America already spends more on health care than any other country on earth, yet millions still face high premiums, deductibles, surprise bills, and gaps in care. The problem is not that we spend too little. The problem is that we spend inefficiently, unevenly, and in ways that force families, workers, and employers to shoulder costs through a maze of private insurance, fragmented programs, and inflated prices.

This proposal creates a Universal Health System (UHS) that guarantees coverage for every American while replacing much of the waste, duplication, and price gouging built into the current system. The UHS is a single-payer system that is designed to render for-profit healthcare insurance obsolete.

UHS is not an add-on to the current system. It is a replacement for the premium-and-deductible maze that Americans are already paying for in a less honest way.

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What the UHS Plan Covers

The UHS would provide comprehensive coverage for hospital care, doctor visits, prescription drugs, mental health and substance-use treatment, reproductive and women’s health services, no-cost contraception, maternity care, and long-term care support. It is designed to treat health care as a public guarantee, not a luxury product tied to employment or income. UHS covers medically necessary care. It is not a blank check for elective cosmetic luxury procedures.

The plan specifically protects:

• Mental health parity

• Reproductive and women’s health care

• No-cost contraception

• Strong long-term care support

• Broad access to clinical and hospital services
  

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How the Plan Keeps Costs Under Control

The plan is not built on “free money.” It works because it changes how the system pays for care.

Key cost controls include:

• Paying hospitals at roughly Medicare + 15%, instead of today’s inflated private-insurance rates. This rate remains above current Medicare levels while eliminating the extreme price variation between private insurers.

• Using strong national drug negotiation to lower prescription costs

• Simplifying administration and billing

• Preserving broad benefits while tightening the long-term-care scope to medically necessary and support-oriented services

These changes bring the projected annual cost of the system to about $5.175 trillion, which is within reach because the United States is already spending at that scale across public programs, employers, households, and private insurers.

How the Plan is Funded

The financing model combines existing health spending with a mix of employer contributions, payroll financing, and targeted taxes on concentrated wealth and high-end capital. Much of the funding already exists in the current system through public programs, employer premiums, and household spending.

The biggest funding sources are:

• Existing federal and state/local health spending already in the system.

• A 10% employer UHS payroll contribution.

• A revised Medicare/UHS payroll-tax structure.

• A 2% wealth tax on net worth above $100 million.

• Higher taxes on very high incomes, capital income, and large corporations.

• A small 1.0% VAT as the final closing piece.

The Ailments of the Current U.S. Healthcare System

Major U.S. health insurers saw record profits exceeding $71 billion in 2024. The top seven for-profit companies have generated over $371 billion in profit since 2010 (Potter¹). Additionally, insurers now own providers and pharmacy benefits, creating multiple profit centers and allowing them to retain more revenue, further monopolizing healthcare. Yet premiums for families continue to rise. Since 2019, average family premiums for employer-sponsored coverage have risen by roughly a quarter.

According to the American Medical Association, 97% of commercial insurance markets are highly concentrated under federal antitrust standards.

One of the largest beneficiaries of the current system is the private health insurance industry. That system reflects the incentives built into a profit-driven healthcare structure.

The Affordable Care Act expanded coverage and helped millions, but it left the core architecture of for-profit insurance, fragmented financing, and rising medical prices intact.

What Workers and Families Get in Return with UHS

For most households, the tradeoff is straightforward: instead of paying private insurance premiums, facing deductibles, and risking large out-of-pocket bills, they would pay into a public system that guarantees coverage.

Under UHS, people would no longer face private insurance premiums, deductibles, or network traps. Essential medications and routine care would be free or very low cost at the point of service.

Under this model:

• Employers would stop paying for fragmented private insurance plans and instead contribute into UHS.

• Workers would contribute through payroll, but in exchange would no longer need to buy or maintain private employer coverage.

• Families would gain predictable coverage without worrying about network restrictions, plan changes, or losing insurance with a job change.

In other words, this is not about layering a new system on top of the old one. It is about replacing the old one with something simpler, broader, and more stable.

Why this Approach is More Realistic than the Status Quo

The current system already acts like a hidden tax:

• Premiums eat into wages.

• Employers treat health costs as a labor expense.

• Families pay out of pocket even when insured.

• Taxpayers already fund massive public health spending through Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs.

The difference is that the current system hides those costs badly and distributes them unfairly.

This plan makes the financing explicit, reduces waste, broadens access, and ensures that everyone is covered.

What Happens to Medicare, Medicaid, VA, etc?

UHS would be implemented through a phased transition that folds existing public programs and employer-sponsored coverage into one national guarantee while preserving continuity of care. Veterans would still have access to specialized care, even with the VA system folded into the UHS architecture.

Implementation would occur over several years to allow providers, employers, and households to transition smoothly.

The Healthcare Affordability Credit

Households below roughly 200% of the poverty line will not pay more for healthcare under UHS than they do today under the ACA. If the formula would increase their contribution, a refundable healthcare credit offsets the difference. That means low-income households who currently benefit from strong ACA subsidies would be protected from paying more during the transition.

Bottom Line

A Universal Health System is affordable if we stop pretending the current system is cheap. America already has the money. What it lacks is a financing structure that is fair, rational, and designed around people rather than profit extraction.

This plan shows that universal coverage is not some fantasy slogan. It is a workable public system built from cost control, existing spending, employer participation, progressive taxation, and a very small broad-based levy to finish the job.

It replaces chaos with coverage.

What this Means for Real Households: Your Paycheck with UHS

How does this all translate to you and your family? Most Americans experience the healthcare system through their paycheck. The example below shows how a typical family’s bi-weekly pay would look under the current system compared to UHS.

The example shows the bi-weekly paychecks of a married couple with two children, and an employer-sponsored family healthcare plan. It also shows a consolidated “family wages” section for clarity.

Current System Example:

UHS Example:

As we can see, the family’s take-home wages increase under the UHS by $135 per pay-period. That’s $3,510 more in take-home pay per year.

This example illustrates only payroll deductions. It does not include the elimination of deductibles, copays, or surprise billing, which further reduce household healthcare spending under UHS. Under the current system, the family pays more than $6,300 per year in insurance premiums before deductibles or copays are even considered. The family would save even more under UHS when accounting for those additional costs.

A Closer Look at Impact: Illustrative Comparisons

The following examples illustrate how typical households compare under private insurance versus the UHS financing model.

For those with employer-based private insurance plans, versus UHS:

For those with Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance plans, versus UHS:

* Amount takes into account the new Refundable Healthcare Affordability Credit.

** Avg proxy = Estimated average household spending including premiums and typical out-of-pocket costs.

UHS Cost and Revenue Breakdown

The program costs approximately $5.175 trillion annually and is financed through a combination of redirected public spending, employer contributions, payroll financing, and progressive tax measures.

Even after funding universal coverage, the system produces a modest fiscal surplus due to administrative savings and pricing reforms.

America already pays enough for healthcare. The debate now is about structure, priorities, and political will. I’d love to hear your thoughts. What parts of this plan make sense, and what would you change?

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There were nine candidates competing for three open seats. Three of them were incumbents. I was, by a wide margin, the youngest person in the race.

I went into it optimistic. I was interested in politics, believed local government mattered, and figured I’d learn something whether I won or lost. What I didn’t realize was just how much that experience would permanently change the way I understood democracy.

At the time, I was managing a branch for a construction hardware supply company that a college friend and I had built from the ground up. I knew operations. I knew budgets. I knew what it meant to make payroll and manage risk. I wasn’t some wide-eyed kid with a clipboard and a slogan. But compared to much of the field, I was an unknown.

Most of the other candidates were long-established, self-employed, or already embedded in the local civic ecosystem. One of them was a local conservative radio personality with instant name recognition. That familiarity turned out to matter more than anything I had to say.

My candidacy was entirely grassroots. I didn’t have the funding or capital the other candidates had. I was able to purchase a meager four political signs and placed them strategically around town. Two of them mysteriously disappeared.

The incumbents, meanwhile, carpet-bombed every major intersection. You couldn’t drive through Apple Valley without seeing their names again and again and again. No policy positions. No arguments. Just repetition. In hindsight, that itself was a lesson: repetition masquerades as trust.

I knew I had an uphill battle, but I hoped public sentiment, largely negative about town issues at the time, combined with a clear message would be enough to make a dent. It wasn’t.

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The Issues

The most charged issue in the city, at that time, was the council’s decision to purchase a golf course from a bankrupted private entity. Most residents saw it as a money pit and something that would be of very little use to the majority of residents. The decision was made by a council that included the three incumbents running for re-election.

I came out against the purchase, as did most of the challengers. The town had already sunk $4 million into the course and was spending $60k per month to maintain operations.

The other primary issues on everyone’s minds were quality jobs and development in the city.

On many issues, the race wasn’t an ideological fight. The differences weren’t about left versus right. They were about who felt familiar.

Election Day came and went. I didn’t come in last place, but I didn’t win a seat either.

I received 2,743 votes, about 2,700 more than I’d realistically expected. 😂

Who Really Wins?

One thing became clear very quickly after the election: voters heavily favor familiarity, even when they’ve been unhappy with leadership. Voter outrage has a short shelf life. Name recognition doesn’t.

Undecided and underinformed voters, especially at the local level, tend to gravitate toward names they’ve seen repeatedly. Lawn signs work. Visibility works. Money works. At least, that was the consistent theme in conversations I had with people afterward.

And structurally, the odds weren’t in my favor anyway.

I commuted an hour each way to work and routinely put in 10–12 hour days. I simply didn’t have the time to campaign constantly… no door-to-door canvassing, no endless community appearances. I showed up to town halls, gave interviews, and hoped substance would carry more weight than it does.

Here’s the part that still sticks with me: two of the people I ran against are still on the town council in 2026. Power doesn’t need to be dramatic. It just needs to persist.

What I Took Away From It

At 28, I thought democracy worked like a marketplace of ideas. I assumed voters would weigh arguments, remember what made them angry, connect cause and effect, and then choose accordingly. What I learned is that local democracy works much more like a trust network. People don’t vote for things nearly as often as they vote against uncertainty. Incumbents don’t need to inspire. They only need to feel known.

I wasn’t entirely naïve. I’d already watched Representatives and Senators get re-elected cycle after cycle, even amid widespread discontent. I’d personally adopted a “never vote for an incumbent” stance in quiet rebellion against that pattern.

But this all taught me valuable lessons. Strong public speaking doesn’t overcome structural familiarity. And voter outrage rarely survives long enough to shape election outcomes.

Would I run for office again? Maybe.

I’m a lot more articulate on my positions than I was at 28 years old. I’m not the young candidate anymore, though still young compared to many in U.S. politics.

There’s one lesson I’m still actively wrestling with.

I’ve often been told that I speak well politically… that I hedge my positions just enough to appear centrist and broadly appealing. For a long time, I took that as a compliment. And maybe it is.

But in recent years, I’ve started asking a harder question:

“Is mass appeal through hedged speech more important than taking clear, definitive stances, even if they cost you familiarity?”

I don’t have a perfect answer yet, but I think that substance matters more than procedure.

I’m curious how you’d answer it. Let me know in the comments.

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Well, I like a challenge so I’ll provide a cogent answer without ever declaring a political side on the issue. Not a Trump-versus-Obama argument, but one looking at international and U.S. law. The original post leaves out key facts and creates false equivalencies to make the situations look identical when they aren’t.

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AUMF vs. indictment. Different legal universes

The post says that President Obama authorized the bin Laden raid on the basis of a 1998 U.S. indictment. It does this to try to draw a comparison to the Maduro operation.

Bin Laden’s 1998 indictment existed, but it was not the legal basis for the operation. The raid was justified under the 2001 Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which authorized force against those responsible for 9/11 and associated forces. As the head of al-Qaeda, bin Laden was in an active, ongoing armed conflict with the United States.

There is no comparable AUMF authorizing force against Nicolás Maduro.

The justification in his case is the SDNY indictment for narcotrafficking. An indictment is a law-enforcement tool; it does not authorize sending military or intelligence personnel onto foreign soil to seize a sitting head of state. The normal legal avenue would be extradition to stand trial.

Without an AUMF, sending operatives to capture a foreign president amounts to extraterritorial law enforcement against a sovereign government, not an armed-conflict operation.

Non-state terrorist vs. head of state

There are also sovereignty differences.

Bin Laden was a non-state actor hiding in Pakistan. He was not part of Pakistan’s government. The U.S. incursion into Pakistan was controversial, and Pakistan publicly objected, but it took place in the context of an armed conflict against a non-state terrorist organization, with at least some counterterrorism cooperation existing over the years among elements of the Pakistani military and ISI. Reasonable people can still debate the sovereignty issues there.

By contrast, Maduro was a sitting head of state (contested or not).

Under Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, states are prohibited from using force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, except in narrow circumstances such as self-defense, Security Council authorization, or the consent of the state involved.

Seizing or abducting a head of state on foreign soil would almost always fall within that prohibition, and none of those exceptions clearly apply here.

Even if one believes he has committed serious crimes, such an operation is generally treated as an act of war and regime decapitation, not a counterterror action. A stateless terrorist leader and a head of state are simply not the same legal category.

Flip the scenario

Let’s flip the scenario using the logic and basis for the capture of Maduro. What is stopping another country, let’s say Russia, from issuing an indictment against Trump and then sending SVR operatives into the U.S. to carry out enforcement of that indictment? A lot of U.S. citizens would immediately call that a violation of sovereignty and an act of war.

Closing thought

So that’s the nonpartisan way to look at it. It isn’t really a political issue, even if some people reduce it to one. When any government cuts legal corners abroad while preaching law and order at home, it starts to sound like:

“Do as I say, not as I do.”

Curious where readers land on this: do you think legal norms survive contact with political convenience, or do we just retrofit the justification afterward?

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Beyond Parenting Hacks: Giving Your Kids a Real Financial Advantage

Every few weeks, social media blesses us with a new parenting hack that promises to solve a structural problem with a clever trick.

One of the more popular ones goes something like this:

Charge your kid $100 a week in rent from ages 18–25. Secretly save it. Then surprise them by giving it back as a down payment on a house.

Is it a bad idea? No.
Is it clever? Sure.
Is it also built on a stack of assumptions tall enough to wobble in a light breeze? Absolutely.

The first, and biggest, assumption is that your kid stays home after 18. If they leave for college, move for work, enlist, or just need space to become themselves, the entire plan evaporates. No rent. No secret savings. No big reveal.

And that’s the problem with most parenting “hacks.” They work beautifully in a narrow, idealized scenario… and fall apart the moment real life shows up with its inconvenient variables.

Raising financially secure kids isn’t about clever tricks.
It’s about building conditions that give them options.

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Why This Matters to Me

I went to college with no financial assistance, other than a Pell Grant and the strategic use of student loans. I worked part-time jobs to pay for everything that wasn’t covered. I learned discipline and independence early… with a few mistakes along the way, of course. I don’t resent that experience, and I don’t pretend it didn’t shape me in meaningful ways.

But I also don’t romanticize it.

Struggle teaches you things.
It also costs you things.

It costs time. It costs flexibility. It costs the ability to take risks without constantly calculating financial survival in the background. While some of my peers could say yes to internships, unpaid opportunities, or lower-paying passion projects, I often had to stop and run the numbers.

Even back then, in my twenties, I told myself, “When I have kids, I’m going to put money aside for them.” Not to spare them effort or responsibility. To give them breathing room that most kids, my past self included, don’t have when they reach adulthood.

Financial freedom doesn’t mean making things easy.
It means agency.

Belief, Applied

If you’ve been following Ink, Fire & Republic, you already know that I approach the world with values centered on agency, safety, and choice. To me, raising girls with real financial options is where those values stop being theoretical and become structural.

Financial literacy and planning matter for everyone. But financial freedom versus dependence carries additional weight for girls, because the consequences of dependence are not evenly distributed.

For me, that conviction translates into empowerment. It looks like young women who know, without hesitation, that they are never financially trapped. Not in a job they hate, not in a city they’ve outgrown, and especially not in a relationship they need to leave.

Because dependence has costs.

If things go bad, those costs often surface as quiet calculations: How will I pay rent alone? How will I afford food? These are the background mechanics that dissuade girls and women from leaving situations they want, or need, to leave.

That’s not about weakness or fear. It’s about being forced to calculate safety instead of choice. Structural pressure, not personal failure.

Money isn’t about luxury.
It’s about leverage.

And leverage is how systems of gendered dependence are dismantled. Quietly and decisively.

Financial independence means that monetary considerations don’t overrule safety. It means not remaining in toxic or abusive situations because “money.” It means being able to walk away without running a thousand contingency scenarios in your head. It means choosing relationships out of desire, not perceived necessity.

Strength born of survival is not empowerment.
Strength chosen freely is.

Planning for your girls’ financial autonomy isn’t abstract ideology. It’s care, expressed structurally.

(And yes — financial agency matters for boys too. This section reflects why the stakes are uniquely personal for me. See the FAQ.)

Real Life Application

I’m often asked what this looks like in practice. The answer is… boring. Completely un-viral. Not meme-worthy.

1. Early, Consistent Investing

Start early. As early as you reasonably can. Time is your greatest ally. I contribute regularly and let compound growth do what it’s very good at doing.

No super hacks. Just patience.

Contribute what you can without sacrificing the present. The future matters, but so does today. Learn about the different investment options. Some people may feel more comfortable putting money into target-date funds like Fidelity’s FHARX (just one example of many). Others may be more comfortable taking a more active role in managing and balancing a diversified portfolio. Be honest with yourself about your abilities and the amount of time you can realistically dedicate to management. You can also have someone else manage your investments for you, but these services typically have a cost attached to them.

Examples: brokerage accounts, 529 education accounts, custodial Roth IRAs.
Institutions to research: Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Vanguard.

2. Teaching Ownership, Not Just Allowances

Money isn’t just something you receive. It’s something that works for you. Giving kids money without also teaching them how money functions can be counterproductive.

Concepts like saving, assets, and long-term thinking should feel normal… not like secret adult knowledge unlocked at 30.

Fidelity has a page with some helpful info: Tips for raising a saver

3. No Strings, No Guilt

This isn’t leverage. This isn’t control. And it’s definitely not a future “after all I’ve done for you” conversation waiting to happen.

A financial foundation should support autonomy, not tether it.

4. Expanding Options, Not Dictating Paths

College is an option, not an obligation. There are many routes that your child might choose from, including trades, entrepreneurship, enlistment, art, science… What matters is that money doesn’t force their hand.

Their decisions should be guided by curiosity and conviction, not panic.

Just as Important: What This Isn’t.

I will never use money to enforce obedience.
I’m not pretending wealth equals wisdom.
I’m not assuming financial security replaces emotional support.
And I’m not under the illusion that money solves every problem.

What it does solve is one very specific, and very powerful, problem: being stuck.

A Note on Education & Caution

Before jumping in, educate yourself. Different accounts serve different purposes, and each comes with advantages and trade-offs. Also, you are not limited to just one option.

Brokerage accounts are taxable. Understand capital gains, dividends, and taxable events. Learn the difference between short and long-term gains.

529 accounts are designed for education and offer tax-free growth and withdrawals for qualified expenses. Many states provide tax incentives. Recent updates allow unused funds to roll into a beneficiary’s Roth IRA under specific conditions.

Custodial Roth IRAs require earned income and have contribution limits, but offer enormous long-term advantages through tax-free growth. These accounts can be pivotal in giving your child a head-start on their retirement.

Whatever you choose, understand the basics: diversification, dollar-cost averaging, expense ratios, and risk tolerance. And unless you truly understand what you’re doing, avoid options trading and margin entirely. You can lose everything, and then some.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This reflects personal experience and publicly available information. Do your own research and consult qualified professionals.

The Long Game

Parenting hacks are about shortcuts.
Real advantage is about commitment.

One is optimized for virality.
The other is quiet, slow, and mostly invisible.

Real planning is worth far more than any meme could promise.

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Common (and Not So Common) FAQs

Q: I have no idea where to start. Where can I get more info?

A: There is a wealth of knowledge online. Make sure that you’re obtaining that knowledge from credible sources though, not Facebook comments or spam sites. Fidelity has a free planning tool available here. You can also consult professional advisors that will tailor a plan to your goals and resources (fees may apply).

There are several books that give you a great place to start:

• The Simple Path to Wealth — JL Collins

• I Will Teach You to Be Rich — Ramit Sethi

• The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel

Q: Am I starting too late?

A: No. Beginning now is better than five years from now.

But I know the real question/fear here is actually, “did I fail my kids by not doing this earlier?” Again, no. I know the familiar thought process of, “I wish I started saving when they were toddlers.” Those thoughts aren’t worth concentrating on. Dwelling on a past that you cannot change has no value. Taking action today can have immense value.

That being said, it is important to first achieve stability. Start once basic needs are covered and you’re not accumulating high-interest debt. Time matters, but sustainability matters more.

Q: Isn’t this just privilege?

A: Some of it is. And pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.

Yes, being able to save and invest at all is a form of privilege. But using whatever margin you do have to reduce your child’s vulnerability isn’t indulgence, it’s responsible stewardship. The goal isn’t perfection or comparison. It’s movement in the right direction.

Q: What if I can’t afford to invest much… or at all?”

A: You’re not failing.

Small, consistent contributions matter more than big, sporadic ones. And if right now your priority is housing, food, or stability, that is investing in your child too. Financial planning is a season-based practice, not a moral test.

Q: Shouldn’t kids learn struggle and responsibility?

A: Yes. But there’s a difference between learning responsibility and manufacturing hardship.

Many families are already navigating real constraint. Responsibility is learned through participation, education, and accountability… not by adding instability where it doesn’t need to exist.

Q: Won’t this make kids entitled?

A: Only if money is given without context, boundaries, or education.

Entitlement comes from secrecy, guilt, or unspoken expectations. Transparency, values, and clear intent create confidence, not entitlement.

Q: Why do you focus on girls specifically (Belief, Applied section)?

A: My personal focus is based off my advocacy, nonprofit work, core values, and lived experience. However, none of the tools and resources in this article exclude any gender.

But the reality is that the risks of financial dependence are not distributed evenly.

Women are statistically more likely to pause careers for caregiving, earn less over time, and stay longer in unhealthy relationships due to financial constraint. Acknowledging that reality isn’t exclusion, it’s accuracy.

Q: What if my child makes different choices than I hoped?

A: It helps to start with the why. Is the goal preparation or control? Financial planning isn’t about managing outcomes. It’s about protecting your child’s ability to have real choices, even when those choices differ from your own expectations.

Q: Isn’t money a bad motivator?

A: Money is a neutral tool.

Fear is a bad motivator. Agency is a good one. The goal isn’t wealth, it’s freedom from coercion, desperation, and dependency.

In Closing

You don’t need to be perfect to do this well.
You just need to be intentional.

Every dollar saved, every conversation had, every choice made with the long view in mind is a way of saying to your child: you will have options.

And that’s not a hack. That’s a promise.

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Hayden de Vere is the central protagonist of my Agents of Fate series. Some might call him the “hero” of the story. However, I think that term is generous. Yes, Hayden does have a decent ethical baseline — but he is human. He makes choices that aren’t always universally agreed upon, sometimes rushed by circumstance, sometimes chosen from a list of terrible options. One question I often hear is:

“Why does Hayden do that?”

Hayden de Vere was never meant to be a flawless hero. He wasn’t designed to be a white knight, a moral north star, or a character who always chooses the cleanest option with the least collateral damage. He’s not here to make readers comfortable. He’s here to make them think.

Heroes Who Never Fail Aren’t Heroes. They’re Mascots.

Perfect protagonists are easy to root for, but they’re also easy to forget.

A character who always chooses correctly, who never hesitates or miscalculates, who never lets fear or love or pride cloud their judgment… that character isn’t human.

Hayden fails sometimes. He hesitates. He makes decisions under pressure. He chooses the lesser evil and then has to live with the fact. He protects people in ways that cost others. He rationalizes. He overreaches.

Power Doesn’t Create Clarity. It Exposes Fault Lines.

One of the central questions in Agents of Fate isn’t “What would a good person do with power?” It’s “What would a very human person do when the cost of hesitation is unbearable?”

Hayden isn’t tested in moments of obvious right and wrong. He’s tested when every option carries consequences, when doing nothing is also a choice, and when love becomes a liability instead of a virtue.

I want readers questioning Hayden’s decisions because I want them questioning their own instincts about power, protection, and morality.

A perfect hero has nowhere to go.
An imperfect one has to reckon… with others, with consequences, and eventually with themselves.

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When Survival Competes With Principle

Before getting into specific moments, it’s worth naming the tension that runs through all of them.

Agents of Fate repeatedly wrestles with what happens to agency, consent, and moral restraint when the stakes stop being theoretical… when delay costs lives, hesitation compounds harm, and the distance between action and consequence collapses to seconds. In those moments, the question shifts. It’s no longer simply “What is right?” but “What is survivable?”

These questions land differently when power is asymmetrical — when one person has the ability to decide, and another must live with the consequences.

That’s where the story becomes uncomfortable by design.

Do the ends ever justify the means?
If they do, who gets to decide? Who bears the cost of that decision?

Hayden’s choices aren’t meant to resolve those questions. They’re meant to live inside them, where good intentions collide with irreversible consequences.

A Series of Choices

In this section, we will examine a few examples of Hayden’s choices and actions that readers may not agree with. We will analyze the underlying rationale in Hayden’s mind. We won’t conclude with answers or judgments — because these choices are meant to be left open to interpretation.

Before continuing, it’s worth stating plainly: Agents of Fate does not offer moral comfort. It offers moral friction. Hayden de Vere’s choices are meant to provoke unease. Not because they are misunderstood, but because they can often seem indefensible, even when they feel necessary. This essay does not seek to resolve that tension. It exists to name it. If you’re willing to engage with a story that treats power, consent, and consequence as questions rather than answers, read on.

SPOILER WARNING! Do not read any further if you do not want to see story spoilers. I will generalize where possible. I will group the examples by book number for convenience.

Book One

Rekindling a Relationship (timing + grief context)

After a significant loss, Hayden reconnects with a former partner who has returned unexpectedly into his life. In the immediate aftermath of shared grief, they rekindle an intimate relationship.

Context: heat of the moment, unresolved history between them, a prior romantic bond reactivated under grief.

Why it reads morally gray to some readers:

• Grief-adjacent intimacy can feel like emotional chaos being used as accelerant (even if consensual).

• Some readers will see it as disrespectful or emotionally charged timing.

• Even with mutual desire, some readers may interpret the intimacy as grief-fog consent for both of them (not invalid consent, just emotionally complicated).

Book Two

Retributive Violence in Defense of Others

During a crisis in a future setting, Hayden is briefly incapacitated while someone close to him is left exposed to danger. When he becomes aware of an imminent, explicit threat of extreme harm, he intervenes decisively, killing both attackers… one in the heat of defense, the other after the immediate threat has collapsed.

Context: Hayden acting in defense of others, reacting to explicit threats, protection from immediate and perceived future threat through decisive, unilateral action, and assuming responsibility for having left someone vulnerable.

Why it reads morally gray/wrong:

• The second man is begging / trying to plead and flee when Hayden decides that there will be “no forgiveness.”

• Some readers will argue: self-defense was justified, but the method crosses into vengeance/excess (especially the second kill).

Book Three

Erasing Memories as an Act of “Mercy”

After Abby experiences a severe personal trauma and reaches a critical crisis point, Hayden intervenes to save her life. In the aftermath, he alters her memories surrounding the events, framing the decision as an act of protection meant to prevent further harm.

Context: Hayden has witnessed Abby’s growth toward stability; a traumatic event threatens years of hard-won progress and destabilizes her at her most vulnerable point. He resolves to shield her from further harm, framing the choice as protection and mercy.

Why it reads morally gray/wrong:

• It’s a direct autonomy violation. He overwrites a person’s mind because he believes it’s best. Though made during a moment of crisis, this is still a huge departure from Hayden’s prior respect of agency and consent. It reflects a form of benevolent paternalism: harm done in the name of protection, without consent.

• The “is this ethical?” exchange between Hayden and Elle is basically the book acknowledging the reader’s objection in real time.

Book Four

Hayden’s Use of Time Magic for Strategic Advantage

Facing a conflict he cannot resolve alone, Hayden makes the decision to accelerate a child’s development through time manipulation so that she can play an active role in the fight.

Context: war-time logic, apocalyptic stakes, a belief that no other assistance is available, reinforced by precognitive intuition.

Why it reads morally gray/wrong:

• It’s a forced, instrumentalized childhood… turning an infant into a combat-capable participant because he needs a battlefield advantage.

• Even if tactically necessary, readers will ask: did he sacrifice her right to a childhood to save everyone else? And who gets to decide when a child’s body becomes a means rather than a life?

• Knowingly taking a child into a situation where there will be mortal danger.

Book Five

For now, that conversation remains unfinished.

Hayden de Vere was never meant to be a mascot for righteousness. He was meant to be human under impossible weight. If his decisions leave you unsettled, conflicted, or angry, then the story is working as intended. Power doesn’t reveal who we are when everything is easy. It reveals us when every option costs something. And those are the stories worth telling.

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Someone asks, “Why do kids need to learn about that?”
Someone whispers, “Isn’t that too young?”
And inevitably, someone insists this is grooming, indoctrination, or an attack on families, faith, or common sense.

Notice the shared assumption underneath all of it.

They think consent is solely about sex.

It isn’t.

Consent education is not a sex talk.
It’s a civics lesson about power, boundaries, and human dignity — taught early enough to actually protect kids.

Consent isn’t about sex.
It’s about whether a child is allowed to say no, and be believed — especially girls, who are too often taught that compliance is safety.

If you’re a girl reading this and thinking, “I’ve felt that pressure before,” you’re not imagining it.

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What Consent Actually Means (And Why We Pretend It’s Complicated)

Consent, stripped of politics and panic, is simple:

• You are allowed to say no

• Your “no” should be respected

• You don’t owe access to your body, space, or time

• Power dynamics matter

• Silence is not agreement

That’s it.

We teach these principles everywhere else in life.
We just get evasive when they involve children and bodies.

A five-year-old can understand:

• “You don’t have to hug anyone if you don’t want to.”

• “Stop means stop.”

• “Your body belongs to you.”

• “If something feels wrong, tell a trusted adult.”

There is nothing sexual about that. There shouldn’t be anything controversial about that.

What is dangerous is raising kids who lack the language for boundaries and discomfort — and then acting surprised when someone exploits that silence.

Innocence Is Not Ignorance

One of the most persistent myths in this debate is that knowledge destroys innocence.

It doesn’t.

Ignorance does not preserve innocence.
It preserves vulnerability.

Innocence is not not knowing.
Innocence is being safe, believed, and respected.

This matters because the data is painfully clear:

• The majority of child sexual abuse is committed by someone the child already knows and trusts… not a stranger.

• Children who have language for body parts and boundaries are significantly more likely to disclose abuse early, when intervention is possible.

• Delayed disclosure is common; many survivors don’t name what happened to them until adolescence or adulthood. This is often because they didn’t have the words when it mattered.

Historically, girls have paid the highest price for this myth — expected to remain “innocent” while navigating situations they were never given language to understand or escape… and often blamed later for not recognizing danger they were never taught how to name. In reported cases, roughly 80% of CSA victims are female.

Teaching kids accurate language isn’t radical.
It’s preventative care.

Silence doesn’t protect children.
Vocabulary does.

“Isn’t This Grooming?”

No.

Let’s look at the definition: “In a social and legal context, grooming is a predatory process where an individual builds a relationship, trust, and emotional connection with a vulnerable person (typically a child or at-risk adult) in order to manipulate, exploit, and abuse them, most often for sexual purposes.”

Grooming thrives in environments where:

• Adults are unquestionable

• Children are taught obedience over autonomy

• Discomfort is labeled “disrespect”

• Bodies are taboo

• “Don’t tell” is normalized

It also thrives where girls are socialized to be polite, accommodating, and quiet — even when something feels wrong.

Consent education dismantles those conditions.
Good-faith consent education is antithetical to grooming. It gives kids the language and tools they need to avoid exploitation.

It teaches kids:

• Adults do not have unlimited access to you

• Secrets about your body are not okay

• Authority does not override your boundaries

• You are allowed to speak up, even if it makes someone uncomfortable

If that feels threatening to someone, the problem isn’t consent education.

The problem is what they were relying on before.

“This Is Just Left-Wing Ideology”

No. It predates modern political parties.

Consent is rooted in:

• Individual liberty

• Personal sovereignty

• Moral agency

• Mutual obligation

You cannot argue for freedom while denying bodily autonomy.
You cannot argue for family values while dismissing a child’s right to say no.
You cannot build a healthy society on coerced silence and call it tradition.

This isn’t about red or blue.

It’s about whether we treat children as people.

If your values collapse the moment a child asserts a boundary,
the problem isn’t the child.

Who Are “Trusted Adults” — And Why Kids Need More Than One

One of the most practical, and overlooked, parts of consent education is this:

No child should have only one safe adult.

Why?

Because:

• Sometimes the unsafe person is the primary caregiver

• Sometimes kids are afraid of disappointing a parent

• Sometimes adults miss signs without malice

• Sometimes kids test disclosure in stages

This doesn’t weaken families — it strengthens safety nets.

Research consistently shows that children are more likely to disclose harm when they:

• Are explicitly told who their safe adults are

• Are given multiple options

• Are reassured they won’t be punished or disbelieved

A “trusted adult” might be:

• A parent

• A grandparent

• A teacher

• A coach

• A school counselor

• A family friend

Obviously, that list is just a set of possible examples. The who for each child will depend on individual circumstances.

For girls in particular, having multiple trusted adults reduces the pressure to protect someone else’s feelings at the expense of their own safety. You are not responsible for managing adults’ comfort when your own safety is on the line.

And kids should hear this explicitly:

“If one adult doesn’t listen, you keep telling until someone does.”

That sentence alone saves lives.

Consent Education at Home Is Ongoing — Not One Big Talk

Healthy consent education doesn’t happen in one awkward conversation.

It’s continuous.
It’s age-appropriate.
It evolves as kids do.

At different stages, it looks like:

Early childhood

• Naming body parts accurately (precision of language)

• Asking permission before touch

• Respecting “no” in play and affection

Elementary years

• Reinforcing bodily autonomy

• Talking about secrets vs. surprises

• Practicing assertive language

Pre-teens

• Discussing peer pressure

• Introducing digital boundaries

• Normalizing consent as reversible

Teens

• Explicit conversations about coercion

• Power dynamics in relationships

• Enthusiastic consent — not compliance

None of this requires graphic detail.
It requires honesty, consistency, and trust.

Consent education isn’t a switch you flip.
It’s a muscle you help kids build.

Practical Ways to Teach Consent at Home (That Actually Work)

Conversations are part of the puzzle. Here are other things that can matter more than lectures:

• Don’t force affection. Let kids choose when and how they show it.

• Model consent. Kids pick up on your habits and words.

• Use real words. Euphemisms protect adult comfort, not kids.

• Normalize withdrawal. “You’re allowed to change your mind.”

• Believe first — meaning take disclosures seriously. Never lead with doubt.

These aren’t political acts.

They’re relational ones.

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“My Kids Are Safe. I Watch Them.”

Many parents are loving, vigilant, and present.

But safety isn’t just supervision.
It’s preparation.

You can’t be everywhere.
You can’t predict every situation.
And you won’t always be the first person your child turns to.

Teaching consent is like teaching kids to swim:

• You still watch them

• You still build fences

• But you also give them the skills to survive without you

That isn’t fear-based parenting.

It’s responsible parenting.

“1 in 9 Girls”

1 in 9 girls and 1 in 20 boys under 18 experience sexual abuse or assault.1

So, before we assume that consent education is unnecessary because “my kids are safe” or “it couldn’t happen here,” consider this: Nearly every minute, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. Every nine minutes, that someone is a child.

Of sexual abuse cases reported to law enforcement, 93% of juvenile victims knew the perpetrator: 59% were acquaintances, 34% were family members, and only 7% were strangers to the victim.

While the 1 in 9 girls statistic is widely reported, other sources have slightly different estimates. For example, self-report surveys often find that roughly 20–25% of women report childhood sexual abuse when adults reflect on their experiences. These numbers aren’t abstract — they describe a reality that disproportionately shapes girls’ lives from an early age.

Why This Matters to Me

Throughout my life, I’ve listened to girls and young women tell their own stories — recounting abuse that occurred in their teen years and childhood.

Nine.
Five.
Three years old.

This is why early consent education matters.

Can education alone stop every instance of child sexual abuse? No. Education is not a magic shield. But when kids are given language, confidence, and support, both conceptual and empirical research suggest it can help prevent abuse or shorten its duration when it occurs.2

Among the stories shared by survivors, the same patterns surface again and again. Compliance mistaken for consent. Pressure mistaken for affection. Silence mistaken for agreement. Coercion masquerading as “love.”

These patterns don’t emerge in a vacuum. Girls, in particular, are often taught to be agreeable, accommodating, and “nice” long before they’re taught how to protect themselves. Feminism has long named this problem: when girls are taught that compliance is kindness, consent becomes dangerously easy to confuse.

When kids are taught consent early, they learn to:

• Trust their instincts

• Articulate boundaries clearly

• Respect others’ boundaries

• Recognize coercion when it appears

Those lessons — those tools — persist into the tween and teen years, where they become the ability to identify, prevent, and exit toxic relationships before harm is normalized or internalized.

Consent education doesn’t create rebellion.
It creates discernment.

Teaching consent is also teaching girls that their instincts are not overreactions, their boundaries are not rudeness, and their voices are not inconveniences. It’s teaching them to trust themselves — even when the world tells them not to.

The Real Fear Beneath the Arguments

Most resistance to consent education isn’t really about children.

It’s about adults being uncomfortable with the idea that:

• Children are not property

• Authority has limits

• “Because I said so” is not a moral framework

Teaching consent doesn’t strip families of values.

It strips power from people who never should have had unchecked access in the first place.

If teaching a child to say no feels dangerous,
ask yourself who benefited from their silence.

The Bottom Line

Consent education does not sexualize children.
It protects them.

It does not undermine families.
It strengthens healthy ones.

It does not threaten faith, tradition, or freedom.
It demands they live up to their own claims.

If a society cannot teach its children that their bodies and boundaries matter,
then it has no business lecturing anyone about liberty, morality, or values.

Consent isn’t radical.

Silence is.

TL;DR:
Consent education isn’t a sex talk. It’s about teaching kids that their bodies, boundaries, and voices matter. It gives children language to say no, recognize coercion, and tell a trusted adult when something feels wrong. That knowledge doesn’t steal innocence; it protects it. Silence doesn’t keep kids safe. Vocabulary, preparation, and support do… and those skills carry into the tween and teen years, where they help prevent and exit unhealthy or coercive relationships.

Thoughtful conversation is welcome here.
If this piece challenged you, clarified something, or put language to a feeling you’ve carried quietly, you’re invited to share.

Leave a comment

If you’re a young person reading this and something here resonated in a personal way, you deserve support and someone safe to talk to.

If you’re in the U.S., the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline (800-656-4673) and online chat at rainn.org are available 24/7. If you’re elsewhere, local crisis or youth support services can help connect you with confidential support.

Welcome back. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, then you can click here to read that post.

Spoiler Warning! This post may contain some spoilers for readers that have not had any exposure to the Agents of Fate Series.

In this entry of exploring the origin story of my novels, we will look at a few key topics — we will explore the characters in more depth, the emergence of the series’ core themes, and how some of its darker, more complex questions take shape.

The Characters And Who They Are

Hayden de Vere

I’ll preface this with a caveat: I try very deliberately to avoid my characters becoming stereotypical tropes or stock archetypes. That said, one mildly egotistical truth is that I did base the main character — at least in part — on my own personality.

As I mentioned in Part One, several characters in Agents of Fate carry faint traces of people I’ve known. They are not mirrors, nor self-inserts, but rather loose homages — personality impressions filtered through fiction. Hayden is no exception. While I baked some of my own traits and quirks into him, he is very much his own person. He has strengths I do not possess, and weaknesses I thankfully don’t share. The evolution of Hayden — from the earliest version of him in my mind to the final form that appears on the page — is significant.

One thing I was absolutely determined not to do was turn Hayden into a white-knight, flawless hero, or “alpha-male” savior figure — and he certainly isn’t. He often has good intentions, but he does not always make choices that readers will agree with. While he has a relatively strong ethical foundation — especially in a genre that often deprioritizes it — he sometimes takes actions that appear unethical in the pursuit of what he believes to be ethical outcomes.

Importantly, Hayden does not use his newfound powers to elevate himself or gain unfair advantage. He practices caution and restraint, even when using those powers could make his life infinitely easier. He does not respond to extraordinary circumstances by inflating his ego or positioning himself above others.

A very visible pattern in Hayden’s ethos — and one I felt was essential to include — is his default respect for consent and personal agency, both implicitly and explicitly. We see these traits surface repeatedly throughout the story. Unfortunately, this remains rare for male protagonists in these genres. But Hayden, once again, is not perfect. Even in areas where he is typically strong, he sometimes missteps. That mattered to me. Those failures give him the opportunity to recognize harm, learn from it, and actively correct his future behavior.

I’ll be publishing a deeper dive on Hayden de Vere in the near future, titled Hayden Isn’t a Perfect Hero. Here’s Why That’s Important.

Elle Hensley

Elle is often referred to as “the emotional center of the series.” — a description I agree with, so long as we’re clear that emotional is not a synonym for fragile. Elle is anything but fragile. The female characters in my books were shaped outside a male-centered lens — and I hope that shows. Elle is not simply window-dressing — she is not a meek or compliant character of shallow substance that exists only to stand beside Hayden. She is not some archetypical “love interest” orbiting the protagonist like a decorative moon.

So, if Elle is not simply some plot device to further Hayden’s story, then what is she? Elle did not exist in the original version of the story, in my head, back in 2008. As I’ve said elsewhere, she came into existence as I was sitting down to write in 2022. Her inclusion turned out to be the missing piece of the story — and once I began writing her, she very quickly became one of my favorite characters. Elle’s fortitude, grace, and empathy became impossible to ignore. That matters, because it explains why she reads the way she does on the page: Elle was never built to be a role. She was built to be a person.

Elle exists as an active moral participant in the story, not as someone waiting to be saved — nor does she act as a rubber-stamp of approval to legitimize Hayden’s choices. She challenges Hayden when she believes that he is broaching ethical boundaries — but I do not portray Elle as true moral north. We see the fallibility I wanted these characters to have when Elle occasionally capitulates to Hayden’s more ethically borderline logic in the name of the “greater good.” Importantly, those moments are not endpoints. Elle comes back to challenge Hayden after she has taken time to re-evaluate things outside the gravity of rushed, impending-doom decision-making.

If strength is the trait most often reserved for a story’s main character, then Elle is just as much a main character as Hayden. Elle’s story is quickly shaped by loss and disorientation by life-altering events in Book Two — but she doesn’t fold inward or shrink in the face of trauma — she exhibits growth, resilience, and agency. She becomes sharp and resilient. At the same time, Elle is not a caricatured articulation of “female strength” to make a performative point — she does still exhibit distinctly human attributes like fear, uncertainty, and grief. Elle’s growth isn’t a decorative glow-up. It’s a slow, pressured forging.

Speaking of agency, Elle is neither idle nor submissive. She makes her own choices and those choices have effects on the people around her. Elle is honest about what she feels and what she needs. She takes initiative in scenarios, sometimes pre-empting Hayden. Her thoughts and feelings are autonomous. Elle doesn’t get swept away by the plot — she chooses her own direction inside the plot. One small but telling example comes in Book Two, during the aftermath of the dreamscape and their return to the present. Rather than waiting for Hayden to define what comes next — or allowing the moment to linger in emotional ambiguity — Elle takes action. She steps into the moment and makes her intentions known not through discussion, but through choice. The scene is intimate, but not passive: Elle claims emotional ground rather than waiting for it to be offered. In doing so, she refuses to outsource her agency to uncertainty, trauma, or fate. Elle acts. Hayden follows.

In short: Elle is the character who turned Agents of Fate into something more than a story about power. She turns it into a story about personhood — about what it means to remain yourself when the universe tries to rewrite you, or grind you down.

Kali Henderson

Kali was therapeutic for me to write — not because I projected anything onto her, but because her arc offered a kind of closure. A messy one. A complicated one. The kind that comes from confronting things that were never meant to be, no matter how badly we want them to work.

Kali is not an evil character; she is a tragic one that is shaped by forces that narrow her choices and distort her judgment. Once those forces exert their influence, her baseline is altered. Yes, she can be cruel, unforgiving, and relentless — but this is not who Kali was before corruption took hold. Yet, some of the things she does under the influence of corruption are still so monumentally catastrophic that they force an unavoidable question: are certain actions unforgivable, regardless of circumstance?

Her choice to leave Southern California, before the story begins, is an act of self-preservation rooted in clarity, not cowardice — even though it is later interpreted by Hayden as abandonment through his own lens. In this, we see Kali’s struggle with processing and interpreting events and feelings in a way that is independent of the main character’s influence or wishes. While Kali and Hayden eventually reconcile in Book One, their path continues on to show how reality — and power — follow their own paths, indifferent to our wishes.

Kali’s arc is not meant to stand as a simple cautionary tale, nor as a tidy moral indictment. She is a victim of corruption — her judgment bent, her emotional baseline altered by the influence of the Alva’ci in ways she neither invited nor fully understood. And yet, her story still presses an uncomfortable question into the center of the series: what happens when power arrives not as an opportunity, but as an invasive force that distorts judgment before it can stabilize? In contrast to characters who are afforded time, guidance, or restraint, Kali is overwhelmed by something vast that erodes her agency for its own ends. Her tragedy is not that she chose wrongly, but that she was forced to navigate impossible choices while already compromised. The damage that follows is not evidence of moral failure, but the cost of that imbalance.

Kinsley de Vere

Kinsley Rae de Vere is an explosive force. One the story cannot afford to ignore. Full stop.

What my 2008 imagination believed might be Hayden’s story, my 2023 reality was forced to confront differently. Kinsley is not shaped by what might happen, but by what already has. She remembers a childhood lived in a fractured world, carries the scars of a future that no longer exists, and acts with the clarity of someone who knows exactly what hesitation costs.

It might be easy — or convenient — to interpret Kinsley as a child forced to grow up too quickly: a naïve girl burdened by power she didn’t choose, or someone merely reacting to outside influence. But those simplifications deny the truth. Kinsley accepts her power. She is decisive in her choices, even when those choices press against ethical boundaries. Many readers may find her controversial or unsettling, but that discomfort often misses the gravity of her character. She is not simply a disruptive element within the plot; she functions as a kind of narrative supernova, forcing everything around her to reorient.

Kinsley does not move at the moral pace of the adults around her. Where Hayden hesitates and Elle deliberates, Kinsley decides. This is not impulsiveness — it is compression. She has already lived through a version of events where hesitation proved fatal, where caution was indistinguishable from surrender. To her, debate is not virtue; it is risk. The time for learning lessons passed in a world that no longer exists, and she refuses to relearn them the hard way.

Her presence is uncomfortable precisely because she does not behave like the child readers expect her to be. She carries the memories of a childhood spent in a semi-apocalyptic reality — one defined by scarcity, vigilance, and the quiet normalization of danger. While the Montana settlement offered relative safety, it was not innocence. It was rehearsal. And when that world eventually shattered, Kinsley learned a truth that cannot be unlearned: safety is temporary, and morality does not protect you from those willing to ignore it.

This is why Kinsley crosses lines that Hayden refuses to cross. We see her strain — and sometimes bypass — his guardrails, even preempting consent. This is not an act of defiance or dominance; it is an act of survival. For some readers, this creates cognitive dissonance. Kinsley assumes Hayden’s trust and bypasses permission, relying instead on what she believes will become retroactive consent. For those who have grown comfortable with Hayden’s ethics, this moment is meant to sting. Kinsley violates the moral baseline readers have come to rely on — not in pursuit of power, but in the name of protection and wartime necessity.

For readers who aligned themselves with Hayden and Elle — who found comfort in restraint, individual agency, and mutual deliberation — Kinsley exists as an unsettling contrast. She asks whether those values hold when time runs out. She challenges the assumption that moral clarity survives catastrophe intact. And most unsettling of all, she raises the possibility that the choices we call “right” may only feel right because we have not yet been forced to make them under fire.

At first glance, Kinsley’s foes dismiss her as insignificant — a tween girl tagging alongside her father, whom they assume is the real threat. They learn otherwise, quickly. That miscalculation mirrors something deeply familiar in the real world, where girls are routinely underestimated, infantilized, and pressured into conformity long before they are allowed self-definition. Kinsley is written as a deliberate contradiction to those expectations — not as an ideal, but as a challenge. This is not an absolution or endorsement of every action she takes, but a refusal to accept narrow, imposed ideas of what a girl is allowed to be, or how power is permitted to look when it inhabits a young female body.

Kinsley does not believe in perfect choices. She believes in outcomes — and in refusing to let the future repeat itself on anyone else’s behalf.

Amaris Henderson

Amaris is not driven by chaos, desperation, or misunderstanding. He is not confused about what he is doing, nor conflicted about the harm it causes. Amaris is deliberate. He plans. He waits. He chooses. Where other characters in the series struggle against circumstance, Amaris operates from a position of assumed entitlement — the belief that power grants not just capability, but permission over others.

What makes Amaris dangerous is not simply the scale of his actions, but the clarity with which he commits them. He does not frame his decisions as tragic necessities in the moment; he frames them as inevitabilities that others are too weak, too sentimental, or too constrained to enact. In this way, Amaris becomes the clearest articulation of power unburdened by self-doubt. He does not ask whether he should cross moral lines — he only calculates whether doing so will get him what he wants faster.

Amaris’ relationship to consent is especially telling. Where Hayden treats consent as a moral baseline and Elle treats it as a prerequisite for legitimacy, Amaris treats it as an inconvenience. Agency, to him, is something to be overridden, managed, or repurposed. Across the story, we see this pattern repeated: bodies instrumentalized, autonomy erased, and human beings reduced to raw material in service of his vision. These acts are not committed in panic or rage. They are procedural. Efficient. Justified internally by outcomes rather than ethics.

This is where Amaris stands in stark contrast to Kali. Kali’s worst actions emerge from corruption — her judgment warped, her emotional baseline altered by an invasive force that narrows her capacity for choice. Amaris suffers no such distortion. He is not altered against his will. He is not overwhelmed by power arriving too early or too violently. He acts with full continuity of self, fully aware of the consequences, and chooses to proceed anyway. His cruelty is not accidental; it is structural.

The contrast with Kinsley is even more unsettling. Both Amaris and Kinsley violate ethical boundaries in the name of protection. Both act preemptively. Both justify harm through necessity. But where Kinsley’s decisiveness is shaped by memory and trauma — Amaris’ certainty is shaped by dominance. He does not act to prevent catastrophe; he acts to manufacture a future that conforms to his will. And unlike Kinsley, Amaris does not accept consequence as part of the moral equation. Harm, for him, is not a cost — it is collateral.

In Hayden, we see restraint: a man who acquires power and responds by narrowing its use, questioning himself, and accepting limits even when doing so makes things harder. Amaris represents the inverse. He expands. He escalates. He rationalizes. Where Hayden worries about becoming something he cannot justify, Amaris begins from the assumption that justification is unnecessary. Power, in his worldview, is self-legitimizing.

Amaris is not written to be misunderstood or redeemed. He is written to expose a particular danger: what happens when someone decides that the future belongs to them because they believe they can carry its weight. He does not see himself as a monster — he sees himself as practical. And that is precisely what makes him terrifying. The harm he causes is not the byproduct of failure or fear, but the result of conviction operating without constraint.

In a story so deeply concerned with agency, consent, and consequence, Amaris exists as the clearest answer to an unspoken question: what does power look like when it stops pretending to care? He is not the product of tragedy, corruption, or urgency. He is the result of choice — repeated, intentional, and unrepentant.

Abby Foster

Abby’s story is not about power, destiny, or inevitability. It is about survival — the slow, unglamorous kind that happens quietly, often invisibly, and without witnesses. In a series shaped by extraordinary abilities and world-altering choices, Abby remains resolutely human. Her struggles are not cosmic, but intimate: self-worth, fear, love, and the quiet question of whether she deserves safety at all. That makes her one of the most important characters in the story.

Abby grows up carrying an invisible weight — shaped by expectation, restraint, and an unspoken pressure to be agreeable, resilient, and self-sacrificing. She is empathetic, gentle, and deeply conflict-averse, often defaulting to self-blame when relationships strain or fail. Her kindness is sincere, but it comes paired with self-doubt. Abby’s vulnerability is not the absence of strength; it is the result of having learned, early on, to measure herself through the needs and approval of others.

We see this internal landscape surface even in Abby’s brief romantic history with Hayden. Their relationship begins with honesty rather than illusion — Hayden is clear from the outset that it will eventually return to friendship, and Abby accepts that truth. When the time comes, it is Abby who names the transition. The relationship ends not in rupture, but in mutual understanding. What lingers afterward is not resentment or heartbreak, but something quieter: the reinforcement of a familiar internal narrative about transience and self-worth. Abby does not dramatize loss. She internalizes it.

That pattern helps explain why later harm takes root so effectively. Abby’s most painful experiences are not marked by spectacle, but by erosion — confidence worn down, boundaries blurred, isolation normalized. The story does not linger on explicit moments of violence; it focuses instead on aftermath and accumulation. By the time Abby reaches her lowest point, it is not because she is weak, but because endurance has limits. What follows is not framed as failure, but as collapse under sustained harm.

Abby does not navigate that collapse alone. The care she receives matters — particularly from Elle, whose presence centers compassion rather than crisis. Hayden’s intervention, however, introduces one of the most ethically complex moments in the series. Acting from genuine concern and fear, he makes a decision intended to protect Abby from further harm by shielding her from the memories of what nearly destroyed her. In his mind, this is mercy. Preservation. Perhaps even the only responsible option.

The story refuses to render an easy judgment on that choice. Abby emerges more stable, more confident, and seemingly unburdened by the weight she once carried. And yet, something essential has been taken from her: the ability to know the full truth of her own survival. Healing, in this case, is imposed rather than chosen. Consent — a value Hayden otherwise holds sacred — is quietly suspended in the name of care. By the end of Book Four, Abby remains unaware of what was done, while those closest to her move forward as if equilibrium has been restored. The tension is not explosive. It is unresolved.

Despite everything, Abby remains the emotional conscience of the group. She does not grow hardened or cynical. She does not weaponize pain or retreat into bitterness. Her empathy persists not because she has forgotten, but because it is intrinsic to who she is. Abby’s morality is not loud or declarative — it is steady. That steadiness is her strength.

This is what allows Abby to eventually reconsider connection on her own terms. Her relationship with Dan grows slowly, grounded in history, trust, and patience. He has known her since her freshman year — not as a rescuer, but as a constant. When Abby initially turns away from the possibility of something more, it is not rejection born of disinterest, but caution. When she later reconsiders, it is not a leap, but a step. One taken deliberately.

Abby’s arc does not resolve with triumph or transformation. It resolves with continuation. With the choice to remain present. To believe that gentleness does not have to be synonymous with fragility, and that survival does not require erasure. In a story preoccupied with power and consequence, Abby stands as a reminder that the most radical act is not domination or control — it is choosing to live, fully and honestly, even when parts of your story have been decided for you.

Core Themes in the Series

If you’re reading Agents of Fate expecting a straightforward “powers appear, heroes win” arc, you’ll quickly realize the series has other ambitions. The story is less interested in spectacle than in consequence. It’s not just about what people can do — it’s about what they choose to do when the world refuses to slow down long enough for them to become wise, calm, or morally certain. As you read, pay attention not only to the battles, but to the ethical negotiations happening in the margins: the conversations, the silences, the compromises, and the moments where someone’s values are tested in a way that leaves no clean outcome.

One of the most central themes is agency — the right to own your choices, your body, your story, and your future. Fate exists in this world, and prophecy and power have a way of trying to make people into instruments. The series repeatedly asks whether destiny is something you submit to, something you resist, or something you rewrite at a cost. Watch how often characters are faced with a choice between what is “necessary” and what is truly theirs to decide. Some characters insist on agency even when it complicates survival. Others protect it until pressure breaks them. And a few cross the line entirely, treating agency as a negotiable inconvenience.

Closely tied to that is a theme the series returns to again and again: consent — not as a buzzword, but as a moral baseline. In many stories, consent matters only in obvious, dramatic moments. Here, it shows up everywhere: in intimacy, in protection, in magic, and in the ways power can quietly override another person “for their own good.” As you read, notice when consent is honored, when it is assumed, and when it is bypassed. The series does not treat those moments lightly. Sometimes they are framed as compassion. Sometimes they are framed as violence. Often, they are framed as something far more uncomfortable: a choice made with good intentions that still leaves a moral scar.

Another major theme is right versus wrong under pressure — not in the simplistic sense of “heroes do right, villains do wrong,” but in the sense of what happens when moral clarity becomes a luxury. The series is built around high-stakes decisions that often come down to imperfect options. Watch how different characters respond to that. Some prioritize restraint and process even when it costs them. Others prioritize outcomes and accept collateral harm. Some vacillate depending on the circumstance. The story isn’t asking you to pick a side as much as it’s asking you to interrogate what you believe about ethics when circumstances stop being fair.

Alongside this is the ongoing tension between power as responsibility and power as entitlement. In Agents of Fate, power doesn’t automatically corrupt — but it does amplify whatever is already present. For some characters, power is something to be handled carefully, with restraint, humility, and limits. For others, power becomes proof: proof that they are right, proof that they are above consequence, proof that the world should conform to their vision. Watch how the story treats the difference between capability and permission. The scariest moments are often not the loudest ones, but the quiet instances where someone decides that their desire for an outcome overrides another person’s humanity.

A theme that adds complexity — especially for readers who expect morality to be purely choice-driven — is the distinction between corruption and culpability. Not every character becomes dangerous because they are “bad.” Some are altered by forces that narrow their choices, distort their judgment, or invade their sense of self. The series takes seriously the idea that agency can be compromised — and that harm can still follow even when a person didn’t invite the distortion. Watch how the story navigates responsibility without flattening characters into either monsters or saints.

Finally, running beneath all of this is a quieter theme: personhood under extreme conditions. The world of Agents of Fate repeatedly tries to reduce people into roles — weapon, savior, pawn, prophecy, threat, burden. The characters who endure are often the ones who refuse to become only what the moment demands of them. As you read, watch for the small decisions that preserve identity: honesty, empathy, boundaries, the refusal to dehumanize. The series is asking a question that doesn’t have a clean answer: how do you remain yourself when survival keeps demanding that you become someone else?

If there’s a unifying thread across these themes, it’s this: the story doesn’t treat morality as decoration. It treats it as terrain. And the deeper you go, the more you’ll notice that the real conflicts aren’t only between heroes and villains — they’re between ideals and reality, love and control, protection and autonomy, and the desperate human urge to do something when the alternative is to wait for fate to decide.

When the Questions Get Darker

As the series progresses, the questions it asks stop feeling philosophical and start feeling invasive. What begins as speculation — What would you do with power? — turns into something far less comfortable: What would you justify if the alternative was losing someone? The story doesn’t let those questions stay abstract. It attaches them to people you care about, and then refuses to look away.

One of the most unsettling shifts is how protection begins to resemble control. Decisions made out of love or fear quietly cross into decisions made for someone else. The line between care and coercion doesn’t disappear all at once — it erodes. And the series is deliberately unsparing in showing how easy it is to rationalize that erosion when the stakes are high and time is short.

The story also begins to press on a quieter, more intimate fear: whether harm is defined by intent or by impact. Some damage is inflicted knowingly. Some is justified as necessary. Some is framed as mercy. In each case, the story asks the same question without raising its voice: Who gets to decide what someone else can live with? And what happens when that decision is made without their knowledge?

Another fault line emerges around power arriving at the wrong time. Not everyone receives power in a moment of safety, guidance, or adulthood. Some are altered before they have language for what is happening to them. Others are given power early enough that they stop questioning whether they should be trusted with it at all. The difference between those paths is not cosmetic — it shapes who survives with their conscience intact.

Perhaps the darkest question the series raises is whether there are lines that should remain absolute, even when crossing them might prevent catastrophe. Are there acts that cannot be undone, no matter how righteous the intention behind them? Are there futures that cost too much to secure? The story offers no clean answers. It offers only aftermath.

These questions are not designed to be resolved. They are meant to linger — under conversations, beneath moments of quiet, inside choices that seem small at first. Agents of Fate does not demand that its readers approve of its characters. It asks something more unsettling: to recognize how thin the line is between protection and violation, and how easily good people convince themselves they are still on the right side of it.

If the harm you cause prevents something worse, does that make it right — or just permanent?

That question doesn’t belong to villains or prophecies. It settles in quieter places — in restraint tested too far, in protection that begins to overreach, in the moment someone decides they can carry the weight of a choice so others don’t have to. Not everyone who asks it means to cross a line. Some only realize they have after the fact.

And that is where the story becomes less about fate — and more about the kind of hero we expect someone to be.

That will segue into a future post: Hayden Isn’t a Perfect Hero. Here’s Why That’s Important.

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But that’s not true.

The truth is that completing the first book took about sixteen years. I had the original ideas forming in my imagination back in 2007. Some of those ideas solidified and remained in the story, some were eventually swept aside. I started writing pieces of the first chapter in 2008 — then left it collecting proverbial dust in my digital filing cabinet until 2012. It was then that I started writing parts of what would become chapter five. Yes, my writing style jumps around — I often find myself beginning in the middle of the story and writing backwards.

Finally, I received renewed inspiration to work on the story in the Autumn of 2022. Life had finally granted me the remaining keys to the locks that held back prior attempts. I told myself, “this time for real!” To my surprise, I actually began producing results. The story that had only lived in my head, to that point, was materializing on paper.

I finished Book One in the Spring of 2023, went through the editing rounds, then typeset the whole thing and published it. It released in mid-July 2023. Book Two was finished a few weeks after Book One and released in November 2023. I had been working on writing the first two installments together — since I already had part of Book Two in my head.

I wish that I could say my own motivation was the catalyst that fueled the fire of completion. However, that also isn’t entirely true. Each time that I started writing again — whether in 2012, 2022, or any of the micro bouts of inspiration in the middle — it was the result of someone else telling me that they wanted to read the story. Luckily, that last nudge pushed me over the edge, where previous sparks had failed to produce flames.

A fun fact: I originally started writing Agents of Fate as a screenplay — since the story was stored in my brain as a mental movie. I quickly opted to move into novel format, though I still believe the series would make for great cinema.

The Birth of the Idea

Looking back, I realize the long gestation wasn’t procrastination — it was incubation.

But where does a story like the Agents of Fate Series come from?

The novels are a mix of modern fantasy, technically, with some sci-fi elements — but not like you may think. There are no dragons or wizards, no warlocks or intergalactic military fleets. Agents of Fate is a story about people, thrust into extraordinary circumstances. It’s about how those characters cope, adapt, and evolve when faced with trauma, power, and impossible choices. It’s about the relationships — friendships and romance — that can sometimes be messy or convoluted. So, while there are elements of magic or powers involved, the heart of the story is the people.

The more fantastical pieces of the story are, obviously, pure imagination — mythical ancient powers, beings hellbent on destruction, and temporal mechanics. On the other hand, the characters are where I believe the story really shines. Several of the characters are inspired by people that I knew in real life. Not down to the minutiae — this isn’t an exposé — but their personalities and inclinations have roots from which they evolve into their own personas. Characters like Hayden, Paige, Dan, and Kali are all people that I recognize — because I can see the breadcrumbs of their origins in people I’ve known.

Some characters are completely original — in that they don’t draw any personality inspiration from anyone I’ve known. Abby is a good example of this. She is also one of the characters that did not exist in the original version of the story in my head — and believe it or not, Elle and Kinsley (two of my favorite characters) were additions made in 2022/2023.

The arcs and plotlines changed somewhat over the years, as I rewrote the story in my head. Mostly little details like Kali’s name or the lineage and involvement of Armond. There were some significant alterations however — once I got back to writing in 2022 and Elle was born into the story, my original plan was to first introduce her a few chapters into Book Two. When I was about three-quarters finished with Book One, I made the decision to move that up and briefly introduce her much earlier. I would go so far as to say that Elle was one of those missing keys that I referenced earlier. Her story impacts the characters and the narrative in profound ways, even when subtle.

A handful of the core struggles in Book One — much like some of the character inspirations — derived from similar moments in my own life. I suppose that may boil down to closure via reimagination… or perhaps just good old fashioned self-flagellation. Whatever the case, Book One, in particular, feels real to me because of the people, places, and events. I hope that readers can also find little pieces of themselves in one or more of the characters.

From the inception of the story, I knew that the end of Book One wouldn’t truly feel like a win. I couldn’t let Hayden and his friends off the hook like that. 😂 That being said, I’ll end part one here.

In part two, we will explore the characters in more depth, the emergence of the series’ core themes, and how some of its darker, more complex questions take shape.

Thanks for reading and sticking around!
Learn more about the Agents of Fate Series at the Hensley de Vere Press website.

The fictional ones I write.
The civic one I participate in.
…and if I’m being honest, none of them came with an instruction manual.

My name is Tony Contratto, and almost nothing about my life has unfolded in a straight line. I grew up learning to be self-directed early. I was one of those kids who figured out how to teach myself — academics, music, writing, tech, finance… because curiosity is a hard thing to kill once it takes root.

By middle school I was learning from library books, old computers, and whatever lessons life threw my way. I actually learned how to type because Sierra’s Police Quest 2 punished slow typists with in-game death. In high school, I was helping operate a youth crisis hotline, publishing a monthly newsletter in my youth group, and performing in a punk band… all while holding down a part-time fast food job. I went on to college, the first in my family to do so.

Early independence shaped me more than any formal curriculum ever did. It taught me that systems fail people all the time, and people learn to work around broken systems long before bureaucrats realize anything is wrong.

Much later, when I ran for local office, I watched voters complain about entrenched leadership and then immediately re-elect the same people. That was another lesson: change doesn’t happen because people want it. It happens because people organize and push for it.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I became a writer.

Not by accident, but by gravitational pull. Stories were where I worked out questions I didn’t yet have language for: power, time, trauma, responsibility, redemption. Agents of Fate began as an imagined world in my head and eventually grew into a universe on the page… and a place where morality wasn’t an academic debate but a lived, costly experience. I realized that everything I wrote — every theme, every conflict, every spell and piece of lore, was shaped by the same real-world concerns I think about when I’m not writing fiction.

Those issues weren’t abstract to me.
They weren’t academic.
They were personal.

My political philosophy emerged from the same place as my fiction — lived reality, moral reasoning, and a stubborn refusal to pretend that broken systems are fine. I don’t care much about party lines; I care about the health of our democracy, the dignity of ordinary people, and whether the institutions we entrust with power actually deserve it. Spoiler: they often don’t.

I tend to fall into a more progressive, civic-humanist lane: pro-democracy, pro-equality, pro-human dignity, skeptical of concentrated power (whether governmental or corporate), and allergic to performative politics. I care about policy over posturing and outcomes over ideology, and I believe a healthy society invests in its people — especially the young and the vulnerable.

Family sharpens that lens — both blood and chosen family. While I don’t have biological children of my own, I have my bestie’s two granddaughters in my life — whom I love as daughters — and I don’t use that term as an empty cliché. Their happiness, safety, agency, and success — both in girlhood and their futures — shape the moral and structural lens through which I approach the world. That shift changed everything — suddenly every policy, every cultural pressure, every social norm felt personal rather than theoretical.

Several years ago, after learning more about period poverty and the well-documented ‘confidence cliff’ many girls experience in early adolescence, I decided I wanted to act locally rather than remain concerned abstractly. I proposed the idea for Havasu Helping Girls to a group of friends who later became the first board of directors, and together we built the organization as a collaborative effort focused on empowerment and menstrual equity. My role in this work often prompts the question, “why would you, as a man, be involved with this?”

Because when people only show up once injustice affects them personally, systems never change. Despite some progress, our society still sends girls and women contradictory messages: be strong, but not too strong; be ambitious, but not threatening; be independent, but don’t make anyone uncomfortable. Society blunts girls’ confidence when it should be empowering their voices and expanding their agency. Systems like that don’t fix themselves — they’re reformed by people willing to call out the contradictions and build alternatives. My ethics and worldview are grounded in the recognition that empowering girls isn’t just a moral duty; it’s a democratic one. A republic cannot thrive when half its population is navigating obstacles the other half pretends not to see — we all have an obligation to confront the inequities baked into the culture. Feminism, for me, isn’t about slogans; it’s about responsibility.

Today, I’m a novelist, an advocate, a small-business owner, a reform-minded citizen, and a chronic overthinker who tries to channel all that analysis into something useful. I write about democracy, empowerment, culture, and the long-term health of our republic because those things determine whether our children inherit a world they can thrive in — or just survive in.

Ink, Fire & Republic is the convergence point of all of this:
my books, my beliefs, my civic philosophy, my lived experience, and the stories — fictional or otherwise — that reveal who we are and who we could become.

If you’re here, it’s probably because some part of that resonates with you.
Maybe you’re a reader of my books.
Maybe you care about civic health.
Maybe you’re a parent, an educator, a reformer, or simply someone who still believes that hope is worth defending.

Whatever brought you, I’m glad you’re here.

To catch up on my projects and pages, visit my Linktree.

Oh, and yes, I use em dashes when I write essay style. No, I’m not a robot. Well, I’ve been accused of being a robot by my brother-in-law — who thinks my brain is somehow hooked up to Google whenever I answer obscure questions with correct facts. 😂🤖 But I think that’s more because I loved watching Jeopardy! as a kid.

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Welcome, and thanks for being here.

If you’re reading this, it means you’ve wandered into the strange intersection where my fiction, my politics, my advocacy, and my random thoughts all collide. This publication—Ink, Fire & Republic—is the place where I think, write, argue, create, reflect, and occasionally set off a small rhetorical flare.

I’m Tony Contratto: novelist, business owner, civic idealist, reluctant realist, and someone who genuinely believes that stories and democracy are both shared projects. One shapes how we imagine the world; the other shapes how we live in it. I don’t think you can separate them.

Here’s what you can expect from this space:

📚 Stories & Creative Work

Behind-the-scenes looks at my books, worldbuilding notes, lore deep-dives, craft discussions, and the philosophical questions that sneak their way into my fiction whether I want them to or not.

🔥 Politics & Civic Reflections

Commentary on democracy, culture, social norms, and the policies that determine whether our kids inherit a society that’s functional… or just really good at pretending it is.

🧠 Advocacy & Social Frameworks

Thoughts on the advocacy arenas in which I operate: girlhood, empowerment, resilience, and how the rising generation will inherit every system we either fix or ignore.

☕ Occasional Rants

I promise to keep these smart, sharp, and occasionally funny. Healthy outrage only. No doom loops.

🌎 Personal Essays

Pieces on family, growth, ethics, identity, and the strange business of navigating adulthood while building worlds on the side.

Why start this newsletter?

Because we’re living in a moment where public discourse feels hollow, attention spans are collapsing, and nuance is treated like a suspicious substance.
But nuance is where the real work happens.
And writing is where I do my best thinking.

I want this to be a space for people who appreciate depth, care about ideas, and don’t flinch at complexity. Readers who enjoy stories and systems. Humanity and policy. Hope and realism.

What I hope this becomes

A community of readers who aren’t afraid of asking questions that matter.
A place where ideas evolve.

If that sounds like your kind of place, subscribe and stay awhile.
I’m glad you’re here.

Let’s build something worth believing in.

— Tony

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