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Book 1 of The HEL Jumper
Year 2 of The HEL Jumper
Year 3 of The HEL Jumper
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“You alright? Physically, I mean,” Russell asked as he and Thantis returned to the village alone on the shuttle that had brought them to the Forge. “The old ticker’s not going to give out or anything?”
Thantis blinked a couple times as he extracted himself from the depths of whatever train of thought had occupied him for some time. Needless to say, the trip back had not featured lighthearted education regarding the nature of Mara’s core. “It was certainly a stressful situation, wasn’t it? I thank you for doing all of the heavy lifting, Winters.” He left out the fact that they both knew he’d have been left behind otherwise.
“Don’t mention it. That’s literally the sort of thing I trained to do and you’re lighter than a fellow soldier. Would have been really nice to stick around and take a dip in the hot springs, but something tells me that goes against the new ‘don’t interfere with the planet’ policy.”
‘Not that you didn’t enjoy them to your fullest before the rest of the crew got here,’ Io reminded him with a pointed gaze. Russell cleared his throat and let that particular memory lay dormant.
“A day of rest will be more than enough. But you’re sure everything’s alright on the inside, Thantis?”
“You are kind to ask, Winters. Thankfully, my difficulties at the moment remain in the realm of the mental and spiritual. Much happened that I am having difficulty making sense of.”
“You’re not the only one,” Russell assured him as the shuttle shuddered almost imperceptibly, a friendly reminder that they were traveling through air instead of gliding through space. “At least we didn’t break the place.”
‘On the outside, you mean,’ Io clarified in an agitated tone. She was equally as upset about the day’s events as Thantis. ‘We have no idea if anything is left standing on the inside, not to mention that the robot will likely never re-activate even if the facility didn’t self-destruct or otherwise dangerously terminate its own functions. This is the worst day for science since the Lancer was lost. And that was a very bad day for science!’
“You mean other than the fact that we can get home and tell the rest of humanity what happened here, along with everything else we’ve discovered?” Russell observed sharply. “Let a team of archaeologists deal with it. Later.”
Io, who was using the B-MASS in order to be present for both Winters and Thantis, looked to the side and let out a long breath, acknowledging that the current moment might not have been the best time. ‘Yes, later is a good idea, sir. I think we should all give thanks that we will not be giving Veera or Gentia any reason to weep this evening.’
Russell and Thantis shared a look, agreeing that even if Io’s words were true, that wouldn’t be the end of it. The Jumper cleared his throat. “Yeah, no tears. But that doesn’t mean she won’t be mad as hell.”
“You are forgetting a healthy helping of ‘I told you so’,” Thantis added, finally allowing a real smile to shine through the clouds of his tested faith. “A word of advice, Winters?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Cave early and cave often,” the Cauthan said with a wink, giving Russell a hearty chuckle as Io nodded approvingly. “Among other things, I find that’s been a constructive cornerstone of my long life with Gentia.”
‘While I’m very much in agreement regarding the capitulation to the needs and wants of the important women in one’s life,’ Io began, batting her eyelashes at Russell as though he needed some sort of reminder that she was such a woman. ‘Gentia and Veera may need to wait. I just received word from the Admiral, sir. He’s on his way to the village and intends to meet us there.’
“For what purpose?” Winters asked curiously. Io made a little show of opening a letter and reading the message within.
‘In his words? Examining primary sources.’
-----
True to his word, Natori was there to greet them when Russell and Thantis’ shuttle set down just outside the western gates. Thanks to his arrival there was already plenty of commotion, adding to the hectic Cauthan harvest season as males and females both hustled to and fro in the fields, plucking ripened produce just before the point of spoilage. The tall, ebony skinned human offered his hand to Thantis as the shuttle’s doors opened upward with an audible hiss. “I am glad to see you are well, my friend. Would you believe that our esteemed colleague Qul’Roth sends his regards and wishes you ‘good health in the name of the Order’?”
‘I wouldn’t,’ Io replied immediately, nevertheless allowing Thantis to answer on his own.
“That is very kind of him. If you would convey my thanks when you return?”
“Happily, Thantis. It sounds to me as though the two of you had quite the little adventure. Lieutenant,” the Admiral addressed Russell and the two men exchanged salutes.
“That’s certainly one way of putting it, sir. What can we do for you?” he asked, waving to a villager who called out in greeting as he passed, a wooden tool for unearthing dato in his paws.
“I believe we speak to Antoth first. I admit that I may have spooked him a little by returning to the village so soon after my last departure. All that I could tell him was that something unexpected happened at the Forge, but that the two of you were unharmed. While I wait on the lead researchers and Lance Corporal Mendes to pen their official reports, I figured it might be wise to hear of events the old fashioned way. Shall we?” he suggested, sweeping an arm behind him towards the village. A particular striped Cauthan was, of course, awaiting them there. She was not pleased.
“Ah, perhaps an explanation for your wife is in order too?” Natori suggested, understanding that his presence was likely a significant contributor to Veera’s serious demeanor.
“If it’s the same to you Admiral, I think it’s best I handle this alone,” Russell replied, leaving Thantis’ side and walking up to Veera. She tilted her head slightly to maintain eye contact, her expression one of expectation as she waited for him to begin. “Listen Veera, I know it looks bad but-”
“Did you know that Fenrir’s figured out where all of the meat is stored?” she demanded suddenly, causing Russell to stick his neck out and cock his head in confusion.
“I’m sorry, he what?”
“He found me on patrol this afternoon with a chesko sausage hanging from his mouth and a very pleased expression on his face,” Veera explained, a hand on her hip. “I had to go to the temple of Valta and compensate them!”
“Oh boy. I’m sure Ratha was thrilled,” Russell responded, a nervous pit in his stomach as he considered how much mayhem Fenrir could get up to.
“She’s going to kill him if this continues!” Veera insisted. “Just please tell me you didn’t teach him to do this!”
“Why would I teach Fenrir to steal meat from the one place in town that would get him riddled with arrows?!” Russell demanded, feeling he had some small, slight justification for taking offense.
“Because sometimes you do silly things!” Veera replied as though it were obvious before visibly deflating. “We have to do something, Russell.”
“We will, sweetie. We’ll give him a bit more food at meals and maybe see about keeping some sort of muzzle on him when he’s around town. I can take him hunting again soon too,” the human suggested, silently forgiving his wife her mild hysteria. Ratha’s opinions regarding Veera and hyrven were both well known. His proposal mollified her, and she embraced him to welcome him home.
“I knew everything was alright the moment you and Thantis showed up unharmed. I suppose the Admiral being here means you will have some meeting with Antoth, but I’m glad you’re alright,” she told him. He hummed in her ear and left a quick kiss on her cheek.
“Yeah, things didn’t go as planned but everyone made it out safely. If it’s all the same to you, I think when this is done I’d much rather focus on making sure our pet doesn’t become a pelt,” he replied.
“As long as you admit that I told you so,” Veera said. “That place was obviously nothing but trouble from the very beginning.”
‘Are we going to continue overlooking the part where we can safely travel back to Earth now?’ Io demanded, having observed the married ‘spat’ for long enough. Veera’s eyes widened in surprise.
“We can… you did it?” she gasped.
“I sure as hell didn’t,” Russell clarified quickly. “But something happened that deactivated whatever process was going on in there. Io’s right. The warp point is clear and at some point soon I have to imagine Natori is going to take his ship home.”
Veera found herself caught flat footed by the news, looking down at the earth beneath her feet as a sudden trepidation struck her. They had talked about Russell’s eventual departure many a time over the seasons she’d known him, but it was always a hypothetical, an occasion far down the line. That line seemed soon to end. “So I… have to leave?” she questioned.
“Veera, I need to go meet with Antoth and the Admiral. When I’m done we’ll sit down and have a long talk about this, ok? If things have changed and you really want to stay, there may be a way to do that,” he explained.
“But your family! Your parents!” Veera exclaimed before cutting herself off, noticing Thantis and Natori waiting at a polite distance for them. “You’re right. Please don’t take long.”
“We won’t. Where’s the little troublemaker now?” Russell wondered.
“I sent him off into the forest after his little snatch and grab. So he’ll probably be back for dinner.”
“Count on that hyrven to never miss a meal. Alright love, I’m glad you and he are ok. See you soon?”
Veera took his hands in hers and nodded. “Offer Antoth your guidance, Russell. You are the only human he can trust.”
Though Russell’s first inclination was to protest, he couldn’t help but acknowledge the fact that even someone as forward and open as Natori could possess his own interests and agenda. He hummed low in his chest and agreed with a nod of his head. “I will, Veera.”
-----
“Walk me through it one more time?” Antoth requested, running a hand through the feathers atop his head as he, Thantis, Russell, and Natori were seated within the temple of Kel. Xan was there too, finding himself in the position of scribe as Thantis was an involved party in the Forge incident.
“As I said, Antoth, the Cauthan made from metal visited us while we were exploring the main chamber,” Thantis recounted. “It was clearly female, given the plumage, but how such a thing could possibly exist is beyond me. I am unsure whether it was a servant of Kel, Tyrdus, or neither. While there were many of us there, it chose to approach me specifically and attempted to communicate. I, regretfully, did not understand anything it said to me, either with its voice or its feathers.”
“Yes, I got that part,” the chieftain clarified in a patient tone. “It is what comes afterward that puzzles me.”
“You’re not the only one,” Russell agreed before allowing Thantis to continue the tale from his perspective.
“I attempted to speak to the metal being, requesting information about its nature, which of the gods it served. I believe I mentioned Kel and Meylith specifically, Antoth. When it replied to me it was no clearer than when it first spoke, but I do believe it was a reply instead of some unrelated statement.”
“Because it repeated the word Kel to you,” Antoth finished.
“Precisely. That is when a great many things began happening all at once. Spirit Io tells me that some sort of invisible disturbance began within the Forge, something powerful. The entire place began to shake violently, and the great weapon that the humans believe was causing the corruption plummeted into the abyss below. It was then that the metallic being collapsed. I attempted to revive it, or at least ascertain what had happened but the humans deemed the situation too dangerous at that point. Winters carried me from the facility as I was unable to move fast enough.”
Antoth glanced over at the Jumper. “I find myself in the position of thanking you yet again, Winters. However, given that Thantis would have never been in danger in the first place if not for your discovery, I will not go so far as to say either of us are in your debt.”
“That’s the least of my worries, Antoth, but thank you,” he replied as Natori spoke up.
“Antoth, I believe that certain subjects we have discussed in the past must now be brought to the fore again. While departure is not imminent, as soon as my crew determines we can safely leave your planet we will begin preparing a timetable to do so. Assuming your invitation to my crew regarding your harvest festival still stands, I think it would be a crime to pass up such an opportunity for cultural exchange. Once it is concluded, I cannot envision a scenario where we remain much longer.”
“I understand,” Antoth said, adjusting his posture as he stretched and stood sternly near one of Thantis’ many shelves full of dried herbs and scrolls. “My invitation to your people remains, however I reserve the right to revoke it at any time if I feel there is a need. I think we should table that discussion for another time. Right now I need to ruminate on the situation at hand. Kel refused to open his gate to your people, even Winters, but he did so for his servant among our own. This is… a curious omen.”
Russell shook his head in discomfort as Io began to practically vibrate with excitement, causing a bit of feedback in his earpiece. Having dealt with her, he addressed the two leaders. “Antoth, I’m happy to stay if you wish but I should get home if not. It sounds like Fenrir was up to no good today.”
“I don’t know about it and assuming the situation is under control I’ll be happy not to know about it,” Antoth replied, making it clear in his tone that he expected Winters to exert said control over the situation. “If Thantis and I need to speak with you we will find you.”
“Understood. Admiral Kaczynski, sir?”
The Admiral instead looked at Antoth. “Is there anything else you wished to discuss so long as I am here?”
“The food situation,” Antoth replied immediately, glancing at Xan. Natori nodded.
“I must admit that over the short period of time since we last spoke I have not received any updates myself. However I would be happy to escort Xan or someone else from your village up to the Event Horizon to inspect the current crop personally.”
“Then you should go, Xan. If we will not receive armor or weapons we should at least ensure this food is suitable when grown far from Mara’s soil. Will there be any issues?” he finished on a considerate note.
“No Antoth, I’d be happy to. I should grab a couple of things and let my family know where I’ll be though,” the young scholar explained.
“Very well, you are dismissed.”
“My shuttle will be waiting at the western gate,” Natori advised the young Cauthan. “First Lieutenant, I do not wish to keep you too long but I would appreciate it if you and Io would accompany me that far.”
“Yes sir,” Russell replied, seeing no reason to protest. “Selah, Thantis. Today was quite the adventure.”
“I shall remember it for the rest of my life,” Thantis agreed, his customary demeanor returning as a ‘smile of knowledge’ spread across his muzzle. “And while that may not be a particularly strong statement, I am sure that you will as well. Go in peace, everyone. Selah. Shall we summon the others, Antoth?”
“Not yet. Let us speak privately,” the burly Cauthan requested, indicating that he no longer needed the other three individuals in the temple. Xan packed up the scroll he’d been scribbling on and departed for his family’s home to the north while Russell and the Admiral headed west.
“Is your wife the only Cauthan with an understanding of English?” Natori began.
“So far as I know, sir,” Russell replied in a guarded tone.
“Excellent, then we can dispense with some of the secrecy. What is your opinion on taking this village back to Earth with us?” he wondered. Io was visibly restraining herself from answering for the both of them, but her opinions on the matter were obvious. Russell was more defferential.
“I think that’s a little bit beyond my pay grade, sir. On that subject, however, I need to know if there will be any problems in taking my wife aboard when we leave.”
“Yes well, if we take them all along with us I see no reason she couldn’t come too!” Natori replied in an almost obnoxiously upbeat tone. “The formalities and paperwork will be handled either way in her case, Lieutenant, I assure you. But I do not wish to discuss formalities and rules today. I can do that with men like your father once we return home, and I get the sneaking suspicion there will be quite a few of those conversations. Your gut feelings on the situation will suffice.”
“I’d be worried about them if we left them here and I’d be worried if we took them along, assuming such a thing is even possible and they agree to it” Russell replied. “For every Cauthan like Gentia or Thantis who might jump at the idea, there will be Cauthan like Ratha who will surely object.”
“Undoubtedly,” Natori agreed. “But the conditions are such that they will be forced to answer that question, assuming my staff comes back to me and deems such a mission possible. From a human perspective, it is a clever workaround of many of the objections from our Ghaelen guest, objections that will be more difficult to ignore once he is returned to his people.”
‘Since simply removing the village from existence was his enlightened idea in the first place,’ Io quipped, using vicious air quotes to append the word ‘enlightened’. Natori chuckled heartily, waving cordially to a couple of farmers who looked their way at the noise.
“In defense of Emissary Qul’Roth, I am not sure I want to know what happens to Ghaelen who defy the Order,” Natori suggested. “But per your evaluation, Io, I see no reason not to make it our enlightened decision instead.”
“A decision to do what, exactly? Take them home and just turn them loose in a random city? Keep them in an HEL compound for years?” Russell demanded. Kaczynski stroked his chin.
“I need a shave I believe. And count on the Jumper to immediately identify all the ways in which a situation could go wrong. Before you object, I approve of the approach. Though if you’ve already moved on to that point I presume you would generally be in favor of the translocation?”
Russell organized his thoughts as the two men passed through the central square of the town, considering what it might look like in various settings he’d visited back home. “At least if they came with us and needed help I’d be able to do something.”
Natori looked at Winters out of the corner of his eye. In truth, the Jumper was not used to speaking with people taller than him. An uncomfortable reminder of days gone by being scolded by his father gave way to a desire to see the man again. “May I ask what you were planning to do upon returning to Earth, Lieutenant? If you remain at your current post I’m not sure you would be any more able to aid these Cauthan than if we left them here.”
That feeling of familial absence returned as Winters shook his head. “I didn’t give it much thought when I was aboard the Lancer, sir. Once I was here, worrying about it seemed pointless. I guess now’s the time to think about it again, but life’s already moved past that. Not sure I’ll leave the HEL, but when we get I’m going to turn in my wings, so to speak. The Jumper corps don’t need fathers. Doesn’t mean I’m not proud to have served as one of humanity’s most heavily armed bachelors.”
Natori laughed earnestly at the description. “Children really do change everything, don’t they?”
“You would know far better than I, sir. I’m just making assumptions. I want Veera to come with me, and that if she does I need to come home each night for several reasons. I normally wouldn’t talk to someone like you about these things, but I’m sure you’ll be in charge of accepting or denying that request when the time comes,” he added, trying to keep his tone from being standoffish. Natori seemed to find the comment entertaining, so he figured he’d succeeded.
“Yes I suppose it was a deviation into rather private affairs. You have my apologies, Lieutenant. You and your sister are so different, but I can see your father in the both of you. I cannot make any guarantees, but I will do what I can if you’ve decided that your future lies outside of the Jumper corps. If things play out the way I expect them to, you and I and Io may have a mutual interest in such an arrangement, lest you think I’m somehow trying to play father.”
“Thanks for the assurances, sir,” Russell replied shortly, only broadening Natori’s smile.
“Youth is wonderful, is it not? In any case, you have something like six months to consider these questions, plus however long it takes us to get our affairs in order and depart this planet. With the threat from the alien installation apparently gone, my curiosity as to its nature has only increased.” Natori paused for a moment before snapping his fingers as he remembered something. “I need an after action report from you within the next twenty four hours, Lieutenant. I am aware that you have duties that go a bit beyond those of the average Event Horizon crew member, but given the magnitude of the event you just bore witness to, I need to review evidence from every angle, every perspective. There is no telling what the twenty or so of you might have seen or not seen.”
‘Done,’ Io replied, making a show of procuring the necessary video and audio files along with a written report that literally materialized atop her open palm. ‘Anything else?’
“You’ll let me review it first before it’s sent to the Admiral,” Russell insisted in no uncertain terms. “And later, I want you to make sure Xan is alright when he’s aboard the Event Horizon. Veera and I need to talk things over.”
‘Yes I suppose you do,’ Io agreed, filing away the materials she’d produced for his review. She waved politely at Natori. ‘Admiral, I will speak with you again some other time.’
“A pleasure as always,” he replied before her projection winked away. “Thank you for your time, Lieutenant. I will be fine waiting for the young apprentice before heading back. In the coming days and weeks I hope you will keep in mind that I value your opinion as an expert on the Cauthan, even if I make decisions that conflict with your sensibilities.”
Russell took a moment to think through his reply, knowing well enough that the Admiral was not trying to patronize him. Natori took that time to look up at the gatehouse, nodding appreciatively at the construct of wood and packed dirt. “As long as you aren’t making decisions to appease the Ghaelen, sir, I can’t see myself raising any objections.”
Kaczynski hummed shortly in reply. “Fair enough. You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”
Winters saluted silently and turned to head off along the road to the north, wondering how many more times he would walk along the rows of crowded homes, blockhouses, and rough drainage trenches.
----
The evening’s dinner preparation was a mostly silent affair. The crackling of firewood and the sound of a knife against wood, vegetables, and meat were comforting as he reviewed the full contents of Io’s report on the Forge incident. Every so often he made annotations, correcting Io’s propensity for flourish and embellishment. It had been a long time since he’d had to deliver such a report, and Io obviously found military language to be boring and trite. Between the two of them they soon had an acceptable product to send up to Natori’s bridge, along with the footage from his helmet cams. Task completed, Winters was free to address the question that had been hanging over both him and Veera for the entire afternoon. She was clearly as eager, or perhaps as nervous, as he, and he found her scrutinizing him from over the cooking pot.
“Hey there, I’m all finished,” he began, standing and moving to her side. “Do you need any help?”
“No, all of the heavy lifting is done. Just need to let it simmer for a while,” she told him, knocking a wooden spoon on the rim of the pot before taking a seat on one of their chairs. He joined her. “Your people will leave soon, and you’ll have to go with them.”
“Yeah, they will,” Russell agreed, taking her hand in his and giving thanks that they wouldn’t be beating around the bush. “I do want to go back, Veera. I haven’t seen my parents or my two other siblings for…”
Veera watched as her mate fell silent, his face looking far older than his actual age of twenty five as he counted the months. “It’s been too long, hasn’t it?” she asked compassionately.
“The Admiral managed to get them here in about three months, but I don’t think he would push things that hard on the return trip. All told, even if we left tomorrow and didn’t make any detours, it would probably be more than two years total by the time I get home. And for at least half of that time they’ll have lived without knowing whether I’m alive or dead.”
“It was clearly very hard for Alice,” Veera agreed, recalling the tearful scene from the bridge of the Event Horizon. “And she got to see you long before they will. You know I’ll still go with you, my love.”
“I know,” he affirmed, looking at the flames as they licked at the blackened exterior of the pot that had served them well for many months. “But I know things have changed here too. I know there’s a lot you would leave behind now so… I think we should talk.”
“About what, Russell?” she inquired. “I’m happy to talk about anything with you. We even vowed to do so in sight of the Mother, but it sounds like our path is already set.”
“Maybe, but when we get to Earth things need to change,” he explained. “I can’t… I won’t get sent off on another mission like this. Even if you weren’t pregnant there would be a question, you know? But now there’s no way I want you following me around on military ships, and no way I’m going to leave you after you give birth. So… I’m going to have to figure something else out. Even cabins in the mountains don’t build themselves, and the life of a recluse isn’t the sort of thing I’d want for our kids.”
To Russell’s surprise, Veera purred and nuzzled his cheek. She teased him gently. “Look at you trying to plan out our entire lives. I would never say no to you being in less danger.”
Russell placed an arm around her shoulder and rested his head against hers. “Is there a ‘but’ in there somewhere?”
“I was trying to be accommodating,” Veera pointed out. “But I would feel awful if you gave up something important on account of my pregnancy. It’s not like we planned for this.”
“No, we didn’t,” he agreed seriously, sitting up in his seat and rubbing the back of his neck. “But that doesn’t change the fact. Besides, there aren’t many people who remain soldiers forever. Even people like my father eventually take non-combat roles and desk jobs. It might not go exactly the way we expect, but I’m sure I can work something out within the HEL if the civilian life just isn’t for me.”
“Then it sounds like we don’t have much to worry about in terms of our family,” Veera summarized in a relieved tone before casting a glance at their entryway. “I will miss them, though.”
Russell exhaled and looked over at Io, taking up her usual perch at the foot of their bed. He raised his brows at her and she shrugged in return. “I might as well ask your opinion on it then,” he said.
“On what?”
“This is something Io and I have been thinking about for a while but never with any seriousness. Apparently Alice started thinking the same way and made a proposal to both Natori and Antoth the last time the two of them met.”
“Is that where you were called to?” Veera wondered quietly, taking a spoonful of stew and blowing on it until it was cool enough to taste. Satisfied with the blend of flavors, she grabbed two wooden bowls and began serving them both. “What is it that Alice was contemplating?”
“From the sound of it, taking you and every single Cauthan in this village back home with us to Earth isn’t a flight of fancy,” Russell explained. Veera paused with a ladle full of stew halfway between the kettle and her bowl.
“I- what? Is such a thing even possible?” she demanded aghast. Russell nodded, propping up one ankle on the opposite knee.
“Way I understand it, the Event Horizon is running with a skeleton crew, at least so far as non-military personnel are concerned. When they learned they were coming after me, that my ship had been lost, a lot of people who could chose to stay behind. There’s plenty of space so long as your people can handle space travel. Obviously we’ve already experimented with that a bit.”
“But why would they take us in the first place?” Veera asked suspiciously. “Here, eat while it’s hot.”
“Smells wonderful, thank you,” Russell replied, making sure to take a large bite and savor it for her edification before going on to explain some of the reasons humanity might see a vested interest in taking her village along. “From what I can tell it would actually resolve a sticking point with the Ghaelen regarding human influence on the village. The other reason, honestly, is that we want to.”
“And when we can no longer feed or clothe ourselves because we have left Mara we will be at your mercy,” Veera pointed out suspiciously. Io felt the need to step in at that point.
‘That is true, Veera. However what humanity can offer you in exchange would far exceed what you would lose. Imagine a world where one Cauthan, in someone like Anita’s position, could grow enough food to feed the whole village!’
“That sounds like a good excuse to sit around and grow lazy and fat, just like Vash,” Veera spat. Io recoiled indignantly as Russell waved his spoon her way.
“She’s got a point there, you know. Hey boy, get over here and sit! I heard you were bad today!” Russell commanded, distracted as none other than Fenrir chose that moment to arrive home, having no doubt followed the smells of cooking fires throughout the village. He ruffled the hyrven’s fur roughly before providing him with a plate of pre-cut chesko meat. It was a bit bourgeois to cut their pet’s steak, he knew, but both he and Veera considered bite sized pieces preferable to Fenrir flinging his dinner about the house like a barbarian intent on painting the walls red.
‘Now that the beastie has his dinner and I can defend myself, I can tell you that many humans choose to work jobs like those found at the temples of Tyrdus or the Twins, making things instead of growing things. That might not be a difficult transition. Even more choose to live like Thantis or Alice, devoting their lives to knowledge and its pursuit. And yes, per your conversation with Russell all the way back when you first met, there are some who engage in creating pornographic material and every other profession in between. Based on the amount of garbage I’ve scrubbed from the Event Horizon’s intranet there will be a market for Cauthan smut when we return to Earth one way or another, but I’d rather space my main processors than ruminate on that for too long. You are right, Veera. Being lazy, indolent, and fat is a temptation when you live in a land of plenty, but I think it is better than starvation, death by raider, succumbing to treatable illnesses, or freezing to death.’
“Not to mention there are plenty of human communities who prefer to keep to what they consider to be the ‘old ways’,” Russell added. “I’m not saying anyone’s given the logistics serious thought, but the idea is out there now and it’s not just me and Io who would want to see you all paid back for letting me live here and keeping me alive.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that we would be giving up our freedom and putting our lives in your hands, Russell,” Veera pointed out. “I choose to do so on account of our bonds of marriage and because I consider you to be a male who does not think in such terms. That doesn’t mean that this village will be treated the same way.”
Russell was unable to brush her concerns away, knowing that he was far from the most senior HEL individual in the system anymore. He didn't foresee any issues with the Admiral honoring the union he shared with Veera, but he hadn't exactly married the rest of the village. "I know, but it's not like Io or I would abandon them. I'm not worth much, honestly, but you've seen what Io can do when she doesn't get what she wants."
'I resent that,' she told him. 'You act as though I saw the Event Horizon and thought give me the shiny ship.'
Russell and Veera looked at Io quietly, chewing over tenderized pieces of chesko. She eventually backtracked. ‘Well don’t blame me for having the ability to do both at once! Besides, it’s not even that shiny.’
Veera laughed pleasantly as she reached over to scratch Fenrir between the ears. Between the slowly waning cooking fire and his dinner the hyrven was already headed for dreamland. “I appreciate the sentiment, Io. I know that you and Russell would not abandon us, but that will not make it any easier, especially for people like Ratha and Antoth.”
“That’s a bit of an understatement. I wouldn’t be surprised if it proved necessary to drag Ratha kicking and screaming into a shuttle,” Winters added, finding the image amusing. “Ah well, like I said it’s really not a decision that any of us get to make. I just wanted your perspective. I guess it’s probably a scary concept more than anything.”
“Yes, it is,” Veera agreed quietly. “And unlike me, they do not have someone like you to lean on.”
“Fair enough. Hopefully we can get a few set up like Xan, familiarize themselves with the ship at least. Sounds like Natori could use help and you all have five fingers, an opposable thumb, and are of approximately human height,” Winters reasoned. “Speaking of which, why don’t you head on up, Io. He should be aboard already. I think we’re just going to clean up dinner here.”
Veera waved her feathers in understanding as Io nodded and killed her projection. ‘I suppose I could check back in on my various VI monitoring subroutines as well. As you say sir. I will return later tonight.’
-----
“By Kel this place is big,” Xan complained, walking through corridor after corridor aboard the Event Horizon. He’d returned to his normal weight so he figured he had to be somewhere close to his destination, but with every turn he only seemed to find yet another sign featuring vibrant green and yellow symbols showing him the way to the hydroponics bays. The Cauthan let out an audible groan of relief when he stepped into a larger hallway and found a sizable green arrow pointing at a set of bulkheads several times his size. He could not yet read the human runes painted within it, but he recognized the location well enough. Clearing his throat and composing himself he walked up to the doors and made to knock, but found his plans foiled as they simply opened on their own and a synthesized, female voice faintly reminiscent of Io’s own welcomed him to the hydroponics bay. “Hey, Anita?” he called out, facile enough with English to use at least one word. He smiled as she poked her head around the corner of the door to her office, her long ponytail hanging most of the way to the floor from her seated position. She was confused to see him, which confused him in turn.
“X-Xan?” she stuttered. “What are you um, doing here?”
The Cauthan leaned heavily on his cane, putting two and two together before letting out a long sigh of realization and clicking a talon on the floor. “You know, if you’d prefer to work for someone who doesn’t enjoy surprises, Antoth would be happy to have you if you can grow food for us. He’s a similar color too, so that wouldn’t be much of a change, right? He wanted me to check in and see how things are going up here. Guess Natori didn’t give you a warning?”
“No, he didn’t,” Anita confirmed quietly, unsure whether to find humor in the idea of working for Antoth or trying to explain to Xan that it was the height of rudeness to remark on someone’s skin color in such a way. In the end she sat in silent embarrassment as her stomach betrayed her and growled audibly. Even with his mangled left ear Xan was able to pick up on it just fine.
“I have a place to sleep up here so maybe let’s get food first? Not like I’m in a rush or anything. Well, I actually can’t rush much of anywhere these days,” he quipped, pointing to his gimped leg. “I don’t really know my way around so… or was I interrupting something?”
Anita couldn’t bring herself to say no, so instead she zipped up her jumpsuit, grabbed her tablet, and ensured the automated subroutines were all green before tucking her chair neatly away at her desk. “So, ah, how have you been, Xan?” she asked politely, leading the way from her usual haunt to the hallways that would take them to the civilian canteen. The Cauthan kept a sure pace, his cane accentuating his progress. He chuckled to himself as he summed up the events of the prior cycle in one word.
“Busy.”
-----
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So yesterday was the hearing, i am basically divorced.
It will take 4-6 months for the paperwork to be official but at this point there is basically nothing anyone can do to change the outcome. The only option is if me and my wife together stop it.
I am so f..ng tired, i haven't slept in,,,, i don't know how many days, so if i am a bitt all over the place im sorry. I just need to get this all out, i need to vent.
Hopefully i can get some sleep after i type it out.
​
My awesome lawyer got me a early hearing, just 12 days after submitting the paperwork.
No doubt she called in some favor's on this one.
I am getting off track, from the weekend up until today has been insane. Friday morning a whole bunch of police officers knocked at my door with a warrant to search the house.
I was very confused, i was worried about the kids, so i asked if i could bring the kids outside while they did their search. Thankfully they agreed to that.
They didn't really tell me much, but i did get a copy of the warrant, i was so shaken up i couldn't really make any sense of it.
​
I guess everyone that said that my x-wifes behavior was probably drug related,,,, its safe to say that is at least a factor in this.
​
The cops set about completely trashing my house, i called my lawyer and she talked to them, but the warrant was valid so there wasn't anything that could be done at the time.
I didn't think about it when it happened but I have cameras everywhere now, in case i get wrongfully accused. I have video and sound of everything, I could possibly make a claim later if i want to.
To be honest, i don't really know if i have the energy or will for that, maybe i just put a line over it and move on.
​
I didnt know it then, but X and her 3 harpy friends drove my car while high and drunk, and crashed into a house at high speed.
They where all arrested, all of them drunk and they all had drugs in, and on their body.
They where pretty roughed up by the crash, the one in the passenger seat is in critical condition, they don't know if she will even make it.
The lead harpy, lets call her Henrietta. She is the one that bragged about screwing over and lying about her x-husband in court. Lets call her x-husband Henry.
Me and Henry have become really good friends, I will get back to him.
Thankfully they didn't find anything from the search, i gave my statement that my X doesnt live here anymore, she lives with her parents,,, I dont know what she is doing. No i didnt give Henrietta permission to drive my car, etc.
When i got back in the house i just broke down, everything was completely trashed. It was just the last straw i guess.
The only thing i could think of was to call my dad who brought me and the kids home to stay with my Mom
Dad then got a whole group together, 26 friends and relatives.
While i was sobbing on the back porch, eating my moms amazing comfort food. Feeling sorry for myself, they completely cleaned and fixed my entire house.
They did every single room, clothes, dishes, furniture, even washing the ceiling and walls! Its never been this clean, they even fixed all the little things, like loose door handles etc.
I just couldn't believe they would do such a thing for me. I have no idea how i can ever repay them.
I went from suicidal to feeling pretty good over the weekend thanks to them.
Cops found more drugs at Henriettas house and her boyfriend wasn't there, no baby sitter either, just the kids alone.
The kids where taken by CPS and Henry won temporary emergency custody Saturday after showing the judge the chat logs. Combined with the abandonment and piles of drugs thing, He got custody without much difficulty.
Henry is over the moon happy, he has hardly seen his kids the last 5 years. He had been raising money to fight Henrietta in court when this happened.
He still needs to go to court to make it permanent but the odds are really good at this point. Everybody thinks Henrietta will have to serve time. If her friend doesn't make it probably serious time.
After that he will try for child support and compensation for all the crap Henrietta did. He isnt expecting much on this though. And to be honest, i think he doesnt want to waste his time fighting in court. He wants to be with his kids and make sure they have a good life.
Its pretty clear that Henrietta has been very neglectful towards them.
Bob has been a champ and set Henry up in a rental apartment through a friend. I have come to realize that i know practically nothing about Bobs private or professional life. I intend to remedy that.
Anyway im off track again. Henrietta was at the wheel when she drove off the road and into a house.
They where all pretty banged up, and due to the situation, the alcohol and the drugs, search warrants where issued for everyone residence.
X is still registered with her residence at my house. I decided on Sunday that i am selling this house and moving away asap. I am afraid this will probably happen again.
​
On Sunday i get a call from her parents, their house got searched as well. They had visited their daughter in jail on Saturday and they no longer trust anything she tells them.
Long story short, they came over to talk on Sunday and it turns out she has been lying to them about everything. The nights she has been out partying and cheating. She told them that she was staying with me and we where trying to work things out??
They had no idea what was actually going on or what she has done to me and the kids. They knew she cheated but they believed it was a one time drunken mistake. That's basically what she told them.
​
On Monday my wife calls me to try to get me to post bail. Its 15K and her parent have already told her no.
After talking to my lawyer she made some papers that the bail is substracted from the settlement until she shows in court and the bail is released. The agreement included her mother as the custodial of the remaining amount.
My lawyer didnt want my wife to have any excuse for not attending the hearing that's why she wanted me to get her out.
X didn't really have a choice and she signed.
​
She was released Monday afternoon. From what her parents tell me she refused to comply with the terms they had for her to continue living there.
Terms like: Stop doing drugs, commit to rehab, open everything policy, drop the bad friends etc.
She apparently left their house on Tuesdays to stay with some of her new friends.
She didn't show for the hearing, and after showing the judge everything including the events over the weekend i won full custody. The settlement is according to the agreement we made. It was quick only 30 min. It will take 4-6 months to go through the papermill.
But in reality, its done. There isn't really anything that can be done to stop this now.
​
That brings us to today, i was unable to sleep. Everybody was congratulating me and treating me like i had some major victory. But it sure as hell doesn't feel like i won anything.
This is just pain, i still love my wife. I know its over and there is absolutely no way back. Still she was my best friend, my soulmate up until recently and and even though i feel my love for her has been mortally wounded. Its still there. And it hurts like a motherfu...er.
​
There are no winners in this, i loose my wife looses, my kids loose.
I dont really have the words, it feel like i am being asked to celebrate that i have lost both my legs. But because i took action one of my legs could be cut below the knee while the other still was cut above.
When people congratulate me it feels almost like that, like they are commending me for saving half a knee cap..... While loosing both my leg...
​
So i cant really sleep, and when i doo i am torn through terrible nightmare's that wake me up drenched in cold sweat.
​
I am complaining a bit here, sorry.
Anyway today i get a call from the hospital that my X is hospitalized. I am still her emergency contact and she is still on my health insurance.
There has been an altercation, she has lost some teeth, broken jaw and she will need to stay for observation a few days.
I bring her parents and when i get there it turns out some of her new friends have beaten her up pretty badly.
​
Word got out that Henry had chat logs of Henrietta bragging about what she did to Henry, from my wifes phone.....
They assumed that my wife had given the Logs to Henry.... This resulted in them beating her up and kicking her out.
​
Amazingly she still dont understand that i have access to monitor her phone...
I will keep on like i do now, pay for insurance, her phone, etc. All the way until i get the papers in my hand, i just wont believe it until i hold it in front of me.
​
She has nothing now, she asked if she could move back home. I simply told her "no way in hell."
​
Her mother isnt giving her a single penny unless she get clean and stays clean for at least 1 year.
They offered her to live with them on the previous strict terms.
If she doesn't accept i dont see how she will manage.
​
Its the first time i have seen any form of regret from her since this started, but i think its regret that she can no longer continue with her craziness.
She did say "i am sorry i ruined everything" but i dont think its genuine.
​
She hardly looked me in the eyes while i was there. It hurt seeing her like this. I felt like i wanted to protect her. But she is an adult, her behavior is dangerous and erratic and i need to protect my kids.
​
Apart from that she didnt ask about the hearing, she didnt ask about the condition of her critically injured "friend" she basically just sat there seemingly irritated
​
I still don't understand this, she has lost everything... She has destroyed her family and caused a lot of pain for a lot of people....
​
And for what? A buzz and some random sex?
​
I am going completely NC until she has been clean for a long time, i just cant deal with all this crazy..

Things have been busy so, I apologize for the delay. I know lots of you love these stories.
Last Friday night...Yeah, I think we broke the law...Always say we're gonna stop, whoa
Friday, or in the alternative: What part of call me was not clear?
I get to my desk at the usual time and deal with the usual bullshit. I got a SCAR 16s here on consignment because a customer of mine bought them from dealers that were less than reputable and lied about the condition of/country of origin of their merchandise. And they swapped sku's and other bullshit gun dealer things.
Trying to be a nice guy, I can charge the guy to box and ship everything back or roll them at top dollar and give him a big stack of blue stripe benjamins. I tell him I'll try and sell them for him and take my cut off the top so we're both making money. He thinks this is a great idea and manages to line up a buyer on his own. I just need to do the 4473 and cut him a check. No big deal, I don't have a problem doing a little extra work for him versus the standard dealer to customer transfer. The guy he sold it to is a semi regular customer of mine and he comes in, bangs out the 4473 and it's about a 90 minute wait on transaction time.
No big deal. Instead of packing up for the gun show, I'm selling other peoples guns. I'll pack up for the gun show tonight and get everything ready when I get home. I need to be up super early and on the road.
I get everything squared off, customer comes in to get his money and drops off ANOTHER SCAR 16s to sell because the dealer pulled a con job. Okay, I can haul it to the show in the AM. I have a SCAR 16s in FDE from him. I have a 5.7 in FDE on the arm from a buddy of mine and a 509 FDE. I'll make a package deal, FDE FN Friday all FN time. Things are looking up!
I clear off all the 4473's for the week and do an audit and I'm down about 75% inventory wise from last year. Things are tight but stuff is trickling in in drips and drabs. Hit the chickfila on my way home for a sandwich and milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard. I'm done eating and getting ready to leave when I get the call.
ring ring
FC: go for FC
1: Mr Hayden sir, can I ask a favor of you?
FC: What up?
1: Got a guy who wants my scar 16 lined up but he has to pay on a credit card. Can you run it for me? You can take a card and cut me a check?
(It's 7PM on a friday night. I still need to pack for the show. By the time I get back it will be 9PM and I still need to shower and get a decent nights sleep. I'm a glutton for punishment)
FC: If you want to get it done tonight, have the guy call me. I'm eating dinner now and I'll head back if he calls me.
1: roger that, I'll pass along your info right now and let him know.
I do a few more emails from the laptop and say hi to the chickfila owner who was friends with my dad and buys guns from me. We chat for a bit and my phone does not ring. Now, gentle readers - I offered to head back at 730PM on a friday to get something done for someone as a favor to them. That should be worthy of "holy shit you are the man for coming back on your own time!" but this was not the case. No phone call means I didn't head back.
I head home, no phone call. Phone about to die. Plug it in and go into my garage and get all my gun show stuff sorted and loaded and organized. My normal display is 3 tables of merchandise stacked and racked on 2 tables. This show it's 1.5 tables of merchandise stretched out on 2 tables. Not good. My back is killing me. I get some ibuprofen and take a hot shower. Grab my phone off the charger. Bunch of missed calls, one email one VM. I return the VM.
1: Hey you must be having a good dinner at chickfila, we've been waiting here in the parking lot for the last hour!
FC: You have? Well, I didn't get a phone call. I'm home and in pajamas.
1: What? He didn't call you?
FC: Nope
1: HEY! YOU DIDN'T CALL HIM? Oh he says he just figured......
FC: No phone call means no turning around to go back to work. We'll deal with it next week.
1: Okay I'll tell him.
I'm a pretty easy to get along with guy. If you ask me a favor, I'll likely do it if it does not interfere with my life too badly. But if you ask me for a favor and you can't follow simple instructions, well then you're wasting your own time. That's no skin off my hide. Failure to follow simple directions on your part does not warrant my bad back bending over backwards to make it right. I climb into bed, I have to be up at 5AM to tank up at the truck stop, grab breakfast on the run and get to this show on the road.
Saturday, in the park. I think it was the fourth of july. People dancing, people laughing. A man selling ice cream. Singing Italian songs....
Showtime Saturday.
My back is stiffer than I'd like. I get down to the show and get loaded in and everything is set up looking spiffy. Not in my normal spot right by the loading dock, much to my chagrin. There's a line that's 1/4 mile long to get into the building. This shit is looking crazy.
Here's the deal, folks. The 4473 isn't hard. It does require attention to detail. Being in therapy with Dr Kaplan, I've learned a few things.
Old FC: Here's the clipboard, call me when you're done.
New FC: Here's the form, I'm guessing you haven't filled this out before. Start on line 9, read this carefully, 18A and 18B are two separate questions that both require answers, 21 L 2 is tricky, you need to read it ALL THE WAY TO THE END before you answer. Sign on 22, today's date on 23. STOP THERE.
With the new spiel, of the 7 forms I was handed on Saturday before noon - guess how many were filled out correctly? I'll make a break here to talk about the bullshit I had to do.
Show Hustler #1: I had a consignment mossberg built in new haven pre 1968. A guy wants to buy it and he's friends with Ray Dalio. Yes, the Ray Dalio. He tries getting me to knock $100 off but I tell him he's nuts. If he's FRIENDS WITH A BILLIONAIRE and lives in GREENWICH fucking Connecticut, you can pay my very fair asking price of about $350 on it. He relents and I give him a small discount and I give him the clipboard.
Show Hustler #2: I got a guy wanting to trade me a 44 Mag Black Desert Eagle for a Colt 1911 I have on the table. Prices are about the same. I tell him I'm not doing the work of selling two guns for the profit of one gun. He tells me I'm not selling two guns, I'm trading one and selling one. That's selling one gun! I explain two entries in my A/D book means I sell two guns, and it's easier for me to sell a NIB Colt than it is for me to sell a used Desert Eagle. Well the DE isn't used! It's unfired! It's brand new! If I didn't get it from a wholesaler, it's used. He says for me to think about it and he'll be at the show. I tell him I thought about it. He says yeah, ready to do an even trade? I say no, now I want your gun plus $1000. He calls me a clown and walks away.
Show Hustler #3: Over the road truck driver wants the FN 5.7 in FDE I have on consignment. Asks for a truck driver discount. He wants it for $1200. I've got it tagged at $1350. I tell him if he can fill out the form straight, no errors I write it at 1200. If there's an error, I write it for $1350. He says he just bought a brand new freightliner cascadia and money is tight. I tell him well we got a bet or what? He nods, I book the action.
Show Hustler #4: Guy wants my 509C. He wants to trade me for a NIB glock even up. I tell him there's no money to be made and selling a used glock gets me less money. BUT ITS NOT USED! ITS BRAND NEW! We go back and forth 9 times about how new does not mean what he thinks it means. I offer him $350 on his trade as credit knowing that $650 on a used glock in 45ACP is all the money right now. He calls me a cocksucker and walks away.
Okay, so 7 form 4473's with an explanation as to all the problem areas before noon on Saturday.....how many were filled out correctly?
If you answered zero, you are right! That means I won the 4473 bet. The 5.7 goes out at top dollar. Winner winner chicken dinner!
I head home and count my money. I need 9 more shows like this and I might finally be able to retire. On the way home I check web orders. Three guys in arkansas have ordered $900 22LR off my website at $150 a brick. I joke about my stash of 22LR being a brand new F350 platinum but at $150/brick that's rapidly becoming a reality.
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday is day 2 of the show. I stop at a local diner and grab corned beef hash and a short stack of pancakes for breakfast. Want to know how good a diner is? If there's real butter with the pancakes and not that bullshit country crock/margarine spread, you know things will be good.
There's butter. It's good.
A very nice Sig 229 in stainless in 9mm comes by from a guy who did business with me years ago. He traded me a Wilson CQB pistol for a Sig 226 and a Springfield Range Officer even up. I had maybe $1600 into that Wilson, I sold it for $2500 a few months later and tucked the money away. When my brother got married, our fucking gigantic family got together the night before the wedding and had dinner. I told him I'd cover it and he's like "are you sure?" and I said, how bad could it be? Not realizing his wife's family is a bunch of hungry alcoholics from cape cod who have never seen an open bar before and are total gluttons when someone else is buying. As it turns out, $2500 covered about half of the F&B, but he seemed appreciative.
Anyhow.
I sell nothing at the show all day and talk with the other dealers and swap stupid customer stories. I pack and head home and I've sold a good bit of stuff of mine and consignments. As I'm making my way out of the building, the wheel comes off the wagon.
This is not a euphemism. https://imgur.com/a/KY5vLCl
I pay off all my friends for their sales, and in the zelle memo field, I break down the transactions as such:
$69.69 - Anal Hook
$350 - Loch Ness Monster Poster
(whatever the balance was after bullshit, I can't remember) - this is from your real dad
I have lots of fun at this job sometimes.
It's just another manic Monday. I wish it was Sunday. 'Cause that's my fun day.
Monday morning I get an email from the fellow who spent his friday night in the parking lot waiting for me. His email address leads me to believe he spent some time at Parris Island or San Diego, because who else uses semper fi in an email address name? He says he can be in after work at 1645 hours sharp and is just down the road. I tell him I'll get everything squared away for him, and I prep the 4473's on a clipboard and get everything set up.
Cleaning up files from the show, closing out 4473's. Down to 249 items in stock. 150 of them are lowers. This is not good. Must strike while irons are hot though. Gotta shear all the sheep while the wool is ready to harvest and prices are high. I have a bunch of personal ammo that will hit the market one POTUS says something stupid. That's not an if, that's a when.
Bunch of phone calls from people seeking 380 and cheap 9mm. I do my best charles bronson impression. "No dice." The emails accusing me of price gouging are fantastic. There's some other idiocy too. I won't post the whole ones but here's a few snippets from the butthurt and the unprepared as well as the idiotic.

I’m just looking for fmj for target practice. Nothing fancy. If you could do them for $400 a case of 1000 I can talk.

FC: I can get you $400/case on 1000 but it'll be foreign made non brass 9mm ammo.

Pretty much what your saying is no matter how much money I try to spend, you’re continuing your get rich quick prices. People like you are direct part of the problem. It’s one thing to make money and it’s another to try to high way rob people. Hope you’re proud of yourself.

FC: I can assure you that this isn't a get rich quick situation. I spent plenty of money investing in half a million rounds of ammo about FOUR years ago during the Trump slump and I'm just getting around to realizing profits now. I am not getting rich, nor am I doing it quickly. I hardly think that any investment that takes 4 years to realize a gain is quick.
(No response back)
Subject: Used Ruger 10/22
Message: I’ll give you 175 for it.
FC: Deal. Can you come by today?
(new message, no subject)
Message: I can come by Tomorrow or Thursday.
(I try calling him. VM box is full)
FC: Great! Lets get it done. Your VM box is full. Tomorrow is better.
(new message, no subject)
Message: I can come tomorrow but I only have 150 I can spend at the moment so I’ll probably wait a few days.
FC: What happened to " I’ll give you 175 for it." a few hours ago?
(new message, no subject)
Message: My bad dude. I have a kid I don’t know what to tell you. And I’m pretty sure I said Wednesday or Thursday. If you really want it gone that bad I don’t see what the big deal is.
FC: I was just expecting you to have $175 ready if you said you wanted to deal......So, will Wednesday or Thursday work this week? Bring me cash and your concealed.
(new message, no subject)
Message: No cwl. But you don’t need one for a private sale. I can have your cash.
FC: No CWL no sale.
(new message, no subject)
Message: Yeah I’ll pass. Good luck. You totally should have mentioned that at the start of negotiations.
FC: What part of my ad that said cash and concealed required was unclear?
Yeah. Fucking mondays.
1630 rolls around and our scar loving jarhead walks in. With his wife. And his children. Not one, not two, not three, but FOUR little munchkins. All without an ipad and disney + streaming to keep them occupied. They're not bad kids, just curious at all the little things I have lying around like lower parts kits, magazines, AAC 51T mounts, stuff like that.
He hands over his ID. I look at the address. It's a city two and a half hours away.
FC: Uh, you're a long way from home.
USMC: Yeah I just moved. I'm putting my new address on this form if that's okay.
FC: You have anything with your new address on it? I can't do anything with ID that's not current.
USMC: It's not expired, it's current.
FC: Where do you live?
USMC: (names address locally)
FC: Then this is no longer current. I need something with your new local address on it.
USMC: Oh then I'll just use the old address on this form then.
FC: That's not acceptable. I need a current government document with your new address.
USMC: Here, I have activation orders and training orders from the army.
FC: That won't work. Government document with your new address.
USMC: Here's my W2 from the DOD.
FC: That's not a government document.
USMC: But the DOD gave it to me! It's FROM the department of defense, which is the government!
(Editors note: Did I mention that I hate mondays?)
sigh
FC: I can call ATF and ask......
USMC: Please do!
(I phone the ATF area supervisor on his cellular device)
ATF: Mr Hayden, how can I help you today?
FC: Barry, I got a funny one. Guy wants to use his DOD W2/activation orders to get his gun since that has his current address.
ATF: Why? Is there a reason he's unable to get an updated drivers license?
FC: That's a good question Barry, let me find out.
(FC puts ATF on speakerphone)
FC: Hey private first class, ATF wants to know why you didn't update your license
USMC: Uh because I've been busy
ATF: Sir, that's not an answer. I was in the military too and I had to change ID's just like you. If I can had to do it you have to do it.
(Barry was a very long time ago a RIO on the F4 Phantom)
USMC: But I have activation orders! and training orders! and a W2!
ATF: Get your license changed over or produce another document for the licensee to process your transaction.
FC: Thanks barry!
I hang up and tell him that's the area supervisor and I'm playing this one the way he tells me. He needs to produce a document compliant with ATF regulations for me to release this firearm.
USMC: Oh by the way there's a guy with my same name that robbed a bank in Detroit last year, I always get delayed anyways.
(sigh)
I type his stuff into the computer and I get a thumbs up from the computer instantly much to his amazement. I fire off a quick email to the guy who owns the scar
Subject: No current ID
Message: your jarhead friend who wants the scar does not have current ID

No deal? Or what's the plan?

My reply is interrupted. Their oldest child admires the batman dollar on my safe. The youngest child is incessantly clicking a spare pilot G2 pen I had on my desk.
Mother: If you click that pen ONE MORE TIME, you are WALKING HOME.
(kid puts the pen down)
Me, whispering to the kid: It's not that far.
(kid picks the pen back up)
Mother scowls at both of us.
I giggle.
I get back to email.
FC: Lets put it this way. You're gonna owe me for this one. Big time.
His wife starts pulling out auto registrations, USAA insurance cards, cable bills, etc with their new address - NONE of which are useful because none of them are government issued. She updates his and her drivers licenses online at the state website and gives me a voter registration printout confirming the update, but that's not a workable document since it's an informational update and not an actual registration.
Customer that owns the scar walks in and witnesses the flurry of kids playing with gun stuff and two grown ass adults trying to make it all work.
It's been 45 minutes of this.
The guy finally gives up and goes on the state website and gets a fishing license and emails it to me. Stacks a big stack of SCAR magazines that NOBODY has in stock to the order and I charge it onto his USAA mastercard. Had I returned to work on a Friday after hours to get an ID that wasn't current, I would have been apoplectic. Now, I'm just mildly annoyed. I can assure you that anyone who has walked through the hallowed halls of MCRD Parris Island should know to have their shit together. This just seemed like some hybrid of cluelessness more than it was an issue of stolen valor. Gun and mags go out the door.
My customer sits down and starts laughing. I look at him totally nonplussed.
1: That was easy, right?
(FC looks nonplussed)
1: An hour worth of work, for $50! That's good! you should do a few of those a day!
(FC looks nonplussed)
1: Really?
FC: You owe me.
I cut him his check and I'm done for the night. I head home.
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too....
Tuesday
Another day, another box of 9mm at $75 each heading out the door.....I'm down to my last 15,000 rds of 9mm. I sold my entire personal stash of Remington UMC at $67 a box. Now that we're into the Federal American Eagle, it's up to $75. People are thanking me for having it available because they've called everywhere.
This morning's "no I don't have it" calls: 380ACP, 30-40 Krag, 6.5 CM, Grendel and Swede, 2.5" .410 slugs, 3 or 3.5" shells and turkey loads.
Now, for the uninitiated: Turkey season is around the corner. ALL the ammo for turkey loads have been purchased by new shooters looking for home defense ammo since last year. Why turkey loads for self defense? That's all the cabelas had....
Come season, there will be lots of very disappointed hunters who were unprepared. Those with ammo will hunt, those without ammo will hunt for ammo, and they will not be successful given the state of the ammunition markets. There is far more money to be made cranking out buckshot and slugs than there are turkey shells.
Package comes in for transfer. Guy has a NJ license. He's just moved here. Has NOTHING with his new address. This is basically a repeat of Monday's SCAR sale. The guy here is ADAMANT that he's bought a home here and he can purchase a firearm without being a state resident.
He's technically right. HOWEVER this is why dealers hate doing things: The gun and sale have to follow both the laws of the state he's in AND the state of New jersey. Now I have to run down all the bullshit that is NJ published ordnances to ensure that this gun is Phil Murphy(TM) approved. For the price of a transfer. BUT WAIT THERES MORE!
The gun is for a BUDDY of his he's giving it to him as a gift when he's down here for a fishing trip in a few days.
https://imgur.com/0cqL7vX
Read that last line.
Yeah. I tell him that it's unlawful for him to dispose of a firearm to a non resident. He's wondering what the fuck to do. He insists on taking delivery. I tell him I need to run it down with the address and everything since his NJ license isn't technically valid since HE NO LONGER LIVES THERE.
The guy bought a double wide trailer here, the trailer park handles all the water, the power, the etc - he does not have any REAL property here. He's insistent that he has a deed for his house. He's holding a bill of sale for a mobile home.
sigh
I tell him we should just get things sent to his friend via an FFL in his state. The guy lines up an FFL and I fedex the gun to the dealer up there. We need ONE UNIFORM SET OF COHESIVE COMMON SENSE GUN LAWS, not one federal set and 50+ subsections on a state level plus NY State HOME RULE BULLSHIT.
I head home early, telemedicine with Dr Kaplan. He's impressed with my progress. I'm not.
There are no songs that have Wednesday that I can think of here
Wednesday, Hump Day
I decide to work from home today. I can take all the phone calls and tell people no I don't have anything from home. I decide to do some early spring cleaning. It's a BEA-U-TIFUL day. The sun is out, nice weather means I can work in the garage for once. I start a load of laundry. Everything starts off fine. I'm sorting through old shot show HK posters when I can smell burning. There's no smoke but I do smell burning. Am I having a stroke? I can't figure it out and I get a load of laundry processed through my carbon neutral solar powered clothes drying system. I start another batch of laundry and hear a massive grinding noise when I should hear the washing machine washing. That burning smell? That was the timer burning up. And I have a full tub of underwear that needs to get done since I'm nearly out. Fuck.
My dad's old toolbox is in disarray. Mine isn't. I quickly grab a few tools. A snap on general service kit is totally overkill, but it's super nice to have EVERYTHING in one spot ready to go. My 1/4 drive ratchet takes apart my washing machine panel with ease. I unplug the timer and hit the electronic bay for a replacement. I find one 2 hours away and they say they can ship immediately on my fedex account. I can get it here tomorrow if they fedex ground it on todays truck. Deal, here's my amex. Email me tracking when it's sent.
One problem arisen, one problem in progress of being fixed. Not bad for before noon.
I get a bunch of stuff stacked up and straightened up and I throw a ton of stuff on facebook marketplace. Old Glock signs and point of sale merchandise like hanging ceiling mobiles, glock pencils, FN pads, FN hats, Daniel Defense stickers and patches, HK pistol racks, some old Colt and Beretta Blue boxes, all that stuff.
People message me about the Colt box. WHATS IN THE BOX they ask.
Well it's an empty fucking box. I made that VERY clear in the description. So what's my witty rejoinder? A youtube link to the scene from Seven with Brad Pitt yelling at Morgan Freeman "WHATS IN THE BOX? WHATS IN THE BOX?!?!!?!"
They are not amused. I think it's brilliant. They ask me what gun is for sale. I tell them it's just an empty box but if they want a gun, here's my info and call me at work during business hours. I'm then told that people selling empty boxes on facebook aren't selling empty boxes, they're selling guns.
This, I did not know.
Armed with this newfound information, I proceed to post more random stuff from my garage for sale in front of a pile of 20,000 rds of 9mm. An old kegerator and some bar equipment my dad had, a Miller Genuine Draft neon sign backdropped with 5 cases of Winchester Q4170 45ACP and 5 cases of CCI Lawman 147gr 9mm. The messages flood in looking to buy my stuff cheap. But I know what I got.
My favorite interaction:
1: hey man, you got anything else for sale?
FC: Tons of stuff for sale!
1: I'm looking for pews.
FC: I got pews, you want to stop by and check out my pews? I got some real nice ones, super nice. Only used on sunday!
1: Yeah man I'm leaving for lunch in 10 min, give me your address
FC: Sure thing! Here's me, be here in 30 minutes!
I continue to clean up my garage and I pull out some of my dad's old auction finds. Under about 200 old polynesian tiki mugs, I dust off some white oak church pews and pull them into the driveway. The guy tells me he wants to see the pews I got, and I point them out to him in the driveway. White oak, great shape - just needs some lemon pledge and they'll be good as new. He calls me a clown, gets in his car and drives off.
What's wrong with these people?
I return to find 254 facebook marketplace messages for people asking me to sell/ship them guns and ammo to all sorts of places and that facebook has suspended my account for violations of their marketplace terms. The offending item? An old Sig Sauer binder that has a P226 exploded diagram on the front. Because firearm parts are not allowed.
I manage to sell on facebook marketplace an old surefire incandescent rifle light, a blue colt mustang box, a few tin winchester ammo signs, some beer neons that belonged to my dad and some soft pistol rugs that I ordered from RSR on clearance. A productive wednesday. My haul nets me after facebook marketplace fees and shipping about $54 on the shipped items and a few hundred bucks in miscellany. I give my business cards to all the folks looking for gun stuff and they seem surprised that I still have ammo and that they've never heard of me. They do all their ammo and gun shopping online and don't do B&M. That's the way things will be in the future.
I head to the tex mex joint for dinner. I chat it up with a very cute blonde that is the manager. She's just moved into a new place after her man chated on her and she ditched that zero. I offer her my stack of bed bath and beyond coupons.
FC: Starting over is expensive. Maybe this will make it a little bit cheaper.
1: Oh my gosh this will save me a bunch of money! Here, your dinner is on me.
FC: It's been a long time since a woman has bought me dinner. Perhaps I should return that favor. Do you like firefighters?
(she cracks a big smile under the mask)
1: I do, but I'm talking to someone right now.
FC: I can see you ditched the zero, but if it does not work out and you want to get yourself a hero - I'm here pretty often. Just ask and I'll take you to dinner at your favorite place.
I manage to get rejected by a woman at the same time she bought me dinner.
That takes talent. I head home, pop some ibuprofen and head to bed. I check my email in bed. There's a tracking number.
PICKUP OCCOURED AFTER FEDEX CUTOFF FOR TODAY, PACKAGE WILL BE TENDERED THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY
You fucking clowns. You had one job. I call fedex and ask them to hold it at the facility 2 hours away. I'll grab it in the AM. They can't even find it. Fuck it. Leave it. I'll deal with it later.
Thursday, I don't care about you
Thursday, or FC makes a new friend!
I head into work a bit early today, as I'm driving down my street, I round the corner and see an older fellow wheeling his trash to the curb. This guy had a '99 Ford F250 extended cab 4x4 with the venerable 7.3 navistar in MINT condition for sale. 129,000 miles, parked in a garage 10 months out of the year. He wanted $16k for this truck and I figured he got tired of tire kickers and lowballs and kept it. I messaged him 3 days after the post went up and I never followed up, I knew the house since I've literally been driving past it MY ENTIRE LIFE on the way to elementary, middle, high school, college and now work.
My passenger window rolls down as I stop right next to the mailbox.
FC: You still got your F250?
1: No! That thing sold in one hour! To a dealer!
FC: Son of a bitch! I wanted that truck, I didn't even know you were selling!
1: Dealer came over in one hour, took a look at it, put cash on the hood, slapped a dealer tag on it and drove it out of here!
FC: Damn! I wish you put a sign on it and I would have stopped.
1: I told my wife I didn't want to sell it to a dealer but my garage isn't big enough!
FC: No kidding. Say, you still got your T bird?
1: My thunderbird? How'd you know I have a thunderbird?
FC: I grew up here! When I was in grade school I'd ride by and you were wrenching on it, when I was in high school, I'd see you wrenching on it from the bus and when I was in college I'd see you wrenching on it on my way home from class!
1: I spent 20 years building that car 2 weeks at a time! You wanna see it?
FC: Well, when you put it that way....
I pull off into the grass. He's got a detached 3500 square foot garage with Snap On's Mr Big not 1 but 2 ben pearson four post lifts. He shows me his thunderbird he's been working on for two decades. We get to talking. He's a commercial alaskan fisherman and he spends 10 months of the year in alaska and seattle running boats. Super nice guy. He asks me what I do for work, and I tell him. He tells me all his friends are scrambling for ammo and he didn't think it was that bad. I tell him it's been that way for about a year. He needs 00 buckshot, 8 or 9 pellet. I just got a small delivery. I tell him I can get him some. I give him my card and tell him call me this afternoon and I'll throw a few boxes in my briefcase and I'll deliver them on my way home. I'm asked about my watch, he's apparently a GMT man as well. We both like fords and stainless GMT's. Nice. He tells me the story about how he accidentally welded the band to his boat in the bering sea while doing repairs with a stick welder.
FC: What do you catch?
1: Pollock, cod
FC: long line?
1: No, trawler..... You know your commercial fishing.
FC: I know my customers.
Impressed at my substantial seafood knowledge, he tells me he'll call me after he checks his safe. I head into work and get some more stuff done.
I get a call from a referral. This guy was busted for selling pot and spent 8 months in miltary prison at Leavenworth. He's wondering if he can still own or have a gun with a bad conduct discharge. I'm not sure. I call my retinue and we agree that it's worthy of research and we should do a bar journal article about it. I love it when a plan comes together.
Doctor lady and her husband come in and their attorney has told them that without a trust, their silencer order will need to be approved by the CLEO of the region. This is why people hate lawyers. I get all their stuff drawn up as they requested with two trusts and interlocking responsible parties. Double the prints and plenty of passport photos all around.
Dead Air is behind on pistons and mounts, as usual but I'm assured by the big man in charge that they will be at wholesalers shortly. I'm so scrambled that I forget to charge her for two cans. No big deal, I'll email her and deal with it when I get her the mounts.
I have a facebook marketplace post up for an old Glock brand Pistol case and some glock brand ear pro. Here's the message:

Hi Will it's John from facebook marketplace I was looking at the glock bb gun and head phones will you show me a pic of the actually glock and does it have a clip and a slide,,??¿?? My old one did but I left it at my apartment I was sharing with friends but I miss having it lmk asap please and thanks sincerely Jeff K.

FC: Lets start here. 1. I don't sell Glock BB guns. 2. I don't have head phones. Were you only interested in BB guns?

Ya I was on Facebook marketplace looking for BB c02 pistols

sigh
I go truck shopping online. A guy has a 2011 F250 diesel for $24k. Except it's not a 2011. It's a 2001. I don't know what's more absurd, a 2011 at $24k, when average retail is a shade under $20k or a 20 year old truck selling for half of MSRP.
I'm ready to give up on this. Truck prices are stupid. I check my email. Timer in transit, Fedex has it en route.
I head home and pop a flexiril and head to sleep. The flexeril isn't fixing any of my muscles but manages to knock me the fuck out quite nicely. I need to be up early.
Just got paid, Friday night....
Friday, or FC vs The Washing Machine
As a kid, I always played with my dads toolbox. I took apart tons of stuff and had no idea how to put it back together. Some kids when they're in the tender years made birdhouses and small woodworking projects and it was super fun for them to pretend. Me? I took apart a 1 horse GE electric blower motor my dad short circuited on accident and made a pretend General Electric first generation boiling water nuclear reactor. Which was not really easy to do given the fact that the internet didn't exist in the early 90's. You had to have some modicum of imagination, and in that case your design was neither right nor wrong because nobody could easily prove your design accurate or otherwise. I had effectively built Schrodinger's BWR. I used different colored and sized tapcons and red heads for fuel/control rods if anyone was wondering. I think I can handle the washing machine. Just for good measure I put on my Cal Tech shirt.
As I warm up breakfast, I get an email from a guy named Eddie. He wants to see some 40S&W pistols. I tell him I have a busy morning. I can find some time for him around 10AM if he wants to stop by and I'll have what he's looking for ready.
My fedex guy stops at the Boeing facility first thing in the morning to drop off parts at the loading dock, I know his schedule so I pull up to the dock and hang out there waiting for him. Jeff is right on time and I snag my washer timer. No email back from Eddie so time to head back home to put everything back together. I'm in the middle of buttoning it up when I get a call.
Eddie is standing in my parking lot wanting to check out some 40S&W pistols I have in stock. I tell him all my available inventory on the website and that if he wanted me to have everything ready for him at 10AM, he should have given me an affirmative reply or a phone call. Right now, clean underwear is a priority and Eddie seems to understand this and he says he will chat with me later.
I head back to work. The entire parking lot smells like weed. There's a VW microbus parked on the far side of the lot and I'm downwind of it.
This is not a coincidence.
Wholesale rep tries to sell me $700 complete andersons again with a min order of 50. Pass.
I get a bunch of messages from other dealers looking to buy ammo off me and resell it to their customers at "reasonable" prices and I tell them they are fools for selling stuff cheap. They just don't get it and they'll be out of business soon.
I get a call from a guy wanting ammo. He wants all my 22LR. I tell him the price and he says "I can't make a profit selling it at those prices!"
This is the reason regular people can't buy ammo just FYI.
It's Friday again. I've got another gun show to prep for. New product just rolls in on the UPS truck. A few glocks, a few shields, and for some reason the rep sent me 5 sets of rear MBUS sights instead of 5 front and 5 rear. Ugh. I manage to get a small allocation of 9mm in on this truck as well as 11 boxes of 10mm! This year is looking better by the week!
I get several calls for AAC mounts that nobody has in stock and the owners are totally confused. One guy had a can and was selling a rifle and sold the ONLY mount he owned for that can to the guy buying his rifle for $200.
He was under the impression that you could just call AAC and order another mount for $112. I tell him if I can find what he's looking for, I'll need to buy it for $250 from someone and that it will sell for $350-500 by the time I mark it up. He's super confused as to why everyone is running out and buying AAC mounts and why they can't be ordered. I explain AAC/Remington's two bankruptices in 5 years. He is even more confused. I finally blurt it out.
You had ONE mount for your can. You sold it. There are no other mounts. You have paid a tax stamp for and own a can that YOU CAN NO LONGER MOUNT because you sold them. He now realizes the error of his ways. Nothing I can do about that.
Second guy tells me he sees I have AAC mounts. He needs one for his can. I ask him what model he has. He has to crack open the safe.
1: It's an Advanced Armament Corp Norcross Georgia
FC: That's the manufacturer......
1: It's a.........ZERO ENNN DASH ZERO EFFF EFFF
FC: It's a what?
1: It says on the side ZERO ENNN DASH ZERO EFFFF EFFFF
(Editors note: https://www.advanced-armament.com/assets/products/762-SDN-6.png )
FC: That's not the model.
1: It's not? Then what did I read to you?
FC: That's not a zero. That's the letter O.

1. The number O?

FC: O. As in Oh. ENNNN. Dash. Oh. EFFF EFF.
1: I'm confused.
FC: You just read the directions to take the can ON or OFF.
1: Huh that would explain the arrows wouldn't it......
FC: Yeah. What model do you have?
1: It's an MK13-SD!
FC: You need a 90T ratchet mount.
1: Great! You stock em, right?
FC: Nope.
1: But your website has some, those will work right?
FC: Unless you need 51T mounts, I can't help you.
1: Can you suggest someone that can? I need mounts.
FC: AAC is gone, these mounts may never be made again.
1: Shit.
Not to be out done, I get one more phone call.
1: hey this is brent, I need an AAC mount
FC: What model you got?
1: 7.62
FC: Right, thats the caliber.
1: RS7!
FC: SR7?
1: That's the one! I need an SR 7 mount in 5.56, the one I have is in 7.62
FC: Got four here. $400.
1: I just need one.
FC: That is for one.
1: WHAT? FOR ONE? Why's it so expensive?
FC: Remington went under. These may never be made again. I've been buying up everything I've been able to find so I can run the table.
1: That's a good business move.
FC: Not my first rodeo.
1: Well for $400 I'll just take a mount off a rifle I'm not using and I'll set that up. Thanks anyways.
(90 minutes later, my door swings open)
FC: What can I do for you?
1: I'm brent, we talked about that RS7 mount.
FC: SR7.
1: Whatever. I got this here and it does not even fit! It's for the wrong rifle! I need the right mount, this one is in 5.56 I need the one for the 7.62
FC: Lemme see what you got.
(Looks at package. AAC 90T TAPER MOUNT FH SR-5 5.56 1/2x28)
FC: What are you mounting this to?
1: AR15 in 223
FC: This is the correct mount.
1: No it's not! It does not fit!
FC: Does not fit barrel or can?
1: The can! I mounted it to the barrel and the can won't work! Need the one for the RS7!
FC: SR7
1: Whatever! I have a 7.62 can, this mount is for 5.56 and it's the wrong one.
FC: Who sold you this mount?
1: The gun store across the street from my house.
FC: You live an hour away, why didn't you go there?
1: I did, they don't have this mount in 7.62, I went there first.
FC: And they didn't explain this to you?
1: What is there to explain? This mount is marked 5.56. My can isn't 5.56. It's 7.62.
FC: Oh, so you want the one marked 7.62 in 1/2x28.
1: Exactly!
FC: 7.62 mounts aren't made in 1/2x28, all the 90T mounts are 90T exterior and the threading internally is different.
1: You're wrong.
FC: Please, argue with the guy wearing a caltech shirt.....
1: Prove it.
(I open his package and I grab an SR7 out of the safe. I press the latch down and thread it on)
1: You son of a bitch.
FC: You want to argue with me some more?
1: So what mount do I need?
(I pull out one of my mounts and show him side by side they're exactly the same)
1: Hmmmm. Okay. I must have done something wrong.
FC: There's not a lot of ways to do this wrong, but you found one. Go try it again.
(90 minutes later he calls back and tells me I was right)
What the fuck is with all the AAC people this week that are totally clueless?
But hey, at least I have clean underwear.

https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
​
A weird thing happened right after the Nov. 3 election: nothing.
The nation was braced for chaos. Liberal groups had vowed to take to the streets, planning hundreds of protests across the country. Right-wing militias were girding for battle. In a poll before Election Day, 75% of Americans voiced concern about violence.
Instead, an eerie quiet descended. As President Trump refused to concede, the response was not mass action but crickets. When media organizations called the race for Joe Biden on Nov. 7, jubilation broke out instead, as people thronged cities across the U.S. to celebrate the democratic process that resulted in Trump’s ouster.
Reactions Throughout the U.S. After Biden Wins Presidential Race in Unprecedented Election
A second odd thing happened amid Trump’s attempts to reverse the result: corporate America turned on him. Hundreds of major business leaders, many of whom had backed Trump’s candidacy and supported his policies, called on him to concede. To the President, something felt amiss. “It was all very, very strange,” Trump said on Dec. 2. “Within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint the winner, even while many key states were still being counted.”
In a way, Trump was right.
There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.
The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted. For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President. Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines, with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors. The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.
Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction. After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result. “The untold story of the election is the thousands of people of both parties who accomplished the triumph of American democracy at its very foundation,” says Norm Eisen, a prominent lawyer and former Obama Administration official who recruited Republicans and Democrats to the board of the Voter Protection Program.
For Trump and his allies were running their own campaign to spoil the election. The President spent months insisting that mail ballots were a Democratic plot and the election would be “rigged.” His henchmen at the state level sought to block their use, while his lawyers brought dozens of spurious suits to make it more difficult to vote–an intensification of the GOP’s legacy of suppressive tactics. Before the election, Trump plotted to block a legitimate vote count. And he spent the months following Nov. 3 trying to steal the election he’d lost–with lawsuits and conspiracy theories, pressure on state and local officials, and finally summoning his army of supporters to the Jan. 6 rally that ended in deadly violence at the Capitol.
The democracy campaigners watched with alarm. “Every week, we felt like we were in a struggle to try to pull off this election without the country going through a real dangerous moment of unraveling,” says former GOP Representative Zach Wamp, a Trump supporter who helped coordinate a bipartisan election-protection council. “We can look back and say this thing went pretty well, but it was not at all clear in September and October that that was going to be the case.”
📷 Biden fans in Philadelphia after the race was called on Nov. 7 Michelle Gustafson for TIME
This is the inside story of the conspiracy to save the 2020 election, based on access to the group’s inner workings, never-before-seen documents and interviews with dozens of those involved from across the political spectrum. It is the story of an unprecedented, creative and determined campaign whose success also reveals how close the nation came to disaster. “Every attempt to interfere with the proper outcome of the election was defeated,” says Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan rule-of-law advocacy group. “But it’s massively important for the country to understand that it didn’t happen accidentally. The system didn’t work magically. Democracy is not self-executing.”
That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it. And they believe the public needs to understand the system’s fragility in order to ensure that democracy in America endures.

THE ARCHITECT

Sometime in the fall of 2019, Mike Podhorzer became convinced the election was headed for disaster–and determined to protect it.
This was not his usual purview. For nearly a quarter-century, Podhorzer, senior adviser to the president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest union federation, has marshaled the latest tactics and data to help its favored candidates win elections. Unassuming and professorial, he isn’t the sort of hair-gelled “political strategist” who shows up on cable news. Among Democratic insiders, he’s known as the wizard behind some of the biggest advances in political technology in recent decades. A group of liberal strategists he brought together in the early 2000s led to the creation of the Analyst Institute, a secretive firm that applies scientific methods to political campaigns. He was also involved in the founding of Catalist, the flagship progressive data company.
The endless chatter in Washington about “political strategy,” Podhorzer believes, has little to do with how change really gets made. “My basic take on politics is that it’s all pretty obvious if you don’t overthink it or swallow the prevailing frameworks whole,” he once wrote. “After that, just relentlessly identify your assumptions and challenge them.” Podhorzer applies that approach to everything: when he coached his now adult son’s Little League team in the D.C. suburbs, he trained the boys not to swing at most pitches–a tactic that infuriated both their and their opponents’ parents, but won the team a series of championships.
Trump’s election in 2016–credited in part to his unusual strength among the sort of blue collar white voters who once dominated the AFL-CIO–prompted Podhorzer to question his assumptions about voter behavior. He began circulating weekly number-crunching memos to a small circle of allies and hosting strategy sessions in D.C. But when he began to worry about the election itself, he didn’t want to seem paranoid. It was only after months of research that he introduced his concerns in his newsletter in October 2019. The usual tools of data, analytics and polling would not be sufficient in a situation where the President himself was trying to disrupt the election, he wrote. “Most of our planning takes us through Election Day,” he noted. “But, we are not prepared for the two most likely outcomes”–Trump losing and refusing to concede, and Trump winning the Electoral College (despite losing the popular vote) by corrupting the voting process in key states. “We desperately need to systematically ‘red-team’ this election so that we can anticipate and plan for the worst we know will be coming our way.”
It turned out Podhorzer wasn’t the only one thinking in these terms. He began to hear from others eager to join forces. The Fight Back Table, a coalition of “resistance” organizations, had begun scenario-planning around the potential for a contested election, gathering liberal activists at the local and national level into what they called the Democracy Defense Coalition. Voting-rights and civil rights organizations were raising alarms. A group of former elected officials was researching emergency powers they feared Trump might exploit. Protect Democracy was assembling a bipartisan election-crisis task force. “It turned out that once you said it out loud, people agreed,” Podhorzer says, “and it started building momentum.”
He spent months pondering scenarios and talking to experts. It wasn’t hard to find liberals who saw Trump as a dangerous dictator, but Podhorzer was careful to steer clear of hysteria. What he wanted to know was not how American democracy was dying but how it might be kept alive. The chief difference between the U.S. and countries that lost their grip on democracy, he concluded, was that America’s decentralized election system couldn’t be rigged in one fell swoop. That presented an opportunity to shore it up.

THE ALLIANCE

On March 3, Podhorzer drafted a three-page confidential memo titled “Threats to the 2020 Election.” “Trump has made it clear that this will not be a fair election, and that he will reject anything but his own re-election as ‘fake’ and rigged,” he wrote. “On Nov. 3, should the media report otherwise, he will use the right-wing information system to establish his narrative and incite his supporters to protest.” The memo laid out four categories of challenges: attacks on voters, attacks on election administration, attacks on Trump’s political opponents and “efforts to reverse the results of the election.”
Then COVID-19 erupted at the height of the primary-election season. Normal methods of voting were no longer safe for voters or the mostly elderly volunteers who normally staff polling places. But political disagreements, intensified by Trump’s crusade against mail voting, prevented some states from making it easier to vote absentee and for jurisdictions to count those votes in a timely manner. Chaos ensued. Ohio shut down in-person voting for its primary, leading to minuscule turnout. A poll-worker shortage in Milwaukee–where Wisconsin’s heavily Democratic Black population is concentrated–left just five open polling places, down from 182. In New York, vote counting took more than a month.
Suddenly, the potential for a November meltdown was obvious. In his apartment in the D.C. suburbs, Podhorzer began working from his laptop at his kitchen table, holding back-to-back Zoom meetings for hours a day with his network of contacts across the progressive universe: the labor movement; the institutional left, like Planned Parenthood and Greenpeace; resistance groups like Indivisible and MoveOn; progressive data geeks and strategists, representatives of donors and foundations, state-level grassroots organizers, racial-justice activists and others.
In April, Podhorzer began hosting a weekly 2½-hour Zoom. It was structured around a series of rapid-fire five-minute presentations on everything from which ads were working to messaging to legal strategy. The invitation-only gatherings soon attracted hundreds, creating a rare shared base of knowledge for the fractious progressive movement. “At the risk of talking trash about the left, there’s not a lot of good information sharing,” says Anat Shenker-Osorio, a close Podhorzer friend whose poll-tested messaging guidance shaped the group’s approach. “There’s a lot of not-invented-here syndrome, where people won’t consider a good idea if they didn’t come up with it.”
The meetings became the galactic center for a constellation of operatives across the left who shared overlapping goals but didn’t usually work in concert. The group had no name, no leaders and no hierarchy, but it kept the disparate actors in sync. “Pod played a critical behind-the-scenes role in keeping different pieces of the movement infrastructure in communication and aligned,” says Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party. “You have the litigation space, the organizing space, the political people just focused on the W, and their strategies aren’t always aligned. He allowed this ecosystem to work together.”
Protecting the election would require an effort of unprecedented scale. As 2020 progressed, it stretched to Congress, Silicon Valley and the nation’s statehouses. It drew energy from the summer’s racial-justice protests, many of whose leaders were a key part of the liberal alliance. And eventually it reached across the aisle, into the world of Trump-skeptical Republicans appalled by his attacks on democracy.

SECURING THE VOTE

The first task was overhauling America’s balky election infrastructure–in the middle of a pandemic. For the thousands of local, mostly nonpartisan officials who administer elections, the most urgent need was money. They needed protective equipment like masks, gloves and hand sanitizer. They needed to pay for postcards letting people know they could vote absentee–or, in some states, to mail ballots to every voter. They needed additional staff and scanners to process ballots.
In March, activists appealed to Congress to steer COVID relief money to election administration. Led by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, more than 150 organizations signed a letter to every member of Congress seeking $2 billion in election funding. It was somewhat successful: the CARES Act, passed later that month, contained $400 million in grants to state election administrators. But the next tranche of relief funding didn’t add to that number. It wasn’t going to be enough.
Private philanthropy stepped into the breach. An assortment of foundations contributed tens of millions in election-administration funding. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative chipped in $300 million. “It was a failure at the federal level that 2,500 local election officials were forced to apply for philanthropic grants to fill their needs,” says Amber McReynolds, a former Denver election official who heads the nonpartisan National Vote at Home Institute.
McReynolds’ two-year-old organization became a clearinghouse for a nation struggling to adapt. The institute gave secretaries of state from both parties technical advice on everything from which vendors to use to how to locate drop boxes. Local officials are the most trusted sources of election information, but few can afford a press secretary, so the institute distributed communications tool kits. In a presentation to Podhorzer’s group, McReynolds detailed the importance of absentee ballots for shortening lines at polling places and preventing an election crisis.
The institute’s work helped 37 states and D.C. bolster mail voting. But it wouldn’t be worth much if people didn’t take advantage. Part of the challenge was logistical: each state has different rules for when and how ballots should be requested and returned. The Voter Participation Center, which in a normal year would have deployed canvassers door-to-door to get out the vote, instead conducted focus groups in April and May to find out what would get people to vote by mail. In August and September, it sent ballot applications to 15 million people in key states, 4.6 million of whom returned them. In mailings and digital ads, the group urged people not to wait for Election Day. “All the work we have done for 17 years was built for this moment of bringing democracy to people’s doorsteps,” says Tom Lopach, the center’s CEO.
The effort had to overcome heightened skepticism in some communities. Many Black voters preferred to exercise their franchise in person or didn’t trust the mail. National civil rights groups worked with local organizations to get the word out that this was the best way to ensure one’s vote was counted. In Philadelphia, for example, advocates distributed “voting safety kits” containing masks, hand sanitizer and informational brochures. “We had to get the message out that this is safe, reliable, and you can trust it,” says Hannah Fried of All Voting Is Local.
At the same time, Democratic lawyers battled a historic tide of pre-election litigation. The pandemic intensified the parties’ usual tangling in the courts. But the lawyers noticed something else as well. “The litigation brought by the Trump campaign, of a piece with the broader campaign to sow doubt about mail voting, was making novel claims and using theories no court has ever accepted,” says Wendy Weiser, a voting-rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU. “They read more like lawsuits designed to send a message rather than achieve a legal outcome.”
In the end, nearly half the electorate cast ballots by mail in 2020, practically a revolution in how people vote. About a quarter voted early in person. Only a quarter of voters cast their ballots the traditional way: in person on Election Day.

THE DISINFORMATION DEFENSE

Bad actors spreading false information is nothing new. For decades, campaigns have grappled with everything from anonymous calls claiming the election has been rescheduled to fliers spreading nasty smears about candidates’ families. But Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories, the viral force of social media and the involvement of foreign meddlers made disinformation a broader, deeper threat to the 2020 vote.
Laura Quinn, a veteran progressive operative who co-founded Catalist, began studying this problem a few years ago. She piloted a nameless, secret project, which she has never before publicly discussed, that tracked disinformation online and tried to figure out how to combat it. One component was tracking dangerous lies that might otherwise spread unnoticed. Researchers then provided information to campaigners or the media to track down the sources and expose them.
The most important takeaway from Quinn’s research, however, was that engaging with toxic content only made it worse. “When you get attacked, the instinct is to push back, call it out, say, ‘This isn’t true,'” Quinn says. “But the more engagement something gets, the more the platforms boost it. The algorithm reads that as, ‘Oh, this is popular; people want more of it.'”
The solution, she concluded, was to pressure platforms to enforce their rules, both by removing content or accounts that spread disinformation and by more aggressively policing it in the first place. “The platforms have policies against certain types of malign behavior, but they haven’t been enforcing them,” she says.
Quinn’s research gave ammunition to advocates pushing social media platforms to take a harder line. In November 2019, Mark Zuckerberg invited nine civil rights leaders to dinner at his home, where they warned him about the danger of the election-related falsehoods that were already spreading unchecked. “It took pushing, urging, conversations, brainstorming, all of that to get to a place where we ended up with more rigorous rules and enforcement,” says Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, who attended the dinner and also met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and others. (Gupta has been nominated for Associate Attorney General by President Biden.) “It was a struggle, but we got to the point where they understood the problem. Was it enough? Probably not. Was it later than we wanted? Yes. But it was really important, given the level of official disinformation, that they had those rules in place and were tagging things and taking them down.”

SPREADING THE WORD

Beyond battling bad information, there was a need to explain a rapidly changing election process. It was crucial for voters to understand that despite what Trump was saying, mail-in votes weren’t susceptible to fraud and that it would be normal if some states weren’t finished counting votes on election night.
Dick Gephardt, the Democratic former House leader turned high-powered lobbyist, spearheaded one coalition. “We wanted to get a really bipartisan group of former elected officials, Cabinet secretaries, military leaders and so on, aimed mainly at messaging to the public but also speaking to local officials–the secretaries of state, attorneys general, governors who would be in the eye of the storm–to let them know we wanted to help,” says Gephardt, who worked his contacts in the private sector to put $20 million behind the effort.
Wamp, the former GOP Congressman, worked through the nonpartisan reform group Issue One to rally Republicans. “We thought we should bring some bipartisan element of unity around what constitutes a free and fair election,” Wamp says. The 22 Democrats and 22 Republicans on the National Council on Election Integrity met on Zoom at least once a week. They ran ads in six states, made statements, wrote articles and alerted local officials to potential problems. “We had rabid Trump supporters who agreed to serve on the council based on the idea that this is honest,” Wamp says. This is going to be just as important, he told them, to convince the liberals when Trump wins. “Whichever way it cuts, we’re going to stick together.”
The Voting Rights Lab and IntoAction created state-specific memes and graphics, spread by email, text, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, urging that every vote be counted. Together, they were viewed more than 1 billion times. Protect Democracy’s election task force issued reports and held media briefings with high-profile experts across the political spectrum, resulting in widespread coverage of potential election issues and fact-checking of Trump’s false claims. The organization’s tracking polls found the message was being heard: the percentage of the public that didn’t expect to know the winner on election night gradually rose until by late October, it was over 70%. A majority also believed that a prolonged count wasn’t a sign of problems. “We knew exactly what Trump was going to do: he was going to try to use the fact that Democrats voted by mail and Republicans voted in person to make it look like he was ahead, claim victory, say the mail-in votes were fraudulent and try to get them thrown out,” says Protect Democracy’s Bassin. Setting public expectations ahead of time helped undercut those lies.
📷 Amber McReynolds, Zach Wamp and Maurice Mitchell Rachel Woolf for TIME; Erik Schelzig—AP/Shutterstock; Holly Pickett—The New York Times/Redux
The alliance took a common set of themes from the research Shenker-Osorio presented at Podhorzer’s Zooms. Studies have shown that when people don’t think their vote will count or fear casting it will be a hassle, they’re far less likely to participate. Throughout election season, members of Podhorzer’s group minimized incidents of voter intimidation and tamped down rising liberal hysteria about Trump’s expected refusal to concede. They didn’t want to amplify false claims by engaging them, or put people off voting by suggesting a rigged game. “When you say, ‘These claims of fraud are spurious,’ what people hear is ‘fraud,'” Shenker-Osorio says. “What we saw in our pre-election research was that anything that reaffirmed Trump’s power or cast him as an authoritarian diminished people’s desire to vote.”
Podhorzer, meanwhile, was warning everyone he knew that polls were underestimating Trump’s support. The data he shared with media organizations who would be calling the election was “tremendously useful” to understand what was happening as the votes rolled in, according to a member of a major network’s political unit who spoke with Podhorzer before Election Day. Most analysts had recognized there would be a “blue shift” in key battlegrounds– the surge of votes breaking toward Democrats, driven by tallies of mail-in ballots– but they hadn’t comprehended how much better Trump was likely to do on Election Day. “Being able to document how big the absentee wave would be and the variance by state was essential,” the analyst says.

PEOPLE POWER

The racial-justice uprising sparked by George Floyd’s killing in May was not primarily a political movement. The organizers who helped lead it wanted to harness its momentum for the election without allowing it to be co-opted by politicians. Many of those organizers were part of Podhorzer’s network, from the activists in battleground states who partnered with the Democracy Defense Coalition to organizations with leading roles in the Movement for Black Lives.
The best way to ensure people’s voices were heard, they decided, was to protect their ability to vote. “We started thinking about a program that would complement the traditional election-protection area but also didn’t rely on calling the police,” says Nelini Stamp, the Working Families Party’s national organizing director. They created a force of “election defenders” who, unlike traditional poll watchers, were trained in de-escalation techniques. During early voting and on Election Day, they surrounded lines of voters in urban areas with a “joy to the polls” effort that turned the act of casting a ballot into a street party. Black organizers also recruited thousands of poll workers to ensure polling places would stay open in their communities.
The summer uprising had shown that people power could have a massive impact. Activists began preparing to reprise the demonstrations if Trump tried to steal the election. “Americans plan widespread protests if Trump interferes with election,” Reuters reported in October, one of many such stories. More than 150 liberal groups, from the Women’s March to the Sierra Club to Color of Change, from Democrats.com to the Democratic Socialists of America, joined the “Protect the Results” coalition. The group’s now defunct website had a map listing 400 planned postelection demonstrations, to be activated via text message as soon as Nov. 4. To stop the coup they feared, the left was ready to flood the streets.

While many people are probably surprised over the fame and subsequent fall of semi attractive skinny white boys on TikTok this past summer, I unfortunately was not. In fact, I had just spent the first few months of a global pandemic watching a normally peaceful fanbase for a reality tv show become divided over one. This is the story of how a young upstart drag queen named GiGi Goode nearly turned a fan community upside down, and basically caused it to split amongst 2 apps. Since season 13 is on its way, and GiGi’s drag sisteHaus mate Symone is a contestant, I thought y’all would enjoy the sordid tale of miss Goode.
It was hard to find direct sources, as a lot of Reddit threads on the drama sub were locked, and I couldn’t link to them, but I did the best I could.
Setting the Scene In January 2020, RuPaul’s Drag Race announced its 12th season would be premiering February 28th, 2020. This season promised 13 new drag queens, who would compete in sewing, acting, overall performance, and a very infamous celebrity impersonation version of Match Game called Snatch Game.
For this story, we need to focus on 3 queens up and coming to the race.
First, there was plus sized queen Sherry Pie who many considered to be a wholesome theater kid, as well as super annoying.
Second, there was the essence of beauty, Jaida Essence Hall. At the time, she seemed to the fans to be just another pageant queen, nothing spectacular.
Finally, there was the reason this post is being written up on Hobbydrama, the beautiful miss GiGi Goode . She was 21, the minimum age to compete, but certainly seemed to be powerful and beautiful. Young queens don’t, on average, have a harder time winning, as someone unacquainted with the franchise might suspect.
No one could’ve suspected she’d garner the cult following she did, or that they’d be so... young .
Burnt Pie, And The Fastest Rise To Reddit’s Fan Favorite The series took the split premiere route, half of the queens being introduved on the premiere, and the other half being introduced a week later. Of the 3 queens worth mentioning, GiGi Goode competed in the first half, and Sherry Pie and Jaida were introduced in the second.
In the first premiere, fellow fashion queen, the French Nicky Doll overshadowed GiGi. GiGi’s only real star moment in the spotlight came during the challenge, a rap battle, in which she proclaimed that she was “Ggggggggggggigi goode”.
Meanwhile, in between the promos, shocking allegations came to light about Sherry Pie, which have already been discussed on this subreddit. In summary, Multiple, and I mean MULTIPLE men began reporting that Sherry had hooked them with a casting director named “Alison Mossey” who worked for HBO/Broadway, and was casting a project called Bulk. The men would be asked to read weird monologues for the camera, and one man was even asked to start taking steroids! Eventually, they had all learned that Alison Mossey didn’t exist, and that when they brought that up to Sherry, she ghosted them.
The fandom was outraged. In 12 years, this was the WORST thing a contestant had ever done before/during their season airing. Buzzfeed even picked up the story, practically calling for the season to be cancelled.
Production acted quickly, deciding to disqualify Sherry, and to edit her out of all future episodes. Unfortunately for them, it was too late to edit her out of that night’s episode, and it was clear she was supposed to be a well liked queen. The spoiler sub even revealed that she would’ve been a finalist, and potentially even had a rivalry story arc with GiGi Goode!
But fortunately for Jaida Essence Hall, in the dual premieres’ special version of the traditional lip sync battle elimination method where the top two queens instead performed for the win that night, she and Sherry Pie were set to face off. The Reddit live postings nervously held their breathes. Would Scammy Pie, as she was newly crowned, win the faceoff, or would it go to Jaida, who was automatically being adored just for opposing her.
Jaida beat her, and the fans rejoiced. They gave her nicknames such as Jaida Essence Christ, Savior of Season 12. She seemed to be unanimously loved...
And Then The Plague Hit When Coronavirus quarantine hit, fans were uniquely devastated. These new girls wouldn’t get to take advantage of the slew of gigs usually provided to new Ru girls! But one queen certainly did. And perhaps the pandemic emphasized what would’ve happened anyways, or perhaps it just created the perfect storm after Sherry’s disqualification.
See, if the Spoiler Subreddit’s rumors are to be believed, GiGi Goode and Sherry Pie were to be rivals originally, before the disqualification and re editing, and their feud was supposed to play a major part in the season.
For those who don’t watch the show, Rivalries can be VERY beneficial for those involved in them, practically guaranteeing you the crown, especially if the fandom despises your rival.
Season 4 winner Sharon Needles was infamously quarreling with fellow finalist Phi Phi O’Hara. Season 5 winner Jinkx dealt with a whole triad of mean girls who ended up in the top 4 with her, and their competition allegedly helped her take the last spot in the finale from one of the trio, Detox. Many fans speculated after season 11 that part of why its winner, Yvie Oddly, got so much more screen time in later episodes and later won the show despite having an ok run stats wise (I believe she has the worst track record of any winner, ever, despite the fact that she’s a gifted artist) was because fans loved her more than her frenemy, Silky. And the fans clearly adored Jaida after she beat Sherry, even if the pair weren’t proper rivals.
But with Sherry Pie needing to be edited out, the editors had to do something. And if the rumors are true, that would explain why they instead focused SO MUCH, and I mean, SO MUCH AIR TIMEon her alleged rival, GiGi Goode.
The Perfect Storm Before we continue, I need to say that GiGi Goode is a fabulous drag queen. She may be lacking in an interesting personality, but she can dance, sew, and capitalize on her lack of personality by impersonating a robot, as she did in Snatch Game to mercifully take the win from Sherry Pie’s offensive imitation of Katherine Hepburn’s Parkinson’s. She deserved almost all of her 4 wins (the Madonna Rusical win is unanimously believed to have belonged to fellow competitor Jan Sport), and I hold no animosity to her any longer, nor does most of the fan community. I also do not think her fans deserve to be bullied, considering most of them are literal middle schoolers who just don’t understand that reality tv shows are edited or that you can’t say dumb shit on the internet while you’re on a tv show without consequences.
Of course, she seemed like the front runner. But that wasn’t what really made her popular amongst the fandom’s younger members, who might not have been able to grasp how edited reality tv shows are.
At this point, you’re probably wondering why I used the word boy in the title, since with drag queens, it’s polite to use she/her and girl or woman when referring to them in drag. But there’s a great reason for that.
See, with everyone on lockdown due to COVID, many young girls and gays, but especially middle school aged girls, were boy crazy. And it didn’t take long for the young teens of the fandom to realize that out of drag, GiGi was hot as hell . That, combined with her success in the competition, particularly during the middle of the season, which would’ve aired in April, when stay at home orders were strictest, seemingly made newer younger fans go crazy, especially on IG. For many who were newer fans of the show, either starting with this season or the disaster that was season 11, GiGi had attained godlike status.
Her young age also helped. She was 21, the youngest competitor on her season. She made funny faces in interviews, and referenced material popular with teenagers, such as her runway referencing the musical Heathers . She even “dated” costar Crystal Methyd, forming Crygi , a relationship that is still debated today as to whether it ever was real, is still real, or was made up for fun and extra attention by two best friends who’s big break was ruined by unforeseen circumstances.
Meanwhile, older fans, particularly here on Reddit, especially in the satellite subs, kept chugging along and rooting for Jaida.
After all, Jaida was a bad ass, as fans quickly learned. She was sharp, and possessed a wittiness not seen in the stereotypical pageant girl. Unlike GiGi, behind her pretty face was personality and sass. She even won the makeover challenge despite being paired with someone of another race, which can normally lead to disaster. But while Jaida was perfect and sweet, not causing drama with anyone, her fans were not often the same. In fact, they had an unusual disdain for GiGi.
Was it because she had attracted younger, annoying fans to the fanbase? Was it because GiGi’s mom is supportive, and GiGi was very proud of that, leading to fans in the cringe sub snickering and calling her “mama’s boy”.
Obviously, looking back on it, those are silly reasons to not like someone, but once again, it was quarantine. People needed somewhere for their emotions to go.
As the season continued, it became obvious the crown was really between Jaida and GiGi. Inevitably, this led to fan base tension. GiGi fans, regardless of age, were called immature, and chased off of the Drag Race satellite subreddits, preventing newer fans from joining the wider community. The main Reddit tried to stay neutral, but 85% of anything posted by a GiGi fan on any platform would end up on the cringe subreddit. The Drama subreddit would chronicle every time GiGi even breathed wrong, looking for more excuses to villanize her than they’d ever done with a queen before.
What makes this MORE infuriating looking back on it was that queens were getting death threats and being called racist slurs, badly this season. Brita had to leave social media, and widow nearly quit drag, but instead of calling out racist and rude fans, the critical Drag Race fans elected to pick on GiGi’s child fandom.
Meanwhile, Drag Race fan pages on Instagram, where fans tend to be on the younger side, had already practically declared GiGi the winner themselves, and had no patience for those who reminded them Jaida was just as talented, although they were by far not as vicious to Jaida fans as Reddit fans were to them. The community had gone from being unified in opinion on all platforms to essentially breaking up, with Jaida fans ruling Reddit and GiGi fans ruling Instagram.
As the finale approached, fans were split. Who deserved the crown more, Jaida, who had done the drag race equivalent of Beowulf slaying Grendel in her first episode, or GiGi, with her 4 wins, beauty in and out of drag, and iconic looks?
Not So Goode After All
The first signs that GiGi would be sort of problematic arose when she proclaimed on an Instagram story in late April or early May that “being queer is a privilege”. While her young, mainly straight or bisexual and female devotees saw it as inspirational, older fans found it offensive and mocked her for it, sharing their own experiences with homophobia and pointing out that no, being queer is not a privilege. The fact that she had, from day one, practically bragged about her amazing relationship with her mother, who makes many of her outfits and does a fantastic job, had already made fans with rougher coming out experiences see her as privileged and clueless about the real world. Her tone deaf remark sealed any doubts in her dissenters minds that she was more than a spoiled brat. GiGi quickly apologized for her remark, claiming it was “Just a saying we say in my drag Haus, you guys”.
She also caught flack for saying while prepping for a political debate challenge that she “didn’t read the news and wasn’t interested in politics”. Her young fans defended her as “having anxiety”, but older fans already pissed at her pointed out that the winners of the show are often considered by mainstream media to be sort of “ambassadors” for the drag community, and that their behavior (or lack thereof) could make drag performers look bad, or add to a trend of turning a blind eye to political issues within drag fans and performers. Some even went as far as to say that she definitely didn’t deserve the crown after her remarks.
Going into the finale, it really looked like she would win. She was even able to land a collab with popular but controversial YouTuber, Jeffree Star, to go up the day after the finale aired, raising Redditors eyebrows that perhaps she really knew that she would win (often the winner just gets a feeling that it’ll be her, as do her competitors), and her and her Haus were able to talk their way into booking her a major collab for the very next day. It didn’t help that Jeffree is inherently a controversial figure, even when the pendulum of public opinion towards him is swinging in his favor, as it was at the time, or that she’d gotten to filming as soon as social distancing orders allowed it.
Then, GiGi fucked up.
”I Can’t Breathe”
See, the finale aired May 31st, 2020, right after George Floyd was murdered.
GiGi Goode, apolitical queen, was beyond excited for her big week. It’s been lost to time what the original context was. Was it her upcoming collab with Jeffree, one of the biggest names in the makeup and YouTube industry? Was it the upcoming finale? Either way, GiGi decided the only way to express her excitement for the week were in 3 simple words, 3 simple words also trending on Twitter.
“I can’t breathe.”
Fans were HORRIFIED. Was GiGi Goode making a joke about George Floyd? Many of her older fans quietly changed their Reddit flairs to one of the two other finalists. Some fans pointed out that I can’t breathe was a trending hashtag on Twitter when she tweeted, and, given her previous track record of cluelessness, she had likely just used the phrase in hopes of getting more engagement on her post.
6 months later and of living with the insanity that is GiGi Goode and her young teenaged fans, I can totally see that the latter is probably true. GiGi is an airhead who can barely answer questions when asked on Twitch livestreams. She was busy that week, obviously, and might not have been on social media enough to have heard about what happened yet. She likely assumed the phrase was a new meme or something, and used it without looking into it. What she did was wrong, but it wasn’t the worst thing a queen has ever done or said on Twitter, or even the most racially insensitive (the natural born red head erasure meltdown of summer 2019 takes the cake for that, but that’s another story).
But at the time, with the tension between mainly newer fans who didn’t realize the show was editing GiGi positively and that she wasn’t actually the world’s most amazing drag queen as well as some older fans who just liked GiGi, and Jaida’s fierce supporters nearly reaching a boiling point, GiGi had made a critical error. One that would need a major apology.
Quickly, GiGi put out a statement. In her statement she legit referenced the Wizard of Oz, which later turned out to be related to her finale lipsync look Fans were PISSED, and rightfully so.
Another issue was quickly leaked. Due to it being early in the pandemic, before how to shoot a tv show safely by quarantining performers and minimizing those on set was widely known as an option, the finale was filmed remotely. The queens were ordered to film at home, to keep things fair. After all, while GiGi lived in LA, competitors Crystal and Jaida lived in middle of nowhere Missouri and Milwaukee, respectively. GiGi and even Jaida were clearly at an advantage.
As usual, GiGi decided rules didn’t apply to her. The head of her drag Haus, Marko Monroe, has done work with Lizzo, and although no one knows if Lizzo’s the one who actually gave them the keys, his connections to the music industry meant she was able to get LA studio space.
When production found out, they were understandably PISSED. Whether it was because they were truly concerned about fairness, or worried that GiGi’s decision would be seen as an unfair advantage by fans unhappy with her win, they made her reshoot at home. The fans were even more pissed that she had essentially tried to cheat, especially after her “I can’t breathe” incident earlier in the week.
When the big night came, GiGi did... ok. She certainly wasn’t remarkable or groundbreaking, but she was decent. It was clear from IG she expected to win. Her Haus definitely violated California rules about gatherings, complete with a cake with GiGi’s face on it. She was ready for her big night.
However, When it was time for the winner to be crowned, Jaida, who had filmed her lipsync in her living room with no backdrop whatsoever, took the crown. Fans rejoiced. Peace was restored to the world of the Drag Race fandom. GiGi Goode tucked her tail between her legs and barely even promoted her collab with Jeffree.
Although we’ll never know for sure if GiGi’s faux pas cost her the crown, we do know that the fanbase holds some sway in who ultimately wins. After all, despite having only 1 win, the worst track record of a winner in Drag Race history, Yvie Oddly took the crown from competitor Brooke the year before, and while her epic finale reveal of a metallic version of her face on the back of her headpiece definitely was the primary reason, her popularity with fans while the season was airing, especially after fighting with Silky, certainly helped.
We also know the winner isn’t decided at the finale taping, or whatever you could call this year’s finale, and all queens who make it to the final lipsync are filmed winning, even if there are rumors that production knows who they’ll have win by that point from people who’ve attended live (one rumor states that Yvie, for example, originally made a joke about eating babies when her crowning was filmed, but production allegedly on the spot made her refilm it, telling her to cut that out). So it is entirely possible that, had GiGi not fucked up on Twitter, she could’ve won.
With the negative feelings towards her still fresh, instead of being known as a “robbed queen”, as many runner ups popular during their seasons are, GiGi became just another pretty faced fashion queen amongst the fan community. The hype around her had died. No one over the age of 14 was demanding she return for an All Stars, as they had with other finalists who had better track records than their season’s winner. In fact, the general consensus by both Reddit and Instagram fans became that she’d been pushed down their throats, and that Jaida had always been prettiefunniewearing better outfits anyways. The fandom returned to a harmonious place.
Where Are They Now?
With All Stars 5, the next season, mainly featuring queens from older seasons, and after the belittling and icing out for acting like, you know, CHILDREN, the younger fans who gave GiGi her cult following were not as interested in the show. They turned to worshipping her and her drag Haus, Avalon.
The Haus of Avalon started throwing Zoom “Haus parties” for 5 bucks a ticket, mainly attended by teenagers, in which their members performed. GiGi has, at both parties, performed scantily clad numbers for her middle school adorers, including one number that was basically her stripping in a car.
They also opened a Twitch channel and shoved GiGi in front of the camera, in or out of drag, as much as possible, allowing her teen fans to ask her exciting questions such as “Do you have Tiktok?” (No, she thinks she’s too good for it), and, “What’s your favorite American Horror Story season” (Coven or Asylum, depending on her mood that stream).
However, it’s benefited all of GiGi’s friends, as her pal who actually has a personality that isn’t “smol awkward 2014 Tumblr bean” Symone already has a strong fanbase going into season 13 .
GiGi Goode got to do a drive in tour with Voss, the premier drag race alum touring company, before they realized that teenagers so young they needed parents to drive them to the show mostly didn’t know how to behave at a drag show, much less one during a global pandemic. Needless to say, she was not invited on the Halloween tour, and the queens were no longer allowed to run around the VIP section for that tour. She’s doing quite well though, advertising for makeup brands and even walking in Rihanna’s SavagexFenty fashion show alongside All Stars 5 winner Shea Coulee. Arguably, she’s the most famous girl from her season outside of the drag community. Although All Stars 6 has already filmed and she’s definitely not on it, the fandom 6 months post her fiasco has stopped actively hating her, even the avid Jaida supporters, and seems to support the idea of her potentially being cast on All Stars someday, once she’s matured a bit more.
Jaida Essence Hall became known as one of the most deserving winners amongst the fanbase, and, it seemed, the drag community as a whole. Unlike past winners, she had no minor “bratty” incidents during her first few months reigning (and not because no clubs were open, as the two most recent former winners had their incidents occur on social media). The drag world loved her, and she was booked for so many virtual shows. She also got to walk in Rihanna’s show, in her own section and not with the other two drag queens. She might not have become a minor Instagram celebrity with constant interviews the way GiGi had, but within the fandom, she was universally loved.
And Sherry Pie has disappeared, as she should have.
TL;DR After a queen was exposed as being a sexual predator, RuPaul’s Drag Race decided to quickly edit her out, focusing more on the queen who allegedly was supposed to be her rival, GiGi. Unfortunately, many fans had already gotten attached to another queen, Jaida, who beat the predator in a lipsync on the one episode show runners couldn’t edit in time. Mainly young fans who didn’t know the full extent of what happened or weren’t old enough to comprehend that reality tv is edited to tell a story and focus on certain people adored GiGi, especially because she’s young and handsome out of drag, and they were in quarantine at the time. GiGi’s dipshit remarks, apparent flaunting of her positive parental relationship, and seemingly being pushed by producers soured older fans to her, and they mocked the shit out of newer fans, MAINLY YOUNGER TEENAGERS, who adored her. Eventually, GiGi tweeted something insensitive and gave a bullshit apology, pissing everyone off, Jaida won the crown, and the fandom eventually calmed down and stopped actively bullying children who hadn’t even entered high school yet.
EDIT: Wow, THANK YOU GUYS for 140 upvotes!
I know this isn’t the juiciest drama, but surprisingly, my former Catholic school kid complex needed to just write this all out in a bubble bath one night to feel less guilty about being part of it, and to the people who encouraged me to publish this, thanks!
Also, although the Drag Race fanbase has other, MUCH more serious problems, I also wanted to call us out preemptively before season 13 to make sure what happened during season 12 doesn’t happen again, because we are so much better than that. Especially to my fellow female fans: We are not the people who made fun of us back in middle school for being Tumblr kids or the adults who mocked us online, and we should not be becoming those people, in any internet space, not just the bowels of Drag Race Reddit.
To the literal children I was a part of bullying: I’m sorry. We went way too far in bullying you all off Reddit just because y’all were middle schoolers with a celebrity crush and a poor understanding of how reality tv works. Especially because most of these kids were girls (strangely young gay male fans weren’t really on the GiGi hype train), and I know damn well I probably would’ve been among them if I was 12-14 right now.
Edit 2: Considering I just landed on the Cringe subreddit, I will no longer be actively checking this post. Not that any of them would read far enough and realize I was basically calling them out for picking on kids and not “disrespecting Jaida in the name of worshipping GiGi”, and get really mad, lmao. I just don’t have time for messy people who are grown enough to know better.
Edit 3: and here they come, this post will be downvoted to 1.1K by the end of the day, guaranteed. Thanks for the love, y’all. Also, y’all coming here to read this from the Cringe subreddit know DAMN WELL I’m not defending that airhead GiGi Goode, but that I’m defending the literal children y’all found on the internet to harass. I even held the bitch accountable for her wrong doings.
I just hope when the kids come back for Symone this season, as they all went to being just Haus of Avalon fans after you kept picking on them after the season ended and everyone else moved on, you can treat the 13 year olds making shitty memes and using tumblr language so bad it gives anyone who grew up in that area nausea to read a bit more decency, and focus on mocking the racists, because lord knows for every one post calling out those bullying Brita and Widow, there were 5-10 more making fun of children for basic ass and unfunny memes or for basically being 12-14 year old girls.

CW: A LOT of toxic parents, ED, mental health problems *to make a long f’in story short.....My boyfriend wants to get married eventually. He is a sweetheart to me and all those around him, is a momma’s boy. spending more time with him and his mom makes me uncomfortable and I don’t wanna be uncomfortable for the rest of my life. I would like the best for ALL parties but life is life.*
Hi, hope everyone is safe and well! <3 First time postelong time reader here. I would like to vent, to be honest. But also to really see if the reasons listed are enough for me to bring this topic up. it’s so awesome to have ppl who want to share their perspectives, experiences and insight about various situations so thank y’all in advance!!! Negative or positive.(**I don’t have enough money for therapy YET but promise, I’m saving up for it lol).
Here I go trying to explain things with NO BS and try to be as unbiased as possible- soz in advance if this is long as HECK and has shite language/grammar. It’ll prob make for a fun or boring read idk.
Background: My boyfriend(25M) and I(24F) have been together for 4 yrs now and they haven’t been the most perfect 4, either, but filled with a lot of learning about ourselves and love and hard work.
I feel like the problems stem from both of us. He feels there is no “real” problems between us. I love him and I want the best for him. I feel that he loves and cares for me too because he motivates me to do positive things like go back to college and work out and he is very patient. We communicate a fair amount, well, we voice our concerns and we generally try to work things over.
We don’t live together. He lives with his mom and I live with my parents until school is over.
My parents have a toxic marriage and they fight like mad, I guess they’ve been married for so long, in their eyes it’s worth it to stay and prob might never leave bc of culture norms (their relationship has harmed my mental health BADLY BUT i feel like everyone goes through this to some extent and I just need therapy for that, too....I have disclosed this with my bf, along with working on my own behaviors) the take away from this info is: I love my parents to da death of me, but living with their toxic behaviors all my life...I think a nice solution would to be biting down until I’m able to get a place on my own after school so I can have a healthier outlook on relationships in general and just have a healthier relationship with them, too.
His mother had him and his siblings young, his father had abandoned them, so they also have a entirely different family dynamic. She remarried, has a kinda terrible relationship with her now husband (He is a real asshole to their kids and her not gonna lie).
My boyfriend lives with his mom because he helps her pay the bills and takes care of his half-siblings since his shitty stepdad isnt much help anymore. I knew all of this, but since recent....we’ve been spending a lot more time by their place. His mom is a hard worker, I admire that about her. They work in the same field as well. However, their relationship was not always um, so dependent. I mean, he always says he wished someone would treat his mom right and she doesn’t deserve what she goes through, which i agree with—life is rough. It’s like watching your best friend go through it with a shitty SO—which I believe he has seen his whole life :( and he has always been such a great son, always answering his mom’s calls bc she is his best friend and helping her out with the kids (they are 10 and 12) and Even goes as far as quitting jobs that she has gotten fired from because it’s his mom and he felt it made a statement at the workplace and that’s a-okay, in my perspective.
But I have had a bit of a hard time around his mom since day one. She is sweet and loving to her kids and family, ONLY. She never cared for me cus ya know I’m just a gf, that was the idea three years ago. the relationship between me, him, and his mom is one of those where I’m the third wheel and has not rly blossomed from there. My boyfriend says it’s bc I’m quiet and I get too nervous always. I’m quiet but that isn’t synonymous with being a bitch. if you’re making an effort to make me comfortable I will try to make you comfy too. And I will also try to be outgoing especially if you’re the mom of someone I would like to marry.
Over the years his mom has said sum slight digs to me but again it’s a different family dynamic everywhere you go and I just try to be respectful and head out when I feel weird lol. she only said those things cus I think she started getting somewhat comfortable with me, but......idk if those are the things she says when she’s comfy then ahhhhh—maybe I’m not exactly going to fit into this family.
Here are some examples but def not limited to

1. She made me cut potatoes the first time I hung out with her and didn’t say much, no convo really, just kinda laughed at me cus YALL ....I can’t cut potatoes :/ I brushed it off cus idc? It’s potatoes, sis. LOL but looking back it ...was it a test?
   
2. She says her son is the best son that she has (she has two more sons) and he’s her exact copy in personality but looks just like his dad(that left them like 20yrs ago). I mean I always thought it was sweet, but like what about the other kids you have (probably triggering cus I was treated pretty yikes compared to my other sibling)
   
3. I gained a lot of weight over the pandemic and I lost some of it recently and she said “oh you’re almost my size again” “you lost ur ass” which made my face go ....????? to which she saw and followed up with but don’t worry I don’t have one either” I struggle w body dysmorphia but she doesnt know that only thinks I’m too sensitive.
   
4. She says I’m too sensitive and I have to toughen up or the world will not be good to me...but as sensitive as I am, I think I’m tough for overcoming a lot of my own personal issues(which is why I’m saving $$for therapy). I feel we all deal with problems differently.
   
5. Compared me to her girl best friend in front of said BFF as a compliment (I WAS HYPE like wow progress I’m comparable to a friend) and then jokes about said BFF behind her back as a best friend who is “kinda stupid and clingy” in her words. :/// my boyfriend was there and he was just like “haha no mom Aunty X is very kind and has her own qualities to her” and then looked at me. That bothered me a lot cus ....if she thinks I’m dumb I’m obvi not good enough for her son.
   
6. Whenever my boyfriend mentions he’d like to marry me one day(as in THE FUTURE) she once said “you’re too young to tie yourself down” only talking to him as if I am not the same age basically. at the time, I agreed cus we are young but what is the point of putting effort and love into someone so long and wanting to continue it if we aren’t rly serious about one another enough to get married. Then he said it again recently and she said “It’s gonna be my wedding” as a joke I hope...? Idk
   
7. Says I look “regular, not like a model nothing special” not sure what da hell that means LOL but it makes me laugh cus I don’t think I’m a model either? Idk where that came from. She’s always watching tv and comparing me to like random ppl on it? Again, I don’t care about comparisons cus beauty is in the eye BUT she laughs about it and points out these people when my bf is around (kinda trying to unblind him from whatever love might be blinding him rn) they went on a family vacation and when coming back they were talking about the girls there and she was like “right SON, WERENT those girls just so gorgeous anyone would cheat” My boyfriend just said “huh o.o “ and I didn’t say anything cus I try my best not to take things personally. When she’s drunk she says I’m beautiful and introduces me like that to others but only when she’s drunk 🥴 and she only says “You make my son happy so I like you” when she’s drunk. Or when I do her a favor :)
   
8. She’s not nice to her eldest son’s new fiancée either, calls her fat/cow(stemming from other issues idk about) says she’s trying to steal the guy away all bc they moved out of town (her eldest son is 26), is mean to the fiancé’s baby sometimes when they visit bc the child is not her son’s child. When I saw this I was like hmm, there are always 9 sides to a story and I never like to get involved with this issue when she tries to gossip about it with me. I let her know it’s not like me to engage in gossip and I hope it all works out in their family and she defended with “it’s my son, he is so stupid and kind and blind to see and she’s a shady bitch taking him away what kind of person breaks up a family, that bitch is so jealous of me” but she’s very nice when the fiancée comes around. so I replied “idk, none of my business, everyone has their side of the story” which is true bc the son also doesn’t make wise choices so who am I to really say?????? I won’t talk shit. (sigh :(((( )
   
9. She believes most ppl are jealous of her. I mean she is admirable for raising 4 children, basically as a single mom and busting her ass off working to make them happy. And she gets to her money. But she thinks it’s because she can get “any man she wants whenever” maybe that’s true, sure—but it doesn’t mean every girl is jealous of you bc they don’t like you. Maybe they don’t like u for other reasons lol??? And that’s fine if ppl don’t like you, why ALWAYS justify it as jealousy.
   

There are a lot more tiny tiny things that she says and does but majority of them are said when my bf isn’t around so I really try my best to keep in my head that it has only been 3 years—we are still young in this relationship and it’s not like we’re getting married tmrw, maybe if I am myself eventually she will stop taking small digs and we can all be adults. The things she has done in front of my bf, he stays kinda quiet//then he’ll apologize for his and her behavior when she leaves.
Bleh. Writing all of that kinda hurt because I don’t want it to ever be a “me or her” situation like it is with my BF’s older brother because I can maybe feel it??? For some reason I feel it. Especially bc my boyfriend is more of a mommy’s man than a mommy’s boy which was what his older brother was.
I’m willing to speak with my bf about this, if I’m not overreacting.
And alas, if I am overreacting...I will do my best to let go of this relationship. so he can be with a person who can fit their family’s dynamic better. Because I do understand a mother’s love and hard work. I just feel as though a gf and mom are different areas and well we shouldn’t compete, at least.