Can I also complain that I just spent 45 minutes looking for a document that I wrote over a year ago and got so frustrated cos I couldn’t remember what I called it?
Tiny Hands. Ffs. Who the hell comes up with these document titles? (a clue: it was me at 28 being a dumb).
Should I post this thing? It’s not done (and likely never will be because hello, I’m now 32 and have zero time lol adulting) but thought I may toss it into the universe. Its Fitzsimmons random stuff set in season 2.
Yes, I did write that. Although sad/hilarious story, I’m so crap at making up titles that I don’t remember any of them so had to go on my Ao3 account to see lol.
I’m not a hundred percent positive but I’m pretty sure this is the wild life center where I visited wolves.
And the safety briefing included the question “So if you’re pregnant, do you want to know or not?”
Turns out there had been a bit of an awkward situation once where the keepers had casually mentioned a woman’s pregnancy in a group, and she herself didn’t even know yet. Turns out the wolves are excellent at telling if you’re pregnant and the keepers can tell based on their body language. They get all odd and careful around pregnancy. (Even wolves knows that you have to take care of pregnant people.)
So they definitely knew she was pregnant.
And if I remember my BBC documentaries right, a wolf will leave the pack to give birth and introduce the cubs to the pack once she feels ready for it. And maternity leave is flexible but often around 6 months so they’re going “YOU WERE GONE FOREVER! WE WERE SO WORRIED! WHERE ARE THE CUBS?? WE HAVE TO GREET THE CUBS!!“
Also the two on her back are fighting over who gets to greet her first. Giving and receiving attention is a commodity that goes by hierarchy and if you don’t accept that there will be scuffles.. The wolf lying down next to her isn’t chill about her coming back, it’s just submissive to the other wolves and waiting for it’s turn to show excitement.
Can I also complain that I just spent 45 minutes looking for a document that I wrote over a year ago and got so frustrated cos I couldn’t remember what I called it?
Tiny Hands. Ffs. Who the hell comes up with these document titles? (a clue: it was me at 28 being a dumb).
Follow up to this thing from eons ago that I just discovered on my laptop while ignoring my homework.
No one was quite sure how to approach Jemma.
Daisy wanted to broach the barrier that had sprung up between them more than she already had, but she still waged war with anger, resentment, and guilt; too insecure in her own paralyzing emotions associated with everything that was happening to be able to find a way to connect with the other woman. She knew Jemma was hurting, could see it on her face, but she didn’t know what to do.
May was devoting every second of her time to trying to find Coulson and, in return, figure out a way to keep him alive. Mack was angry and betrayed, staying stoic and silent whenever he was in the same room as her, even if he didn’t directly say or do anything. Elena was doing her best, trying to get Jemma to open up and to talk, but the biochemist often kept her visits extremely short and completely focused on Elena’s injuries and recovery.
Deke remained the only one able to really get her to say or do anything, his presence, which had gone from an annoyance to an unshakable support, the only thing keeping her grounded.
Her morning sickness got worse as one week wore into two. Her hands often shaking as she would clutch at the closest garbage bin as waves of nausea swam through her over and over again. She kept little down – only managing enough to keep herself from suffering from dehydration and starvation. As a result, she found herself losing weight, almost always dizzy, and constantly exhausted, even as she tried to help May find a cure for Coulson.
“She needs to talk to someone,” Elena hissed, sticking her foot off the bed and stopping Deke from leaving the room.
“She’s –”
“She is not fine,” the woman shot back, a glare on her features. “She is barely holding it together. She’s scared, I know, but she needs to talk to Fitz. They need each other – even if they’re not on the same page about things right now. She can help him get better and he can keep her from getting worse.”
“She won’t go down there. I’ve tried,” Deke insisted.
“Try again.”
--
“Jemma,” Deke said, keeping his voice low and tempered as he entered his bunk that evening, finding her lying down, a cold compress on her forehead. She gave a soft noise to indicate she heard him, but made no move to say anything or sit up. “What’s wrong?” he pressed, moving until he could kneel down next to the bed.
“Just a headache. I couldn’t stop throwing up earlier.” Her words were quiet and weak, her voice rough from the soreness of her throat.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked, watching as Jemma shook her head minutely.
“I just want to sleep,” she replied, eyes drifting closed.
--
She lasted three more days before it caught up with her. The exhaustion combined with mild dehydration and malnutrition from barely being able to eat or drink due to her morning sickness finally taking their toll. She went to stand up, unable to concentrate on the information in front of her any longer, the attempt to find something to help Coulson making her head hurt.
“Simmons have you –” Daisy started, glancing up at her. Jemma stood, intending to cross the floor to where Daisy was seated, when her vision swam. She staggered for a moment, trying to grab at the edge of the desk, but lost consciousness before she could get a single word out.
--
Fitz looked up when the door to his cell clanged open, Deke rushing through the entrance, eyes wild and panicked.
“Fitz,” he panted, cheeks flushed with exertion, telling of how he had rushed down to the correct floor. “You need to come with me.”
“No, Deke, I’m not going anywhere. I’m down here for a reason,” Fitz retorted, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the wall next to the bed.
“I get that, really, I do, but Jemma is sick. She collapsed and she hasn’t regained consciousness yet and I’m getting really worried and –” Deke rushed. Fitz was instantly on his feet, practically running to the door, Deke letting out a huff before following.
“What happened? What’s wrong with her?” Fitz demanded once they were in the elevator, wringing his hands.
“I… I don’t know,” Deke mumbled.
--
Jemma felt wretched, her head throbbing, the constant nausea simmering just beneath her skin as she slowly came to, the slight tug of an IV in the back of her hand.
“Fitz?” Jemma asked, blinking open tired eyes to find him crouched next to the bed, stroking her hair back from her face. “What’re you-?”
“Deke came to get me,” Fitz explained. “He told me you collapsed.” Jemma whimpered at the realisation, dizziness still clouding her vision as she tried to sit up.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for-”
“Please, stop,” Fitz cut her off, voice pained as he gingerly pressed at her shoulders until she was lying down again. “If you don’t want me to be here, I’ll go back downstairs. But I just… I needed to make sure you were alright.”
“Don’t go,” she said, unable to stop the tears that welled in her eyes. “Please. Just… just stay for a few minutes.” He nodded, moving until he was sitting on the edge of the mattress, worry clouding his eyes as he let them rove over her body – taking in how pale and exhausted she looked. “H-how are you?” Her question made him pause, his hand tensing against his leg before he blew out an exaggerated breath.
“Not great,” he confessed. “I’m… there is a lot I’m going to need to deal with, Jem. More… more than I can even really comprehend right now. But… but I haven’t been hearing him in my head much the last few weeks. Daisy comes to check every day.”
“D-daisy has been to see you?” she asked.
“Yeah… she comes to check to make sure that I’m not getting lost in my psychosis. That… that he hasn’t taken over again. He’s gotten angry and the imprisonment but I’ve done that to myself. Its just not safe to be around me.”
“You would never hurt me,” she choked out, watching his face fall.
“But I almost did Jem,” Fitz murmured, regret clouding his eyes. “I’m… I’m trying to work on it. But its going to take time. And I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else until I can control this. Besides, I doubt anyone wants me faffing about.”
“I want you,” she whispered, catching his hand in hers as she started crying. Fitz smiled sadly at her, twining their fingers.
“Is Deke taking good care of you?”
“Deke… he’s a good kid, Fitz. I know we all got off on the wrong foot but… he’s been wonderful.”
“Don’t know if we can call him a kid, we’re practically the same age as he is,” Fitz muttered, trying to get her to laugh. Instead she just let out a somewhat choked sob, her fingers tightening when she felt him trying to pull away. “I… I should go.” He tried to stand, only to have her frantically sitting up, desperately attempting to keep him at her side until she was overcome with vertigo, eyes rolling as she started to fall back against the pillows. Fitz caught her, cradling her head as he lowered her back down. “Jem? Jemma, I need you to look at me. What’s wrong?”
“Just – just a bit dizzy. Sat up too fast. I’ll be fine,” Jemma insisted. “I’m just tired. Haven’t been sleeping much.” Fitz scoffed.
“Jemma, this… its more than that though, isn’t it? You’ve lost weight. Deke told me you can’t keep any food down. I had to put in an IV,” he said, voice tight. “Please. Tell me what’s going on.” She looked up at him, noting the fear in his eyes as he watched her. She let out a shuddering breath, unable to stop the tears that started to fall.
My boyfriend has yet to endure me during a season premier, and the last one of the series at that. Last year we’d barely started dating when season six aired so I tried to hold it together. We’ve been dating for a year now so he knows all my crazy. Wish him luck.
It takes Fitz one month into their relationship to discover three things about being physically intimate with Jemma.
One: For someone that likes to be in charge of as much as possible in the lab and in her daily life, Jemma seems to come apart the quickest when he is the dominant one in the bedroom. Jemma herself seemed shocked at the realisation, chest flushed and heaving when he had rolled off her, her hips tender from where he had held her tight, moving her against him in whatever way he had wanted. She had told him the next morning that him being in control was something she’d like him to do often. If he was up for it.
Two: Jemma Simmons was a big fan of dirty talk. A few raunchy words whispered in her ear, a well-placed touch, and he would quickly find himself being dragged back to one of their bunks. She won’t ever admit it, he knows, but she seems to be particularly desperate when he whispers things to her within ear shot of one of their colleagues, despite the blush that immediately covers her cheeks and neck.
Three: Jemma cums harder than ever when he applies concepts one and two and combines them with making her wait. The first time he had turned her on and hadn’t been immediately able to follow through due to unforeseen circumstances, she had practically stripped him in the middle of the hallway, begging for him to take her and let her cum.
Its with those three things in mind that he decides that Jemma needs to stop being so concerned with work. Ever since Mace had shown up, she had become intensely focused, constantly exhausted, and wound up. She doesn’t admit it, but he can tell how tired and stressed she is by the way she forces herself to smile more around the others, the expression never quite meeting her eyes.
He wakes up earlier than her, but not early enough to really allow them enough time to have sex Instead, he lets his hand wander around the curve of her hip, slowly sliding down until he can delve beneath the tiny shorts she’s wearing to sleep in, smirking when he doesn’t encounter any knickers beneath them. Carefully, he drags his fingers up and down between her legs, reveling in the way she sighs, her thighs parting as he slowly starts swirling one finger against her entrance, wetness starting to pool there. Jemma lets out a little whimper as her eyes flicker open, the synthetic window Fitz had installed casting early morning light across her features.
“Fitz,” she sighed, hands slipping beneath the comforter to try and shove her shorts down so that he would have better access. He chuckles at her enthusiasm, leaning over to peck her on the lips before trailing kisses down her throat.
“D’you know how beautiful you are when you’re sleeping?” he asks, sucking on her collarbone as he pushes two fingers inside her, moving them in and out slowly while trailing his thumb over her clit in soft circles. “God, the things I want to do to you.”
“Tell me,” Jemma whispers, breath coming out in short pants as she rolls her hips against his hand. Fitz smiles against her skin, leaning up on his elbow to look down at her, thankful that her eyes have fluttered closed again so that he can glance over at the clock. He has about a minute until the alarm goes off.
“I want to trail kisses across your entire body,” he rasps, proving his point as he moves his lips down her chest, nudging against the hem of her camisole until it moves down slightly, exposing the swell of her breast but keeping her nipple just barely concealed. He grazes his teeth against the sensitive skin, feeling her nipple pebble beneath the thin cotton. “But I could spend hours here. Licking you, biting, sucking on your nipples for hours –”
-Beep, beep, beep –
Jemma lets out a frustrated growl, slamming her hand down on the alarm before it moves back to Fitz’s head, her fingers tangling in his hair as she tries to move him just a little bit lower, desperate to have him follow through with his words.
“Jem, don’t you have that meeting this morning?” he queries, looking up at her.
Jemma swears loudly, moaning in defeat as she feels him take his hand from between her thighs and sit up. She looks at the clock, contemplating for a moment, before she remembers that the meeting is in half an hour and she still has to shower, dress, and grab something to eat. With a groan, she shoves herself off the mattress, not bothering to grab her shorts as she darts into the bathroom, the shower clicking on a heartbeat later.
Fitz grins, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling as he slips his hand beneath the waistband of his trousers, stroking himself until he’s hard. Jemma is rushing back into the room, hair wet and wrapped in a towel, less than five minutes later, hastily digging out some clothes. Fitz knows its mean, an unfair tease, really, but he climbs off the bed, wrapping himself around Jemma’s back and thrusting slowly against her arse just as she grabs a blouse from the closet.
“Skip your meeting?” he asks, making sure to keep his voice low as he drops a kiss against Jemma’s neck. Her hand trembles slightly, hips pressing back against him without conscious thought as she all but whimpers.
“Fitz, please, you know I can’t,” she says, voice tight.
“I know. I’m sorry,” he responds, one more kiss on her shoulder before he backs away, heading for the bathroom to shower and deal with his erection.
He isn’t really sorry at all, especially when he sees Jemma squirm slightly, her business attire firmly affixed before she slips out the door, calling out a gentle ‘I love you’ as she goes.
I don’t think I’ve seen an answer to the question of how close or far apart the things happening today (”send her back”, detention centers etc) are to the nazis quite as good or thorough as this answer on quora
When you watch a stadium filled with white people chanting “send her back” about a U.S. Congresswomen and our President silently endorses it, what comes up for you?
Mike Jones answered:
Honestly? This.
This photo was taken sometime between May and December 1944. These people are enjoying a bit of “down time” before going back to work. At Auschwitz.
Not because I think what we’re doing is like what the Nazis were doing in 1944, but because this looks so normal. These people didn’t think of themselves as “evil,” any more than the people chanting at the Trump rally do.
Here’s the point: the Holocaust didn’t drop out of a clear blue sky in 1941. The concentration camps had been operating since 1933.
The first people sent to the camps weren’t Jews at all. It was socialists, communists (remember that if you run across someone who tries to claim the Nazis were actually socialists), Jehovah’s Witnesses (because their faith prevented them from swearing allegiance to the Reich or serving in the military), homosexuals, and other people considered “socially deviant.” The camps weren’t awful places in 1933. Guards who abused prisoners were disciplined and sometimes prosecuted.
By 1935, this changed. As Hitler consolidated power, he pardoned the guards who had been convicted for abusing prisoners and made it clear that that behavior was now acceptable. Jews were now sent to the camps, starting with ones who had come to “civilized” Germany as refugees from pogroms in Eastern Europe. They were described as “invaders,” accused of spreading disease and stealing jobs from Germans. I understand if that last sentence sent a bit of a chill down your spine.
There were dozens, probably hundreds of concentration camps in operation by 1937. Many prisoners died there from abuse or simply from being worked to death, but they still weren’t places people were specifically sent to die; it was just that no one cared whether they died or not.
By 1939, mass killings of Jews had started. Not in the camps; the Nazis weren’t bothering to round people up and transport them just to kill them. They would typically be rounded up by the Nazi army and shot en masse and buried in mass graves.
Mass killings of civilians proved to be bad for morale even for Nazi soldiers, which led to the Final Solution. Eight extermination camps were built and went into operation by 1941. None were in Germany proper, so the scale of what was happening could be more easily kept from the German people. Six were in Poland, one in Serbia, and one in Belarus. Some (like Birkenau, sometimes called Auschwitz II) were on the same site as concentration camps (Auschwitz), and some (like Treblinka) were completely separate. Most were in Poland because that was where the largest number of Jews in Europe lived.
These women worked as typists, telegraph clerks, and secretaries in Auschwitz, and were called Helferinnen, which means ‘helpers. Their racial purity had been established—should an officer be looking for a girlfriend or a wife, the Helferinnenwere intended to be a resource.”
The point of these photos is that the Nazis were not all Eichmann and Mengele. Their horror was possible because of the many, many people who went along with what they were doing or at least were willing to look the other way. And it didn’t start with Chelmno and Sobibor. It started with people being willing to vote for Nazis out of fear of the communists and responding to their appeals to “true Germans.”
This photo shows people reading the Nazi newspaper Der Stűrmer (The Attacker) in 1935. The sign above it reads “The Jews Are Our Misfortune”.
How far, really, are people who would chant “send her back” about an American citizen at a political rally from the people calmly reading that newspaper? Remember, that was still four years before the war, six before the extermination camps. It was when the groundwork for those things was being laid.
Let’s talk about our camps for a moment. Pro Publica recently published a long story about someone who works for the Border Patrol and spent time working at one of the camps. Here are a couple of excerpts:
The Border Patrol agent, a veteran with 13 years on the job, had been assigned to the agency’s detention center in McAllen, Texas, for close to a month when the team of court-appointed lawyers and doctors showed up one day at the end of June.
Taking in the squalor, the stench of unwashed bodies, and the poor health and vacant eyes of the hundreds of children held there, the group members appeared stunned.
Then, their outrage rolled through the facility like a thunderstorm. One lawyer emerged from a conference room clutching her cellphone to her ear, her voice trembling with urgency and frustration. “There’s a crisis down here,” the agent recalled her shouting.
At that moment, the agent, a father of a 2-year-old, realized that something in him had shifted during his weeks in the McAllen center. “I don’t know why she’s shouting,” he remembered thinking. “No one on the other end of the line cares. If they did, this wouldn’t be happening.”
No one on the other end cares. If they did, this wouldn’t be happening. Let that sink in for a moment.
The CBP agent in the story is in his late 30s, a husband and father who served overseas in the military before joining CPB.
It’s kind of like torture in the army. It starts out with just sleep deprivation, then the next guys come in and sleep deprivation is normal, so they ramp it up. Then the next guys ramp it up some more, and then the next guys, until you have full blown torture going on. That becomes the new normal.
This is how it happens. Step by step, we become the monsters. Look around the country. Try to remember how things were in 2012 or so. How many things that are simply accepted now, often with a “what can we do about it?” shrug, would have seemed possible then?
Referring back to the grim conditions inside the Border Patrol holding centers, he said: “Somewhere down the line people just accepted what’s going on as normal. That includes the people responsible for fixing the problems.”
“What happened to me in Texas is that I realized I had walled off my emotions so I could do my job without getting hurt,” he said. “I’d see kids crying because they want to see their dads, and I couldn’t console them because I had 500 to 600 other kids to watch over and make sure they’re not getting in trouble. All I could do was make sure they’re physically OK. I couldn’t let them see their fathers because that was against the rules.
“I might not like the rules,” he added. “I might think that what we’re doing wasn’t the correct way to hold children. But what was I going to do? Walk away? What difference would that make to anyone’s life but mine?”
When asked whether he simply stopped caring, he said: “Exactly, to a point that’s kind of dangerous. But once you do, you feel better.”
This man is a father. He watches hundreds of kids. He had to stop caring on order to do his job.
Let’s say that again: he had to stop caring in order to do his job.
Just like, I imagine, the Helferinnen had to stop caring. To look the other way. To learn helplessness against the system.
I know, there are a thousand reasons why we can’t change this. They broke the laws. The President says so. What will we do with all of them if we don’t do this? It will encourage others if we don’t do this.
Know this: those are all justifying inhuman behavior. I’m not saying the people running the camps or the people in the government are Nazis; every historical moment is different. But they’re using many of the same tools the Nazis used. And the same tools are being used against the Uighur in China. And the Rohingya in Myanmar.
Andrea Pitzer is a journalist who has written extensively about the history of concentration camps. Here’s what she had to say on Twitter this morning:
When I went into the Rohingya camps in Myanmar in 2015, I also talked to people in town who were happy their former neighbors were in camps. Insisting they weren’t racist or bigots, many said all they really wanted was for the government to deport the Rohingya to another country.
They claimed the Rohingya were illegal immigrants, rapists, and terrorists. If I mentioned a Rohingya they actually knew, they would sometimes acknowledge maybe *that* Rohingya person wasn’t a criminal. They often argued that the Rohingya should be deported as a group anyway.
It was heartbreaking. I was there just after Trump had declared his candidacy in the US, and it was the same rhetoric, almost word for word. A little over a year later in Myanmar, the military drove hundreds of thousands of Rohingya over the border amid terrible atrocities.
Send her back. Send them back. We’re really not racists. Jews will not replace us.
D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with [insert fic]?Since there wasn’t a fic specified I’ll just name a few I had in mind while writing certain fics. :)The song Heaven by OneRepublic goes along with Looking For Heaven and is actually where I got the title of the fic from. Echo has its own entire playlist taken from movie scores, and the track for each chapter is linked in the author’s notes at the beginning of each chapter on AO3. Lastly, I wrote Stop All The Clocks with the main theme from Broadchurch pretty much on repeat.
F: Care to share a favorite hurt/comfort fic?In The Midst Of Stars by @kienova66 gives me Emotions every time I reread it.
I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?I’m not sure, really. I enjoy reading smut, if that counts, and I like including it in my fic when the occasion calls for it. But I don’t really consider that a guilty pleasure, just a pleasure.
