Topher Lydon

This song I have always found beautiful

Ride Share The rain was a persistent, monotonous drum on the roof of the Skoda, smearing the streetlights of the quiet suburban cul-de-sac into long, weeping streaks of amber. Hollis sat behind the steering wheel, his hands resting lightly on the worn leather, the engine idling with a low, vibrating hum that settled deep in his exhausted bones. The digital clock on the dashboard read 7:14 AM. He had been driving since eleven the previous night, caught in a purgatory of airport run

An elderly man hires Hollis to drive him across England to a retirement home. But the journey becomes a pilgrimage through a hidden life—a lost lover, a family's betrayal, and a final, defiant act. As Arthur's story unfolds, Hollis sees his own fears reflected back. A quiet, devastating story about the cost of waiting too long to be brave.

Thank you all for reading.

You will see what he is doing. BUT if you, yourself want to stop this, you can: Dismantling the Troubled Teen Industry The movement against unregulated wilderness camps and abusive residential facilities is largely driven by the very people who survived them. Unsilenced: A prominent survivor-led nonprofit dedicated to stopping institutional child abuse within the Troubled Teen Industry. They focus on public education, legislative advocacy to close loopholes, and providing a safe community network for survivors. Breaking Code Silence: What began as a viral movement for survivors to share their testimonies has grown into a powerful advocacy network. They work directly to expose the abuses of residential treatment centers and therapeutic boarding schools, lobbying lawmakers for strict governmental oversight and the protection of youth rights. Eradicating Conversion Practices Organizations fighting the specific medical and psychological abuses Cameron represents are working globally to criminalize these practices. Born Perfect: A campaign founded by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) specifically focused on ending conversion therapy entirely. They work to pass state and federal laws banning the practice while empowering survivors to testify and share their stories. The Trevor Project: While primarily a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ young people, they are a massive force in the legislative fight against conversion therapy, recognizing it as a severe, direct threat to youth mental health. Stonewall and Galop (UK): Given the setting of Fort Blackwater, it is worth noting that these UK-based organizations are at the forefront of modern activism, relentlessly pushing the British government for a comprehensive, loophole-free legal ban on all forms of conversion practices.

because what is being described was not considered abuse by the legal framework of the day. It was considered medicine, perfectly legal, and encouraged as standard doctrine. So to answer your question YES from the guards, all the way up to the QUEEN HERSELF they were all complicit in this crime against humanity. Much of this was covered in the comments section yesterday.

It's all measured, and done up and down the country at the time, hell it is STILL being done in places and Conversion therapy schools in places. All in the name of medicine.

I admit to needing a break after this. I am wrote much of it last year and took a long break from it. Held it back and wondered if I should release it, it's been brutal

Too true, Pike stands to lose Thomas directly, something he simply won't allow. Elias knows the broader stakes, and that only he could occupy Cameron long enough. We're nearly there. This chapter was about endurance, the next is about fighting back.

Elias doing his duty for his men to buy them time to do what they have to do. Pike refusing to stand by.

Whistles.

LXX. The morning after the plasterboard rebellion, the air in Fort Blackwater was thick with an unnatural, suspended dread. The rubble of Cameron’s failed architectural experiment had been cleared away by sullen workmen, leaving the West Wing open once more, but the victory tasted of ash. The physical walls had fallen, but the Commandant of the mind had not retreated. He had merely shifted his battleground. The new directive was pinned to the noticeboard in the main corridor, the ty

Right now to Jacob, Tommy's a blob that moves. I wanted to start getting into explaining where Tommy's mother ended up and why. Also to establish that Peter's relationship to the Hesston family goes back longer than Will's. Peter and Becky's friendship was the core reason Peter was taken in Recourse and the subsequent disaster of Operation: Recourse due to Will's adverse reaction to Peter's kidnapping.

Peter's growing up.

The television in the living room of the Manor Avenue townhouse was broadcasting the pre-game analysis of the Ottawa Senators’ season opener, the volume meticulously modulated to a low, unobtrusive hum that would not disturb the sleeping infant. Outside the heavy, double-paned frosted windows, the bitter, creeping chill of a late September evening was actively stripping the final, stubborn autumn leaves from the ancient, sprawling oaks lining the affluent streets of Rockcliffe Park. Inside, the

serial Inversion and "Contagious" behaviour such as perverting others in prison, was seen as pathological behaviour, and were the reasons behind certain prisoners being shipped off to Broadmoor, and places like the Fictional Blackwater. It was a pipeline that played right into the narrative that the Home Office and the Home Secretary was using to justify this purge of Homosexuals, and the creation of what amounted to home soil concentration camps.

Here are some other numbers, to help put it in perspective how bad this was: 1950s UK Prosecutions and Convictions for Homosexual Acts Prosecutions in 1952: In England, there were 670 prosecutions for "sodomy," 3,087 prosecutions for attempted sodomy or indecent assault, and 1,686 prosecutions for "gross indecency". Imprisonment Rates by 1954: By the end of 1954, there were 1,069 men incarcerated for homosexual acts in England and Wales. This represented a rise to over one thousand men imprisoned annually for these offenses. Prison Population Impact: During the early 1950s, almost 4% of men in prison had been incarcerated due to convictions for same-gender crimes.

Also completely legal. Encouraged, and used. The frightening research I did into it has ... I do not recommend anyone put themselves through that. One of the saddest, horrific, and brutal things I have ever seen. The drugs literally drove people insane, extreme body dis-morphia... and it was horrific.

You are applying modern medical ethics to a mid-century timeline. In the 1950s, injecting massive doses of insulin to deliberately induce comas was a widely accepted psychiatric procedure known as Insulin Coma Therapy (ICT) or Insulin Shock Therapy. The Historical Standard Introduced in the late 1920s and used heavily through the 1950s, ICT was viewed as a legitimate, cutting-edge "heroic therapy" alongside electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomies. The medical community believed that deliberately starving the brain of glucose could "jolt" patients out of severe mental illnesses. The horrifying risks of brain damage, seizures, and death were widely known but accepted as necessary collateral damage for a cure. Clinical Justification The quote Aka provided highlights how heavily regulated insulin is in modern correctional facilities. However, during this era, patient consent, evidence-based oversight, and institutional safeguarding were exceptionally weak. Cameron does not have to document the insulin injections as a weapon or a restraint. By diagnosing the boys' defiance or homosexuality as a severe psychiatric pathology—such as "behavioral inversion"—he establishes the required clinical need on paper. The state provides him with the legal authority to administer the cure. Staff Competence The medical staff at an institution like Fort Blackwater would be entirely competent to carry out the procedure. Administering ICT was a standard skill for psychiatric nurses of the era. They were specifically trained to plunge patients into the hypoglycemic coma, monitor their vital signs on the edge of death, and then quickly administer glucose via a stomach tube or intravenous injection to pull them back. The danger is not a result of staff incompetence; the danger is the intended mechanism of the treatment. Your belief that the procedure is illegal is incorrect for the time period; within the 1950s setting of Fort Blackwater, Cameron's insulin comas are an entirely legal, state-sanctioned medical protocol.

Pike's got an idea for that.

Sir, Keep your Points, The Wireless is a LIE, sir!

LXV. The morning mist rolling off the North Sea did not merely chill the skin; it sank into the marrow, a heavy, wet blanket of grey that blurred the sharp, brutal lines of Fort Blackwater. On the black stone of the parade ground, the West Wing stood at attention. Their breath rose in ragged, white plumes, thirty distinct markers of life in a landscape that actively sought to extinguish it. Dr. Victor Cameron stood on the dais, a portrait of insulated authority. He wore a heavy

I need a bit of a whacky one after all the heavy stuff I've been writing. This is my happy place.

ahh typos... Friend - Fried... lol though unfriendly data is always entertaining, the ships computer is a LLM that keeps suggesting they turn the ship off and on again.