he doesn’t trust wilbur not to do either of those things again, so he’s stuck hovering around wilbur while wilbur is inadvertently setting off his own trauma and feeling responsible for any way he might fuck up and hating that but not wanting to leave. tommy’s memory isn’t perfect and he isn’t a perfect narrator, what he remembers from pogtopia the most were the scariest parts and that’s understandable but it means he’s holding wilbur to the worst expectations of behaviour (and he does so very vocally). the others showed up later, sure, but in tommy’s eyes he’s the only one who saw wilbur’s descent, and by the time they showed up wilbur had already changed irreversably. tommy tries to rationalise this by splitting the ‘different wilburs’ apart from each other in his head (he does this in canon too - there’s one quote from like late 2020 where he says he and tubbo need to keep on going for who wilbur used to be, not who he became, even though they’re,, the same person), and no one challenges that perspective, so he just keeps doing it even though it’s not healthy for him or wilbur.

and then limbo happened and, oh geez, THAT didn’t help jhfaskjjfsa

tommy is on a bit of a knife edge with niki in this fic. niki’s in this state of “ok, he’s annoying whatever, i’m moving on”, but all tommy knows is that she tried to kill him that one time, disappeared off the face of the map, joined a book club with two people who definitely do not like him, and now is just acting weirdly mellow and polite. she is not someone he wants near wilbur bc what the fuck is she gonna do? what is he gonna do? who knows. he’s frustrated that niki doesn’t seem to acknowledge how he’s feeling (especially bc once upon a time she would have been someone he trusted to acknowledge them - they were friends, they fought together) and he’s taking a big step by telling someone about his concerns here, especially bc tommy doesn’t really like talking about them at all. he wouldn’t be saying absolutely anything to niki if he didn’t truly believe she should stay away from wilbur, even if he’s wrong about him. (sometimes i think i write tommy as a little too emotionally mature here but it all goes out the window when wilbur’s brought up. idk if that balances it out)

ok onto niki: this is the first she has actually heard of limbo! she’s only just come around to the fact that resurrection is possible at all. death is kind of a touchy subject for niki both in general and re: wilbur in the fic - she’s coming off of a period in her life where suicidal ideation was, uh, a big thing (whether you want to read that into canon or not is subjective, that’s just the angle i went with in this fic). the sudden existence of a life after death, miserable as it is - and whether she really believes in such a place, when it only exists in tommy and wilbur’s words - that is a lot of information for her to absorb all at once. death is a weird connection point for tommy and niki here, coming right off of the fact that they’ve just acknowledged each other having those problems - tommy, out of, yknow, altruism, would very much like to keep niki out of that place, and niki is quietly reckoning with the fact that that is where she would have sent him. the concept of limbo from the perspective of a character with no experience of it, even secondhand, is so interesting to me like what kind of eldritch location would you feel like you’re living in asghjkl

(also - i gotta be honest the jealousy angle here but mostly when she’s talking later about dream not deserving wilbur’s companionship kinda came out after this post came across my dash while writing. whoops /j)

fun fact, this is the very first snippet of bitter that i ever wrote! all the way back in may!! this is like the moment of the fic - it's where the miscommunication that niki and wilbur have been having is shattered entirely - and so sticking the landing was uhhh kinda important to me lol.

wilbur's entire being in this fic is basically consumed by L'Manberg - he equates his self worth to it entirely. in his eyes, everyone (rightfully) hates him because of what he did to L'Manberg, because L'Manberg was corrupted and he himself with it, etc. niki tries to tell herself this, and while it definitely does form part of her issues with him, it was the betrayal that causes her this much pain - that he seemingly brushed her and their friendship off entirely when he supposedly left her for dead in manberg. because here is what we as the audience know: wilbur couldn’t leave niki in trouble when he heard her life was in danger, even when he was trying to find the button (pretty much the only thing he sees himself as having left at this point) and so he returned. here is what it looks like from niki’s perspective: wilbur told her to wait in manberg until it was safe to come to pogtopia, laid the place with TNT, went to blow up the place, and only returned when he couldn’t find the detonator (and then the first thing she saw him do in pogtopia was encourage the pit behaviour but that’s not what we’re talking about asdfgh). that is massive miscommunication and it’s been brewing between them for months - to make a quirky little reference to the title, niki has been carrying that anger with her so long it's gone bitter. it was never just about l’manberg with niki - not that anger, not her and wilbur’s friendship (hence the little flashback earlier in the fic, bc niki’s relationship to anarchism and statehood or statelessness juxtaposed with her friendships with wilbur and eret - she loves l’manberg bc she loves wilbur, but she loves eret too and those national ties don’t undermine that - is Real Interesting to me) - so when wilbur asks what else there could possibly be (because in his mind, what else could she have bothered staying around for?), she just fucking breaks.

“Niki freezes. Stock still, unable to move, unable to breathe, ice threading its way through her gut...with slow-dawning horror, she can feel hot tears welling up behind her eyes” - prose discussion time! heat and cold are two big throughlines in this fic - particularly for niki, cold is what she is. admittedly when i started with it i mostly wanted to subvert hot = angry and cold = dead but i kinda ended up enjoying this take on it for what it is instead of just as a subversion (also i like the idea of revived people running hot, their bodies r working hard to keep em going). she’s holding onto her feelings and refusing to deal with them, she’s frozen over. descriptions of cold are key to niki’s mental state throughout the fic - cold weight on her chest, feelings of frostbite when she and wilbur hug the first time, ice cold water during the dinner scene, waking up in the cold flat, etc. this was an attempt at describing a more visceral feeling of like, when you’re really mad and you can just feel the adrenaline running through your veins. always felt more cold than hot to me. when she starts to cry, the facade she’s been putting on is finally thawing out and cracking the ice she’s buried her feelings under. (also gives an excuse to write warm comforting hugs towards the end /hj). it’s a loss, it’s catharsis, it’s a whole mess.

and ofc this is all news to wilbur and he feels terrible, because as unintentional as it was, he really really hurt her - because the destruction of l’manberg fucking sucked but above all else wilbur hurt the people he loved because they loved him so much and not in spite of it, because they cared about him so deeply and his death was a massive blow to them. this hasn’t even dawned on him, because how could it? he respects deeply niki (lowkey respects her opinion more than his own at this point) so he has to listen, because it’s niki (“and he looks at Niki the same way he does whenever her voice is being drowned out in a crowd - the way he does when he wants to hear her, when he wants to know what she has to say” - because he does), and what she says fucking floors him. in his eyes, he failed her by putting her in danger and then by destroying her home - the idea that she valued him and their friendship so much flies entirely over his head until this moment, and he is forced to re-evaluate the mindset that has motivated him since… basically since pogtopia! the way i write wilbur is like… yes, he’s one of niki’s closest friends and he’s more aware of her insecurities and issues than most (which is why he does always take the time to listen to her, etc) but he does over-idealise her a bit. tbf, i think he does to some extent with everyone (calling tubbo strong on the anniversary stream, for example). also the fact that he really wasn’t around for niki’s lowest moments as a character! he still thinks of her the way she was in l’manberg - confident, steadfast, respected - and this moment shatters that for him as he realises exactly what effect he and his death had on her and everyone else, not just by his actions, but because they loved him and cared for him so deeply.

sorry that this got horrifically long!! and thank you so much for sending snippets in <3333

#ALSO SORRY THIS TOOK TWO WEEKS. LMFAO #asks #thespoonisvictory #dvd commentary #< i have successfully coerced a discord server into doing the dvd commentary on a regular basis and it is the BEST thing

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sweet-savvy-slytherins · 3 years

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Hi, everyone!

Developing characters is something I really enjoy, so I had a lot of fun putting together a twin set of MCs! This is the first of the two, Evangeline! I’d love if people would give her a read, and let me know what you think of her!

For clarification, I used the Classified Text Generator in a few spots. That way, I didn’t have to leave any information out, and those who had reached that part of the game would recognize what I was talking about regardless, but those who hadn’t wouldn’t be spoiled.

Name:

Hypatia Nadine Linwood, originally

Evangeline Nadine Desrosiers, currently

Usually goes by Vany

Initials spell “END,” which she finds hilariously ominous

Gender: Cisgender female

Age: 16 years old

Birth Date: October 20th

Species: Human (despite her mother’s insistence that they’re part Veela)

Blood Status: Pureblood

Sexuality: Openly homoromantic and homosexual

Alignment: Chaotic good

Ethnicity: Afro-European

Residence: A condo in Bristol

Myer Briggs Personality Type: ESTP-A, the Entrepreneur

1st Wand: When she was eleven, Evangeline was matched with a dogwood wand that was nine inches in length, with a dragon heartstring core.

2nd Wand: In her fifth year, after she unwisely challenged Madam Rakepick and had her wand broken as a result, Evangeline found herself paired with a spruce wood wand, this one nine and two thirds inches in length with a phoenix tail feather core. While she resents Rakepick for breaking her first, Evangeline does admit to feeling like her second wand suited her better.

Animagus: Evangeline never becomes an animagus.

Miscellaneous Magical Abilities: Unlike Jacob and Enola, Evangeline is not a born legilimens. However, just like her mother, she is a Seer. (Because that is just like her mother, isn’t it? To pass on the world’s shittiest super power?) Most of the time, this ability manifests in the form of a vague sense or a murky dream. To this day, she’s only had one proper vision, and it was when she was very small.

Boggart Form: Her mother showering her with praise, and saying she was proud of the witch she’d grown to be. This tends to confuse her peers, since it seems so positive—but Evangeline knows her mother. The narcissist that she is, Mireille would never have praised her like that unless she molded Evangeline into her double. That is Evangeline’s worst fear: becoming her mother.

Riddikulus Form: Mireille more or less being turned into a cymbal-banging monkey, with a kazoo in her mouth, cymbals in her hands, and a silly hat.

Amortentia: When Evangeline smells amortentia, the scent is a combination of broom handle polish, leather, and buttered toast. If someone’s amortentia were to smell like her, it would smell like cherry lip gloss, orange pekoe tea, and, again, broom handle polish.

Patronus: A crow. Although they’re best known for supposedly being an omen of death, they’re also believed to symbolize destiny, flexibility, and mischievousness.

Patronus Memory: About a month before Evangeline turned nine, there was a night where her entire family—Aunt Felicienne, Jacob, Enola, and Casper—all let her paint their nails. They all talked and laughed the entire night, drinking cocoa and admiring their nails, and it was the first time they felt like a proper family.

Mirror of Erised: Her family not only together again, but being treated with the respect they deserve. Her brother’s bad reputation erased, the whispers about her aunt for being a squib silenced, and the ghost of their parents’ actions exorcised.

Specialized/Favorite Spells: Evangeline has an affinity for fun spells, like Colovaria and Orchideous. They may not be the most practical, but is that such a crime? Not every spell can serve a greater purpose.

Physique:

Athletic build, due to her involvement in Quidditch

Strong limbs and a toned figure

5′8 in heigh

Eye Color:

Dark grey in color

Always decorated with pristine eyeliner and a light brush of mascara

Hair Color:

Deep brown

Occasionally experiment with different hair colors using Colovaria

Naturally curly, but is often straightened

Hip length (when straightened)

Skin Tone:

Light brown

Warm undertones

Body Modifications:

One piercing in each ear

Scarring:

Extensive burn scars on both forearms — gained at 7 years old

Thin scar directly across the bridge of her nose — gained at 25 years old

Inventory:

Her favorite cherry lip gloss

A bag of butterscotch candies

A hair clip or two

Her treasured leather journal.

Fashion: Though Evangeline consciously tries not to be vain, knowing it was one of her mother’s vices, she does take pride in her appearance, and enjoys looking good. When not outfitted in her school robes, she usually tries to aim for a classy, feminine sort of style. More often than not her outfits consist of trendy sweaters or turtlenecks (never t-shirts), tea length skirts, and oxford pumps. As for accessories, Evangeline is quite fond of dainty earrings and delicate silver rings, as well as pretty hair clips. The one exception to her style tastes is Erika’s sweaters: they’re over-sized, a little more traditionally masculine, and more worn out than Evangeline likes to let her clothes get. Still, she absolutely covets them.

Hogwarts House: Slytherin, house of the cunning and ambitious. It’s garnered such a reputation for being the “mean house” that people always seem to be surprised to learn that Evangeline was placed there. But, as she’s always quick to remind them, “mean” is not a requisite for being in Slytherin. It’s just an unfortunate trend.

Ilvermorny House: Thunderbird, house of the soul, home to the adventurer.

Affiliations/Organizations: Obviously, as first a student and then an alum, Evangeline is affiliated with Hogwarts. She also joins ███ ██████ ██ ██████ out of support for Enola, and, later on, is a member of the Order of the Phoenix.

Professions: After working as a spy for the Order during the second wizarding war, Evangeline builds a career as a grief counselor for magical children.

Class Proficiencies:

Astronomy: A

Charms: E

DADA: O

Flying: O

Herbology: P

History of Magic: A

Potions: A

Transfiguration: E

Electives:

Divination

Muggle Studies

Both are total goof off classes, considering she’s a Seer who was raised in a muggle community

Quidditch:

Seeker on the Slytherin team from third year onward

Played one season as a beater in her fourth year

Extra Curricular:

Art Club

Frog Choir

Favorite Professors:

Professor Hooch — fellow Quidditch lover

Professor Trelawney — endearingly kooky

Least Favorite Professors:

Professor Snape — killjoy

Professor Sinistra — uptight

Brother: The eldest of the Desrosiers children is Theron, who renamed himself Jacob after his parents’ death. Of his three younger siblings, he’s arguably closest to Evangeline, since she shares his charisma and occasional haughtiness. Evangeline understood, better than any of the others, how badly he wanted to restore both the Kastellanos and Desrosiers family names to their former glory. No, actually, not their former glory—a new glory, built on talent and respect, rather than on the subjugation of those considered “beneath” them.

Other Siblings: Older than Evangeline by six minutes, Enola is the second oldest Desrosiers sibling, and easily the one Evangeline is closest to. People can dismiss the notion of twin ESP all they want, but Evangeline believes it. Different as they may be, her and Enola have always been finely attuned to each other. They can read each other easily, and always know exactly what the other needs. There isn’t a chance they could ever be as close with someone else as they are with each other.

Evangeline also has a younger brother. Helios Kastellanos, renamed Casper by their Aunt Felicienne, is five years younger than the twins, and truth be told, Evangeline’s never had too strong of a relationship with him. It’s not like they argue, or they hate each other. They’ve just...never connected. He’s always clung to Enola, so Evangeline figures that it’s a trade off she had to make. She gets to be close with Jacob, at the cost of being close with Casper. Enola gets to be close with Casper, at the cost of being close with Jacob. It evens out.

Father: Truth be told, Evangeline remembers very little of her father, Proteus. Beyond not spending a lot of time at home, Proteus was more concerned with his male heirs than either of his daughters. Everything Evangeline knows about him, she’s learned secondhand, and even then, it’s very little. Felicienne and Jacob always waved off her questions, telling her she didn’t want to know about him, Enola remembered as little as she did, and Casper was only three when he died. Evangeline knows that he was a Death Eater, and that’s more or less it.

Mother: Now, her mother, Mireille, on the other hand...Evangeline remembers her quite vividly. Mireille was a woman who prided herself on beauty more than anything, and wanted to raise her daughters to be just the same—as long as they were never more beautiful than she was. Though she came from a family of blood purists, Mireille was the first Desrosiers to become a Death Eater, and Evangeline suspects that she got in over her head. It’s her theory that the stress drove Mireille crazy, and that was why she was so prone to paranoia and explosive bursts of anger. One of Evangeline’s most vivid memories of Mireille attempting to throw a pot of boiling water in her face when she was seven years old; Evangeline threw up her arms to defend herself, and she still bears the scars from the attack all these years later.

Love Interest: Evangeline has a big, fat, gay crush on Erika Rath, and she’s not ashamed to admit it. She’d already been attracted to her on an entirely physical level, and then Evangeline had to seek out her tutelage when the Slytherin team was short a Beater. Discovering the awkward, uncertain girl that existed beneath the gruff exterior completely sealed the deal. They bonded over their love for Quidditch, continuing to train together even when Evangeline switched back to playing Seeker, and with time, came to find that they really enjoyed each other’s company. Evangeline could make Erika laugh like no one else, and Erika felt like one of the only people Evangeline could be entirely herself with, even if that meant exposing the ugly pieces of herself as well as the polished ones. Finally, Evangeline asked Erika to the Celestial Ball, and the rest was history. It’s rather funny to see them side by side, with Erika, perpetually dressed in her jersey and scowling, towering over Evangeline, with her pressed skirts and sunny smiles.

Best Friends: One of Evangeline’s dearest friends at Hogwarts is local contraband dealer, Jae Kim. Truth be told, he was initially quite intimidated by her. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but despite Evangeline’s bubbly disposition, something about her always struck him as distinctly...eldritch. Like she was something unusual, and not entirely human. Maybe it was just the way she could flip her emotions on a dime, entirely of her own volition. Watching her be seething mad and then slap on a bright, sunny grin as she turned away, easy as flipping a switch, was unnerving. Regardless, the two bonded throughout their time spent in detention, and Enola is quite proud to boast that she’s one of the few people that can almost wrangle Jae into following the rules.

She’s also quite close with Penny Haywood and Diego Caplan, two Hufflepuffs who share Evangeline’s popularity and social skill. Evangeline likes to joke that she’s “Penny, but with edge.” Penny gets a kick out of it. Diego, on the other hand, did initially have slightly selfish reasons for befriending Evangeline—namely, his hope that she could help him get closer to Enola, who he had a crush on—but ended up genuinely bonding with her somewhere along the way. She’s his favorite dueling and dancing partner, and they trust each other more than anyone seems to realize.

Rivals: Some people might not understand how two people on the same team can be rivals, but Evangeline and Skye Parkin make it work. It’s not a mean rivalry by any means, but it’s an intense one, with both of them aiming to be the star player on the Slytherin Quidditch team. Evangeline also considers herself rivals with Emily Tyler, who reminds her uncomfortably of her mother, and Merula, who competes with her in, well, everything.

Enemies: Logically, Evangeline knows that there’s really nothing wrong with Talbott Winger. He’s an entirely decent guy, who minds his own business and keeps his head down. She has no reason to dislike him the way she does. But she just can’t help it. Maybe it’s his aloofness that rubs her the wrong way—Evangeline’s always liked to be liked, not to mention the nosy streak she possesses and she finds people that reserved and guarded frustrating. Maybe it’s the fact that she thinks he has eyes for her sister, when Enola could definitely do better. (Of course, this is only Evangeline’s perception. If she really wanted to know who had eyes for Enola, she’d have better luck looking at her best friend, Jae.) Either way, Evangeline isn’t a fan.

Dormmates: Evangeline shares a dorm with Rowan Khanna, Liz Tuttle, Skye Parkin, and her twin sister, Enola.

Pets: On the record, Evangeline has only one pet, and it’s a very old, exceptionally grumpy, melanistic Sphynx cat named Toodles. Despite being more or less a crotchety old man in cat form, Toodles is absolutely the light of Evangeline’s life, and she dotes on him like he is her actual child. The amount of money she’s dropped on Toodles is honestly kind of staggering, but Enola insists that it’s entirely necessary. Sphynx cats require a lot of careful care, and if Evangeline has her way, Toodles is only going to get the best of the best.

However, off the record, Evangeline has also grown unusually close to one Thestral in particular. She’s been sneaking into the Forbidden Forest to study them since she was in her 2nd year, and during one such excursion, she witnessed a Thestral foal being birthed. Since it provided a prime opportunity to study the life cycle of a Thestral, Evangeline focused most of her observations on that foal, which she named Melinoe, after the Greek goddess of ghosts and spirits. It took some time to build trust, but eventually, Melinoe and Evangeline were thick as thieves, and Melinoe greeted her like an excited puppy whenever she came to visit the forest. Leaving Melinoe behind is perhaps what Evangeline’s dreading most about her graduation from Hogwarts.

Closest Canon Friends: Jae Kim, Penny Haywood, Diego Caplan, Nymphadora Tonks, and Tulip Karasu.

Closest MC Friends: Outside of Enola, none yet, but looking!

Pre-Hogwarts: Hypatia was born the third child of Proteus and Mireille Kastellanos. She spent the first eight years of her life in Greece, living on her father’s family estate, roaming the grounds with her siblings, enjoying the abundance of wealth at her fingertips. It should’ve been a charmed life...but it wasn’t. See, Proteus and Mireille were both Death Eaters, and neither were much suited for parenthood. It was a household strife with unease and contempt, and if the ruthless mental (and occasionally physical) abuse Hypatia experienced wasn’t enough, her childhood was also plagued by terrible visions. In this visions, an explosion burst in her family parlor, leaving both her parents dead on the floor.

Then, when she was eight years old, the premonition came true. Aurors raided the manor, and in the ensuing fight, both Proteus and Mireille were killed, with their two young daughters bearing witness. The children were whisked away from the home, and eventually sent to live with their maternal aunt, Felicienne Desrosiers. A squib who had fled her Pureblood-supremist family to live in England, Felicienne was hardly equipped to take on four young, magical, traumatized children, but still, she stepped up to the plate, determined not to fail them the way that their parents had.

The first thing she did? She sat them down, and helped them choose out new names. While her family name wasn’t exactly sparkly clean, it carried less of a stigma than their father’s. And thus, Hypatia Kastellanos died with her parents, and Evangeline Desrosiers was born.

From that point on, Evangeline grew up to be a rather well-adjusted girl. Or, as well-adjusted as a girl with her experiences could be. The only real point of concern was the fixation she began to develop with death; she played funeral director far more often than she ever played princess, and was prone to checking out books on embalming methods from the local library. However, she wasn’t hurting anyone or thing and showed no desire to, so Felicenne decided it wasn’t anything to worry too much about. It was simply Evangeline’s way of coping. Throughout the years, Evangeline found happiness with her new family, and despite Jacob’s disappearance, despite Felicenne’s failing health, Evangeline is determined to protect that happiness.

2nd Wizarding War: As the war starts picking up steam, Evangeline establishes her allegiance to The Order of the Phoenix, and starts working as a spy, able to rely on her charisma and family heritage to gain the trust of dark wizards. She’s not accepted into the inner circle, not nearly, but she’s silver-tongued enough to get information from those that are. During this time, she secretly elopes with her long-term girlfriend, Erika Rath. She fights in the battle of Hogwarts, and in doing so, gains a scar directly across the bridge of her nose.

Post-War: Following the war, Evangeline finds that her ambitions have changed. Despite having wanted for years to be a mortician, she finds that the idea now lacks the appeal it did when she was young. Perhaps she’s just seen enough death. Still, she’s determined to put all of her years of research to use. She ends up finding her calling providing grief counseling to children, and, specifically, to magical children. She makes the unconventional choice to train Thestrals as a sort of therapy animal for children who have witnessed death. Her and Erika, now going public with their marriage, also adopt a set of siblings—an eight year old named Winifred, and a six year old named Josephine, the daughters of a friend of Erika’s who was, unfortunately, killed in the war. It’s difficult, considering both girls are old enough to remember and miss their parents, but Evangeline’s grief training comes in handy in helping them cope with the loss. It may take time, but eventually, they do truly feel like a family.

There's a lot more to Evangeline than there appears to be at a glance. Upon first meeting, she seems...well, vivacious. She loves to laugh and lights up a room with her smile alone, and is playful and a little mischievous by nature. She's also quite the hopeless romantic, and ultimately wants to end up happy with someone she loves. Some may say that this makes her pathetic, but she doesn't view it that way at all. What's so wrong with wanting to be happy?

Though Evangeline may not hand out her trust too quickly or freely, she is always willing to provide a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on. Her loyalty to those who find a place in her heart is admirable, especially when it comes to her family, and she would willingly fight to the death to protect those she loves. She always finds some way to show her affection, whether it's through a warm hug when one is needed or a good laugh provided when sadness seems to be taking over. She’s charismatic and enigmatic and attractive, and most everyone she meets consider her to be a delightful young woman.

And then her smile sharpens just slightly, glinting like light on the blade of a dagger, and all of a sudden, it’s abundantly clear why she was sorted into the house of the cunning.

Now, the image Evangeline puts forth isn’t a lie. She is genuinely friendly and outgoing, and the majority of the time, everything she says and does is sincere. However, certain traits are exaggerated because she wants to present a specific image of herself—or rather, she wants certain parts of her to go unnoticed, so she emphasizes the ones she wants people to see and lets the other ones slip out of the edges of their perception.

Beneath the girlish laughter and perfect grins is a master manipulator, always poised for battle, whether they be fought with words or fists. The sweetness, the flattery, the pretty little smiles, they coax information out conversations faster than threats ever did. A true Slytherin at her core, Evangeline has long since learned how to use her beauty and natural charisma to get what she needs out of people and accomplish her goals, which are, fortunately, mostly altruistic. Who knows what sort chaos she could wrought, if she put her mind to it?

Total theater kid. She attended muggle primary schools prior to Hogwarts, and you can bet your bippy she jumped on every opportunity to get on stage that she was offered. Notable roles include Belle in Beauty and the Beast, the Wicked Witch of the West (ironically enough) in The Wizard of Oz, Wendy in Peter Pan, and Queen Zixi in Queen Zixi of Ix.

It’s no secret that Evangeline’s one premonition was of the raid that her parents died in. Her siblings all know, and none of them blame her. She was just a child; she didn’t understand what she was seeing. The secret is that, even if she had understood, Evangeline doesn’t think she would’ve warned anyone.

#hphm oc #hphm mc #jacob's sibling #hogwarts mystery #hphm #harry potter #hogwarts #slytherin #evangeline desrosiers #evangeline and enola #hogwarts mystery mc #hogwarts mystery oc #oc

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jusdisslotus · 5 years

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Attack on Stainglass #13: Clingy Brighton

http://fav.me/dchvr21

A blush from secondhand embarrassment began to spread, over the bridge of his nose when he saw that Thorn had removed his jean-jacket and his shirt as well, revealing his perfectly-sculpted abs. Thorn hissed lightly, in pain as he touched a hand to the black slime that was oozing from the obvious cut that was just, along the center of his diaphragm. With a sigh, Thorn picked, up his worn-out Bible and began to read from it.

Yeah sure, a pastor such as Thorn who doesn’t look like he works out and is rather wimpy throughout most of the story has “perfectly sculpted abs.” Just sounds like useless, no sense making fan service to me.

“I really don’t want anyone else to know about this but you, Lord…Brighton is already angry with me and if he finds out about this, he’ll just make fun of me and tell me that I deserve it…The others will grow to hate me as well…” Thorn’s eyes began to fill with thick, blackened tears as he struggled, desperately to keep them from spilling, over.

The fact that he’d think Brighton would say such a shitty thing to him proves my point even further on how the 2 aren’t compatible as friends and how it isn’t a believable friendship.

So now Brighton’s trying to hunt down the child to give him a beating or whatever and Monarch asks him what’s up.

“Do you remember how Thorn was coughing, earlier?” Monarch asked.

“Yeah, I remember his stupid, loud, annoyin’ coughin’! What about it?!” Brighton snapped.

“Well, I followed Thorn to see if I could discover the source of his strange coughing-fits and well…I think he may have The Sludge…” Monarch worriedly informed him.

“The Sludge?” Brighton sounded momentarily concerned, even though Melania was currently unable to see the expression on his countenance due to the fact that his back was turned to her.

“Ah, whatever! He prob’ly just has The Sludge ‘cause he knows he screwed up!” Brighton scoffed as he turned to continue on his way, along the corridors.

“But Brighton, Thorn said this disease was serious!” Monarch exclaimed as he quickly sprinted, after Brighton. Melania gently turned her body to watch them leave as that all-too, familiar feeling of anger began to boil within her. She knew why Thorn had contracted The Sludge and she knew for a fact that Brighton had not been the one who was responsible for infecting him with it. Thorn and Brighton have gotten into petty arguments that were much worse than this one before and none of those prior disagreements were serious enough to give Thorn The Sludge. Besides, what friendship never had their petty differences?

“Relax, Q.-er…I mean, M. Thorn’s not entirely an idiot; he knows how to take care of himself. Once he quits bein’ stubborn and makes this all up to me, his little Sludge-problem will go bye-bye…” Brighton reassured.

Omg Thorn was right about what Brighton would say. God, Brighton’s such a petty bitch, his “friend” has this serious disease and all he cares about is Thorn “making it up to him”. Making it up to him?? Thorn doesn’t have to make up shit! It’s not Thorn’s fault that Brighton’s inept at being responsible and has to clean up the messes he made, Brighton’s so clingy and bitchy he’s UNBEARABLE.

The word: ‘Preach,’ was a word that had been unable to make Melania chuckle, beneath her breath for quite, some time but that word was such an ironic word that she could have ever used to describe the non-believing enemy to all.

Non-believing enemy? What’re you trying to get at here? What does being a non-believer have to do with anything?

http://fav.me/dcnfn0v

“The dark deed you’ve requested is done…Soon, all The Churches of the World will be destroyed…” A woman in a masquerade mask explained to Helva, Ian and Lainey. Behind the masked-woman, stood three, other, masked figures who were just as ominous as her.

“I don’t know…Something…just feels wrong about all this…I mean, we just went against everything we ever stood for to destroy someone else…” Helva sighed, beginning to have second thoughts about her actions.

“It’s just this one time…Anything will be worth it to destroy those bigots after what they did to our group…” Ian argued.

“That Church…They were different…They were never bigots…They openly accepted the L.G.B.T. Community with open arms…They never once tried to change any of them but we…we just slandered Thorn for not following the typical, Christian stereotype…” Helva finally began to realize the error of her ways.

“Helva, are you seriously thinking of backing out after they killed all of our friends? Your family members?” Ian reminded.

“You’re right…” Hela reluctantly agreed with Ian as she let out a sigh but she was still unable to shake the guilt she felt about going against someone who agreed with her on a certain topic. She had just contradicted herself by calling Thorn out for allowing gays as well as transgenders to attend his sermons without trying to change their minds at all, for teaching them about how God was a loving Father, Who accepted all of His children, no matter what. However, she proceeded to smother the guilt with the horrific memories of Brighton turning her cousins into nothing more than ashes that scattered away in the wind, before her eyes.

This is why I feel worse for Helva than any of the main protagonists. She has some sort of conscience, she thinks about her actions afterwards and actually feels some sort of guilt. Sure, it’s forced and it’s trying to make the church look good even though Thorn literally can’t help anyone that doesn’t convert and can’t even get anyone mature enough to watch the orphans but it still gives her more layers. And she ends up getting rid of the guilt by thinking about how Brighton murdered all of her friends and family in cold blood. She debates with herself and her thought process is sort of believable.

Aaaand then Melania supposedly vores her or something.

“Look at you…You truly are pathetic…That is why you go around destroying people’s lives…so you can have this entire, fallen planet as a ‘safe-space’ all to yourself…You think you are just so edgy but you are and always will be a pathetic, scared, spoiled, little child…Once I am through with you, The World really will be a safe-space…” Melania taunted Helva before turning her back to her to reveal the head of a Venus Fly-Trap that was protruding from the back of her head.

Melania’s smirk of satisfaction was hidden behind her paper-plate mask whilst she listened to the cries of Helva as her vine-tentacles pulled the struggling-girl into her new, second mouth.

Melania just looks like the villain here. She talks and acts like one in this scene and even gives a smug smirk like Brighton does. Yeah, I’m totally rooting for Maniac number 2 as she eats Helva while she screams and cries out.

“Finally caughtcha, ya little brat!” Bradly was horrified when he looked up to see Brighton standing over him. The blond appeared to be more furious than Bradly had personally ever seen him.

“You won’t come between me and my best-buddy anymore…” Brighton growled before running his index and middle fingers along his ruler.

“And Micheal, The Arch Angel struck him DEAD!” Brighton chanted as each number and line on his ruler began to glow.

“No! No! Please!” Bradly begged, on the verge of tears as Brighton raised his ruler, above his head in preparation to strike.

“Brighton! Stop!” Thorn shouted from across the hall, despite the endless amount of Sludge pouring from every exit-hole on his body. Brighton stopped in his tacks, dropping his ruler at the sight of how sick Thorn looked.

Is Brighton REALLY about strike a child DEAD because he got in the way of him and Thorn hanging out even though it’s Brighton’s fault he’s loose in the church? ARE WE SUPPOSED TO LIKE BRIGHTON OR NOT??? WHAT A CLINGY PIECE OF SHIT.

So then the kid calls them gay and cringey. The sludge makes Thorn snap and makes him yell at the kid, saying:

“The only thing that is ‘cringey’ is that your parents actually let a selfish, ungrateful, bratty, emo-wannabe, wall-eyed, giggling, stuttering, smirking, glass-smashing, DISEASE-RIDDEN abomination like you draw breath!”

“That’s right, I said it: Your parents should have been ProChoice because you do not deserve to breathe the same air as us, you filthy, pile of donkey ca-ca in human-form but yet, here you are, burdening us with your boondoggling!”

“If you’re so miserable, then just die! FIND A DARK HOLE TO CRAWL INTO AND DIE!”

And then Thorn drops unconscious

#commandomal #creepypastajack #therealredleader #Attack on Stainglass #Stainglass #Aos #Story #words

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tumblunni · 7 years

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Random Long Post About Charon!

This is random, but I feel like fans often don’t take into consideration what Professor Rowan says during the Rotom event. I think his words actually make it very clear that Charon was the kid who wrote the diary and shines some light on Charon’s motivation for acting like a jerk to Rotom. I’ll explain why I believe this: “Ah, imagine finding you here! You must be eager to fill your Pokédex to be searching even here. What am I doing? I visit a professor I know in Eterna every so often. He tells me intriguing rumors of rare Pokémon sightings and such.” This part isn’t particularly relevant (though I do sort of wonder if the Professor Rowan visits is actually Charon himself), but this next part definitely is: “A Pokémon that slips into electric appliances, you say… Hmm… That is somewhat off from what I’ve heard about it. Hmm… This is what I’ve heard. Long ago, there was a Pokémon that merged with a toy robot. Should that Pokémon be recognized as a new species or not… Debates over the issue were about to start when they were rendered moot. The very topic of discussion–the Pokémon-infused robot–disappeared…” Okay, so the first thing that is really important to note here is that Rowan doesn’t have the exact same information as the player. This means Charon has done research that he was keeping to himself, and fits in with Charon writing that he wants his Rotom research to be a “secret.” But we also learn here that other scientists were at least introduced to Rotom somehow despite this. Now, as for the “topic of discussion… disappeared” part–because Charon’s lab is secret, these words don’t refer to Rotom leaving the lab. Instead, they must refer to Charon putting it in that lab to keep it a secret. This might seem odd at first–why would Rotom have been introduced to scientists in the first place at all then…? But I actually think this all makes sense. Here’s a stripped-down version of the backstory based on all these details: –Charon obtains information about Rotom “by pure chance,” as he writes in the journal we know for a fact is his. –Other researchers somehow knew about it and were going to start debates about it. –Rotom is locked away in the lab by Charon so that he would get all the credit for describing it. –Rotom eventually leaves the lab. This still haves a lot to be desired. Is Charon the same person who found Rotom as a child? It seems that way, since the speech patterns and diction are the same. But then how and why did other researchers learn about Rotom in the first place? Why did Charon want all the credit only after this happened? Here is where analyzing Charon’s character makes everything clear. Obviously, Charon is a greedy person. Specifically, he seems to be someone who is pragmatic to the point of being a cynical jerk. He desires money for himself and his team, but we know from his dialogue that it’s because he thinks people can’t achieve anything without it. We can also see that Charon has a high opinion of himself (he says so), but it also seems like he may have a low opinion of himself at the same time. The fact that he keeps trying to assert his self-worth, brag, and explain that he has a place in Team Galactic every time he speaks in-game hints at this. Also, Charon’s own co-workers hate him. Considering his plan at the end of the game, we know that if Charon were presented with a way to make himself known to all, he would do everything he could to make that happen. He also at one point says “I like seeing children try their best,” which sounds a bit weird out-of-context, but makes perfect sense if the Rotom kid’s childhood was his. Putting together all of the information I’ve discussed, here is my interpretation, applying Occam’s Razor the whole way through, of the story behind the Rotom event: –Charon came across information about Rotom “by pure chance.” How? When it came out of a lawnmower in his childhood. –At some point, Charon was excited to tell everyone about Rotom. They were probably still close friends at this point. –Other researchers were going to start debates on Rotom after Charon gave them some information about it. –Because of Charon’s greed, desire to belong, and selfishness, he became possessive and wanted to get “all the credit.” He freaked out and locked Rotom away in his secret lab. –Everyone was confused because it had disappeared, and debates couldn’t continue. –Rotom was upset and tired of being stuck in the lab and left. I’m almost certain this is the story the writers intended.

+++

Bunni’s comments! (is it a tad awkward that you keep sending these as submissions? have you thought about posting your thoughts on your own blog and then I could reblog them? sorry to make you go to all this trouble!)

REALLY LONG THOUGHTS BELOW THE CUT:

This is a really well reasoned theory!! I dunno if we’ll ever really be able to know what story the writers intended until we actually get this plotline expanded in a remake HINT HINT NINTENDO But it does definately seem to me that Charon = kid who had that cute backstory in that journal literally in Charon’s lab written like Charon talks and nobody else does. That seems very much like the simplest option to me, and it makes this character so much more well-developed, yet its kinda not a popuar theory.. alas... I don’t completely follow this exact sequence of events in my headcanons but I do think it fits perfectly with everything we know so far. You’re so good at analysis!!

Personally I think maybe people forget about Rowan’s few sentences at the start of the event... just cos the event is really hard to find. Practically nobody actually played this thing, I certainly never got a chance to do it until a decade later when i was able to emulate + use gamesharks. So before that I got my information secondhand through script-dumps and lets play videos, and a lot of people seem to leave out the rowan bit. A lot of people actually leave out the diary too! It seems even people who actually played the event didnt realise it was there, just grabbed their new rotom form and left. Alas poor Charon, ignored even in a meta sense! Also on Bulbapedia the script-dumps are organized weird. The actual page for the event and the Rotom Room as an area don’t contain it, its just got the diary part and the rowan part cut off separate and put on charon and rowan’s pages respectively.

Anyway, my personal thoughts + alternate interpretation to add to this!

To me it didnt sound like someone else discovered a rotom and tried to start these debates, then Charon freaked out at the competition and became paranoid. To me it sounded like Rowan was talking about someone (Charon) who started a debate and then suddenly vanished on the day it was going to take place. i dunno, just the way it was phrased seemed to come off like this was some relative unknown who popped up with this information about rotom, and then everyone assembled to hear him out. Cos specifically the ONLY information Rowan knows is that its ‘a pokemon that can possess a toy robot’, you’d think if multiple scientists were debating the existence of rotom for a long time then they’d have more info than that, info that isnt super specific to Charon’s situation. Or, at least, you’d think that if they were still researching rotom AFTER this one failed conference, they would have gained more info by now? I dunno, its hard to explain what I mean.

So, the basis for all my deductions is this interpretation that Charon (at least for that moment) had decided his rotom research was finished and wanted to reveal it. For me, the big question is... why didnt he?

WHY would Charon not want to boast about his discovery in this ‘debate about rotom’? We know at least one famous pokemon professor was gonna be there! Charon’s whole thing is (supposedly) wanting to become famous cos of rotom, absolutely no attatchment to it except as a revenue source, yep totally, no lies here. So you’d think that joining in a big debate with a bunch of high ranking scientists and making his great reveal would be.. like.. exactly what he wanted?? Why did it not happen??

My interpretation of this is kind of a mushy one linked to my general irrational decision that this man is potentially redeemable and totally has a soul. Alas, why can I never leave the grampademption train! I think that maybe this was some sort of major moment where the good and bad sides of his character clashed. REALLY CLASHED. He’s spent so many years trying to lock off himself into two mutually conflicting boxes, the innocent kid who sees this pokemon as a friend and the bitter cynical old bastard who wants to become famous off it. And now he has to choose, and it led to a complete mental breakdown! He initially chose money over rotom, he was gonna go ahead with the presentation. But then his better side won out and he cancelled it at the last second. He got cold feet, being scared of losing his best friend. Maybe he was actually going so far as to do some sort of morally repugnant deal, he was gonna sell rotom off to the highest bidder and never see it again? Or it’d have to be dissected as the first specemin of a new species, or locked up forever and experimented upon? Or maybe its just simply.. when you only have one friend in the world you kinda wonder if they’d want to keep you around if they found another friend. Maybe he thought rotom only needed him because of his research, maybe he thought it would become just as greedy as him if it got the chance? Maybe he thought that it would leave him if he let anyone else know it existed, which is what led to his growing paranoia and decision that his research was perpetually ‘not done yet’. (Cos seriously, what you see of his lab and stuff seems pretty finished???)

So that’s my interpretation of why he and rotom ‘vanished’ at that point, but then there’s the question of how they ended up separated. this is now going into complete fanfic territory, I dont really have evidence for any of it. In my image of how this whole scene would go down, mid-freakout Charon would have snapped at rotom and it led to an argument that ultimately resulted in like... triple decker bonus back of Regrettable Decisions. Charon’s been shown to kinda dig himself further into his own grave whenever his plans go wrong. So here we go, scene is set with Charon suddenly grabbing everything and running the fuck out the fire exit, five seconds before the meeting is about to start. From rotom’s perspective, it has NO IDEA what is going on, it just listens when he says to get in the pokeball. And now we have Charon in the position of having NO CLUE how to explain this all when he opens that pokeball again, he’d never just be honest about his feelings. Hell, he’s such an emotionally stunted guy wrapped up in his own neuroses, i don’t know if he’d even be honest about his feelings to HIMSELF! He just sitting here having a panic attack like ‘why did i do that?? I was about to become rich??’ Giant neon sign flies overhead saying ‘YOU HAVE EMOTIONS’, he ignores it. I figure he’d also exaggerate it in his head and destroy his entire scientific career just because he thinks he’s embarassed himself too much to go back. And he’s decided that this somehow proves that being a good person will only ruin all your dreams, and you have to be as bitter as possible to succeed. this is where he went from a dubious guy who occasionally breaks the law to ‘well I’d better jump off the slippery slope forever and join a space based evil team, literally just because of One Social Anxiety Moment’. (Relateable, amirite?) And ironically everyone he met that day is literally just thinking ‘oh god what happened to that guy, is he okay?’ and would have totally understood if he just explained his damn self... So all his panic comes to a head and he decides to blame rotom rather than actually do some in-depth analysis of his own life choices. I feel bad because I don’t want to hurt my friend?? I personally value friends higher than money? No, nonsense, you’ve somehow CORRUPTED ME! How could you do this, don’t you know how important that meeting was? WAS THIS YOUR PLAN ALL ALONG??? It was my ONE CHANCE! (apparantly, according to me)

So even though he just ran away because he didn’t want to lose rotom.... he throws away rotom. (just imagine the internal screaming this man must have experienced for the next twenty years)

It was a stupid, STUPID decision based on misdirected anger that he should have been aiming at himself. Nope, can’t believe that the great charon might have made a mistake, that friendship might indeed be a thing that exists in your dried up old heart. Instead it has just proven that friendship = weakness! And now because of this you’ve turned a salvageable situation into the worst disaster possible, yet again. (Man, I feel like Charon can barely survive without rotom. Its not just his conscience but a large chunk of his common sense...)

And rotom of course has NO IDEA why its suddenly been abandoned, so it probably was a really depressing time sitting alone in its trainer’s old house, hoping he’ll eventually come back so you can apologise for something that you don’t even know what it is... And at the same time we have Charon freaking the fuck out for decades, too caught up in his own neuroses to make the very simple decision of just turning around and walking back to where he left that pokeball. And even if he got there, what would he even say? Would he actually have the balls to admit he was wrong, or would he make excuses? ‘Oh, I was just too busy to visit, so much work to do, don’t make a mountain out of a molehill’ In his darkest moments he even considers that maybe he’s wrong to regret this decision at all. ‘But I did the right thing, I don’t need rotom, I don’t need anyone, I have to sacrifice everything to be famous...’ He’s probably even managed to get all the way to the door of the old chateau before running away yet again, leaving rotom thinking it just imagined seeing him outside the window :( Its like in his past when he startled rotom and it thought it had hurt him, but this is if he didn’t chase after it and just left time frozen on that moment. Well, he wishes it was, that he could just choose any second to take back his decision and everything would go back to normal. Never that easy, though...

I APOLOGISE FOR OVERLY LONG POORLY EXPLAINED FANFIC THOUGHTS WHILE I AM SLEEP DEPRIVED ok i need to go cry over dumb grandpas and then probably get some damn rest

oh wait one last random headcanon! i think that charon’s secret lab in team galactic eterna building is actually something he only built after the big moment of abandoning his pokemon Why does Charon have a rotom lab here if he doesnt have a rotom anymore? sure it could just mean he lost his rotom relatively recently, but since my fanfic idea places it earlier in the timeline I like to think that maybe he’s made this room in case he ever gets rotom back. He made a bunch of form-machines even better than the old ones, and decorated the place all fancy, and hopes that maybe it could be at least a small apology for all the suffering he’s put his friend through. Though he doesnt understand that rotom isnt as superficial as he is, so he cant just buy back its love... He just sits in there are rereads his journal whenever he gets nostalgic, he hasnt actually done any science in there for years. Also, it would maybe explain the duplicate rotom lab in silph co in HGSS? that’s the original, and he’s tried to make his new galactic lab as similar as possible because of how guilty he feels, and how he wants to just escape that guilt by turning back time instead of actually saying sorry.

A big thing I always struggle with in writing redemptiony fics is whether I’m lessening a character’s evil and forgiving them too easily and all. I think this series of events would definately still qualify as A Total Dick Move, even if its one that actually has a reason to it other than just ‘i’m evil’, and hurt himself as much as he hurt rotom. And man its so frustrating, seriously I’m here like ‘DUDE STOP IGNORING YOUR EPIPHANIES, JUST GO APOLOGIZE’ yet I also know that if I make him do it immediately and have everything resolved without conflict it’ll be so much less of a believeable redemption arc :P so yeah believe me i still wanna slap charon just as much as everyone who hates charon does, just for different reasons XD Also he needs a hug too. But he needs to do a lot of development before he could actually earn it!

#charonnningggg ramblinggggg #oh no u unleashed the Bunni Thoughts #just imagine him standing on a cliff and a bunch of choose-your-own-adventure text boxes pop up #Option A: become famous and lose your best friend #Option B: keep best friend and sacrifice famous #he somehow picks option C and throws rotomm off the cliff #IMMEDIATE SCREAMING #You have picked: lose both #new theory: charon is so short cos he spent the next decade kicking himself #submission

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renaroo · 7 years

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Double Time (13/24)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: Language, Canon-typical violence Pairings: Tuckington, Chex Rating: T Synopsis: [Hero Time Sequel] After the events of Hero Time, the city and Blood Gulch are prepared for the true return of superheroes in a big way. But while Washington is attempting to adjust to a new relationship and a new living arrangement, the call of new heroes and a new mayor mean major changes for his professional life as well as his personal one. How will the balance of values fare when his new partners come to test everything he’s made of.

A/N: I am running out of things to say in these intros because they’re coming far too close together and I’m used to making 50% of my notes an apology for how long it took to get the chapter out. There are pros and cons to regular updates. Hopefully for you all, more pros than cons!

Special thanks to @analiarvb, @secretlystephaniebrown, @washingtonstub, @icefrozenover, Enmuse, Yin, and @notatroll7 on AO3 and tumblr for the wonderful feed back! I truly appreciate it more than you know.

Team Felix

Wash couldn’t even remember when was the last time it was him sitting in a waiting room in anticipation of news about someone else. He was willing to wager it had been a fairly long time, though. And he was not exactly pleased with his own apathy at the circumstances.

Fortunately, he wasn’t alone with his thoughts or too long because the door was kicked open and revealed both mayoral candidates in wait.

“What the hell is going on!?” Kimball demanded.

“And are you alright, dear Washington?” Doyle added more softly.

Blinking some, Wash settled back in his seat. “For once it’s not me laying in a sick bed so I’m going to assume that I’ll pull through,” he responded flatly. “Not so sure about my... backup.”

Kimball was by far the most reactive, throwing up her arms. “What the hell is going on in that borough of yours?” she yelled. “First it’s basically off the map for the past ten years, suddenly you inform us of its electoral capabilities and all we’ve gotten is complaints about teenagers exploding things, disrupting of the peace by some vigilante gang, and now the two superheroes that we have turned this city’s attention toward as a unifying force are blown to hell on its streets!”

Doyle put a hand to his chin. “In truth, it’s beginning to seem as though learning about Blood Gulch has been far less advantageous to anyone than previously ignoring it.”

More than a little peeved at the attitudes on display, Washington narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps ignoring these issues and an entire population was beneficial to the people who might be responsible for helping to fix the areas, but it’s far from helpful to those of us trying to live and improve Blood Gulch or any other inner city borough like it,” Wash reminded them sharply. “And don’t you two have an emergency election to worry about appeasing voters with? Voters like the people in Blood Gulch?”

They stared at him.

“The reason no one knows about Blood Gulch is that it has a zero-point-zero-zero-two percent voter turnout to begin with and, so far as we can tell, no town hall activity,” Doyle explained.

“Resources aren’t going to be going toward somewhere that doesn’t want to be active,” Kimball agreed.

Wash squinted at them both. “At this point you two are going to be co-mayors forever.”

“God no,” both said at the same time.

Just as Wash was working around what to say next to the mayors, the door was kicked in again. Except the doorway then almost immediately became clogged as four teenagers attempted to cross through it at the same time.

“Ow! Watch where you’re stepping!” Jensen whined.

“Tell Palomo to stop swinging his elbow into me!” Bitters snapped back.

“That’s not my elbow,” Palomo informed them only to spur more struggling.

“Do not -- ghk -- worry, friends!” Andersmith called out heroically. “We can work through all of this if we just keep trying together!”

They pushed more and, of course, had no progress in attempting the same thing again. They then erupted into petty squabbling that was giving Washington a nauseous wave of secondhand embarrassment on top of all the other issues going on in his life at the moment.

He looked instead to the mayors and waved his hands dramatically toward the teenagers. “You summoned the teenagers I’m training to come here? Why? There’s literally no reason for it.”

“That would be because you’re being shortsighted,” Kimball argued. “These children are the future protectors of this electoral map.”

“City,” Doyle corrected.

“Exactly,” Kimball nodded.

“It is thus important for them to be up to date on any new information you and -- bless his poor soul -- Felix can give them about the current enemy who continues to defile and destroy public property,” Doyle explained.

“And to know what they’re putting on the line every time they put on those garish costumes,” Kimball noted.

Wash pulled a frown and squinted at them. Suddenly feeling extraordinarily uncomfortable in his skintight suit. “Garish?”

Doyle smiled uneasily and waved his hands passively. “Certain looks are not for everyone, of course. Our senses of style not being what yours are, of course--”

The teenagers were still struggling which was more than enough excuse for Wash to raise to his feet and shake his head. “Forget it,” he advised to the mayors. “I really don’t like where the conversation is going.”

He then walked closer to the entrance and snapped his fingers right in front of the kids’ faces. It got their attentions almost immediately.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Wash snapped at them. “What’s the first thing I tell you to do before every practice? Every drill? Every talk?”

"Um,” they all echoed at once, though at least they seemed to stop struggling.

Andersmith cleared his throat and looked over everyone else’s heads. “I believe, that what you are consistently telling us is to use our heads.”

Washington felt some relief and sighed as he crossed his arms. At least one person seemed to be listening to him. “That’s right. Thank you, Andersmith. So let’s try doing just that.”

“Got it, Sir!” Andersmith said, backing away from the group and flexing in that familiar way that caused his body to become solid metal.

For a moment, it simply left Washington blinking in confusion before Andersmith lowered his head and began the charge. Horrified, Wash raised up his hands and shook his head. “No no, wait!”

It was too late.

Andesmith collided with the three other teenagers, sending them flying into the waiting room on top of Washington, and even knocking into the mayors. He then stood proudly as the only unscathed member of the group with his hands on his hips. The self satisfaction was pouring off of him.

“My word,” Doyle huffed underneath the pile.

“I see your training is going well, Washington,” Kimball said more harshly, pushing people off her as much as she could.

“Progress is what’s important, no one else seems to get that,” Wash mused mostly to himself before seeing Jensen and Palomo’s offered hands. He blinked before taking them and allowing himself to be helped up. “I suppose the next logical step would be to ask you four why you came down here in such a rush, wouldn’t it?”

“You kidding?” Palomo asked, nearly bouncing on his feet. Something that, considering the fleshiness of his costume, he probably truly shouldn’t have done. “The big fight was all over social media!”

“Big fight?” Wash asked, brows furrowing. “But there weren’t cameras around.”

“Oh my god, you are such a Silver Age hero,” Bitters groaned.

“Everyone records everything on their phones these days, Mister Washington,” Jensen reasoned. “There’s no way something as epic as a rematch between you, Felix, and Locus would go without being recorded and posted everywhere immediately.” She then turned toward Bitters and crossed her arms. “Also, Antoine, I would be doing a disservice to actual fans everywhere by not pointing out that given his age and the relative late start he had on the Freelancers, Washington is obviously from the Bronze Age. It’s very well documented on the superhero wiki. The only official source for superhero information.”

"Everyone, be quiet,” Wash ordered. Once all sets of eyes were on him he pointed accusingly at Bitters and Jensen. “Just how old do you think I am?”

“Um,” both teens hummed at the same time.

Wash opened his mouth to further press the matter when the poor, battered door was kicked in again. He threw up his hands. “Does no one respect public proper-- Tucker?”

Just as the words left his mouth, Tucker shoved past everyone and threw a hand over Wash’s mouth. “Shhhh!” he growled, looking around the room through his sunglasses. He had a hoodie up and tied tight like a complete dork and was wearing a thick coat even though it was summer.

The latter detail probably explained why his hand was so sweaty.

“Okay, enough,” Wash grunted, pulling Tucker’s hand off his mouth. “What are you--” he then looked over Tucker’s shoulder as he heard honking and cooing from the doorway. “Why are both of you here right now!?”

“Because you keep trying to die and it used to be funny when it was just cars that were after you but now it seems like explosions have it in for you,” Tucker explained. “A-K-A I was worried.”

“First off, explosions have it out for everyone, I don’t happen to be special in that department,” Wash pointed out. “Two, how the hell does everyone know about this already!? Where is this video supposedly on... the youtubes.”

Tucker literally did a full body cringe. “Youtubes? Oh my god, Wash, that’s so sad.”

“Silver Age, that cements it,” Bitters muttered loudly enough for even Wash to hear.

“I don’t know about Silver Age, but definitely a silver fox,” Palomo stage whispered back, leading to a level of discomfort that Wash had not realized he was capable of around teenagers.

“Regardless of what everyone saw, I’m fine,” Wash assured everyone.

“Duh. We know,” Bitters groaned.

“We did all see the video,” Andersmith pointed out.

Washington looked around the room and slowly put everything together at last. His glares stopped at his boyfriend. “Are you telling me that all of you aren’t here to check on me but actually here to check on Felix?” he demanded.

An uncomfortable silence only occasionally interrupted with a cough took hold of the room.

Washington stared at them all as the realization slowly dawned on him. Then he couldn’t help but look more than a little betrayed. “Wait? Does everyone in here like him more than me?”

“No!” they all said far too quickly.

“Felix has just been working so hard on building up superhero relations with the government behind the scenes, even before we got in contact with you,” Kimball tried to explain in what passed for her as a gentle tone.

“And he’s so cool!” Palomo quickly added.

“He offered to help me with my powers,” Jensen explained,

“And give me some pointers,” Andersmith continued.

Junior just gave Washington an expectant look. That cut the superhero more to the bone than anything.

“Ouch,” Wash said out loud just before Tucker punched his shoulder. “Double ouch?”

“I came here for you,” Tucker informed him. “But... yeah, I’m worried about the only guy who seems to be around saving your butt lately, too. I mean, if he’s in the hospital bed this time, it’s going to be you next time. And I’ve had more than enough of that for a while, thanks,” Tucker said, making a point to still wave his arm in the brace.

Washington exhaled quickly, and almost stubbornly. “You’re all right. And that’s why I’m here, too. I owe Felix, and being a superhero isn’t a competition, it’s a trust between you and every other person who seeks to do the right thing,” he explained.

“Glad to hear you say that, Wash, tickles my little heart,” Felix’s cocksure voice said from the hospital door.

“Felix!” more than half the room cheered, heading to where he and Doctor Grey were standing.

Felix’s grin still managed to be unbearable to Wash, but he tried to let it go. After all, the man had been injured on account of him -- on account of telling him that Locus was stalking Wash’s neighborhood without him even noticing.

“Because if this was a competition, I think we all know who’d be winning,” Felix continued to joke, but his eyes never left Wash for even a moment.

That was more than enough to make Wash squint suspiciously at Felix, even while Tucker yanked on his arm again.

“You sure you came out of all that alright?” Tucker asked.

"Kind of,” Wash said lowly, so that only Tucker could hear. He then looked intently at his boyfriend. “Can you show me the video everyone’s talking about? Because there were things that happened in that fight that have me asking a lot of questions I’m not sure I’m going to like the answer to or not.”

Tucker let his sunglasses slide down his nose enough that Wash could get the full effect of his eyebrow raised. “Yeah, I guess,” he replied suspiciously. “What kind of questions do you have?”

“I want to know how I ended up on the other side of the street just before that explosion happened, and I want to know why said explosion wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Wash explained. “And I want to know why Felix seems to be doing more behind the scenes than he apparently wants me to know.”

Rolling his eyes, Tucker sighed. “You’re just so against equal opportunity for people to save you for once, aren’t you, dude?” he asked.

“No!” Wash defended. “Tucker, I’m trusting you, aren’t I?”

“Pfft, yeah, but you’re also sleeping with me so I’d hope some trust issues weren’t working their way in there too much,” Tucker joked, pulling out his phone. “I can’t believe you don’t know how to pull up a video. Where’ve you been for the last ten years?”

“It’s not that I don’t... Forget it,” Wash grunted. “Let’s just see how far this rabbit hole takes us...”

#writing #rvb fic #RvB: Double Time #RvB: Hero Time #Tuckington #Agent Washington #Vanessa Kimball #Donald Doyle #John Elizabeth Andersmith #Charles Palomo #Katie Jensen #Antoine Bitters #Lavernius Tucker #Tucker Junior #Felix

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idealisticrealism · 7 years

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Blindspot 2x11 recap

(Aka the one where Keaton and Dr Sun face off in an exciting round of “~Whose Presence Is The Least Wanted~”. Spoiler: they both win.)

Delayed a little by a spontaneous three-day trip across the state and a few late shifts, but finally here at last. So thanks your your awesome responses to last week’s recap, and prepare for a large quantity of thoughts and opinions because damn this ep was actually good??

Noooo. Roman. My baby. Why must you suffer so much??? I mean sure there was the terrorism and the murdering and all, but... well, just as I don't see Remi and Jane as the same person, Times New Roman and Old Roman are also not the same. Plus, given that messed up childhood he had, his violence is kinda unsurprisng. And I just can't help it okay, he's my scruffy psycho puppy and I love him. And Jane does too, which is why she's always visiting him (FOR THE LAST 2 WEEKS WHAAAT. mORE ON THIS IN A SEC) and trying to make sure he's eating and getting some rest and just basically being the sweetest sister ever ughhhhh. But he's understandably starting to crack, being caged up in there like an animal, and ugh can I just hug them both rn

Okay this next scene is a Nas scene, ergo I don’t care about it, so I'm gonna just pause for a second and vent about this whole two-week-jump thing. Because you know what can happen in two weeks in this show?? Everything!! Like literally from the time Jane rejoined the team in the premiere up to the events of last ep (aka a total of 11 eps), only TWELVE DAYS had passed. (Yes, I counted). So let's think about this. This means that Jane came back into the team's lives 12 days ago. She met Roman 12 days ago. She was shot by Zapata 12 days ago (though you would never know it based on her physical activity... #tvmedicine). And wanna know some other things that happened in that 12 days? 11 days ago Weller found out he was gonna be a father (Allie was like 15 weeks along at the time, at best guess??), and Borden asked Patterson out. Approx 6 days ago, Jane kinda pretty much admitted to Weller that she loved/loves him. She found out about the baby a day later, the same day Allie was shot. (Again, not a hint of that injury any time we've seen her since!). Weller and Nas started sleeping together 4 days ago, while Jane's 'happy ending' fantasy (*sobs*), and her failed date with Oliver happened only three days ago. Then let’s not even get into the whole shitstorm of Shepherd’s trap and the team nearly dying and Patterson discovering Borden’s betrayal just a day ago. So are you seeing my issue here?? All these things happened in LESS than 2 weeks, and now we've just jumped forward that entire block of time and ugh what the hell did we miss in all those days??? I’m actually legit worried about what bad things could have happened/are brewing...

Aaand speak of the devil. Or devil-lady. Nas is apparently doing something shady (shocking, I know) and Weller comes to investigate, since apparently she's been 'sneaking off every morning'. Oh, great. You know what, maybe I'm glad we've skipped ahead two weeks, if these two have continued their... whatever the hell this is... during all that time. But seriously dude, Jane is back and you guys are actually on good terms again, why are you still with the rebound??? Unless... unless she's no longer the rebound but rather the barrier. Like with Jane back and their old connection starting to reform, maybe he's using this thing with Nas as like a buffer to keep himself from gravitating back to Jane-- lbr, he's the proverbial moth to her flame, and vice versa-- and so basically this thing with Nas is all just a way of protecting his heart by keeping it far away from the one woman who could truly crush it? Honestly rn that's the story I gotta go with bc otherwise I’m gonna get stuck obsessing over wtf is going on here with these two completely ill-suited people. Sigh. But anyhow apparently Nas used to get messages from this sign from the Sandstorm informant (did she ever look into how though? Like did the informant know or pay off the person who types them? Or did they hack in themselves? Surely that was a lead that should have been followed??) and so apparently she's still checking it. Also damn, the quote up on the sign: "The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon"-- very true about Jane, given all she's been through and how strong and incredible she's manages to remain through it all....

But anyway now there are two thug-like dudes just sneaking thuggishly amongst a bunch of shipping containers and lbr it's already a better scene than the previous one. And then a Distinguished Looking Man and a younger man (his son, I'm guessing?) exit one of the containers, looking Distinguished and Mysterious. Dude, I hope you guys didn't come from far away, bc that would not have been a fun journey...

Ooooh Weller's lady-juggling is apparently not going so well as he ends up missing Allie's appointment-- what's she now? 20 weeks, give or take? And yet that's one tiiiiiny belly she's still got... like okay yes, some women barely show at all, even well into the second trimester, but lbr NEVER TV WOMEN. TV women are usually always sporting one of those massive fake belly things so that we, the poor silly viewers, don't forget that “HEY THIS LADY GOT KNOCKED UP, THERE'S DEFINITELY A BABY KICKING AROUND IN HERE SO GET READY FOR IT TO FLY ON OUT AND MESS SHIT UP AT ANY MOMENT". And yet, with this show... nothing? Some slightly baggier clothes, maybe, but not even a moderate bump. What does it mean?? Are they sneakily trying to tell us that ~all is not as it seems~ with this pregnancy (like hey, maybe Allie even sneakily moved the appointment forward so Weller would miss it)-- or, am I just reading to much into things, and the show’s prop-masters were simply out of stock on the Defo-Preggo fake bellies and decided it didn't matter and we probably wouldn't notice its absence anyway? Seriously I have been super suss of this pregnancy from the start (mainly bc why the hell would it even have been written into the story unless for some kind of ~Shock Drama~ down the track) so maybe I'm looking too hard for hints? Lbr it's gonna take a fair bit to shake me from my 'Allie is a Sandstorm operative and is faking the pregnancy bc of reasons' theory. And Cutie Connor can totally fit into that too. But anyhow Weller is a sweetie and is trying very hard to be a Good Dad(TM). Oh, my son. Why do I strongly get the feeling that you will never even get the chance to be a dad to this baby. (*whispers* there's always your babies with Jane to look forward to, tho...)

Oooh it's back-to-work day for Reade (two weeks post-surgery really isn't enough for a physical job like his, but whatever I'mma overlook it) and omg he and Zapata having an awkward little chat and dude is this really the first time they've spoken since that terrible kiss? Really?? So there was just radio silence between them, two best friends, for two weeks while he was practically an invalid. Ooookay. Sure. On a brighter note, there was a rat in the lockerroom that Reade had named Whitey Bulger hahaha. That's adorable. I hope it was released humanely. Reminds me of the mouse that used to live in the wall of my parents’ house and its hole was right near the computer desk so I would feed it crumbs when I was up on the computer at like 3am haha. Ah, good times. Also okay hold on google says that Whitey Bulger was an infamous crime boss who murdered like 20 people. Ohhhhh and apparently he was an FBI informant, aka a rat. I wonder if the rat was white, too? Though generally wild rats are brown. But wow okay I am getting very distracted (lbr it's the secondhand embarrassment from this super awkward interaction, I can't deal so I’m avoiding the whole thing lol)

Phew okay now we can switch to a far more pleasing scene-- my baby Patterson is back at it, and I'm not even gonna comment on the bullet-wound recovery time. Just look at this restraint I’m showing. Anyway based on Zapata's very pointed comments, lil baby Patterson has refused to take any time off. Ugh. Though if I were her I wouldn't really want to be at my apartment either. I wonder if Borden left anything there... :( also Patterson still has a nasty headache, which sounds ongoing and is not all that consistent with the eardrum-stabbing. It could be a bunch of things, including lack of sleep, but... I wonder. Maybe Sheherd was sneakier than we thought. But for now let's just hope our baby is okay.

Looolll I feel like I'm watching a married couple having a fight over what's best for their kid or something. But lbr here if not for the pressure that Weller's facing to show that he's 'punishing' Roman somehow (seriously we know how Pellington fels about Roman, not to mention how all the agents under Weller’s command must feel about the man that helped kill 12 of their own), I feel like he would be on Jane's side of this argument. Although, he probably also recognises the influence Roman has over Jane, and might be worried that Roman could pull her away from him... but anyhow it's entertaining to watch these two in their own little bubble with Nas off to the side, just awkwardly hovering there like she's an afterthought. Neither one particularly wants her input rn but she has to be there, so... but then she suggests bringing in an 'expert' that she knows and that sets off instant alarm bells for me. DO NOT TRUST ANYONE ASSOCIATED WITH NAS, INCLUDING NAS, OKAY GUYS? THEY’RE SNAKE-PEOPLE, THE LOT OF THEM. This is bound to bode ill for Roman and Jane and like probably everyone somehow

Aw my clever baby has cracked (or re-cracked) an old tattoo, which previously had given them a random number but now correlates to a shipping container-- naturally, the very one that our mysterious duo exited earlier. And due to some handy camera unscrambling, we know that Distinguished Man is a supposedly-dead warlord dude that did a bunch of bad things and was actually indirectly involved in the team nearly getting killed in Turkey last season. Oooooh, drama.

So the kiddies are heading into the bullpen-- Reade joining Weller and Jane as they head together to the main briefing area. So wait how come Jeller were off on their own just then, given that the team was all just together down in Patterson's lab a minute ago? (*cough* quickie?? *cough*) But anyhow traces of nitroglycerin were found in the container apparently so ooooh bomb??? But apparently the company who paid for the container also paid a bunch of dough to some other lady, so the team brings her in-- and finds out the money was 'life insurance' from the death of her brother a few days ago. But hold on, she never even saw the body, said that he'd already been taken to the morgue. And bingo, this story is already throwing up a ton of flags. I can tell you from direct experience that when a person dies in hospital, a doctor (ie, me) is immediately called to certify them, and then we tuck them in nicely and ensure they look peaceful before we contact the family and allow them to come in. And unless the family is like hours and hours away, the patient will remain in their room until they've had a chance to say goodbye. If the family can't get there for a long time, they're taken to the hospital’s mortuary where they await pickup by the family's chosen funeral director. At any point in this process the family can still be taken to see the patient if they wish. So clearly, something else happened with this woman's brother, and someone paid off multiple hospital staff to make it look how they wanted. Definitely not easy to do. And now, according to Patterson, it turns out he was actually transferred elsewhere... this is all veeeeery shady

Ugh Jane going to Roman and using Borden's coffee example to help reach out to him. Ughhhh. And then ugh he asks her if Shepherd loved them and why she wiped his memory and this puts Jane in such a tight spot bc if she said Shepherd did it but didn't love him then how does she explain later that she herself did it out of love and aarghh. But her answer "maybe she thought it was the only chance she had left to get you back” is a good answer. I'm still sad that she had to lie to him about it, and the ramifications that that's going to have. Please understand, Roman, she loves youuuuu and only wants what’s best for you!

Meanwhile Patterson's found the person who last visited the dude in hospital, bc she's da boss. And then Weller asks if she ran the plates and she practically rolls her eyes at him, sassily gesturing over her shoulder just as a photo of the plates appears on the screen behind her. Badass. The team subsequently goes chasing the car-- which is conveniently like ten mins away-- and suddenly it's like we’re in the middle of a black SUV convention when the team surrounds the target cars, the two separate sides differentiated only by the fact that out of one set of cars comes our badass team with their big guns, and out of the other comes a murdering, bloodthirsty, terrorist warlord... and something much worse. KEATON. And lbr I will forever be proud of Jane for the fact that she has her torturer directly in her line of fire and yet doesn't even once struggle with the temptation of pulling the trigger. Because no matter what she's been through-- and no matter what Remi did in the past-- Jane is not a killer. (Let's just agree to overlook the whole thing with Fisher bc that man was an evil little weasel and deserved what he got). And then Zapata discovers a possible bioweapon in the car, ratcheting tensions even higher until Keaton is all 'chill, it's just a pilfered body part'. And lbr, Keaton is so damn repugnant that this is the only way he could ever steal anyone's heart. (badum-tish?). But omg then Jane tells Weller-- while staring at Keaton with bared teeth-- that he was the one who tortured her. And being the little shit-stirrer he is, Keaton tries to imply that Weller has known all along (actually only two weeks and 4 days, but who's counting), and Jane's trust in Weller wavers just slightly at that, given that he'd told her from the start that he hadn't known anything about her torture. Which was true, at the time. And now he quickly reassures her-- while staring absolute daggers at Keaton-- that he only found out in Bulgaria. I wonder if he's mentally reliving that last meeting bc oh boy I sure am. Ah, those satisfying choking sounds. But anyhow, it turns out that Warlord Man's son needs a heart transplant and the CIA is providing it in exchange for info about planned terrorist attacks. The traces of 'nitroglycerin' that was found in the storage container was actually from the kid's heart medication (glyceryl trinitrate, in case you're interested, though he likely wouldn't be on that medication for this particular condition. Also to get those traces around the container I guess he must have been doing a Great-Escape style boredom activity, just with throwing his tablets instead of a ball. Anywho tho Jane tells Weller he can't trust Keaton, and as he always does (or did, in the old days) he finds a way to do what she suggests that is also going to appear acceptable to the Big Bosses. Which in this case means inviting Keaton and Co into their base. Joy.

So not only does the team have to work with the world's biggest asshat, but there's an attack tonight that they need to stop. Zapata takes Anton the Warlord's phone and laptop to Patterson bc apparently she can't face the idea of interviewing him with Reade (come on kids, we're all grownups here) and everyone suddenly disperses, leaving Jane alone in the room with Keaton. I kinda feel like that's an oversight that Weller wouldn't actually make (and lbr he's always been super aware of where Jane is and what she's doing at all times) so I kinda feel like he is deliberately giving her this chance to face Keaton alone? He knows she wouldn't do anything foolish-- such as, say, try to choke him to death, like a certain someone-- and knows she needs this closure. And omg Keaton is now boo-hooing about missing his kid's basketball games because he had to spend his time 'interrogating' her. Damn, that's cold. He's literally acting like she wronged him. (Can I claw his eyes out now, please?? Since Jane is too good of a person to do it??). But well, at least Keaton’s shittiness gives us this scene of Jane storming into Weller's office. He's sitting and staring pensively at a watch in his hands-- what's the significance? Was it his father's? What am I missing here?? and she bursts in all angry and hurt that they're working with Keaton after what he did to her, which lbr would basically feel like everyone dismissing it as no big deal. But thankfully Weller makes it clear-- with his Serious Voice and turbulent eyes-- that he hates it too and even nearly killed Keaton when he found out. And boy, does that take the wind out of her sails. Yes, Jane, Mr Always-Do-The-Right-Thing literally nearly murdered a high-ranking government official for hurting you. And ugh you can see how much that means to her-- lbr with them, that's basically as much an admission of love as any kiss could be...

Aaaand then of course Nas has to appear to ruin the moment, because that's literally like her entire role on this show; Ms Shady Backstabber and Moment-Ruiner. And oh joy, she's brought her 'expert', who on one hand I am pleased to see is a disabled WOC, bc yes good tv representation, but on the other hand I wish she just wasn't there at all. That actress was great in Quantico though. Literally tho in the first minute the doctor has called Roman a 'prisoner' and a 'killer'. Biased, much??? I have literally treated jailed murderers myself, and the entire medical staff would always refer to them only as 'the patient' or at the very worst, 'the inmate'. So this lady is really already rubbing me the wrong way here. As much as I dislike her, though, I agree that Jane shouldn't be there for her assessment. But ugh I hope she can watch on cameras or something just so someone is keeping an eye on what they do to my poor puppy... but seriously tho let's all take a moment to appreciate how well Jane keeps herself in check like all the time?? I mean she's constantly copping crap from people and she just takes it with such grace (okay sometimes with a little less grace but generally very well) and ugh I just love her so much

Speaking of Jane, she takes her turn watching over Anton, and while the man refused to say a word to Reade, the sight of Jane has him opening right up. I feel ya, buddy. I'd spill my guts to her too. I enjoy that they bond over their mutual hatred of Keaton. Can I join that party? Also ugh the way he talks about his son not being like him, and being deserving of a proper life... kinda like Jane still deserves a good life despite who her 'mother' is and what she's done. But oh geez, his next line-- "You know what's the worst thing that can happen to a man, Jane? To lose a child." AAAAHHHH RED FLAGS RED FLAGS THIS IS FORESHADOWING I JUST KNOW IT. DOES THIS MEAN THE WRITERS ARE GONNA KILL OFF WELLER'S BABY??? DOES IT???? And then oh shit, the son dies (I am still sure that that line was foreshadowing more than just his death though) and the team is all like wtf do we do??? Naturally Keaton thinks the only option is to lie, which Jane strongly disagrees with, both of them turning to Weller, who brings them both with him to see Anton. Keaton gets in there and starts spouting lies-- only for Weller to step up and tell the truth, while also being genuinely sympathetic. Yaaaaasss my son taking Jane's side and doing the right thing, as he should :) And ugh she is so sad for the man's loss and tries to get him to see that his son wouldn't have wanted this. 'His ideals aren't like yours' oh boy does she know all about that. But even her heartfelt pleas can't get through to him (come on, dude, look at that faaaace) and so now the team is really in trouble... But as always happens when shit hits the fan, everyone turns to Patterson, who naturally comes through, tracing a phone that got a coded message from Anton's phone, giving them the lead they desperately need...

But while my beautiful and trustworthy team is busy doing that, Shady and Shadier are starting their mindgames on my poor lil caged lion Roman. Keep your devil-claws off him, ladies! That means you, sneaky shrink! Also if he is believed to be so dangerous and unstable, there is no way she would be that close to him, especially without any guards present. He could kill her in a single second. And speaking of which, baby Ian just stabbed the hell out of one of the other boys at the orphanage (the one that stole his coin), seemingly on the order of their captors? And in the earlier flash that we got, the guy said "Will you kill your rabbit now?" So these are two separate memories, right? The rabbit is really a rabbit, yeah? Like ‘rabbit’ isn't a metaphor for a 'target' or something right? Either way, daaaaamn, these poor kids...

Aaaaahhhhh we're getting another Jeller heart-to-heart moment in the caaaarrrr! I've missed these. I so wish Reade and Zapata were in the back seat pretending not to exist like they did in the good old days when Jeller were having a ~moment~, but sadly not this time. But ugh Jane is again expressing her fears about Roman's reaction should he find out that she zipped him, and I love this bc not only is Jane allowing herself to turn to Weller again for comfort, but she's also being open with him about her feelings, ensuring there's nothing hidden between them anymore (at least on her side. While I assume she's figured out the whole Nas thing, I doubt he's outwardly said anything to her). And ugghhhhh Weller doesn't hesitate to comfort her, reminding her that she has become a completely new person-- aka, a good person-- after her wipe. Yaaaassss for Weller acknowledging that Jane and Remi are separate people. And then ughhhh he says the wipe was the best thing that ever happened to her but lbr it's the best thing that ever happened to him??? That memory wipe brought her right to him, gave them the opportunity to know each other and fall for each other. Hers wasn't the only life that was changed forever the day she climbed out of that bag. But omg he's still not done??? He tells her that she not only saved Roman's life by doing what she did, but whatever hope he has left (of a life, of happiness and normalcy) is a gift that she gave him. Oh lord, help me. And then he turns to her and puts the heart eyes up to high beam and boy are they blinding. I'm legit gonna have lightspots in my vision for like the next hour. But ugh what I love most is that these are not his previous "I adore you and everything you are" hearteyes but more of an "I have done so wrong by you and though I know I could never make it right I will spend every day of the rest of my life trying" hearteyes and honestly JUST LET ME DIE. Oh wait, nope, I am about to die bc now we're in the other car with Zapata and Reade AND I CANNOT DEAL WITH THE AWKWARD. Save me. At least Reade is trying to talk it out like a grownup whereas Zapata is all but stuffing her fingers in her ears and going "la la la la I can't heaaaaar you" lol.

Thankfully, Weller chooses that moment to rescue us all (he probably needed a distraction of his own bc he was becoming too lost in Jane's eyes haha) and everybody pulls into a place that looks kinda reminiscent of the spot where Zapata shot Jane. Everyone fans out, including Jane, and I will forever be so happy about the fact that she's back out with the team and trusted with a weapon and they all know they can rely on her as a true team member and ughhhh I'm just so happy to be getting back to the real heart of this show. And speaking of things that are right at the very core of this show, Weller has managed to get himself blown up yet again, this time by trying to stop a dude who had wired a bunch of basketballs on a rack into a bomb. Bad dude gets away with a bunch of other bombs, and Weller gets away with barely a scratch-- which doesn't stop Jane from yelling his name in alarm and immediately running to his side, even giving us an Unnecessary (but sadly not all that Lingery) touch on his arm as if she's reassuring herself that he's okay. Ah man. You guys are killing me. While this season has certainly frustrated me in regards to Weller's actions towards Jane, it definitely doesn't disappoint in hers towards him. Ugh, my stupid in-love babies, how I adore you

Anywho the whole crew is on the site now (including Keaton, which literally everyone there/the entire world could do without) and they realise that though there's no major basketball games on tonight-- which of course our resident ex-gambler knows-- there is a youth league game on, aka the one that Keaton's daughter is playing at. And how do they know this?? Because my baby Jane is a freakin' genius as well as a badass, and she actually listens to what people say, even if those people are jerks and don't deserve a second of her attention. And so now when Jane speaks, everyone listens, which is why they're all currently bolting to the kids' game. And Keaton is all "he's doing this to get at me" *whinge whinge*, and Jane is all 'bitch shut up there's a lot more people there than just your kid'. But naturally Keaton continues to bitch bc he's Keaton, then even annoyingly brings up the whole being a parent thing, at which time Jane sneaks an almost-sad look at Weller, because freaking everyone has to continuinally remind her that the man she loves now has a permanent tie to someone else. Great, thanks, show.

But anyhow despite Weller having everything under control, Keaton manages to ruin everything as usual, getting his own agent killed and forever traumatising his daughter in the process. Weller and Keaton then bugger off in search of the daughter while Jane and the other two take out a bunch of baddies like the badass little team they are. Ah, so good to see them like this again. Jane splits off from the others to chase more baddies while the two of them try to defuse the bomb with Patterson's help. Bc when in need, always call Patterson. Jane's fight with the baddie in the gym is kinda hilarious, like at one point she sends him sprawling but rather than knocking him out she waits politely for him to get up before continuing their fight. Such manners :P Although given the fact that she then slams a kettleweight straight into his face/chest, maybe she’d used up her quota of good behaviour haha. Meanwhile Patterson shuts down the cell signal to the area, preventing the bomb being activated via the mobile phone detonator... ummm is that a thing that's actually possible? Idek. Anyhow Weller and Keaton find the daughter at gunpoint in the locker room, and Weller's all "I haven't got a shot" though lbr I bet that ‘Mr Exceptional Marksmanship Award’ could totally shoot that guy's exposed hand. A moment later he gets the shot anyway when Keaton draws the baddie out, and all seems to have ended happily until-- dun dun dun-- there's another baddie, right about to shoot both Keaton and his daughter!! Only to be shot by Jane first, aka my perfect beautiful princess who always saves any life she can, even if that life belongs to the piece of slime that tortured her for three freakin’ months. Hey Weller, take notes. If Nas had been in Jane's situation just then, she would have sat back and watched. No doubt about it. At least Keaton is man enough to genuinely thank her tho, to which she gives pretty much the much more professional-sounding version of "screw you, asshole" lol. You go, girl.

Oh boy. So you put Roman into an ‘MRI’ and are now basing your diagnosis on the absence of a perceived response to a few pictures. Good lord, woman, you must have gone to a worse medical school than Borden. I don't even know where to start with this. Firstly the scan you're thinking of is a PET scan, but you literally can’t make this diagnosis based on that anyway!! And honestly lady have you ever opened a psych textbook in your entire life, there's a whole bunch of criteria to diagnose Antisocial Personality Disorder and ROMAN LITERALLY DOES NOT MEET THEM. Even Old Roman doesn't meet the majority of them, and New Roman meets practically none. This woman is a CHARLATAN and I will not TOLERATE THIS DISRESPECT TOWARDS EITHER OF MY BABIES. Gaaawd. So now poor Roman is in danger of being locked away in a padded room for his whole life on the word of one woman; one woman who they know nothing about except that she comes recommended by Nas (which should be an automatic black mark against anyone's name imo) but also a woman who just told Jane-- aka Jane who grew up in Hell's Orphanage and has been through unfathomable shit her entire life including three months of recent physical torture-- and this woman just told her she can't possibly imagine how 'terrible' this Sudanese orphanage was that she visited once as a student. Good lord, can I slap her yet. Please. At least Jane kind of calls her on it, raising the point that she grew up in exactly the same way as Roman, but it's clear the snake-charmer's mumbo-jumbo has her doubting herself. Ugh. At least Weller doesn't seem at all happy with the idea of having to lock Roman up-- probably bc he knows how it'll hurt his precious Jane, and after allowing her to suffer for so much of this season he's finally gotten his shit together and realised she didn’t/doesn't deserve any of it and now desperately wants to make up for his previous ass-ish ways.

Speaking of ass-ish ways, Zapata has decided to grow up a little and reach out the olive branch. Thank god. She even apologises, which is impressive, because this is Zapata... although she still manages to turn it into a bit of a joke. I do love the "you're not even my type, though" (we know, Sarah is) and the "why, too smart or too classy?" Thankfully he calls her on the classy part, and yaaayy we are back to the sassy banter that I like :))) Brotp forever please. Also Reade aren't you still on pain meds? You shouldn't really be drinking... And then aww she wingmans for him (which would have been hilariously awkward if the girl had actually been checking HER out. Man, that would have been amazing). But then hold on writers, what is this little ~look~ she throws back at him?? Please tell me that that was just a slightly wistful 'If only I could love him as something more than a brother, who knows, we could have been a good couple" and not a "I'm pretending I don’t have feelings for you bc though I actually am in love with you I don't want to drag you down into the trash pile with me". Bc legit if the writers go down the path of the latter, I'm going to be so pissed. JUST LET THEM BE BEST FRIENDS, OKAY??? NOT EVERYONE WITH OPPOSITE GENITALS HAS TO FALL IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER, GEEZ.

Naw Patterson finds Jane sitting behind the mirror, watching over Roman like the loving-- and worried-- big sister that she is. And Patterson, bless her, my precious angel made of fairy dust and sunshine-- gently reassures her that 'psychology isn't even a real science so you shouldn't listen to anything the shrink says' (or something along those lines lol), and then ughhhhh when Jane is basically acknowledging that she has no power to fight the shrink's diagnosis because she 'isn't objective', Patterson gifts us with this: "Maybe that's the point. Weller wasn't objective, and he brought out the best in you. Maybe you can do that for Roman". And so the Queen has spoken: lack of objectivity = LOVEEEE, and love will set you free and all that jazz. But ugh Patterson I could kiss you rn (not like I would ever need much encouragement any other time, tho lol)

Okay if no kissing then could I at least write you a prescription for some better pain killers because I hate seeing you suffer like this (ugh Shepherd what sneaky thing did you do to my precious baby). At least the pain meds that she has-- while useless for the pain-- actually help her to crack the leopard clue. Wooo! Shame she had to get Nas involved, but at least she's telling Jane pretty much immediately. And because Patterson is a genius, she determines that the clue points towards a chick in some bikie gang, who is seen in a photo with none other than Roman. Guess we know what next ep is about!! #exciting

Oh joy, an Allie and Weller scene. I was totally just thinking that this ep needed more of them (#not). But oh my goddddd he's been nesting, setting up a nursery and buying a crib with the highest safety rating and trying out colour swatches for the walls and oh my lord this is simultaneously the worst and the best thing bc 'excited prospective-dad Weller' is SO ADORABLE but the circumstances and partner are definitely... less than ideal, shall we say. Siiiiiiiigh. And then BAM Allie's suddenly moving to Colorado with Connor and Weller cares too much about her to ever even consider trying to get her to stay and so okay I see two options here: either the writers are trying to make us think Allie is going to be out of the picture, so when some Big Bad Thing happens involving her and the baby, it'll be an even bigger twist; or, she literally does move to Colorado and the show very occasionally mentions Weller's interstate baby in future seasons just so we don't start thinking that the whole storyline was just a really protracted, mass-shared bad dream. Since the second would just be embarrassingly bad screenwriting, I'm pretty much hoping for the first option...

Well, there it is. Happy Blindspot Day, and see you for the (hopefully much more punctual) next installment!

#Blindspot #Blindspot recap #Jeller #oooops this is super late #at least AI'm done before the next ep airs tho?

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sherristockman · 7 years

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Fake Pharma — The Ghosts in a Very Big Machine Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Another media outlet has been caught promoting the interests of Big Pharma under the guise of real news. This time, somewhat surprisingly, it was news outlet STAT, which otherwise has a solid reputation in reporting science and health news. The story was titled, “How Pharma Sales Reps Help Me Be a More Up-to-Date Doctor,” written, supposedly, by Dr. Robert Yapundich, an experienced neurologist. You can see where this is going. The article praised drug reps for providing vital information to doctors. And why wouldn't it offer such praise? Yapundich has received more than $300,000 from drug companies in recent years, a fact pointed out by numerous Twitter users and readers in the article's comments section, who suggested the obvious conflict of interest ought to be disclosed.1 The problem was, it wasn't, at least not at first. The article remained untouched for at least four days, during which other commenters pointed out more problems, like the fact that Yapundich said he'd not heard of a drug (Nuplazid) until he had lunch with a drug rep, yet, it turns out, he was previously paid for consulting services regarding the same drug.2 Commenters soon started calling on STAT to disclose the ties, fix the seemingly false statement or retract the article. STAT chose the latter. STAT Retracts Ghost-Written Piece The controversial article now contains an editor's note stating that it was retracted because "it did not meet our standards," continuing:3 "As a matter of policy, we ask all our contributors to disclose payments from industry and other possible conflicts of interest. In this case, the author disclosed no conflicts other than his affiliation with an organization that supports expanding manufacturers' ability to discuss off-label uses of drugs. In response to reader questions, we contacted Yapundich and he told us he had received more than $300,000 in recent years from pharmaceutical companies, including one he mentioned in the article. He also acknowledged that his organization was funded in part by pharmaceutical companies. We disclosed that information at the bottom of the article … We also asked Yapundich to address reader questions about the veracity of the central anecdote in the piece. He said the anecdote was accurate as written. But Yapundich later told HealthNewsReview that the anecdote was not, in fact, accurate. After that interview was posted … we contacted Yapundich again and he conceded to STAT that the anecdote was inaccurate. We then retracted the article." The organizational affiliation that STAT speaks of is the Alliance for Patient Access (AfPA), a group that receives money from close to 30 drug companies; Yapundich sits on the board. Kevin Lomangino, managing editor for HealthNewsReview, reported that, when he spoke with Yapundich, he said the article was AfPA’s idea and was written by a ghostwriter. Yapundich then made some changes and edits to the article prior to it being published by STAT. Reportedly, when he asked his contact at the AfPA what he needed to do in terms of conflict of interest disclosures, the person wrote, "Hold on financial info. Hopefully only needed for AfPA and not for you individually."4 HealthNewsReview then revealed another layer to the story, which is that Yapundich was working in some capacity with Washington D.C.-based PR firm Keybridge Communications, who says their goal is to "brand thought leaders." It's unclear who was paying for their services, as well as who was ultimately responsible for the lack of financial disclosure in the article. "It seems that wherever the op-ed originated," Lomangino wrote, "it received careful attention from PR messaging pros before it ever reached Yapundich's desk."5 'Ghost-Written Puff Pieces From PR Companies' Passed Off as Op-Eds "While authors of op-eds may get more latitude than they would in a straight news piece, the boundaries shouldn't be so wide as to include ghost-written puff pieces from PR companies," Lomangino wrote. Industrial ghost writers first became popular when tobacco executives hired them to spin positive press about cigarettes and secondhand smoke, published in the name of various scientists, according to New York University journalism professor Charles Seife. "Since then, ghostwriters employed by parts of the pharmaceutical industry have been busily tobacconizing the scientific literature. Gaze into the depths of PubMed for long enough, and they will materialize before your eyes, promoting Wyeth's Prempro, Merck's Vioxx, and Pfizer's Neurontin, just to name a few," Seife says.6 Even Monsanto has gotten into the mix, with glyphosate articles ghostwritten by Monsanto's toxicology manager published using names of academic researchers, and the practice is well-known among peer-reviewed journals. For medical journals, ghostwriting usually refers to writers sponsored by a drug or medical device company, who make major but uncredited research or writing contributions. The pharmaceutical company hires a medical education and communications company, which is a company paid almost exclusively by pharmaceutical companies to write articles, reviews and letters to editors of medical journals in order to cast their products in a favorable light. One cross-sectional survey found that more than 20 percent of articles published in six leading medical journals during 2008 were likely written by honorary and/or ghostwriters.7 With the STAT piece, however, we're now seeing that industrial ghostwriting has come to the mainstream media, allowing corporate interests to spread their propaganda over an even wider audience. Seife continued that many news outlets, including STAT, are aware that some of their opinion pieces are ghostwritten, but when the ghost-writers are being sponsored by powerful people with powerful agendas, that's where the problems begin:8 "Many opinion sections have a grudging acceptance of some degree of ghostwriting in their pages; after all, high officials and A-list celebrities have entire staffs hired to meticulously shape each public utterance. But even if you accept that kind of ghostwriting, the industrial version of ghosting is an entirely different beast. Instead of putting the words of an unknown in the mouths of the powerful, it does just the opposite — it disseminates the words of the powerful by putting them in the mouth of the unknown. Indeed, in this case, it used the trusted institution of a friendly doctor to spread the gospel of the pharmaceutical industry. It's not the sheep in wolf's clothing that's to be feared, but the reverse … It may be a losing battle; the wealthy industries using these tactics are adept at harnessing the forces of capitalism to defeat any attempt at transparency. After all, it's nigh impossible to see who's really pulling the strings when the invisible hand gets involved." Another STAT Blunder: Patient Praising TV Drug Ads Connected to Drug Company Yapundich's now-retracted piece wasn't the first time STAT published an op-ed without disclosing the author's true affiliations. In 2016, an op-ed titled, "You Can Complain About TV Drug Ads. They May Have Saved My Life," was featured, written by patient Deborah Clark Dushane. Suffering from chronic hepatitis C, Dushane wrote that drug ads on television prompted her to ask her doctor about new drugs to treat the disease, which "cured" her. "I strongly believe that if I hadn't seen TV ads about chronic hepatitis C and new drugs to treat it, I wouldn't have done anything to protect myself against it. Those commercials raised my awareness of the disease and gave me the courage to try again to beat it. I'm sure I'm not the only person they have helped," Dushane wrote in the STAT piece.9 Again, reporting by HealthNewsReview revealed that the author wasn't operating totally independently. A PR firm for Gilead, a drug company that manufacturers drugs to treat hepatitis C, contacted Dushane and asked her to write the piece. The positive press was intended to offset another STAT article that had recently been published, outing the "$100 million ad blitz for a $1,100-a-pill drug for hepatitis C."10 Dushane wasn't paid to write the piece, but Gilead flew her to California to learn more about the company and its products, after which she appeared on local TV stations to talk about the drug. Dushane was coached by Gilead's PR people on what message to relay in the article and on TV. STAT added an updated disclosure to the article on September 13, 2017, after HealthNewsReview brought the conflict to their attention. Seife, meanwhile, described Dushane's role as a sock puppet for the industry11 while HealthNewsReview quoted Dr. Carl Elliott, a professor at the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics and an affiliate faculty member in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications:12 "Of course this is wrong, and it's wrong because it's deceptive. I think the editors need to explain just what their policy is about corporate influence on the editorials they publish … Do they permit editorials that are completely ghosted by pharma? By a PR company working for pharma? What if the author wrote it himself or herself, but was paid to do it by pharma or a PR company? What if the author wasn't paid directly to write the editorial, but was coached what to write and got other benefits from a company? All of these scenarios seem disturbing to me, and I'd like to know if they are disturbing to the STAT editors too." Drug Company Faked Cancer Diagnoses in Patients to Sell More Opioids A federal indictment and congressional investigation by Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill allege that Insys Therapeutics concocted a fraudulent scheme to sell more of Subsys, an expensive, highly addictive, sprayable form of fentanyl.13 Prior authorization was required from insurance companies before the drug could be prescribed by doctors, and a diagnosis of cancer was a requirement for prescription clearance. Insys wanted to make it easier for patients to get the drug, even if they didn't have cancer, so they had their own employees to talk to patients' insurance companies, pretending they were working with their doctors. According to CNN, "The Senate report documented how beginning in 2014, when someone needed to obtain prior approval for a Subsys prescription, it was actually an Insys employee who called the insurer and its affiliates to persuade them."14 The insurance companies would ask whether the patients had "breakthrough" pain caused by cancer. CNN reported, "Insys got around this by finding calculated ways for its employees to create the impression on the phone calls that the answer was yes, they did have cancer, without explicitly saying so, according to the report." 15 Further, six former Insys executives were charged in 2016 with fraud and racketeering charges, alleging they paid kickbacks to bribe doctors to prescribe Subsys and defraud insurance companies. Another former Insys manager pleaded guilty to charges that she taught salespeople how to entice doctors with money, chocolate or spending time with them, and to look for “money hungry” doctors willing to “play ball.”16 Drug Reps Target 'Thought Leaders' Drug companies have long tried to influence doctors' prescribing habits by giving them gifts, vacations, fancy dinners and the like. This practice has since become frowned upon, but paying them for research activities, speaking and other "consulting" gigs continues. In fact, it's interesting that PR firm Keybridge Communications used the phrase "branding thought leaders," because drug reps use this tactic too. Speaking to NPR, pharmaceutical rep Mathew Webb said asking doctors to become speakers was a surefire way to get them to write more prescriptions. In particular, calling them "thought leaders" apparently has "incredible psychological power," he said, continuing, "When you do say 'thought leader' I think it's a huge ego boost for the physicians. It's like a feather in their cap. They get a lot from it."17 While doctors may think they're being recruited because of their qualifications or know-how, former drug rep turned whistle-blower Angie Maher told NPR, "I think nowadays a thought leader is defined as a physician with a large patient population who can write a lot of pharmaceutical drugs. Period." Webb said that after paying a high-prescribing doctor $1,500 to speak, he might write an additional $100,000 to $200,000 worth of prescriptions for the company's drugs. They know because they purchase data about each physician's prescribing habits from companies like IMS Health, ensuring they get a good return on their investment.18 Is Your Doctor Being Bribed by Drug Companies? What can you take away from the knowledge that Big Pharma's ties run deep, perhaps to your local newspaper's opinion pieces or even to your own doctor? It's important to take what you read with a grain of salt, and do your own research if an "independent" source reeks of conflict of interest. This applies not only to what you read in the media but also what you hear from your doctor. Drug companies have long tried to influence doctors' prescribing habits, however it hasn't always been possible to find out what gifts your own doctor might be accepting. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, went into effect in 2013. For the first time, the Act required drug and medical device makers to collect and disclose any payments of more than $10 made to physicians and teaching hospitals. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is in charge of implementing the Sunshine Act, which it has done via its Open Payments Program.19 You can easily search the site OpenPaymentsData.CMS.gov to find out what (if any) payments your doctor has received, along with the nature of the payments. ProPublica's Dollars for Docs website is another great tool you can use to search for general payments (excluding research and ownership interests) made to doctors from August 2013 to December 2015.20 If you don't like what you see, you can take the steps necessary to put your health care in the hands of someone with your best interests — not Big Pharma's — at heart.

#VitalityPath

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katherinekayi-blog · 7 years

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6 Ways Well-Intentioned People Whitesplain Racism (And Why They Need to Stop)

February 7, 2016 by Maisha Z. Johnson

If you’re a woman, queer, trans, and/or gender non-conforming, it’s probably not hard to imagine. Just think of one of those days when you’ve gotten too many unsolicited comments on your appearance, too many requests to “smile,” too many strangers who feel entitled to your space, time, and image.

So you’re venting to a friend, when along comes a man to explain that these strangers were just trying to be nice, and you “need to learn to take a compliment.”

How would you feel? Insulted? Pissed off? Like you wish this guy would stop assuming he knows your own experience better than you do?

You’re probably saying yes. There’s a good chance that you’re saying, “This shit happens to me all the time, and I wish it would stop!” And you might find comfort in knowing that there’s a word, mansplaining, to describe the common and frustrating occurrence of men interrupting and explaining things to women and people of other genders.

I’ve been there, too.

And unfortunately, just as frequently, I’ve had white people try to explain racism to me, a woman of color. There’s a word for this phenomenon, too – whitesplaining. It’s incredibly frustrating to share my experiences with racism, only to have a white person try to speak over me about it – and often by belittling how racism hurts me.

If you’re white, you may have whitesplained without realizing it. To understand whitesplaining, now picture yourself in the following situation.

I’m venting about my day, and I tell you I’m angry that a white neighbor told me, “I don’t even see you as Black.”

Would you reassure me that my neighbor meant well? If you do, don’t be surprised if I’m just as annoyed as you would be if a man tried to explain your experience with street harassment to you.

Usually, signs of whitesplaining include a condescending tone and a paternalistic assumption that a person of color doesn’t know enough to accurately articulate their own experience.

The term doesn’t apply to every instance when a white person talks about racism, just like mansplaining doesn’t apply to every instance when a man talks about gender oppression. But whitesplaining is a result of the power white people hold as part of the dominant culture in the US. So recognizing when it’s happening is one of the everyday ways you can help dismantle the oppressive system of white supremacy.

Like with other forms of privileged explaining, including mansplaining, people who whitesplain have been conditioned to believe that they’re somehow more qualified to speak about a marginalized group than a person who belongs to that group.

That’s why there’s no equivalent like “blacksplaining.” When a Black person talks about race with a white person, they don’t have the same institutional power as a white person who belongs to the dominant culture.

And that’s the problem with whitesplaining. It’s not just harmlessly discussing racism, but implicitly acting on racist ideas that say that people of color are ignorant and wrong, even about their own experiences.

You probably don’t think you’re motivated by racist ideas when you whitesplain – just like men don’t have to hate women in order to participate in everyday sexism like mansplaining.

For instance, you might think you have a perfectly good reason for telling me my neighbor didn’t mean to be racist. You’ve spent time with her, and you’ve never known her to be racist, or you can tell she meant to compliment me by saying she doesn’t see me as Black.

But while these well-meaning reasons for correcting me feel true, it’s also true that you can act on subconscious, implicit biases leading you to dismiss what I have to say because I’m Black.

If you don’t believe whitesplaining is wrong, then you’re missing how the motivation behind whitesplaining is influenced by white supremacy. So let’s unpack the most common reasons why whitesplaining happens, to examine why it’s so misguided.

1. You Think I’ve Got a Fact Wrong (‘Actually…’)

For many people, it’s tempting to speak up when you encounter a fact you believe is wrong. Correcting someone seems pretty straight forward – so does it really relate to racism?

In certain cases, it does. And if you’re a white person talking with a person of color about racism, it’s best to keep this possibility in mind.

Because of white supremacy, many white people – especially white men, who are also influenced by patriarchy – have been conditioned to speak over other people and dominate spaces.

This begins as early as elementary school, when white and male students get more positive encouragement like being called on more often, even when they’re not raising their hands.

If you’re used to being affirmed for sharing your thoughts, you might feel entitled to share them even when – no offense – you have no idea what you’re talking about.

And then you might do one of the most irritating forms of whitesplaining – assuming a person of color just doesn’t understand what’s going on.

I’ve experienced this too many times when white folks believe they know more about what I’ve been through than I do – through secondhand information or just their own wild guesses.

For instance, when I tell someone that saying, “I don’t see color” erases my identity, they often dismiss my complaint with any of number of reasons they didn’t mean to hurt me.

Believe me, I’ve heard them all: “Actually, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just trying to say we’re all human. I’m trying to say I don’t see you as different. I’m trying to treat everyone equally.”

Try as they might, they’re not going to achieve equality by taking a “colorblind” approach. Explaining that you have good intentions doesn’t erase the impact of invalidating my racial identity and implying that seeing my Blackness is a bad thing.

Talking with me about issues that affect my community means you have limits – you don’t have a lifetime of firsthand experience.

So it’s simply a sign of respect to give me the benefit of the doubt and trust that I can find the words for my own experience.

There’s nothing wrong with clearing up information if you come across something you believe is incorrect. But approach the situation with some humility. Ask questions to figure out why there’s a difference between what I’m saying and what you believe is true.

You might find that your information is wrong, that I interpret it differently, or that we’re on the same page, but I use different language rooted in my experience. And you’ll probably learn something new.

2. You Think My Feelings Are Wrong (‘Be Objective, It’s Not That Bad…’)

Have you ever felt like a person of color was being “oversensitive” when they got upset about racism?

If you try to tell me I shouldn’t be emotional about a racial justice issue, then I already know you don’t understand that issue. Because emotion is a natural response to oppression – and having someone judge how I feel about it just makes me feel worse.

For example, take microaggressions – small, subtle incidents of racism often done by people who don’t know they’re being racist. An example is someone telling me, “You’re pretty for a Black girl.”

It’s not the most egregious expression of racism, so you may wonder, “What’s the big deal?”

I’m upset, you’re confused, and the difference between our reactions isn’t just a matter of my being “oversensitive.” It’s a matter of privilege: You can learn about racism through secondhand sources, while I’ve directly experienced racism my entire life.

So it’s not up to you to decide what I should be offended by. Save your whitesplanation if you want to explain why I’m overreacting to a well-meaning compliment (which isn’t a compliment at all) by cringing at “you’re pretty for a Black girl.”

After I’ve dealt with microaggressions on a daily basis for so long, it’s just cruel to expect me to minimize my feelings about racism.

But wait – do my feelings make me biased? Maybe you want to have an “objective conversation,” a “rational debate,” without emotions getting in the way.

Like so many whitesplainers, you believe what you say is important because you have logic on your side. Objectivity is an understandable goal, but think about what it means to believe you’re the only one who can bring “reason” into the conversation.

The truth is that you’re just as biased as anyone else – your perspective is influenced by your own experiences and position of privilege. That also gives you a biased point of view on what “objectivity” means.

You’re approaching the conversation like a high school debate, as if this is just a harmless exercise in flexing our reasoning skills.

But when we’re talking about racial injustice, we’re actually addressing real issues with a negative impact on real people’s lives.

This isn’t the time to show off your debate skills just for the hell of it, or to play “devil’s advocate” when all you’re really doing is upholding the status quo. The phrase “the devil doesn’t need an advocate” comes to mind – since you’re siding with the dominant norm of white supremacy.

It’s tempting to wave around your “rational thought” that you think invalidates my feelings – but you’re not an authority on how I should feel about the issues that affect me.

3. You’re Concerned About My Approach (‘I Think What You Mean Is…’)

Whitesplainers are supposedly full of concern when they say I’d be better off, or a better advocate for racial justice, if I just said or did things differently.

For instance, have you ever felt the need to point out that a person of color was “generalizing” white people when they talked about racism?

If I say, “White people talk over me,” you might jump in with: “Not all white people. More people would listen to you if you didn’t generalize.”

And sure, I could amend my statement to: “Some white people talk over me. But not all of them. I know white people who don’t talk over me at all. And I’m sure the ones who do it don’t realize what they’re doing, and they don’t mean to be racist.”

Except there’s actually a problem with rushing to say that “not all white people” are part of the problem of white supremacy.

If I focused on reassuring every white person that they’re not personally responsible, then nobody would get the chance to examine how they might contribute – whether it’s by interrupting people of color, paying more attention to white folks who speak, or internalizing and benefiting from society’s messages that white people have more important things to say.

Your attempt to make sure I get the right message across may come from a good place. But the thing is – and do forgive me if this comes across as “generalizing” – people who whitesplain so often get things wrong, or at the very least, they miss the point.

It’s true that not every white person speaks over people of color – but blaming all white people for this phenomenon isn’t even the purpose of what I’m saying. If you don’t derail me to focus on protecting white people’s feelings, we could get to the real point of the problem – and what to do about it.

4. You Think You or Someone Else Is Being Falsely Accused (‘But I’m Not a Racist!’)

Speaking of derailments – when I’m talking about a racist act, I don’t have much interest in whether or not the person responsible is “a racist.”

If that sounds counterintuitive, then you could really use this clarification about addressing white supremacy: It’s not about identifying people as racists.

It’s also not about “bashing” white people – but you may interpret it that way if you’re feeling uncomfortable. And then you might whitesplain that people of color are “attacking” you for no reason.

When it comes to things like holding implicit biases and benefiting from white privilege, the question of whether or not someone is intentionally bigoted is completely irrelevant.

So you’re not under attack if a person of color is talking to you about race – not even if they’re calling you out for racism.

I remember one call-out in which writers of color let a white editor know how he’d contributed to racism in the publishing industry, and how he could do better.

Because it’s such a sensitive topic, many people interpret any mention of racism as a conflict – and this discussion was no different.

The editor’s friends immediately rallied to his defense, saying, “He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body!”

But nobody had even said this man was “a racist.” We simply pointed out that his actions had a harmful impact – and his being a good person wouldn’t make that impact vanish.

If you’re called out for racism and you take it as a personal attack on your character, you’re making the situation all about you – not the bigger picture of how all of us can take responsibility for our own role in white supremacy.

Your belief that someone “doesn’t have a racist bone in their body” can lead you to overlook the impact of what they’ve done and focus instead on their intentions.

In other words, you’re oversimplifying the issue, separating yourself from “the bad guys” and saying good people can’t possibly do something wrong.

Unfortunately, good people contribute to white supremacy every day – and if you can’t face the ways white supremacy influences your life, you’ll never be able to change it. That means you’ve got to stop focusing on your good nature and intentions, which has you prioritizing your feelings over people of color’s pain.

You’d have a much more positive impact if instead, you focused on addressing our very real, very valid concerns about how you’re contributing to our oppression.

So rather than whitesplaining the why of insensitive actions, try stepping back and listening to what only a person of color could tell you – how the actual impact of racist actions affect them.

If that makes you uncomfortable, it’s time to practice sitting with and learning from your discomfort instead of assuming that it means you’re under attack.

5. You Heard Another Person of Color Say Something Different (‘That’s Not What I Heard…’)

Listening to people of color is a great way to learn about racism. But please don’t just carry our quotes around like weapons to use against other marginalized folks.

Too many white people use this tactic to tell us that we’re wrong about racism – citing the Native friend who doesn’t mind cultural appropriation, or the Black celebrity who disagrees with Black Lives Matter protesters.

For instance, during Baltimore protests of the death of Freddie Gray, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer told activist DeRay McKesson, “I just want to hear you say there should be peaceful protests, not violent protests, in the tradition of Martin Luther King.”

Blitzer’s not the only one to take King’s words out of context to criticize police brutality protesters. This common trend shows exactly what’s wrong with using people of color’s words this way.

For one thing, Black people are not a monolith. We’re allowed to disagree. And your whiteness doesn’t grant you the authority to determine which one of us is right.

Because he advocated non-violent action, many people point to church-going, suit-wearing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a symbol of how Black folks “should” behave – conveniently forgetting that King was assassinated for his beliefs and leadership.

Using King in this way also oversimplifies his life and his message – his words on riots actually show that he doesn’t condemn them as “misbehavior.”

He actually says: “As long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”

To understand violent riots, you have to understand the unjust conditions that create them.

And if you actually listen to people of color instead of exploiting our words to confirm your own biases, you can learn a lot more about our diverse experiences.

6. You Want Me to Stop Talking About Racism (‘You’re Being So Divisive’)

Let’s face it – there are several excuses for whitesplaining, from hurt feelings to so-called “concern,” but many people who whitesplain do it simply because they don’t want me to talk about race.

“You’re being divisive.” “We should be uniting.” “There’s no such thing as race – we’re all human!”

Whitesplaining is particularly dangerous when it’s used to shut down conversation and action against racism.

For instance, you might explain that you don’t disagree with the message of Black Lives Matter, but you think the phrase should be “all lives matter,” because that captures the fact that everyone deserves to be safe from violence.

This isn’t just a matter of harmlessly sharing your opinion about an issue of race. You’re spreading a perspective that comes from the privilege of being silent in the face of injustice.

There is an urgent need to protect Black people from a criminal justice system that doesn’t value our lives, and you’re dismissing a whole movement aimed at doing just that.

Right now, we don’t need your interrupting to remind us that white people matter, too. There are white people who have also been mistreated by police, and that’s not okay – but it doesn’t invalidate the fact that we need to address the racial bias that has people of color targeted by police violence at much higher rates.

It doesn’t change that people believe racist stereotypes about Black people as “thugs,” exonerate police officers who attack people of color, and find any number of reasons to blame the victim. It doesn’t erase this horrific example of institutional racism that treats Black lives like they don’t matter at all.

If you understood my life experience, you’d know why recognizing race and directly addressing racial injustice matters to me.

Here’s the Key to Avoiding Whitesplaining

Reading this all at once might give you the impression that avoiding whitesplaining is a complicated matter.

Holding back from correcting someone when you think they’re wrong, sitting with uncomfortable emotions when you feel like you’re under attack, stepping back when you think you could explain something better – all of this takes some self-control.

There’s one strategy that will help you figure it all out: Approach racial justice conversations with humility.

In all of these examples I’ve shared, white people think they’re telling me something that’s never occurred to me before.

But the thing is, I’ve heard these whitesplanations over and over again. None of them are original, and it’s a waste of my time (and yours) to do this dance again and again and treat them like they are.

It’s also arrogant and condescending to assume that you and I see things differently simply because you’ve got all the answers and I lack the capacity to understand my own experience.

It’s all a perfect example of what you’re missing when you think I need you to explain things to me.

Whether you want me to “calm down” so I get my message across, to clarify what I mean so I don’t hurt white people’s feelings, or to stop talking about race so you feel more comfortable, whitesplaining is not the answer.

Because regardless of your intentions, whitesplaining has a damaging impact – silencing people of color, shutting down vital racial justice conversations, and often spreading misinformation.

So rather than upholding an oppressive lie that says people of color need white saviors in order to have reasonable conversations, have some humility. Recognize that you don’t have all the answers, and people of color deserve space to be heard without white people talking over us.

Maisha Z. Johnson is the Digital Content Associate and Staff Writer of Everyday Feminism. You can find her writing at the intersections and shamelessly indulging in her obsession with pop culture around the web. Maisha’s past work includes Community United Against Violence (CUAV), the nation’s oldest LGBTQ anti-violence organization, and Fired Up!, a program of California Coalition for Women Prisoners. Through her own project, Inkblot Arts, Maisha taps into the creative arts and digital media to amplify the voices of those often silenced. Like her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @mzjwords.

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