#[ and i can no longer attempt to ignore it anymore because it's detrimental to my mental health ]

[causalitylinked]

OOC UPDATES

I updated my rules page again, but in case you don’t feel like actually re-reading them because they are four pages long, here are the changes I made:

Under ‘Reasons I May Unfollow / Block: ‘If I notice you interact with two people I’m personally uncomfortable with, I may potentially unfollow or softblock as my reaction to seeing them on my dash is really that bad, but I won’t be mentioning who they are and what they have done unless you privately message me about it, because I don’t want to draw negative attention towards them.’

Added an amendment to the rule of pre-established interactions, where if the first meeting scenario has an interesting enough premise, I might make an exception when it comes to my rule on non pre-estabished interactions, but due to me preferring continuity, relationships wise, I may later drop the first meeting thread and start another thread with you that would take place after the events of the first meeting thread, if only because I don’t want to continue being stuck in the ‘two strangers who just met for the first time’ phase. Seriously, it’s just not my favourite thing to write!

Reworded a paragraph to now say: ‘Please keep in mind that Gin, Kobato, Sasara, Ryuto, and Akira are Japanese characters in a Japanese setting, which means I will be writing them as such; therefore, they will address other muses using honorifics (or by last name in Akira’s case) and will not be able to converse in English, aside from maybe Ryuto. Due to this being the case, I will naturally default any interactions with Akira to occur in Japan and default any interactions with my Caligula muses to occur either in Redo or modern day Japan unless I’m writing Ryuto.

Clarified that while I myself will exclusively ship with one canon character at a time to make myself feel more comfortable, you aren’t obligated to exclusively ship with my interpretation of a muse as well. I also mentioned the only Sonia Nevermind I will exclusively ship my Akira with is @more-than-a-princess and the only Yuzuriha Kotoko I will exclusively ship my Kobato with is @agnina​.

[amintyworld]

I'm Like You - Origins SMP Oneshot

A/N: So... Origins SMP may be over but that won't stop me from posting this-! :D

Origins SMP please come back

Anyway here's some hurt/comfort more on the fluffy side. - Minty

TW: Blood/gore, mention of death, kidnapping, mention of chopping one's wings off, mention of selling body parts, almost drowning, cursing. (Let me know if I need to add anything else!)

-----------------------------

Phil remembered the day they found him - he was tangled in some seaweed and reeds, floating along in the water, leaving a trail of crimson red in his wake. The teenager's right wing was a shamble of blood and feathers, bruises and cuts littering his skin that ignited Phil's anger - he had half a mind to find that damn village and set it ablaze. But, his mind made sure the boy was the priority. Phil untangled him, thankful that the ocean hadn't let him float out to sea, and pulled him on land, quickly searching for a pulse and practically sighing in relief when he'd found one. Phil wondered how long the kid had been out here - he felt ice-cold to the touch, skin ghostly pale.

He remembered, holding the teenager close in his arms as he took off in the air, wondering why. Why would someone hurt a kid, a child, for something they couldn't control? Why would someone have so much hate in their hearts to land deadly hits on a defenseless person? Why then, after everything they did to him, did they leave him in the river to die? Phil never really got an answer that night as he returned toward Ghostbur's mansion on the mountain. He guessed that maybe the world just didn’t have an answer, or rather, they just didn’t have an answer he wanted to hear.

Phil’s roommate, a good-natured phantom called Ghostbur, practically rushed the kid upstairs to a bed, grabbing supplies before Phil even had a chance to explain what happened. “Ghostbur, you really shouldn’t-!” Phil huffed as he launched himself to the second level, grabbing his friend by the arm, feeling his friend’s body shake with adrenaline, emotion. “Wil, he’s got a broken wing - wings are very sensitive and extremely delicate, we need to be careful.” His hand reached up to steady his phantom friend. “Can you grab a couple of potions, bandages, as well as a needle and thread for me? I’ll work on cleaning him up.”

The phantom took a deep breath, silently phasing through the floor beneath his feet to grab the items Phil requested. He understood Ghostbur’s worry - damaged wings for winged creatures could quickly turn detrimental, it was a natural part of who they were, how they felt, and sensed danger around them. Without it, they’d feel incomplete, empty, but most importantly - they’d be in their most vulnerable state.

Phil’s fingers were soft and light as he cleaned out the wounded wing, picking out and straightening feathers that were stuck, misshapen, or out of place. Gently, using lukewarm water, he washed the dirt, rocks, and dried blood from the wound, careful to move slowly so as to not cause alarm to the kid. Ghostbur floated up next to him, placing the things he asked for on the bedside table, crossing his arms, and looking over to the teenager. “Is he gonna be okay, Phil?”

“I…” Phil sighed. “I dunno. The wound’s deep, half his flying feathers are gone… thank gods whoever left him had a shit aim, it looks like they were trying to take the wing off at the source.”

“Can you fix it?”

“...I can try.”

------------------------------------------------

Tommy’s head pounded, his body wrapped in a comforting warmth that practically screamed at him to sink into. His muscles ached for rest, but Tommy knew he needed to get moving. His head ached so much it made his brain go fuzzy as he struggled to remember what happened yesterday. He and Tubbo were moving to go collect some honey… Did he fall asleep again?

Tommy would admit it wouldn’t be the first time he found a good sunlight patch to catch a nap and the shulker hybrid had to carry him back to their base on the mountain. How long had he slept? Why was he still tired?

His ears perked up as he heard shuffling around him. His instincts began to flare, sending signals up his spine. Wait… the hunters… the hunters took him… Tubbo’s in danger-

He felt someone touch his wing, gently moving it toward themselves. His wing… they tried to take his wings, they wanted to sell them for money-! Tommy’s eyes snapped open. He wasn’t home. He didn’t know where he was and a stranger was touching his wing.

dangerdangerdanger-

Ignoring his body’s protests to rest, he leaped up, surprising the attacker as he tackled him toward the wall quickly to restrain him, pinning his neck with his arm. A crash sounded behind him but Tommy didn’t care. He was getting out of here and saving Tubbo no matter what. His eyes bore into the ill-intended stranger, ready for a fight. “Where am I?!”

The stranger’s eyes flicked up toward Tommy’s, at first matching his intense gaze before quickly softening, silent as he became acutely aware of the razor-sharp talons digging into his leg. “You’re in my house.” He did his best to keep his voice calm. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Where’s Tubbo?”

“Who-”

Tommy slammed the man back against the wall. “Don’t act dumb you fucker, where’s the shulk?!”

“I don’t know, okay?! Just-!”

Tommy’s eyes flicked over toward the window - an escape! He needed to get out of here, clearly Tubbo got taken somewhere else if the stranger didn’t know him. He needed to get free and… and come up with some kind of plan...yeah! Adrenaline pumping like mad from the close encounter, the stranger noticed his gaze as realization hit him.

“Wait… hold on, you really shouldn’t-!”

Tommy felt the wind flow underneath his wings, perched on the window ledge. They were achingly sore - who knows how long he’d been trapped here? Moving to crack a tense spot in his back, Tommy felt a sense of relief. He smiled, knowing that his wings wouldn’t be sore for much longer. They just needed to stretch.

Phil rushed forward, an inch too late as Tommy leaped from the building.

The teenager stretched his wings out to catch himself on the breeze, confident for the span of at least a minute. He closed his eyes like he usually did to better focus. Why couldn’t he feel his wings picking him up? Why wasn’t his body doing what he needed to - it was as simple as taking a step! Just stretch and glide on the breeze.

Stretch, and…

For the first time since the avian learned to fly, Tommy found himself crashing down onto the grass. Shame welled up in his stomach, paired with confusion. Hearing the door bang open behind him added to it all a twinge of fear. He stumbled, trying in vain to gather his bearings. Ignoring the sting of scratches from the crash, he ran into the forest.

“Wait! Mate, just wait for a second!”

The wind picked up through the trees, tangling through hair and setting practically every nerve on Tommy’s wings aflame. There was danger. He needed to fly. He needed to fly away, but… but he couldn’t. He was trapped and alone with hunters chasing him down to finish the job they started. He couldn’t stop running. He couldn’t, because if he did he could say goodbye to flying ever again. He’d never grow his wings back, and he’d look like a useless disgusting human.

He’d be normal.

Flying was the only hybrid skill, the only uniqueness about him. Tommy would rather die than ever have that stripped away from him. Chopping away bone, muscle, and feather - all in the interest of earning a few gold coins! Well, fuck them. His body barely running on energy as it was, his legs gave out on him as he fell to the ground again.

No. Please.

He heard footsteps, flipping around to see the blonde man. Pure fear gripped him for the first time in his life. He scooted backwards as the man tried to approach. Another pathetic attempt at escaping - why was he even trying anymore? His back hit a tree trunk, his wings shrinking back, as scared as he was. Yet, the blonde man moved closer.

“Stay back! Stay back, or…” Tommy struggled, quickly moving to grab a rock, holding it up in some sort of threat. As if a rock could take down a hybrid hunter. “...or I will mess you up, bro!”

The blonde man stopped walking forward. “Look, I know you’re confused and scared, I would be too. But I promise, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Liar! I won’t let you take them!”

The man’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Take them…? I…” He looked down at the teenager in sympathy. “I don’t want your wings, I swear!”

“Bullshit!” Tommy yelled. “I know your game, stop acting so innocent! You can’t lure me in, you can’t make me trust a single word you say, hunter!”

“I’m not... I’m not a hunter, okay?” Phil said, stepping closer and making Tommy tense. He sat down four feet away from the teen, taking a deep breath before shouldering off his green robe, leaving the white tank. Immediately, a pair of translucent, metallic wings unfurled from his back, so large Tommy almost felt intimidated. Tommy wanted to say something, but words died on his throat. Phil shrugged his shoulders after stretching his wings out looking up toward the avian. He awkwardly smiled. “...well mate, I’m like you.”

---------------------------

General Taglist (Tell me if you want to be added/removed!):

@bones-sprouts

@benzel

@foolishcaptains

[defensefilms]

Ridley Scott Says “Millennials Don’t Want To Be Taught Anything”.

For months now, I have been seeing ads and trailers for the “The Last Duel” and I largely ignored it. Not my cup of tea really. Plus I’m really tired of guys with swords and magic nonsense, can movies get back to the gritty stuff please?

The film has not done as well at the box office, and to be honest I think that the first thing to be blamed is bad Hollywood mathematics. You spend a 100 million dollars to make a film but industry only counts first week sales, so that kind of handicaps any profits that are made in theatres because the movie will be showing for longer than that, right? 

Then you have the fact that you’re doing a theatrical cinema release. 

Why? 

No one cares about going to the movies anymore. GET OVER IT.

Seriously Hollywood needs to stop thinking that consumers are going to enjoy the movie the way that you tell them to because it’s dumb and bad for business. There is absolutely no way on earth that you guys think that what you do is that important.

I don’t wanna deal with other human beings in my peripheral while I’m enjoying a film. True say, I was socially distancing way before my government ever mandated it.

I am not gonna sit there in a crowd with snot-nosed kids and their idiot parents, and oh by the way, I can’t even have a cigarette while I’m sitting there and the snacks are way overpriced. That whole experience is overpriced.

So of course, Ridley Scott did what film schools all over the world teach on a daily basis and blamed the film’s bad box office performance on millennials who grew up on smartphones and who don’t want to learn from anything other than their phones.

Oh, Ridley, sit down, let me talk to you, playa.

First of all, sir, you’re part of an industry in decline. You know what that means? It means that simply putting some Hollywood A-lister in your film is not enough to guaruantee anything anymore, because no one cares about celebrities. 

One of the things that the film and television industry struggle with, is that a lot of the above-the-line crew/ heads of department are old. This is not inherently bad, but it also means there comes a point when, as a writer/director/executive, you lose your touch. 

Is that fair to say? Probably not. However in the entertainment business one’s age can be used both to their favor or detriment. If a young director fails, he is just that, a director who failed because he’s young. So couldn’t the reverse be true. That Hollywood’s longtime mainstay storytellers, just don’t have the juice anymore? Namely, Ridley Scott.

The point about Millennials and smartphones is just pure avoidance of the fact that, you made something that can’t keep people’s attention. That whole diatribe was just pure head fakery.

But where Ridley really goes wrong, is in saying millennials don’t want to learn anything. 

This demonstrates pure ignorance and a clear attempt to lash out at an audience he really doesn’t know very well, or have anything interesting to show.

Those smartphones are loaded with information, free courses, demonstration videos, instruction manuals and yes, books. Furthermore they are in fact a more effective learning tool than humans who are prone to both, memory loss and bias.

There’s no way, a full grown adult, working in the entertainment industry, constantly immersed by the changing technologies that affect the production of his works, can be this ignorant about technology.

So in the era of lockdowns and financial hardship, here I have an elderly adult male that thinks his movie, set in some medieval castle place, is a better teacher than a search engine that can literally access any information in recorded history.

That’s funny because all those production designers, art directors, hair stylists and make-up artists that were under Ridley’s direction, likely used smartphones to access Google, so they could have reference images to guide their aesthetic choices in pre-production. If Ridley had his way, they would have had to get library cards instead.

Oh, the irony.

The idea that Millennials don’t want to learn is absolutely insulting. 

In my circle there’s a man that wants to get in to trading and investing. The other one is teaching himself to code, the other wants to start freelancing as a graphic designer and the other one wants to start a football club for kids.

These are the people you’re talking about? These Millennials are too lazy to learn?

First off, the economy and job market are in such a porous state that Millennials don’t really have a choice. Everybody got 2-3 hustles, living on their wits and out of all those revenue streams, you were likely only properly trained or schooled to do 1, and you had to learn how to do the others in your spare time.

What the fuck planet is this old geezer living on?

The pandemic flu has really worn down my ability to tolerate older folks talking out their necks. I just can’t do it anymore and they don’t deserve my patience. 

I work with kids for a living, you know, one of them “lazy side hustles”, I do.

I’ve learned that children deserve all the patience. When kids make a mistake, it’s genuinely because they don’t know better because their kids.

Not so with older people. A lot of people you’d call adults, do the wrong thing because they just don’t care to do the right thing. It’s not that they don’t know, it’s that they just couldn’t be arsed to act as if they know. 

Like, they think they don’t owe you the respect of acknowledging their wrong doing by correcting their behavior. 

Stuff like this, is why I spazz out daily.

[bloodpacks-archive]

“you’ve got my devotion” from the lyric prompts with obi? 🥺

okay so this ended up being WAY longer than i thought it was going to be but i hope you guys enjoy it :)) and i once again missed obi and chandrila reader so here they are

(also quick warning! this fic does deal with injuries, specifically some accidental cuts from glass and shrapnel. if those concepts could be detrimental to you or your mental health, please don’t read this! thank you)

devotion - obi-wan kenobi x chandrila!reader

It’s not often that he’s as reckless as this. The cut above his brow—one he’d earned from droid shrapnel—stings as he moves, making him wince, and then making the cut only hurt worse. Ventress had leaped away a few moments ago, but not before sending another quip his way accompanied by a deadly smirk.

His breath hitches as he tries to stand, his leg sending sharp pains from a vicious and frankly unnecessary move to get his feet out from under him.

The door behind him hisses open, and he turns, finding Anakin and Ahsoka at the ready, blue and green light from their respective sabers illuminating the now dark room—Ventress had managed to take out the light above him, sending shards cascading about them. Now, he can feel the stinging on his face and arms as he attempts to stand again, wincing more and then remembering the cut above his brow.

Anakin rushes to his side, grabbing his arm to help him get upright. Obi-Wan should consider him lucky that there’s a senate meeting right now, otherwise he thinks a certain Chandrilan might’ve had a few words to say if she saw him like this.

Luckily, it’s Anakin who’s pulling him to his feet, and Ahsoka who rushes over to help. As Obi-Wan puts weight onto his left leg, air rushes into his lungs and his eyes screw shut—for his own sake, he hopes it’s severe bruising.

“If I have to give Ventress anything, it’s that she’s got some kick to her,” He says. Anakin huffs out a laugh from beside him, shifting his shoulders so Obi-Wan can better lean on him rather than Ahsoka.

The three of them hobble out together, failed senatorial assassination attempt behind them, and continue to make their way through the halls of the Coruscant Senate Building. Obi-Wan tests putting his weight on his left leg as they walk, the sharp pain turning more into a bearable—although notable—ache as they move.

“You know, Master, we could’ve come to help earlier,” Anakin says. Obi-Wan lets laughter fall past his lips, more of a rushed breath than anything.

“I had it handled just fine,” He replies.

“Is that why we’re helping you walk? Because you had it handled?” Ahsoka quips back. He gaze turns from Anakin’s proud smirk to Ahsoka’s defiant eyes.

These two, he thinks.

“It’s nothing some bacta won’t fix.” Anakin and Ahsoka make eye contact behind his shoulders. “Besides, Rex and Cody needed your help with the droids.” Silence settles as they continue on, they’re drawing closer to the 212th and 501st. Anakin breaks the silence to speak into his commlink, telling Rex that Kix needs to prepare to tend to a couple of lacerations and other injuries.

Finally, they come upon the two clone squadrons, Rex and Cody speak quietly to the side with a few senators and—

damn.

Rex looks up to see their hobbling group, and calls over to Kix, who already has his supplies—just as ordered. And as Rex calls, she turns around, her eyes meeting first Ahsoka’s, and then his. He watches as her shoulders sag, her eyebrows furrow and her eyes fall down to his limp.

He can’t hear the way she sighs, but he can certainly feel it in her expression.

“You look like you’re doing well, General,” Kix says as Anakin helps Obi-Wan sit back against the wall. Obi-Wan shoots him a look, silently telling him I can do it myself, but Anakin continues, ignoring Obi-Wan to stifle laughter at Kix’s comment.

“I’m fine, Kix, thank you,” He replies.

“The blood on your face says otherwise,” Anakin retorts. Kix looks between them with raised eyebrows before getting to work, leaning forward to disinfect the cuts on Obi-Wan’s face. Obi’s eyes flick to the side, meeting hers for just a moment. With the threat of the assassination gone, Senators Organa, Amidala, and Mothma had left to go speak with the troops and, of course, she followed.

The senators speak in hushed tones with Cody, Rex, and Ahsoka, Anakin moving to join them, but her eyes stay trained on him. He tries to keep his glances at a minimum as Kix spreads some bacta over the less severe of his cuts, but he doubt it does much good. Kix has a smirk pricking at his lips, trying his best to keep it at bay, but Obi-Wan still notices it. Kix leans up again, carefully wrapping bandages around the one deeper laceration across his forehead.

“You’re gonna have to change these bandages later,” Kix says, and then lets his focus fall to Obi-Wan’s leg, where the pain has mostly dulled. He puts pressure on a few areas on his thigh—causing a few sharp intakes of breath on Obi’s end—feeling for any obvious breaks. Kix sighs as he sits back, letting his eyes scan over Obi-Wan once more. “You’re gonna be fine, but if that leg doesn’t feel any better by tomorrow—you know where to go.”

Obi-Wan nods. “Thanks again, Kix.”

Kix offers a curt nod and smile to Obi-Wan before gathering his supplies and heading back to his squadron. Obi-Wan notices how his shoulders relax as he approaches Jesse, a solid clap on the back his only greeting towards his brother.

He sees movement from his side, and turns his head to watch as she crouches down in front of him, taking the place of Kix. He furrows his brows at her for a moment, but she just shakes her head at him, letting her eyes fall over him slowly, examining his cuts and bruises.

“You need someone to take care of you tonight?” She asks. His eyes widen at the comment, quickly flicking to the other people in the room to make sure none of them heard. They’re all much too engrossed in their own conversations, he realizes, to make any note of them.

“Well,” He begins, finally letting himself relax, “I’m not going to turn down an offer like that.”

She laughs quietly, ducking her head. “Very well, General Kenobi.” She stands, letting her gaze linger on him for just a moment. “Don’t get into anymore trouble on the way to your quarters, alright?”

He chuckles, the noise barely above the sound of his breath. “I can’t make any promises.”

She rolls her eyes at him as she walks away, and he follows her with his gaze for just a moment. She blends back in with the senatorial crowd, finding her place next to Mon Mothma as they continue to speak with Anakin and Rex. His eyes catch with Ahsoka’s, and she smiles at him—then turning sympathetic as she eyes his bandages.

He’ll be fine soon, he knows. He’ll have her taking care of him.

—————

The cool breeze on her Coruscant balcony feels refreshing against his skin. She’s inside, gathering new bandages and bacta for his forehead. His leg is starting to feel better, but as he leans against the balcony’s edge, he still finds himself favoring his right. He tests it again, putting his weight onto his left leg. It hurts, still makes him grimace a bit as he moves off of it, but it’s duller than it was before. He’ll take it.

Her footsteps are light as she moves outside, barely more of a sound than the soft pitter-patter rain tends to make on the duracrete here. He feels as her hand comes upon his shoulder, soft in her touch, moving up from his back and onto his arm.

“Sit.” Although her voice is delicate, there’s a feeling of commandment in it. He knows if she wanted to, she could command a room with ease, but here—there’s no need. He does as she says, moving away from the edge of the balcony and into the chair beside him.

She leans down as she stands between his legs, carefully unwrapping the bandage from around his forehead. He watches her expression, the slight purse of her lips, the knitting of her eyebrows—she doesn’t like seeing him like this.

“I’m sure you have other important things to do,” He says. Her eyes move down to his, narrowing ever so slightly. “I could take care of this myself, you know. No need to waste your time on my idiocy.”

She gives him a pointed look, and then fully unwraps his bandages, smearing some bacta onto his cut as she sighs.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I happen to enjoy my time spent with you.” She moves back for a moment as she grabs the bandages she’d placed next to them, playing with the ends. “If I could, I’d devote all of my nights to you.”

You practically have, he thinks.

“But normally I’m not-“ He cuts himself off, closing his eyes and sighing.

“Not what?” She asks. She moves forward to rewrap his laceration.

“Helpless?” He’s not sure how he meant to finish that sentence, but that’s the only word that comes to mind. Utterly helpless. He feels broken, like there had been a pressure building on him and in those few moments, when he’d chosen to go after Ventress and leave Anakin and Ahsoka behind, that had been when the pressure finally got to be too much.

These injuries—every cut, every bruise—they’re all the lasting effects of him being torn apart at the seams by an explosion he hadn’t even known had been coming.

She finishes, and then crouches before him, taking both of his hands in hers as she looks up at him.

“Obi?” She whispers. He looks down at her, tossing a weak smile as his eyes come to meet hers.

“I just wish to protect them,” He whispers back. “Anakin and Ahsoka,“ he lets out a shaky breath, “they deserve much more than I can offer them but god if I’m not going to give everything I have.”

A silence settles between them, her eyes piercing and beautiful as Coruscant shines on next to them.

“And you,” He says, “I hope that I’m never holding you back, or making you regret, or-“

“Obi-Wan,” She begins, “I give you my time, my devotion, because I want to. If I wanted to go out there, be more than a senatorial assistant, I would’ve already done it. But this—“ she squeezes his hands, “this has been my dream since long before I knew you. The only thing that changed about my dream is that you’re in it.”

He pulls her up, lifting her into his lap to wrap his arms around her. She’s careful of his left leg, because she knows, always knows what’s hurting. Obi buries his nose into the crook of her neck, happily overwhelmed by the sweet scent of citrus in her hair, and she does the same, letting her chin rest upon his shoulder.

“And I don’t know about Anakin and Ahsoka,” She begins, lips next to his ear, “but I know they adore you, my love. If they knew that you were risking yourself for them,” She pulls away, forcing him to look her in the eye, “I can’t imagine their response would be purely thankful.”

Obi-Wan bows his head, closing his eyes for just moment. “You’re right.”

“I usually am,” She replies. His laughter is light as he gazes back up at her, and the smile on her face is sweet. “They—we all love you so much. We know you want to protect us, but every once in a while, let us protect and help you.”

His hands come up to cup her face, pushing pieces of hair out of the way. Her smile still pricks at her lips, and then he nods, and she moves forward, pressing her lips to his cheek, and then his nose, and then his lips.

And as she kisses him, smiling against him, hands light in his hair, he lets himself think freely.

He loves her, he thinks. He loves her, he loves her, he loves her.

And as she presses her lips to his cheek once more, he thinks something else. He’ll protect her, always. But in moments like these, he’ll let her be devoted to him. And just the same, he’ll devote every breath to her.

[thalmor-banjo]

This is a vent post but I have to get this off my chest.

I have ADHD, but it’s undiagnosed by medical professionals. I think it’s pretty mild, but I still have issues with schoolwork, personal projects, etc.

I stim when feeling very overwhelmed/intense feelings. Sometimes it’s happy flapping from a good fanfic or amazing scene from my favorite show. Other times it’s angry jerks. If I stim when I’m angry everyone shuts me down immediately and says I need to, “Get control of your (my) emotions.” When I was small I wouldn’t hide my stimming and no one really thought it was anything unusual, but as I grew I learned to mask it (because I was intermittently taken to therapy for years). Now I mask in public but when I’m alone, it kinda just all comes out, ya know? And it feels good and happy and oh my god do I love it. But if I do it in front of anyone else (who doesn’t know, some of my close friends do and I’m comfortable being myself in front of them), they’ll look at me like I’m fucking insane.

Another thing, I get overstimulated occasionally. Most of the time I'm ok and can slip out of the situation, but sometimes I'm really really not. (Some background, I have an autistic sister, but outside of her specific situation my family is v ableist.). During quarantine I've stopped masking as much (because it's literally impossible to keep up 24/7) and it's been...detrimental to say the least. Whenever I visibly get overstimulated, someone in my family will notice, then they'll all intensify the behavior ("Exposure therapy is the cure for being overwhelmed"-my lovely mother). I hate it so much. Like I'm obviously in discomfort, can you fuck off???

This March something happened. I'm not sure if it was some kind of breakdown or what, but I just couldn't anymore. The whole day I was on edge, but being forced to sit in the cold living room, not allowed to listen to music or have a blanket, just being forced to work, it fucked with me. My thoughts were too loud for my head. I kept trying to work and they just would shut the fuck up. I tried to explain, but no one would listen. I lost it. Started crying, begging for my headphones. My thoughts were too loud and I couldn't push them down. It wasn't like they were meaningful, I just couldn't focus. It felt like they were ballooning up into my throat, blocking the words I so desperately wanted to scream. Instead, all that came out was, "it's too loud" or something of that vein. I had reached a breaking point. I can't even describe how it felt in words. I was so panicky because my family wanted this work to be done and I was trying so hard but my thoughts were too loud and I just wanted to be in my warm bed snuggled up but I couldn't because who knows why and I had to sit in this cold chair that was sticking to my thighs. The words to describe what I was feeling just couldn't come out past the great nothingness blocking them. They (mis padres) were texting the entire time this was happening. I found out later what they were. Here's my favorites, "she's (I'm trans and they misgender me constantly omfg but that's for another day) acting like River (a character from Joss Whedon's Firefly, one of my absolute favorites. They had just shown it to me the past week. The implication being I was acting out to get out of work, that I was just faking)," "If she (ew ew ew she/her get it awayyyyyyyyy) were a dude, I would punch her (again, they're implying I'm acting out for attention and trying to skip out on work while also being incredibly ableist.).". My parents, the people who have teared me since birth, let me shatter and crunch under their unsympathetic feet. When I tried to communicate my suffering, they turned away, assuming it was all an act and none of it was real. It really stung at the time, and I still don't trust them with a lot of my real thoughts.

Probably the final thing, hyperfixations. I don't forget to eat or drink when hyperfixating (although sleep can be an issue). Not sure why, but it just works out that way. Recently I fell head over heels for the Mandalorian. Space westerns are just my thang (looking at you Firefly). Mando is this battle hardened man who's so devoted to his religion and yet a little green baby comes along and changes it all. My favorite episode is Chapter 15, spoilers ahead. I hate Mayfeld, so much like oh my god. But he makes a good point about lines we're not willing to cross until lines get blurred. It really spoke to me. SPOILER When Din is forced to take off his helmet to do the scan, my heart dropped. I've had to break promises (that I've made to myself) to keep safe (ex: coming out in 2020). But it wasn't just some throwaway vow. This was his religion, his entire way of life. And his sect says you are no longer Mandalorian after removing the helmet, that taking it off means never putting it back on. It's incredibly moving and speaks to something in me; there's a reason it's my favorite episode (so far). And also part of it is that Pedro Pascal is really fucking handsome. Like IRL I'd probably have a squish on him more than anything else, but he's still really hot. Anywayyyyyyyy, back from the tangent, I've watched it at least four, maybe five, times. Chapter 15 is a good episode and it makes me happy. A note: my family (aside from one other member) is aggressively heterosexual and cisgender. Like any time I talk about the future they're immediately like "oh yeah, you'll tell your husband and kids about this later.". It grates on my nerves so much. Like I'm not straight, never will be, and would rather adopt and help (a) kid(s) that need a home rather than bringing another human into the world. Idk if it's just me, but the way they imply I'll have a heterosexual relationship as a cis woman who fucks her husband is just weird and uncomfortable. I don't wanna talk about my sex life with them, nor 1} who I'd like to fuck 2} how I'd like to fuck 3} when I'd like to fuck. Long story short I don't want them to know that I enjoy Pedro Pascal's acting because they'll fucking hound me on it. I wish I didn't have to protect myself and not reveal my thoughts, to keep everything rolling around upstairs from falling off my lips. Then they act like I'm unreasonable for not wanting to share what I'm smiling about. How my sister (who's also ND), starting seeing memories from her past lives. I don't know enough about that kinda stuff to say anything meaningful. I know if I'd have said that my parents would have scoffed and ignored me, but when sister says it, the words are coming directly from God's lips. But when I brought up reality shifting ( something I've been attempting since October), father asked if it was somehow possible for everyone to share a hallucination across thousands of miles. I just wish they'd treat me like they treat her. Like a human bean who deserves to be believed and respected.

I just wanna be able to stim and enjoy things I love without being "normal.".

Anyway, sorry for the long rant, thanks for listening/reading, here's a gif of this absolute human cinnamon bun of a human bean (description, it's Pedro Pascal glancing to the side, raising his brows, looking back, smiling, and then opening his eyes and mouth to make a goofy face):

[ladylynse]

Hey, look, more of my DPxML crossover....

I promised an age ago to finish writing one of these two scenes from  Le Fantôme, and when I asked which one people would prefer to see, this one won. So, enjoy!

Paris – The Previous Evening (relative to this scene)

Marinette pursed her lips as she surveyed the City of Lights from her perch on the Eiffel Tower. She had arranged this meeting with Chat Noir yesterday, but she wasn’t upset that he was late. Even under the cover of darkness, it could be difficult to get away from the responsibilities and people that filled your other life. She didn’t expect him to always be prompt, and he didn’t expect it of her.

She just wished she had more to tell him.

They had no idea how long Le Fantôme had been active. Alya had started digging up ghost sightings and posting them on the Ladyblog when she’d caught wind of it, but Marinette had first heard of it from Alya, and she wasn’t convinced Chat Noir had known earlier, either; he would have told her. Ghost stories weren’t something anyone dismissed, not anymore.

It didn’t seem like the work of another Vanisher. They weren’t sure exactly how many things were connected—no one knew—but the things attributed to Le Fantôme were not always the sort of thing merely an invisible person could accomplish. There had been robberies from places locked up tight, with no evidence anywhere of tampering, let alone a break-in. There had been things said in private that had been leaked to the news, to the detriment of both parties, most often those heading up wealthy companies. (She was waiting for Adrien’s father to be targeted, but he seemed to have evaded Le Fantôme’s scrutiny so far.) But then there were all the little things that kept happening, the reason the media had begun calling this latest victim of Hawk Moth’s Le Fantôme.

There were cold spots—colder than expected, anyway, for the end of October. There was talk of floating objects, carried by invisible hands, and of other things vanishing before someone’s very eyes. There were strange lights, inexplicable power outages, horrible sounds, and…and sightings.

Nothing consistent. Not really. Not enough to go on, what was consistent. No photographs. Conflicting eyewitness accounts. Was Le Fantôme a teenager, someone around her own age, or an older gentleman who might be closer to her father’s age? Was Le Fantôme the girl who had reportedly been seen crying for help by the abandoned rail line or the woman who had purportedly taken to haunting the Venus de Milo, sketching it for hours before vanishing without a trace to enact whatever she had been planning? Was Le Fantôme someone who had fallen on hard times and found themselves ignored by the rest of society or were they someone who had the appearance of everything but had come to the sudden realization that they had nothing that truly mattered and felt that they couldn’t regain what they had lost?

She didn’t know. It was starting to feel like no one did. Moreover, it seemed to Marinette that Le Fantôme had awakened every ghost legend in Paris. At least, it felt that way when she looked at Alya’s blog. Paris, a city that was filled with ghost stories, was now filled with ghosts. And she and Chat Noir had to find the right one in order to stop them.

It was an impossible task.

She heard Chat Noir alight beside her and waited for some light-hearted pun to follow. When it didn’t, she turned her head and realized he looked grim. “You can’t be tired of chasing ghosts already,” she teased.

“No,” he said quietly as he looked over the city, “but I think I’ve seen one.”

“Le Fantôme?”

“No. The mayor’s daughter.”

What? “Chloé Bourgeois? We’re chasing ghosts, kitty, not banshees. Even if she can screech like one.”

That didn’t even get her a smile. “Something happened before I passed the Grand Paris; I’m still not sure what. The mayor is convinced she’s been kidnapped, but the staff….” He took a slow breath. “She’s been missing since yesterday. Her father has been busy, and everyone thought she was at her friend’s.” Sabrina’s, that meant, since Chloé couldn’t count many friends. “Except her friend came by today to ask after her, claiming she hadn’t seen her and had thought she was sick because she hadn’t been in school.”

“That doesn’t make Chloé a ghost.”

Chat Noir turned to face her. “Sabrina—Chloé’s friend, the Vanisher—she says she heard Chloé screaming at her as if she were in the room, but no one else heard anything. I went up with the butler to check her suite. It was empty at first, but…then she was there, right in front of me, begging me to make this stop, to fix this.”

“Begging?”

That got her a smile, albeit a small one. “Well, demanding. But no one else seemed to notice anything, and when I looked away, she vanished.”

Marinette might not like Chloé, but even she didn’t deserve this, whatever this was. “So you think Le Fantôme is creating ghosts from living people? On top of everything else? What would that gain them?”

“An even better way to hide in plain sight. We still don’t know who we’re fighting, but if there are suddenly other people who fit what we know of Le Fantôme, the public can’t even help us narrow it down.”

“So they’re even more like a ghost.” She’d rather fight someone like the Puppeteer again, even with the risk of being controlled, because at least then they had a clear target. “So who are they really after? They don’t want to show themselves. They haven’t even made a bid for our Miraculous.”

“Not that we know of,” Chat Noir agreed, “but they could be watching us. They wouldn’t be the first villain to act quietly for a while before we caught wind of them. I’ve asked the police to take a look back over all their missing persons reports; if we can figure out where most of the people were last seen and when they disappeared, we’ll have a better idea of where Le Fantôme’s been operating, and it might give us a clue about what they want.”

It hardly seemed like it would be enough, but it was far more than she could offer. “Good thinking, kitty.” It would still be looking for a needle in a haystack, but at least it would be a smaller haystack. “But what are we supposed to do once we find them? We can’t catch a ghost.”

To her surprise, Chat Noir actually grinned. “Says who? I’ve been looking into the lore. Something’s bound to work.”

She didn’t like the idea of going into a situation like this blind, armed with multiple attempts that could very well blow up in their faces. “I’d rather we test it out. If other people are turning into     ghosts, they might be willing to help us.”

“If we can communicate with them,” Chat Noir agreed. “And find them. And assuming they aren’t more limited than Le Fantôme.”

She wished he didn’t make so much sense. “We have to try.” They needed to; they were desperate. “I wasn’t able to dig anything up, so your information is all we have to go on.” She bit her lip, but there was no way around it. “Besides, we don’t need to find them. Not really. Not if you already know where one of them is and she’s trying to communicate with us.”

Chat Noir surveyed her for a moment. “You want to try to talk to her. You think she actually saw Le Fantôme? She never said anything.”

“Did you ask? Chloé—at least, what I know of her—isn’t one to volunteer information like that when she’s more concerned with being returned to normal.” Corporeal form, her mind whispered, but saying it like that…. It was another reminder of how much they didn’t know. Le Fantôme might not even be a ghost. Maybe they just had the ability to turn other people into ghosts, and that’s why there was such a spike in ghost sightings.

Still, she didn’t know what that power would gain them.

And she didn’t know why there had been no attempt to seize their Miraculous if that were the case. Could the ghosts touch each other? Would it be easier for Le Fantôme to take their Miraculous if they were caught, or did Le Fantôme have to try to take their Miraculous without changing them? What kind of fight did they need to be prepared for?

“I never had the chance to ask anything,” admitted Chat Noir. “I didn’t see or hear her for long, and after I lost track of her, I didn’t stick around to try to talk to her again. I wanted to drop by the police station and pull the only string we have before our friend’s shift was over.”

Lieutenant Raincomprix tried to help them as much as he could within the realms of the law—as much as repayment for the time he’d been akumatized into Rogercop as recognition that they were all trying to keep Paris safe—but she and Chat Noir tried not to take advantage of him as a resource. He would not break the law for them, of course, but he would answer their questions as best he could, and it could be a lengthy process. This time—researching all those missing persons reports—would certainly take a while.

“That was a good thought.”

“But I should have questioned Chloé first. Or tried to, anyway. Because she’s the more concrete lead.”

Marinette smirked. “I’m not sure concrete can apply to her any longer, kitty cat.” He grinned, and she knew his word choice had been deliberate. She climbed to her feet and unlashed her yo-yo as he followed suit. “Come on. Let’s see what we can find out.”

[canadian-riddler]

Stay Deleted Scene 1

is what I guess we’ll call this

Sometimes he wonders how he’s allowed to keep this job at all: he’s old, disfigured, not terribly social, and above all of those things he is slow.  Not just because of the first item on that list of detriments, but because he has to read the covers of every book that passes through his hands.  Some of them say very little, and he is able to quash the temptation to check the jackets if they have them, but every description printed on the back is carefully read and noted, just in case.  He wants to get back into the habit of reading again.  He hasn’t really opened a book in years, not since long before his accident.  Life got away from him, somehow.  But that life is gone now.  It’s over.  He will begin to read again, in between collating his research that is.  When he thinks about it he feels the old excitement in his chest.  It was good to stop, in a way; he had become so borderline obsessed with it in his youth that it really had become quite the bad habit.  He is different now, and things are different, and if he reads too much he has a very intelligent attention-seeking husband who will climb into his lap and remain there until Jonathan entertains him.  In the past, Jonathan ignored him at almost every turn, unless Jonathan himself was in the mood for attention, but now… he feels as though his mind has been removed and reorganised, somehow, and his priorities have been rearranged.  His research is still paramount, of course, but sometimes… sometimes Edward edges it out for the top spot.  He’s not sure what it is.  The steady comfort of his presence, maybe, or the reassurance that he has braved the worst with Jonathan and not backed down.  He doesn’t know if it’s this newfound outlook on his life or if it was just something he used to deny to himself, but he can no longer imagine going to bed without shoving Edward’s body to one side of it, or ignoring the way Edward fruitlessly attempts to redirect that one wayward lock of hair off his forehead, or getting angry when Edward pushes his papers aside and sits on his desk until Jonathan does what he wants.  Things that were once of huge import aren’t anymore.  He isn’t quite ready yet to ask Edward, who probably knows why his outlook has changed.  Scarecrow has been quiet since Jonathan and Edward both proved him wrong, so perhaps all it is is who he is.  He spent so many years either growing into or being or preserving the Scarecrow for a myriad of purposes that whoever he is is something he doesn’t really know.  It could be a result of the fever that seemed to cling to him for months at a time.  Not that the cause matters, in the end.  He is just curious about it sometimes.

Right now he doesn’t have any book covers to read, not really; they don’t usually put him in the children’s section for obvious reasons but someone called in sick and he was sent to cover for them.  He knows parents are staring at him and whispering but he focuses on breathing and tells himself their opinions don’t matter.  Only Edward’s opinion matters, and Edward doesn’t care about the scarring, and he carefully combs Jonathan’s hair over the patchy spots to make him feel better.  His hands are shaking a little more than usual; otherwise his mental diversions mostly work.  When he realises his breaths have run a little too short he stops and looks at the cover of the last book he needs to shelve.  It has a drawing of a fuzzy blue monster on the front of it.  Or at least he thinks it’s supposed to be a monster.  It looks like no monster he’s ever seen, and he’s seen many more than most.

Someone is staring at him with such intensity that he can’t stand not looking anymore.  He looks to his left, a little confused when no one’s there, but then he thinks to look down.  There’s a little girl with long black hair and bangs that need pulled back from her eyes.  Once she has his attention she says, “You’re big.”

That baffles him for a moment.  “… yes,” is all he can think of to say, and returns his attention to shelving the book.  

“Did your leg grow too much and that’s why you have that thing on it?”

“No,” he says slowly.  “No, it ended up the right size.”

“Did it get broke then?  My friend Nigel fell off the monkey bars and broke his arm and I wrote on his cast.  Did someone write on your cast?”

Jonathan doesn’t mind children for exactly this reason – they want to know things – but what in the world is he supposed to say?  He wishes she had just left him alone.

“I didn’t have a cast.  That’s why I have to wear it.  It didn’t heal properly.”  Thinking about it makes it ache and he wonders if she’ll let him go so he can sit in the sorting room for a while.

“But how did it break?  Did you fall?  My gramma fell and broke her hip because she’s old.  You look old like my gramma.”

He turns around to face her.  “If you really must know,” he says, deciding to go for broke, “I was… trying to do an experiment and I was attacked by a giant crocodile man.”

Her eyes widen, though her irises are so dark he can scarce tell them from her pupils.  “Really?”

“Yes.  He tried to eat me but I got away.  A friend rescued me, but as you can see the damage was done.”  He spread a hand beside his leg.  “That’s why I wear this.”

She grabs at the fingers of the hand and pulls him to the cushions in front of the library windows.  “Sit there,” she instructs, and she clambers up next to him.  He does so more out of confusion than because he wants to.

“I’m actually – “

“You gotta tell me that story!” she exclaims, and she snatches up his hand again as if to keep him from escaping.  “I like monster stories.”

“There are plenty of those in the shelf over there.  I’m sure your parent can help you find one.”  He’s glad to be sitting, but at the same time he really didn’t want to be fired just yet.  Not until he was able to get a position at the university, at least.

“Those monsters aren’t scary,” the girl protests.  “I read that book you just put in there!  The monster was sayin’ how cute he is!  A crocodile man’s gotta be a scary monster!”

He looks at her.  She wants a scary story, does she?  Oh, he knows plenty of those, both real and imagined.  “You want to hear about the crocodile man?”

She bounces up and down on the seat.  “Yes!”  She’s still holding onto his hand.  His old, twisted, arthritic hand.

“Very well.  Let me know if it gets to be too frightening.  I wouldn’t want to scare you too much.”

“I ain’t scared of anything!” the girl boasts, and Jonathan smiles at her naïveté.  

“Believe you me, child, everyone is afraid of something.”

He brings his right leg onto the cushion, so that he’s able to face her and yet leave his other one loose against the side of the bench, and as soon as he does this she wiggles her legs to crossed and looks up at him eagerly.      

And he looks up at the ceiling and considers where to start.  

He knows how to tell a story still.  It takes him a minute to warm back into it, since it has been a while and more often it was Scarecrow telling it and not himself, though it was always he who knew the tricks of it.  The voices to put on, the places to pause, how to hold his hands and how to tell how much of an effect he was having.  She was easy to read, being a little girl, and despite her youthful bravado he frightened her fairly early on.  He had to consciously check and recheck himself, because he wanted to push her.  Wanted to push her harder, wanted to break her.  It was when he thought to himself that she could not be educated if he broke her, could never learn to read well enough to find an actual story about monsters or mature enough to identify a good horror film, or even discover how to create these things on her own, that he no longer wanted to.  Perhaps her love of scary things would motivate her in future, as fear had done so for him in its own way.

When he decides to finish the story off she is staring at him, eyes still wide and mouth slightly agape, and he wonders if she’ll remember this and realise the story contained more than one monster.  Sometimes now he finds himself trying to unravel his motivations then, and the power of the obsession he once had even in memory is staggering.  

“That was pretty good,” someone behind him says, and he turns in a panic to see a woman standing opposite the window, her arms folded.  She has the same dark eyes as the girl in front of him.  His abruptness causes him to overbalance and his leg gets jammed into the rug.  He has to bite his tongue, hard.

“Thank you,” he says, when he catches his breath, though he decides keeping his face lowered is probably a good idea.  It’s unlikely anyone will ever recognise him again, but the old paranoia insists otherwise.

“I wasn’t scared!” the girl announces, jumping off of the bench and standing in front of the woman, sliding her fingers into the crook of her folded elbow.  

“Sounded like one of those stories about that Bat-guy,” the woman goes on, and Jonathan freezes.

Edward is going to kill him.

“Did… did it?”

“Yeah.  You know, sometimes you hear about this guy who dresses up like a bat and chases after things like killer clowns and people who look like penguins.  There’s one guy, what does he do… he leaves little prizes for the bat guy if he solves his brainteasers, or something?”  She laughs and brings the girl onto her hip.  “The stories are fun, but that’s all they are.  Stories.  That stuff doesn’t happen in real life, but Gotham City sure has one heck of a tourist attraction.  Anyway, thanks for watching her.  I didn’t think paying a fine was going to take so long.”

“You’re welcome,” Jonathan says, and even though his hand curls up defensively he turns to face her, both feet flat on the carpet.  She can’t look at him, but she smiles and waves as the little girl does the same.  And Jonathan folds his hands together and watches them go and stays there long after he can’t see them anymore, until his replacement tracks him down and rebukes him for not doing his job.

“I have to do twice the work!” she opines, her stabbing finger directed at his abandoned shelving rack, and when he stands up he feels lighter, somehow.  He just doesn’t care, but not in the spiteful way he used to.  He has just realised, if only for this moment, that he doesn’t need to care.  

“I had something far more important to do,” he tells her, but he will do the courtesy of returning the empty rack.  She fumes and he thinks about how much energy she’s wasting.  She could be using it to think of new and wonderful things and is instead blowing a minor inconvenience out of proportion.  She’s telling him she’s going to get him written up and fired, if possible, but that’s all right.  He doesn’t need to work.  Edward’s income is more than enough for them both.  In fact, if he’s fired he will have the time to come here and read and wait for a position at the university library to open up.  Getting let go from one library won’t look too good to any prospective employers, but all he really needs to do is channel his inner Edward and manipulate them into changing their minds.  It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done that.

“Have a nice day,” he interrupts, not because he really wants her to; it’s just that thinking of Edward reminds him to be polite.  And he takes the shelf back to the sorting room, and no one looks at him, which is fine.  He just wants to leave and think about his afternoon.

And he does, standing in the back of the bus and missing his stop so that he has to walk three blocks back to the apartment.  That’s all right.  It’s inconvenient and that’s all.

When he’s made it upstairs and closed the door of the apartment he looks for Edward.  He’s not hard to find, sitting at his desk as usual, wearing one of his earpieces and playing one of his online games.  Jonathan smiles and crosses the floor towards him, and when Jonathan kisses him Edward only takes a moment to get over his surprise.  The corner of his mouth curls and he says, “Hello, Professor.”

“Good evening,” Jonathan says in answer.  Edward tastes strongly of black licorice, and sure enough there are a few strands of it coiled atop a piece of paper on the desk.  Jonathan’s not overall fond of it himself, but it’s Edward.  “Edward, I’ve a question.”

“And I have many answers,” Edward says grandly.  He spins the chair around with one foot and crosses one ankle over his knee.  “What do you need?”

Jonathan leans against the desk.  “I told a little girl a story today.  A true story.  About Batman.”

Edward is tapping one finger on the edge of his keyboard.  He stays silent.

“Her mother overheard and she thought… it was all an elaborate tourism plot.  She doesn’t believe there is a Batman, she thinks everything that happens there is just… a story.”  He meets Edward’s eyes.  “Now, I can understand how outrageous it might all sound, if you weren’t there… but were we?”

“Were we there?” Edward asks.  He’s running one finger up and down a piece of the licorice now.

“Did I imagine all of it?  Is this,” he gestures at himself vaguely, “is this from what I think it is?  Or was I in a car accident, or an industrial incident, and everything I remember is… false?”  His palms grip the edge of the desk.  “I… I can’t help but think that everything was just a consequence of fever.”

“It wasn’t,” Edward says, with surety.  “I know, Jon.  It was all real.  But on the other hand… if it helps you out to write it off as some fever dream, I’ll go along with it.”

Jonathan frowns.  “Hm?”

Edward leans forward, clasping his fingers.  “I have to remember it.  I haven’t got a choice.  It seems as though you do.  Now, you’re not that person anymore.  You can’t be.  You left them in Gotham City and that’s where they have to stay.  And if it’s better for you to pretend all of it never happened so that you can start over, really start over, then do it.”

He takes a breath, as deep as he can.  It hurts and he has to fight off a cough for a minute.  “I could do that.  It sounds tempting, to be quite honest.  But as much as I had to leave behind, I still carry it, whether I admit to it or not.  Your advice has good intentions, I know that.  But… well.  I wouldn’t be a very good psychiatrist if I advised myself to pretend my path here was imaginary.”

Edward laughs.  “As far as I remember you were never a very good one to begin with!”

“Hush,” Jonathan tells him, and flicks his nose.  God, he loves Edward’s nose, how it turns up just a little at the end.  It matches the way he looks at people, with his chin raised just a little.

Edward returns to his game and Jonathan goes into the kitchen to start on dinner. He forgot to make it the night before, but that doesn’t mean he gets out of it today.

He makes a potato salad that’s a little more Louisiana than Georgia, and he’s not sure why he knows it at all but it’s conceivable he saw someone in the boarding house make it once or twice.  A lot of the food he makes he can’t remember the origins of.  They just come to mind when he needs them.  It’s an hour before he calls Edward away from his game for dinner, and he thinks Edward must have been waiting for that because he comes without being asked twice.  Jonathan eats more of it than he usually would, as he feels better than most days, and being full is an odd sensation for him but it feels mostly comfortable after a little while.  

He sits on the balcony while Edward takes care of the dishes and probably his breakfast as well, and by the time the sky is orange Edward has brought him a coffee and is sitting with him.  He drinks deeply and wishes he didn’t have to limit how much he has every day.  When they had their talk Edward told him he had to slow down on the caffeine, and while Jonathan is not one to ignore Edward’s advice, he would be far happier if he found decaf palatable.

Jonathan convinces him to watch a horror movie on the stipulation that Jonathan won’t make of him if he gets ‘unnerved,’ as he puts it.  Jonathan agrees to that without argument, though they both know he probably will jibe Edward about it anyway.  They climb into bed together and Jonathan takes Edward in his arms as soon as Edward has himself arranged, which takes a few minutes.  And Edward does have to hang onto him a few times, which Jonathan honestly finds more amusing than the movie itself, and he has to very carefully talk himself out of teasing Edward then and there.  It would be funny, but Edward would scarce agree to this in the future.

When it’s concluded Edward takes his glasses off and nestles his face in Jonathan’s shoulder, as usual; his brow lowers and he asks, “Are you sure you want to sleep so soon?”

“There’s no nightmare on earth that can get to me through you, Jon,” Edward mumbles, and Jonathan’s fingers slide into his hair.  It was true.  It really was.  It reminds Jonathan that he has not so much as dreamt, let alone had a nightmare, since they had left Gotham.  Or he’d not had a dream he remembered, at least; Edward had told him once or twice that people who did not dream were rare, and never truly slept at all.      

Edward, bless and curse him, sleeps as easily as ever, leaving Jonathan to stare into the dark alone.  He’s not actually alone, of course, but he would have liked to have talked for a while.  Then again, he usually didn’t, and how was Edward to know of his change of heart?

The little girl appeared during two of his four shifts at the library, and every day she would follow him around until he’d finished his shelving cart.  He didn’t get placed in the children’s section again, but she would stand at the end of every aisle in the library and peer down them until she found him.  Then she would run down it to him and beg him to come and sit with her, and her smile was so enthusiastic he really couldn’t say no.  Sometimes he would get yelled at by his relief and sometimes his coworker would stand there quietly until he’d finished his story and then leave to begin their work, but none of that really mattered to Jonathan anymore.  

Sometimes he told her real stories of Gotham City, and sometimes he would make them up; she seemed to find both equally frightening.  One day she jumped into his lap with a book and asked him to help her read it.  

Jonathan was delighted.

It wasn’t a particularly scary book, as it was for children, but he had such a feeling of… joy that she had actually asked him to teach her… God, what would things have been like if he had gone to a public school instead of the university?  He would never have been able to research things, nor would he have had as much new material at his fingertips… but perhaps he could have caught them before they became jaded about their education, before they decided they wanted to drag their feet through school and cheat at every turn!  He wanted to hug her for her request but instead held the book a little harder than was necessary, telling her to sound out the words with her finger if she had to, encouraging her to ask if she didn’t know what the words meant, and reassuring her when she felt it was getting too hard.  She didn’t finish the book that day, but when her mother came to get her she hugged Jonathan very hard around the waist and said she would work on her reading for next time.  It was amazing.  She was learning, and had asked for his help to do so, and wanted to keep on doing it until they met again.

Jonathan had not smiled so much for anything except Edward in a very long time.  He usually didn’t, but that day when she waved at him, he waved back.

There isn’t a next time for a while, though.

Somewhere between his first and second shifts of the week, Jonathan contracts a cold.  For most, this wasn’t such a bad thing and they would have been able to work, albeit miserably.  Jonathan and his compromised lungs, however, are barely up to breathing.  

Edward sits with him every day, exuding his usual steady strength, and Jonathan does his best to take it into himself.  Sometimes he thinks he’s done it, but then he breathes the wrong way and descends into a fit of coughing that leaves him curled into the mattress, struggling for air.  His chest is on fire all the time.  His head is a throbbing mess more often than not, his throat seems to have more or less swelled closed, and he can’t sleep.  His body aches because of the violence with which the coughing shakes him.  Edward brings him fluids often and helps him to bathe in the evenings.  He hates himself and his weakness.  He comes very close to telling Edward he would rather be dead than go through sickness again.  

When Edward has to leave he works himself into a panic over things such as what would happen if he contracted influenza, or any other virus on the entire planet.  He would end up in the hospital, or dead!  He doesn’t tell Edward about anything that happens when he’s gone.  Not about the panic attacks he sets off, or the tears of frustration, or the fact that Scarecrow is laughing in the back of his head and he will not stop.  Everything hurts.  He wants to tear out his throat and lungs and sometimes Edward’s calm hand in his is all that stops him from trying to.

It’s almost two weeks before Jonathan sleeps longer than twenty minutes at a time.  Edward had been pressuring him to take the zolpidem for a couple of days prior, but Jonathan refused.  His headache was already so bad that he could barely see.  He felt as though the side effect of the medication would give him an aneurysm.  He has a stretch where the crushing agony in his chest lets up, and breathing is not torture, and he sleeps for an hour.  He feels so victorious when he wakes up that he might as well have slept for an entire eight.  Edward smiles and they exchange the weakest of high-fives.  

In all it’s three and a half weeks before Edward lets Jonathan return to the library, and by then he has been left a message on Edward’s phone telling him he’s been let go.  He’s annoyed by that for a while – it wasn’t really his fault he got sick – and goes into the building anyway.  He doesn’t have a job anymore, but they can’t take the books away.            

It feels a little strange, but he hopes the little girl will be there, and that she’ll understand why he disappeared.  He knows that perhaps it’s silly; she’s only a child after all, and her whims are mercurial as such.  But she was the best student he ever had.

When he walks into the children’s section she’s there, and he doesn’t know if he should encourage the excitement in his chest or fight it back.  She’s sitting on the bench with a book, the same way she used to face him when he told her stories, the one they were reading right beside her… she can’t possibly have been waiting all this time for him to come back, can she?

She’s so involved in her new book that he doesn’t know whether he should disturb her or not.  He can’t come here and at not at least greet her, can he?  So he sits down in front of her and says hello.  He’s glad he did when her entire face lights up.  She jumps into his lap and hugs him, though he still doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with his arms when that happens.  “Where were you?” she asks, looking up at him.  He decides that perhaps she’s been sitting there long enough and does his best to politely extricate her.  

“I was taken ill,” he tells her.  “My husband only just let me leave the house.”  Not that he wasn’t right to say such a thing.  Jonathan is merely not fond of taking –

He realises that was the first time he referred to Edward as such and smiles.  He has a husband, of all things.  Imagine that.

“Oh,” the girl says morosely.  “I didn’t finish yet!  And I’m real good at reading now!”  She holds up the book and then carefully finds the right page, little pink tongue pinned between her lips.

Her reading has improved, not very much but enough to call it improvement; it doesn’t matter anyway, as long as she has the drive to keep trying.  When she struggles her way through the last page she is so happy she finished it that he feels honoured just to be sitting there.  

“I gotta put it away,” she tells him and she pats his leg as if to tell him to stay put.  He nods and stands up for a minute.  Sitting is easier but he keeps thinking of all the days he couldn’t get out of bed.

There has been an itch building in the back of his throat for some time now.  He didn’t want to cough on her so he had ignored it, but now he tries to clear it before she returns.  He still can’t inhale deeply enough to do it properly and before he knows what’s happening he can’t stop coughing, he’s sinking to the floor and trying to stop and he can’t breathe, God, why can’t he stop –

His chest hurts and he can’t see and his hand has a death grip on the window seat cushion, and he’s pressed into the bench in an attempt to keep himself oriented.  Edward, where is Edward, Edward will know what to do, he can’t breathe and Edward can fix it but Edward’s not here, Edward is at home and Jonathan should have listened and stayed there with him –

Someone is gripping his shoulder very hard, they’re putting something into his free hand and wrapping his fingers around it.  They’re telling him to put it in his mouth and press down and inhale, and he doesn’t have the capacity to do anything but follow this one thread offered him.  It takes him a few tries before he gets it to work, before he can stop choking on his own inability to breathe, and when he feels he can he drops his arm.  Breathing is still hard, though not impossible.

“Are you all right?” someone asks.  He thinks it’s the same person who gave him the inhaler.  He’s not sure through the rushing in his ears.

“In… in a minute,” he answers, and it takes more effort than he expected it would.  All those years of inhaling toxic chemicals without a mask… stupid.  Horribly, shamefully stupid.

No, Jonathan, he tells himself, that was then and you can do nothing about it now.  Focus on now.  Existing in the past only destroys what you become in the future.  In another minute he can blink the dark splotches out of his vision and let go of the bench.  He turns to find the person to return the inhaler to.  It’s the girl’s mother.

“What happened?” she asks kindly.  He shakes his head.

“Doesn’t matter.”  He lifts himself onto the bench to try to convince himself he has some ability to pull himself together just then.  The tremor in his hands is more severe than ever and he clenches them together in an attempt to stifle it.

She sits down next to him and pulls her daughter into her lap.  “What’s your name?”

“Jon,” he says after a moment.                

“Jon, my daughter said you were gone these past weeks because you were sick.  It might be none of my business, but I think you need to go back home and rest.”

“Perhaps,” Jonathan accedes.  He hadn’t even done anything strenuous and had ended up a gasping mess anyway.  Breathing was still agony five minutes later.  

“We’re leaving anyway.  We’ll walk you to your car.”  The woman lets her daughter slide to the floor and offers him a hand.

“I… don’t have one.”  He can’t look at her, not just because he’s ashamed of his weakness and his stupidity, but because she is being kind without knowing who he was.  It was his own damn fault and she was taking pity on him for something he’d done to himself.  

“You take the bus?”

He nods.

“I’ll take you, then.  Come on.”  And she takes his wrist when he doesn’t offer it.

He’s not entirely sure what he should do now; very few people other than Edward have offered him help in this way.  He allows himself to be led to the woman’s car, the little girl jumping around and chattering about the book she finished, and watching her just makes him feel old and even more tired than he already is.  She has an energy he knew only at the height of his obsession.  She continues her rambling even after they’re in the car and neither Jonathan nor her mother are really listening anymore.

Her mother doesn’t make Jonathan say anything other than his address, and when they arrive outside of his building she says, “I have to thank you, by the way.  My daughter lost interest in reading for a while and just wanted to play with the toys at the library, and I took her in the hopes she’d find something she liked… but she didn’t, until you came along.”  She touches his arm.  “We hope we’ll see you again soon, but not too soon.  Take your time getting better.  What happened back there could have been a lot worse.”

Jonathan only nods and exits her car.  He’s beginning to feel as though it’s closing in on him, as though she’s leaning into him and scrutinising him even though she’s merely sitting in the centre of her seat.  It’s only after he’s closed the car door and she has driven away that he realises he should have thanked her, or waved at the very least.  It only makes him feel worse and he hopes with all the energy he has left that Edward is upstairs.

[sagebodisattva]

Coronavirus is Retribution for Overprocreation, Mass Pollution and the Rampant Abuse of Animals

Yeah, Charlie. Everyone is making a big deal about this coronavirus business. Everyones talkin’ about it. They’re makin’ a big deal about it. But I say, take it easy. There’s no need to panic. Why bother? The way I see it, you’ve already been amply warned, on numerous occasions, to change your disgustingly self indulgent reckless behaviors, and, over time, it’s become abundantly obvious, that you’ve decidedly chosen to ignore these warnings. Thus, predictably, the chickens have come home to roost; and so now, your goose is cooked. So, what’s the use of crying about it now? And I know. You did whatever you had to do, to take whatever it was you thought you needed at the time, at whatever the cost, and, that is what it is; and nobody can do anything to change what you did. That’s fine. You did what you did; but now, I’m doing it to you. And don’t act like your so fucking surprised. You did what you did, and now, I’m doing it to you.

“But why, Sage? Why?! I’m not totally clear what you’re talking about.”

Alright. We’ll pretend you’ve been living under a rock for the past 30 years, and you need a consolidated crash course on the causality of the current conditions. I’ll, once again, reiterate that which was trying to be impressed upon you. And I’ll do so with extreme guarded restraint and barely contained tolerance; as, at least in the view of the higher mind, you’ve already been extended way more then enough opportunities than you deserve. So even just the mere speaking of these very words, without subsequent infliction of immediate severe punitive retribution, is an exercise of pure bridled discipline.

So, point blank. There’s three major quandaries. Three things are at issue, and they are all based in the ongoing abuse of freedoms that, apparently, you are much too irresponsible, greedy and immature, to handle properly. Each issue is a topic unto itself, and each issue enables the other two; a trilateral symbiotic dysfunction of sorts, but we won’t be delving deeply into the details of each topic today; that type of an explication being reserved for, perhaps, a future video. Today, we’ll just be discussing the conditional generalities surrounding the subjects, and how these issues will be deeply effecting you in these last days of the old era. And these issues are: over-procreation, mass pollution, and the widespread abuse of animals; culminating into an overcrowded cesspool of filth and suffering. All of this, of which, is courtesy of the organisms who’ve been touted as the most intelligent creatures on the planet. This is the best they can do. So vastly intelligent, yet they can’t even figure out how to implement existential core basics, like updated standards of moderation, sanitation and common decency, and a working knowledge of how to maintain these aspects as important fabrics of a civilization.

So the report card is in, and unfortunately, you’ve failed on all fronts. Sorry.

1. You are having entirely too many children, and for no good reason, other then your own myopic selfishness, and some desperate irrational need to conform to the expectations of the herd.

2. You are producing way too much pollution and waste, both individually and collectively, and are not taking one bit of responsibility for managing, or reducing it, nor are you producing the more efficient alternatives, which ARE available, by the way.

3. You are an active participant in the horrific systematic abuse of animals, on a mass scale, which continues on unabated every single day, as you go about your life acting as if all that suffering, which is occurring just out of the field of your personal consciousness, doesn’t matter.

Those are the charges being leveled at you. And I don’t want to hear any excuses. This is all completely unacceptable, and it’s going to be corrected, under pain of death, or your circumstantial devastation. Mankind has been behaving like a petty selfish spoiled brat crybaby; and you have the gall to wonder about the coronavirus? A petty selfish spoiled brat crybaby who, apparently, needs a firm swift spanking. And spare me the politics, because that would only qualify you to get pushed up against the wall to receive a fast bullet behind the ear. In fact, it’s the politics that makes you such an utterly vile and repugnant creature, no matter what your affiliation. Bottom line: Humanity has dropped the ball, big time. I can’t think of an organism that is more deserving of unrelenting reprisal and rebuke. And this needs to be addressed, right now. And I know that some of you may protest, and implore for the implementation of more delay, but I can’t. I just can’t stomach it anymore. There’s no way I can continue to allow this to go on any longer with a clear conscious.

So, I’m caught between a rock and a hard place, Charlie. I know that I’m supposed to be here in order to help set minds free from the trappings of mental slavery, but right now, I’m having a hard time finding any reason to continue performing this mission. I’m not quite positive that I have the proper gumption to carry this intention forward any longer. Not under these conditions. Right now, the conditions are not all that conducive towards this high minded goal. For the conditions to be right for this monumental task, there must first be a solid foundation of discipline, mindfulness and efficiency in place, otherwise the corrective efforts will be doomed for failure. And right now, there is just so very little discipline, mindfulness and efficiency. So, unfortunately, now, more then ever in any other time in history, the conditions for the maneuver are dismal and grim.

See, one of the problems is that, in order for one to even be in a position to free one’s mind, there must be a willingness; but right now, there isn’t any. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, I’m afraid. There is a complete lack of willingness. In reality, it’s more like, unyielding belligerent pigheaded ignorance, unreceptive to any kind of expansion into lucid awareness. And I know that this implication itself might turn some of you off; as some of you have previously complained. I know that some of you may think that this video is merely an exercise of me implying my enlightenment by highlighting your ignorance, and that’s completely understandable; as, this is a typical reaction of a fragile ego who suffers intensely from a deep inferiority complex. From this warped perspective, everything in life is always viewed through the lens of the “inferiority superiority”, paradigm, which is infantile, weak and counter productive. There’s nothing more useless then a supposed “student”, who is too preoccupied to focus on the material at hand, all because they are consumed in a constant state of anxiety that the teacher might be implying some sense of superiority due to the fact that they are expounding knowledge that the student is ignorant of; but what’s really presenting the impasse here, is the student’s own inability to move past their deep seated insecurity, to let down their guard, and show some humility.

In other words, one is now in a position where it becomes completely impossible for them to learn anything, or unlearn anything, as the case may be. A situation where one cannot benefit from any kind of tutelage whatsoever, because they already think they know everything. Like an empty cup that’s been filled up to the brim. Nothing useful can get inside, because there’s no more room for anything; which ends up fostering a lack of deeper wisdom, which would normally enable an understanding that true mastery of knowledge does not involve filling one’s cup up with the proper ingredients, but rather, is a process of emptying out the cup, and sustaining this open space at all times, so that knowledge may pass through it freely, and not be grasped at, or held onto desperately, in a futile attempt to fulfill some immature need to contrive an identity. But humanity wants no part of it, and that’s why everyone’s cup is filled up to the brim, and overflowing. People can’t be bothered to clear the mind, because they’re far too busy being fake. Worrying about their precious fineries, and other purely vain enterprises. Human beings have never before been so mentally sick, or spiritually bankrupt. Hence, the commencement of such a liberation is all but impossible to facilitate. And thus, the solution to this problem isn’t very good news for humanity. Sadly, the solution to this problem will ultimately involve a whole lot of mass death and destruction. It’s unfortunate, but unavoidable.

I’ve been contemplating it for a long time, and I’ve finally come to the conclusion that, in order for humanity to move forward towards enlightenment, a lot of things are gonna need to be cut out of the project. And I’m not going to make any announcements as to what this is, nor as to what it may apply. Sorry, but these things are existential aspects that just don’t serve any constructive purpose any more. They are aspects that simply don’t have any beneficial function. They are, in fact, actually, quite literally, detrimental to the cause, and, at this point, really need to just be systematically eradicated, permanently. They are profoundly broken aspects, ones that are beyond all reclamation or repair, and, at this point, are only serving as impediments, and negative distractions, from the truth.

We are in this realm to seek the truth and free the mind. That’s the job we’ve been tasked to accomplish, but, unfortunately, the majority of you seem to think that this realm is some kind of cocoon of delusion, designed to facilitate constant masturbation to your myopic ego, and as such, you have set up your camp accordingly. Vast battalions of waste producing vacuums, staged across the landscape, poised and ready for an unrestrained feeding frenzy. Absolutely not. You can kiss it all goodbye. That rug is gonna get yanked out from under your feet so fast, your head is gonna spin off your neck and hit the ceiling.

I fiercely condemn your hubris, and your overblown sense of assumed entitlement, and think that, right about now, you could really benefit from a couple of hard smacks to either side of your ugly constipated face, to, you know, kinda wake you up a bit, and hopefully bring you back down to reality. And is this harsh? Not really. This is an important wake up call, for a lazy blind pea brained dodo bird. Gently caressing your cheek and kissing you on the forehead will only help you to continue to slumber, and you’ve already hit that snooze button for the last time. Time’s up. You’re late. And as a result, getting smacked awake is the least of your worries. So yeah. Good afternoon, sleepy head. So glad you could join us. Now eat a rice cracker, shut up, sit down, and do not speak. Let the adults have a conversation. Children only speak when spoken to.

“But wait, Sage. Please don’t be so harsh. If I’m wrong, educate me. Don’t belittle me.”

No. Shut up. You’re already way too educated. I may teach you a few things here and there, but ultimately, my main objective here is to empty out your fucked up mind, not to shove more useless information into it. Don’t belittle you? Unfortunately, this is unavoidable. Your ego balloon has gotten so over inflated, it’s filled up the entire fucking room. Do I have any other choice but to lash out and puncture you? You are an opinionated short-sighted uptight emotional train wreck. You are impetuous and selfish. And you totally lack discipline, mindfulness and efficiency. Hence, a large part of my job nowadays has become punishment, reprove and correction, which, sadly, is a major disappointment, but it can’t be helped. One can’t even be in a position to free their minds from mental slavery until one has established certain basic fundamentals. And one of the basic fundamentals right now, is to just shut up. Both your mind, and your mouth. Remember “Clear Mind, Closed Mouth?” Well, it’s time to put it into practice. If you clear the mind, the mouth will relax. Calm the mind and the mouth will follow; as opposed to always hyper overthinking everything, then engaging in the subsequent non-stop constant yapping about it. It really is irritating. Like the one who thinks that acquiring some lame insipid opinion on a subject is some kind of indication of a ground breaking accomplishment. Nice try, but you’ve accomplished jack shit. Sorry to disappoint you, but as much as you’d like to believe, your opinion is no more of a ground breaking accomplishment then a fat old cow blowing out a loud stinky fart. Yeah.

So getting back to you, and your complete lack of directed focus, which consequently leads to an overall deficit of discipline, mindfulness and efficiency, we’ve come to a point in time where, you need to decide whether or not you are going to either adapt, or die. Right now, mankind’s priorities are rooted in selfish egotism, and are not at all concerned with lucid awareness; this is why the current circumstances have quickly become a putrid situation, and the only real way to fix it, is to, straight up, cut out the festering malignancies. No bones made, no soft soap, or band aid. Just cut out the festering malignancies. Then insert the malignancies into a meat grinder, take the ground meat and liquefy it in a blender, then take that purée and burn it, then take the ashes and dump them into the ocean. Then we can all sing songs and eat danishes.

Isn’t that a normal response? Does a gardener not pull weeds from the garden? Does a healer not remove the disease from the body?

“Yeah, Sage. But who gets to decide? Who gets to make the ultimate decision about what should be saved, and what should be cut out?”

Well, that’s easy enough. I do. I get to decide. I will pass judgement, then implement a plan of action, systematically erasing any and all aspects that have been deemed counter productive to the project, hence no longer conducive towards truth and enlightenment. And I’m not going to make any announcements as to what this is, nor as to what it may apply. Get it straight. This isn’t a punishment. That time has passed. Punishment implies there’s hope for correction and rehabilitation. But we’ve been well passed that point for some time. This isn’t about punishment. This is about pure erasure. And, it’s not even a big deal. There isn’t any moral wrong in eliminating useless impediments. These aspects don’t have any value, nor any worthwhile purpose, hence lack any functional utility. I don’t have any use for any of them. They do not serve the truth. And anything that does not serve the truth, is truly the definition of extraneous and expendable. Hence, there’s not gonna be any more chances to recognize errors and make the proper corrections. There has been more then enough opportunity for that hitherto. And those offered opportunities have been spit on, pissed on, shit on, and then puked on.

So, that’s it. The deadline has passed. From this point forward, there’s not gonna be any more accommodations or considerations. There will be no more appeals. There will be no way to reason with the relentless onslaught. There’s gonna be absolutely no exceptions, nor any allowance for due pause, that will warrant a response to the inevitable cries for leniency or mercy. And mercy and leniency for what? So that you can go back to being an arrogant belligerent blind obstinate pig? No. You’ve made your bed, and now you are gonna get slammed down into that fucker with brute force, and that coffin will then be lowered into the ground, and then you will be buried alive. But don’t worry, you will be buried alive with your sacred attachment, so that you may have more then enough time to gain intimacy with the delusional teat you’ve bartered your enlightenment for. Enjoy it. You’ve earned it. And sacrificed your freedom for it. So go ahead and suck on it. And then swallow it, bitch.

And I’m not fucking around ova here. And I’m not fuckin’ around ova here. These three world quandaries will be corrected, post haste; or there will be serious serious consequences. The world has been practically brought down to it’s knees; all due to careless actions. Oops. See how easy that was? One small seemingly negligible negligence can translate into death for hundreds of thousands. So the recipes for disaster are not all that complicated. One simple act performed in just the right way, and the whole world can fall.

So, ignore this at your own risk. Compliance will render accord. Insubordination will yield only pestilence. If you choose to disregard this warning, then don’t be surprised if you wind up having to pay a very serious price. And that means everybody. And I don’t care if the majority of human beings never get to hear this message. That’s not my concern. It still applies to everyone, world wide, regardless if they’ve heard it or not. As long as this message reaches just one single solitary subconscious mind, the ordinance becomes enacted. If this message manages to reach just one lone ear, the injunction becomes written in stone; and will stay in effect indefinitely, until it is deemed otherwise.

Don’t make me have to repeat myself.

Stop having so many children. Stop polluting the planet. And stop the rampant abuse of animals. Now. Or else.

“You have the right to remain in quarantine. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you for a quarantine. You have the right to pay for a quarantine. If you cannot afford a quarantine, one will be provided for you.”

[wrongeddeadthenevermourned]

Character Development Asks: Whump Edition

- Who is the first person your character calls for help when they’re too sick to cope on their own?

The only person Kai has ever called out for was basically NO one because he relies on himself alone, don’t fool yourself lol. He trusts NO one. As much as no one trusts him.

- Who would be the first to notice that your character is hurt? Who would be the first to make it to their side?

Kai would notice he’s hurt first. Only time anyone else has ever noticed he was hurt, is if it had benefited them. Look at the episode where Olivia fucking stabs him right through his entire midsection for your clue in.

- Who would your character take a beating for?

Bonnie. Mister Kai “I was stabbed through the entire middle of my body, but I am going to save Bonnie so she can stop suffering the same shit I went through, not that anyone cares about that part but at least I am helping to save Bonnie.” Parker.

- What injury or sickness would be enough to make your character break down crying?

Look, Kai hasn’t cried since he was a fucking child. Not realistically, -Pushes the scene where he’s explaining Luke’s feelings and his apparently bawling somewhere in private, away- Since his merge with Luke is glossed over, let’s talk about it for a minute. He finally was able to feel all the hurt and pain he brought everyone and that hit him, fucking hard, right in his psyche. But he viewed the entire event, as, basically silly. So he glosses over it and no one else asks him any further about it. Because I guess Luke’s feelings no longer matter? Or Kai’s new found feelings, don’t matter. Fuck Kai, amiright?! -Rolls eyes- I’m sure he has also had a bit of a cry session over just being sick because of the Merge with Luke and vomiting up blood, must have been painful. Is sure as hell looked a little like it was. Could of also been the damage from being STABBED IN THE STOMACH.

- What injury or sickness would your character be most squeamish about?

None. He has not ability to process the realizations of such things in front of him. To him they are ‘normal’ occurrences. Perhaps because of his childhood of abuse.

- What injury or sickness would traumatize your character most if it happened?

Probably the fact that he’s a sociopath and as he was growing up and becoming one he was starting to recognize the numbness to life and others around him. Which might have been pretty terrifying to realize something you had once felt, you can no longer feel without dissolving into another phase of being or being so filled with rage because of what has made him so numb and lead to his sociopathic nature traumatized him in the first place.

- Where is the most vulnerable spot on your character’s body?

Probably his torso. I mean, how many times is someone going to stop him like that. Or his neck. Beheading him usually stops him. lol.

- Where are your character’s ugliest scars?

Probably on his torso. Though he canonically can’t scar anymore. I however wish to keep the damage done to him in some form. So there IS scaring. So his most ugliest scars are the ones from when he has tried to kill himself and where others have tried to kill him/killed him. There’s a thin line to the left of his neck and scratching/tearing to the right. His stomach has a light hole in the sternum from the pick axe, a small sliver on his back from Olivia, another sliver in his right back side and right leg and such from Bonnie attacking him. A gunshot scar in his right front side of his torso, well, several. Teeth marks around the sword scar of his neck on his left side. Faint cut scars on the left side of his forehead, near the hairline. Another faint stab scar just above the one created by the sword. Some faint scars along his arms and other spots of random impact damage to the body. Re-healed cracks in his bones. All these have remained, for something to reflect on in threads.

- Where is your character most comfortable when they’re recovering from an injury?

Pfft, Probably Prison World to be honest, at least he’s safest there. Even if Alaric sends some rotten teenagers there and probably got killed a few times before manipulating the dumb fuckers into aligning with him. Dumbasses.

- When sick or injured, how long does it take for others to convince your character to be treated?

No one cares if Kai is injured. Kai doesn’t even really care when he’s injured. Well, maybe a tiny bit, but he will also just brush it off. Like when Olivia stabbed him, and he decided “ I have a hole in my entire mid section. But let’s bring Bonnie HOME~ Quickly, yeah?” Before almost dying. Who knows what happened after THAT moment. I can speculate that ones drinking Damon’s blood and him helping them they told him to scoot and he left to go hide in a bush for a while. Because TVD didn’t really do anything with him after that for a while.

- When would your character finally admit that they’re under the weather? Do they beat around the bush or say it outright?

Kai ran to Josette for help, despite her clearly not being amused with him. And feeling ill anyway. He still felt/knew, he needed her then when he was vomiting up blood. Of course this was also followed by her throwing him at a wall, and him even confessing that he needed her around. As well, he was no longer a threat to anyone at that time. But still, this is probably the best instant of his finally relenting and going to someone for his needs. And they deleted most of that fucking scene. The dirty bastards.

- When faced with a situation that is guaranteed to get them hurt, does your character hesitate or rush headlong into it anyway?

Kai rushes in headlong, I am fairly certain of this. Because when Kai wants something, he will literally kill himself to get it if he has to. Again we can go back to Bonnie being saved by Kai. Or Kai most recently ‘fighting’ Hope in order to find something. Then as Alaric came to chop his god damn head off he looked so ...blase about it. Death doesn’t scare him. But you gotta ask the question as to why. The why is because he spent eighteen years committing suicide and GOD knows how many times he might have done it in the other prison.

- How quickly would your character break under torture?

He probably has a very high tolerance to any such tactic after spending most of his life in isolation. Which is the most torturous thing that can realistically be done to another human being without physically or mentally assaulting them, but is just as detrimental to the psyche of a person. Add on perhaps twenty two years of whatever in the fuck Joshua and the other members of the coven and his family might have added to. There’s clearly nothing anyone can do to Break Kai, unless other measure’s were taken first. Kai is literally the greatest stronghold. His metaphorical walls are absolutely formidable. Nothing really gets in, and nothing really gets out. He’ll literally just laugh at any attempt, or manipulate you.

- How well would your character serve as a caretaker to someone who is sick or injured? How good is their bedside manner?

Hmm, well, When Kai and Bonnie were trapped in the Prison World. Despite the fact that Kai was doing it for a reason. He was very hospitable to her. Had she not been fucking hostile and stupid, he might have even taken her out with him. But hey, it’s whatever. Kai made her food, served it to her, unpoisoned. Tried to have conversation with her. Even helped to fix the ascendant with her. He kept her in his company, despite his well being over having such, himself. Even if there was an ulterior motive underneath all of it, getting out of the Prison World. He also didn’t have to GO that far. Since he never even needed her to get out in the first god damn place, despite her blood. Which he had just been dripping all over the damn place. It could even be argued that he was dragging it all out, to be more agonizing toward her.

But nah, I think he just was wanting to enjoy the company, and despite his other plans, because clearly the woman was hostile and he definitely is smart enough to see she would screw him over again, he still hung around the entire time. Trying to provide his version of comfort with a nice home cooked meal, he made, for her. On his favorite holiday. THANKSGIVING! - throws up hands- The villain has a better heart than the main characters and his entire family and it’s just glossed over because he killed a few family members who are probably just as terrible as Joshua themselves AND on top of that the rest of the entire main cast, who even WHILE THIS WAS GOING ON, one of them was out going on some murder spree venture because he wanted to. #KaiDeservesTheBestRedemptionArcAU, lol.

- How much pain would it take for your character to lose consciousness? Is it a slow fade or a sudden plunge into darkness?

Well it’s a little bit of both. Depending on where you stab him. Sometimes he’s just very chill where he’s injured, despite blood loss or injury to the head he’s very mellow.  Or if you put and axe in his sternum, he passes out almost instantly and dies. Huh. Funny, that.

- Does your character ever hide their injuries or try to treat them on their own? Why do they think they have to do this?

Kai doesn’t hide his injuries. They are just ignored and so he is able to go about bleeding all over everyone’s property as he please. Because fuck you and your fancy ass couch, Damon. You like you wood floors? Well fuck those too. Kai generally will provide aid to himself and why he thinks he has to do that is because no one else cares if he’s hurt. They literally shot him in the shoulder with an arrow one time, and instead of patching that up, put him in a coma in the fucking kitchen or wherever, where someone tried to kill him. But was stopped because he was ‘needed’ like, don’t fucking touch me. Who the fuck do any of these characters think they are? Break all their neck Kai, damn...lol.

- Does your character ever exaggerate their injuries to get more sympathy or affection? Does their caretaker fall for it?

No, Kai doesn’t exaggerate much things like this. For he even understands when it’s serious. Despite his playfulness. He still will run to family when he’s vomiting up blood, first, for help. He couldn’t care less about what they feel about it. Because he expects nothing, and honestly gets nothing. In the deleted scene that is essential to his ‘growth’ in character. We see him finally pull down the veil, in front of Josette. Where she then accuses him of being a liar and then proceeds to throw him into a wall. He doesn’t want, or need no sympathy from any of these people. And he learned from a very young age to not need it from these people.

- Does your character blame themself when someone they care about is hurt?

Fuck no. Perhaps in his earliest childhood, he didn’t like when others had been hurt. It is important to understand that Kai, as a child, was very different from Kai as an adult, the result of life long abuse who finally snapped when he was twenty two. As a boy I am sure he was much more receptive to other peoples injuries. Say if Josette had fallen and scrapped her knee, he more than likely would have been on the front line to see to it that the injury was fixed. Kai as an adult stabs her, while she pregnant and kills her. The gravity of differences is that Josette has contributed to the same abuse that resulted in his fracture. Josette is no longer ‘needing’ protection from harm. She to him has no become the harmer. And so to had every other single family member he had killed prior. Kai HAD loved them all, at one point. Then the dam broke, and instead of seeing the people he loved. He saw the people in his way, the people who abused him. So he doesn’t blame himself for murdering them, or bringing them harm. Because to him, they were just as happy to let him die, to let him suffer, as he was to be rid of them. To finally be free, and allowed to live.

- Could your character stay still long enough for an injury to heal or do they try to go about their business despite it?

Kai may not plan things precisely. So when they do fall apart and he is injured and if he were offered help in healing, he will take it. He’s not that ungrateful. He’s willing to play along to get what he needs, when it is needed. However, in the event that no one offers him to heal or he is injured while in the ‘thick’ of whatever he’s doing, he will just keep going on, business as usual like, because he has things he needs to do and that matter more to him than self care, usually.

- Could your character push through an injury long enough to complete a vital task or mission?

Oh definitely. He absolutely is a glutton for pain, and will keep persisting till he is killed off or done with what he had needed to do, or eliminated the threat.

- Could your character find the strength/willpower to survive what could be a fatal wound?

Yes. Definitely. After all, he was stabbed by Olivia, while still human, and willed himself through that, full knowing he could die. Even saying as much to everyone else, but decided to help them regardless because Kai, with Luke’s empathy of course, Not entirely BECAUSE of it, did want to be close to those people. And had risked his life to do so, for Bonnie, as well. Kai is pretty resilient honestly. But he has to want to be, otherwise he could easily just be fine with taking a dirt nap. Because he has no feeling toward a necessity to survive, nor a total fear of death.

[noahsenpai]

lol i havent vented in a while (which i think is good) but im starting to get lowkey sad when i think about my family.

those of us who have come out as trans or lgbt (particularly trans since that’s the main focus of this post) often question if their families really do accept and support them, no matter how often their parents say “i love you” or “i support you” and all that jazz. i personally have had difficulty accepting myself since i came out, especially because i did so after i moved out, so i’ve had less time to internalize and get used to my family rejecting my name and pronouns (which i guess is kind of a good thing??? cuz i have less experience with it here in college cuz everyone is actually woke n stuff).

but thats not really what i wanted to talk about. i just wanted to express my frustration mainly at how my parents respond to anything i talk about that is lgbt-related. both of them kind of roll their eyes and say “you’re only making your life harder on yourself.”

this is massively detrimental, even for someone who has accepted themselves as being lgbt. it makes you question yourself all over again. it really pisses me off and makes me extremely depressed. it makes me think that they don’t want to understand. i’ve said “you don’t sound like you want to understand” and then they say “yeah we do” and then the cycle continues with the same ignorant bullshit and them projecting their personal biases on things that are clearly different for each person and act like my experiences are an embarrassment. i don’t know how much longer i can continue to accept and internalize this shit.

which leads me to think about my extended family, which most of are very religious, particularly my dad’s side of the family. my aunt has even come out and said that she doesn’t agree (wth does this mean idk) with being lgbt. my mom’s side of the family admittedly idk what their stances are on the matter, but at this point i don’t really care about the specifics anymore, because honestly thinking about it just sends this phrase ringing through my ears (which thankfully hasn’t been said to me yet): “you’re an embarrassment to this family,” or “you’re going to tear our family apart.” (tw for suicide mentions below the cut)

that’s the last thing i want to have happen. these thoughts are scary because many other trans people have attempted or committed suicide because of these kinds of thoughts and these actions from their peers, particularly their family. and honestly, i’m not gonna lie, ever since coming out as trans, the thought of suicide has never felt more appealing. not because of myself, but because of the lack of acceptance, recognition, and support i know my family won’t have for me, at least not now i hope. and i know that now that i’m an adult i can essentially create my own family if i felt the need to, but the truth is, i would feel terrible if i had to do that because of the fact that i’m adopted and i don’t want to lose a second family as well as the first.

i’m tired of being told that i’m being supported but then shit gets twisted and i get misgendered and deadnamed and my experiences basically degraded and called bullshit and non-existent because of the way my parents still see me. i get that it’s a process because it’s not something my parents were used to seeing from me growing up, but continuing to argue with me and deny my newfound identity isn’t going to change anything. acting like you know me better than i know myself and telling me that “gender dysphoria isn’t me” and that “my sexuality and gender identity are just choices” isn’t going to change anything. it’s only going to make me feel worse about myself and it’s gonna want to make me want to distance myself from you (either that or suicide, and thankfully i’m leaning more towards getting away from y’all but it depends). which i know you don’t want, but it’s a calculated suggestion to my emotional struggle with being around you if it doesn’t stop.

basically, moral of the story, i’m tired of my parents talking ignorant bs about my identity and not respecting my wishes anywhere else even with people who don’t know me because it’s embarrassing or something, and it’s honestly making me sink into myself and feel absolutely alone. i don’t want to leave them because they’re like my adoptive family, but it would hurt to have to do that even for friends because i don’t want to lose a second family.

[jam2289]

Explorations in Business - Part 3 of ?

This is my third time trying to write this article in the last two weeks.

Here was my last attempt.

- - - - - - -

I always wanted to have an interesting life, and I do.

I have done the classics like mountain climbing, skydiving, alligator wrestling, whitewater rafting, running with bulls, scuba diving, ice luging, road tripping, etc. I officiated my second wedding this weekend, I just arranged to borrow the staffs, swords, and dueling pistols for one of my four speeches at the Harry Potter festival in Sparta, Michigan this summer, I'm writing notes for the comic book I'm working on, and the philosophy papers I'm working on, and the fictional tales I'm working on, and I'm editing horror stories for the "Horror Without Borders" anthology for the Russian publisher I'm working with. All of that just starts to hit on the interesting things I've done, but I have a bit of a problem.

Since I've focused so much on doing interesting things that almost all of the values I've fulfilled in life have been experiential values, and that's become a strong habit now. What my life is mostly missing is the productive side of the equation, the creative values. Obviously I've started to change that, that's what the writing is about and that's what starting the business is about. But, the transition is not smooth. Rewiring the brain is not easy or fast. In a general sense you could say I have developed the skill of consuming life, but not the skill of producing life.

remuneration, just and unjust society, catallactics and cratics

Two weeks ago I put the MeditateWithJeff.com website up. I posted it to a number of groups about pain and meditation. Only the pain groups make sense. I had a few people go to the site. I didn't accurately track it because I just used the cheapest version of Weebly. But, 11 people watched the video I had on the site. It was a Youtube link, so some might have come from there, but I set it up so that you would probably only get to the video through the website. But, only three people filled in any part of the survey section that I had set up. Out of that only one person filled in the contact information.

- - - - - - -

Normally when I start writing an article I just grind on it until it's done, I go through it once for editing, and I hit publish. I had to stop on this article because I had a chiropractic appointment, and when I got back the words just weren't coming out anymore.

To finish the idea that I started in that aborted article, I sent an email to Wendy saying that I would like to talk about what she thought of what I was doing with meditatewithjeff.com and how I could make it the most helpful for her. Let me look up the actual email because maybe my communication is just bad, but she never responded. Here's the email.

- - - - - - -

Hi, I appreciate you filling out the info on my site. If it's possible I would like to get on a video conference with you this week. The survey questions are great, but more can be learned when you're really talking to someone. Is there a time on Wednesday that would work?

Jeff Martin

- - - - - - -

Apparently I need to get better at writing those. One of the other people that responded to the survey questions said that they really wanted me to reach out to them so that we could talk, but they didn't give me any contact information.

I had planned to have at least one conversation before doing anything else. When that one conversation never happened I just didn't do anything else. It's kind of pathetic, a complete lack of initiative. It saddens me to observe this in myself. So, we will dive deep and fast into what's wrong with my psychology and how I might fix it, then I will jump into a bunch of business decisions that I need to work out.

Here's the problem, when I had my misadventure in Africa a few years ago it was a bit traumatic. It was definitely dramatic. I've been traumatized before and it took me years to learn how to fix that, but I did. Now that I have that knowledge it's not too hard to use it again. Trauma isn't really an issue for me anymore. The issue came after the event itself.

Over the next couple of years my ability to do anything was hammered into the ground. I lost my physical abilities to the point of not being able to walk across the street to get the mail without having to take multiple breaks to lean on cars and catch my breath. I lost my short term ability to the point where I could only repeat back three numbers at a time, the average is about 7 or 8, and with the collapes of my short term memory down went my IQ too. Losing long term memories was the scariest part. It's trippy to realize that you've forgotten things you used to know, because you're not sure what else you've forgotten and you have no way of founding out. It feels like your life is being erased. Without these abilities you can't really do anything in life. One failure can be recovered from, two failures can be ignored, three failures can be overcome, you can convince yourself to keep trying after four failures. Eventually though, eventually it wears you down.

Those couple of years wore me down. I'm not sure how many years they took off my lifespan, it was not insignificant. But the detrimental thing that happened is that it erased my idea of my future self. It was hard realizing that I was no longer how I defined myself. I used to think of myself as an intelligent adventurer. I could no longer call myself either of those things. That's bad. It's worse to realize that you don't really have any reason to make plans for the future. If you can't do anything and you're losing your memory then your future is short, there's just no reason to construct an idea of a future self.

When I think of myself in the future I think of nothing. I don't see myself in the future. I see the future as being without me. That's no longer the case at this point. My health is doing pretty well. I joined the high IQ society Mensa after having brain damage. I should have ideas about my future because I have a future, there's just been a lag in my mind building that future self again.

I noticed this problem sometime in the last two years, this not being able to think of myself in the future outside of the next couple of months. And that's a problem, because it's a problem that I haven't been able to address. I've been working on it. I've been writing out goals, ideas, and plans. I have a ton of plans for writing projects. I've developed a value chart based on an expansion I made to the work done by psychologist Viktor Frankl. I've used a technique adapted from psychologist Carl Jung to incorporate dissociated parts of my personality that have shown up in various dreams and such. These things have helped. They've changed my personality to some extent, but not enough.

Which brings me to what I need to do. This is what I think has the best chance of causing a significant personality change in a positive direction, but it's uncomfortable just thinking about it. That's often a good sign that you're on the right path. The psychologist Jordan Peterson talks about how the Soviet writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did it when he was in the gulags. You need to figure out every major mistake you've made in your life. You need to look at every major thing that has gone wrong, why and how it went wrong, what you could have done differently, and what you should have done.

The reason that we have memories is so that we can do better at living in the future. I do not see myself as doing better at living in the future. I want to. I think that it's logical that I could, but it feels inauthentic. So it's reasonable to think that I have ineffectively adjusted to my surroundings because I made the wrong choices about how to perceive and act in the world. If I could process those decisions and make better ones then it's reasonable to think that I would change my ability to live.

It only makes sense to do this in writing because writing is thought that you can refine. So, that is an uncomfortable process that I will soon start on my blog at JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com, JeffThinks.com, and/or Jeff.Irish. I am logically looking forward to it, emotionally I am not.

Now, back to the business. The FounderCo meeting in Holland went well today. It was focused on marketing. I am a step behind that, still trying to find the product-market fit. Or, more traditionally labeled as market research and product development. Or, more honestly labeled as trying to figure out what the heck I'm selling and who I'm selling it to.

My idea in one sentence is something like this: I help people with chronic pain use meditation to change their perception of that pain so that they can live and function better. Every time I say it, it comes out a little differently.

The mentor I sat down with today was also a Jeff. There are a lot of us. Jeff was throwing ideas at me off the cuff after I started him down the path of my idea and explained where I was in the process. Here's his basic perspective. What I need to do is get clear about my customer persona. Then I need to find out what makes my solution different and position my company in that way. I could kill my business right at the start with pricing so I should talk to a number of potential customers to try to feel that out. I should know more about my competitors. I need to work on getting strategic referral partners. I should develop some cheap lead products that will help people to trust me so that they will buy more expensive programs. I also need to find some credibility.

That's all pretty good stuff. Things I have to think about. Hard problems.

My discussion group was interesting. It's a valuable part of the meeting. Liz asked me what my gimmick was after I told her the basic idea of MeditateWithJeff.com. I was a bit confused by that and said that the closest thing to a gimmick that I have is my personal story. It took several minutes to tell, but it seemed to connect with people. In person I connect well, especially when telling stories. It's all of that practice in Toastmasters meetings. I think the story can be my credibility and eliminate the need for any kind of gimmick. I hope so because otherwise I don't have credibility and I don't like gimmicks.

For the last part of the meeting I talked with Hailey about literature. It was great. I have a lot of good conversations with a lot of interesting people, but that was the most engaging one for me in the last few weeks. It's funny because I came away from that discussion feeling enlivened, and knowing a few things of note about Hailey. But, she now knows quite a lot about me for such a short discussion. She has the skill of listening in spades. I didn't fully realize that until I was walking away. A great skill to have.

So, business decisions. Let's see what I can work out here. Here's another version of my one sentence that I wrote down: I help people in chronic pain learn to perceive that pain in a new and more manageable way.

That sounds pretty good. One issue is that this isn't completely true. It's a statement that might be true in the future if things go well. Eric Weinstein is the capital investment manager for billionaire Peter Thiel. He talks about what success takes. It's about crossing an adaptive valley. Imagine you're on a hill in one spot. You can't go any higher. But, you can see a mountain. Now, to get to that mountain you not only have to climb, you also have to go down this hill and across the valley. When you start you're not even sure you can do it. You say you can do it, and then we find out if you really can when you try. That's what that statement is, it's on the other side of the adaptive valley.

One thing I think I am making progress on is describing what the problem with chronic pain is and how that might change. It's been getting better verbally as I've talked with people about it. The basic idea is that the pain takes up all of your awareness. You can't focus on anything else, you can't think of anything else. It's like one of the warning lights coming on in your car. Maybe you need an oil change. But, instead of just having a light come on, there's a siren with flashing lights right in the middle of your car. You cover your ears, but now you've let go of the steering wheel. You have to grab on again. The lights are flashing in your eyes and you can't think with all of the sound. That's what intense chronic pain is like, it takes over your entire awareness.

We're not trying to turn off the warning light. Actually, we want the warning light on. Today at the business meeting Liz asked me if I have made myself impervious to other types of pain. I have not. And, I don't want to. I still want to be aware of the pain in my neck and head. The pain is there for a reason. It's important to be able to feel it to be aware of things getting better or worse. If I do something that throws my spine too far out of place I will start to get cognitive issues in just a few days in a small way. If I went a few weeks without a chiropractic adjustment in that situation I would start to have fairly severe memory issues again. I need to know if there's an issue, I need to be aware of the warning signal.

All I want to do is turn off the flashing lights and siren. I don't need those. I know there's an important problem and I'm doing my best to fix the situation. But I can't fully fix it. I will remain aware of it and monitor it, but I need to be able to function in life. I need to be able to do things. So I need to turn off those lights and siren, and that's what I do with my meditation technique.

A business consultant at the meeting asked me how often I meditate. I think my answer surprised him. I'm inconsistent. I meditate here and there. I've found that to manage the pain I probably need to meditate every few weeks. I think the longest I've gone without meditating was two months and still managed it fairly well. A lot of people meditate to stay calm and focused. I think that for that thing then daily practice is probably important, but it's completely different for chronic pain management. The need fluctuates based on what's happening in your life.

I think a key part of my customer persona is that they are committed. I think that this will often go with desperation in the case of chronic pain. That's unfortunate, but it's the reality. I've been there. And that's the point, to help them. I think this contradicts the idea of having cheap products and services. Then people can just "try it out." Well, that's not going to work. If you just play with this what's going to happen is that it's going to be uncomfortable and then you're going to quit. I'm fairly tough. I broke my collarbone in football practice when I was 13. I didn't even take a break. I kept practicing. I didn't go to the doctor. I didn't miss a practice. I didn't miss a game. I had issues holding my arm up. I couldn't get in my stance on that hand and had to rest it across my thigh. It was harder to hold onto the ball. It hurt like hell. I was stupid. But I played the whole second half of the season with that collarbone healing on its own. So, I think I can say that I'm fairly tough, but I almost quit using this meditation technique for the pain issues in my spine. It's not easy.

I think that's why I might go against almost everyone's advice and not do a cheap product. The people that I'll have have tried other things and they didn't work, they've been waiting for the pain to go away and it hasn't, they're desperate and committed, and willing to take a plunge and see what happens. Maybe I could have a video that essentially lays out how to do everything. Maybe I sell this for... I have no idea. Let's say 200 dollars? Then, if you want to really dive in you can join the group. The first month is 500 dollars and includes three private sessions. The normal monthly fee after that is 100 dollars a month and we do a weekly live call. I'm not sure that makes sense.

I think I need to engage local pain groups, but I kind of want to go to them with something. I need to reach out to people with lists, but I want to have something before I do that too. Maybe I could reach out to these people before I have anything and say what I'm trying to do. That might work. Maybe I could just write my story and reach out with that.

I will probably incorporate some mention of pain in a speech I give this month. Not a specific focus on this, but hitting on it somewhat. That will continue my development of articulating this subject.

I think that maybe I should just be trying to arrange calls with potential customers rather than any type of survey.

I should develop a FAQ section. I think that might help me to figure out what people will be confused or unsure about and address it. I got that idea from the meeting two weeks ago. There were a lot of people that do marketing and advertising for a living at that meeting. It was interesting to hear their ideas about how I should structure my products. There's a bit of consensus that I should sell something cheap, but I see problems on that path. Matt mentioned that he got some business advice before which was to do the opposite of what people say. I pointed out that the problem with that is that the advice isn't really consistent, so what should I do the opposite of if the opposite of one suggestion is just another suggestion from someone else. How do you decide who to be contradictory to? I joked that maybe I should do nothing because no one had proposed that so it would be the opposite of everyone. Unfortunately, that is closest to what I've done over the past two weeks.

Here's a similar problem. This is my list of favorite business books.

- - - - - - -

Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way by Jim Lundy

Zero to One by Peter Thiel

The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

Sell or Be Sold by Grant Cardone

The Knack of Selling Yourself by James Mangan

Good Profit by Charles Koch

Magnetic Sponsoring by Mike Dillard

The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

The Leadership Crisis and the Free Market Cure by John Allison

The Millionaire Messenger by Brendon Burchard

How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger

Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz

Principles by Ray Dalio

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

How to Win at the Sport of Business by Mark Cuban

My Life and the Principles for Success by Ross Perot

Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham

How Power Selling Brought Me Success in Six Hours by Pierce Brooks

Straight Line Persuasion by Jordan Belfort

The Millionaire Fastlane by M J DeMarco

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Not Fade Away by Peter Barton

Dare to Succeed by Mark Burnett

Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson

- - - - - - -

The problem is that there is a lot of contradictory advice in there. I remember Grant Cardone talking about how you could have success following his advice or the advice of Dave Ramsey, but not both.

I think that I might be thinking too low on the price. I feel weird with high price things because I've had little interaction with high price things, but it's useful because my margins would be high enough to be able to afford advertising, and then my fate would be in my own hands.

Let's try to think in some unusual ways. I often do that on accident anyway.

The three major objections that you usually have to address for most products are: not enough time, not enough money, won't work for me.

Can I answer any of these in odd ways?

"I don't have enough time."

"You're right. If it's not a priority in your life then you don't have the type of issue that I address."

"I don't have enough money."

(I feel for these people, I really do, because I have been in this situation my entire life.)

"You're right. If you can't find the money for this then it hasn't become a high enough priority for you."

(I don't feel good about that one. What if I had some sort of scholarship program? Maybe.)

"This won't work for me."

"You're right. The number one predictor of success is the number of times you're willing to try. It won't work for someone that won't try, and try again."

That's an interesting line of thought. I was having trouble thinking about who my customer persona should be, and when I was looking through "Positioning" they mentioned that you could figure out who shouldn't use your product. I immediately thought of people that are "just interested." The people that are just dabbling won't find success with my technique. Having a lot of those customers just means that I would have a high failure rate. So, what about just eliminating them?

I'm still having trouble figuring out what my product offer should really be. I started with the idea of a few personal sessions and then daily group calls. Now I'm thinking weekly calls that will be recorded and available because how many people are going to show up if I have these calls daily? I don't know, but I think it might be low. Maybe I should have a cheaper video on the front end.

What if I just did personal consultations at high prices and then worried about scaling and such later? I don't know.

I do think that I have a decent schedule worked out for a group call.

- - - - - - -

Welcome

Short version of my story

Why we do this, what works, what doesn't

How we do this

Awareness games

Meditation

Good session example

Non-satisfactory session example

Good session example

Questions

- - - - - - -

And I've found this marketing format that I like.

- - - - - - -

Who it's for

Problem

Why their current method won't solve their problem

How I discovered what works

How to get it

- - - - - - -

Some version of a combination of those things might work well for a webinar.

It's late. I'm tired. I have to teach in a few hours. I will have to think on this more tomorrow.

________________________________________________

You can find more of what I'm doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com

[moonraisedsunchild]

How Can I Free My Mind

Jen belongs to @melyaliz as does gigi who is only mentioned, i hope i did her justice as i haven't read anything with her in it i think, and this is the story i promised her for the trade we did. It is longer then planned and went places i hadn't planned. I don't own any character except adi, anani, and the mentioned Marisol & leah. I hope you like it. Tagging: @speedypan @cuddles-for-cassie @coffee-randomness if anyone else wants to be tagged just let me know. ~ "Anani!" Conner called out as he saw her start to hurry out of the room. he was able to catch hold of her arm before she could leave though. She turned and glared at him a bit as they weren't friends. he was pretty sure that Anani hated him on Adi's behalf which he wasn't completely sure he understood the reason exactly. "Anani wait" he said in annoyance when she struggled a bit without using her powers on him. he was thankful for that even if it wasn't for his benefit. "What the hell do you want?" she demanded as she seemed to decide that humoring him would quicken the exchange. "i'm worried about adi. she hasn't been opening up to anyone on the team" he said deciding that since it involved Adi, Anani would ignore her hatred of him. "she opens up to me.... when i am around" Anani said and he could see that she felt some guilt at being absent often. "like you said, your not always around. i want to connect her with Jen. from what i have heard she is very good at what she does" Conner said and saw the sharp glare she gave at the comment. he almost held his breath waiting to see if she would start arguing with him or focus on the mention of Jen. Anani thought it over but her expression still held the glare. she could see some merit to Adi talking to someone else, someone that could be more constant and yet not joke things away as Marisol might do on occasions. "she won't like it. she has just started feeling safe enough with me to talk openly and now you want her to speak to someone that neither of us have met who could easily tell you everything she says" Anani commented. "i don't really care so much that she wont like it, i care that she might be struggling but not have the support she needs because your god knows where. besides that if you are so worried then come meet her. you hardly seem like the one to shy away from meeting people" Conner said but didn't comment on the last part. he wasn't sure whether that was something Jen would do though he thought it sounded rather unlikely. he could see he was wearing Anani down just before she covered her eyes with her hand as she sighed resigned to having to deal with conner and who knows how many other people. 'he honestly doesn't know me that well' she thought in an attempt to find something humorous enough to distract herself. "fine, i'll meet this 'jen' and if, thats a big if, she meets the standard then i will recommend her to Adi" Anani said seeing Conner seem to relax now that she had at least agreed a little bit and they hadn't started fighting like cats and dogs. ~ Conner carefully knocked on the door to Jen's office with Anani behind him. he was a bit tense with her behind him but also because he didn't know much about what would happen. he knew things about Jen but he didn't know her as well as others did nor did he look deeply into the work she did. when the door opened, Conner saw jen pause for a moment as she took in the two people in front og her. they were likely the last people she had expected, especially coming together. "Conner, Anani, come on in" Jen said in the way of a greeting as she stepped to the side so they could enter. Conner led Anani in and they both stood a bit awkwardly in the room as Jen closed the door and moved to sit down. Jen watched them for a second seeing how they both looked rather strained in each others presence. "what can i help you with" Jen asked and Conner looked toward Jen while Anani acted as if she hadn't heard. "i asked Anani if she would talk to Adi about coming to see you. i am worried about her. she isn't opening up to the team and Anani is not always around when Adi needs her" Conner explained and Jen took note that Anani's expression soured when he mentioned her frequent absences. "alright and Anani wanted to check me out first" Jen asked to clarify. Jen could see that Anani could probably have used her help too but Anani gave off a feeling that she was not open to the idea for herself at least. "yes, she said something about not wanting to recommend something she doesn't believe" Conner said though that hadn't really been said so much as implied. Jen gave a nod in understanding before asking "and you want to be present while Anani decides?" Jen wouldn't kick Conner out though his presence did seem to agitate Anani meaning that his continued presence in the room would make things tenser then they might have been. "i mostly want to get a better understanding on a few things that Anani mentioned as reasons that Adi might not want to be here" Conner said looking a bit awkward at that. Jen nodded before turning her attention to Anani. "feel free to ask as many questions as you need" she told her before watching as Anani gently lowered herself to sit on a chair nearby that was also away from Conner. "you have a patient confidentiality policy? would this prevent you from sharing what you hear with Conner or Kori?" Anani asked and Jen saw Conner shift a bit though the action didn't seem guilty or worried. more like he was interested in the answer himself but hadn't wanted to ask it. "i do have a patient confidentiality policy and that is what it means. beyond that, what people tell me are no one elses business." Jen said in agreement and could see that Anani relaxed ever so slightly. that had obviously been something that was a big worry and while Jen currently didn't know why that was, she could respect that Anani was obviously very imterested in protecting her friend from whatever threat there was even if the threat was from someone they were related to. "and what if Adi still won't talk to you?" Anani asked in a challenging tone that seemed to dare her to say that Adi would be forced to speak. Jen could tell that if she said something along those lines, Anani would probably walk out and Jen would likely never get close enough to even speak to Adi. Jen found herself wondering if Adi and Anani had formed almost a co-dependent relationship. she couldn't be sure nor did she want them to have a possible detrimental relationship but Anani was seeming far more protective than Jen would have pegged her to be. "I can't force anyone to talk. i want her to be comfortable enough to talk to me, sure, but trying to force something out of her wouldn't work anymore than trying to force you or conner to talk when you are determined to be silent" Jen said with a calculated shrug. Anani seemed to relax a bit more though she was obviously holding back as conner was present. "Conner, can i ask you a favor? if i give you the money for it, can you run and get me a coffee from the coffee shop down the street?" Jen asked noticing he had jumped to attention when she spoke to him. probably not expecting her to talk directly to him. Conner cleared his throat to hide the embarrassment that he had been caught off gaurd before he agreed and took the money she held out to him. "An iced coffee with milk" She told him and smiled when he nodded before heading to the door. she had a feeling he knew at least slightly why she was sending him on an errand. "okay so, now that he is gone, lay it on me. bring out the big guns" Jen said and smiled at the small twitch Anani tried to hide at that. Anani watched her with an assessing look before she spoke "Adi won't speak to you about what she might desperately need to. she is too stubborn and doesn't trust easily. they.... Kori and Conner hurt her far more than Cadmus ever could... in a single moment too." Anani was doing her best to explain without revealing things. Jen would need to know at least a bit of why Adi was so closed off. Anani tried to tell herself that this was more like one doctor telling another about a patient they both shared even though Anani wasn't a doctor at all. She just knew Adi and had more insight even if she mostly didn't use it though that was more because she was Adi's friend. She would listen and offer advice but she wasn't there to be Adi's therapist. "conner doesn't realize that he isn't going to fool Adi by having me ask. Adi knows me well enough to know when something was my idea and she knows my views on therapists" Anani said and gave a sheepish look though she wasn't apologetic in the slightest. Jen listened and nodded to show she was listening. she could easily read between the lines to see a bit of what she would be dealing with. She found herself giving an amused smile at Anani's confession on her likely negative views on therapy or at least those that ran therapy. Anani straightened her back before she said "i might not be too keen on this therapy thing but i will talk to her about seeing you. you seem nice enough and while not all my concerns have been spoken about, i can at least be content that you are far better so far then other shrinks i've met." Jen wanted to comment on that but she could tell that Anani was getting uncomfortable or likely she was uncomfortable that she was getting too comfortable and wanted to leave. "alright, are you on your way out then?" she asked and received a nod. Anani stood and was heading to the door when Conner returned with Jen's coffee. Conner looked confused for a moment that Anani was coming toward him but he saw Jen's nod and so he didn't try to stop Anani from leaving. He walked over to jen and gave her coffee which she thanked him for getting her. He was a bit unsure on what he should do now as he hadn't thought Anani would be done talking yet. "do you have any questions or concerns?" Jen asked seeming to take pity on him. Conner shook his head and Jen nodded before commenting "well then, feel free to leave if you want. Anani agreed to talk to Adi" ~ Adi smiled from where she stood talking to Gigi when she caught sight of Anani. She hadn't heard she was back from her school so it was a nice suprise to see her. "Ani! you're back!" Adi called and ran over coming to a stop with a little hop. Anani smiled at her in agreement. "you can't get rid of me that easily" she said and gave Gigi a friendly smile as the girl was giving her a curious look. "but i did come to see you with a ultirior motive. i have a mission soon and will be gone for a while. so i want you to meet with someone for you to talk to if you need." Anani said and held up her hands when Adi looked about to protest. "marisol doesn't count. we both love her to death but she isn't the most understanding when it comes to certain things. she is more likely to suggest something violent then to listen and offer advice you might need." Anani said before she grabbed Adi's hand and gave it a squeeze. "Look, i met the person and while not everything is completely worked out they are far better than most people i have met in their field" Anani said seriously as she saw the hesitance that often made up Adi in regards to trusting someone enough to talk openly to them. Anani glanced at Gigi before asking her "you know Jen, right?" and received a nod and a smile. "what do you think of her as a therapist?" Anani asked motioning in a way that she hoped got the message that 'she was trying to help Adi feel more comfortable' across. "you have to lay down on the couch to get the full use of her powers." Gigi said and laughed at Adi's expression which had turned rather freaked out especially when Gigi continued "she can read your mind and makes you feel better by talking" Anani gave Adi's hand another squeeze to hopefully reassure her that it was fine, that Jen could at least be trusted a little bit. "you really wish for me to go?" Adi asked sounding wary and she only looked a little disappointed when Anani nodded. Adi gave a weak nod to signal that she would go even if she wasn't exactly happy with the thought. ~ Adi and Anani Came to an agreement that Anani would sit outside Jen's office for the first visit. Anani could understand Adi's worries about this unknown person and it was perfectly reasonable to her that Adi would want some support even if it was just the reassuring sound of Anani's heartbeat nearby. Jen greeted them kindly when Anani knocked on the door while Adi internally struggled between knocking and running away. "i'm just here for moral support. i'll be out here if you need me Adi" Anani told both girls before taking a seat in a chair. Adi was hesitating outside the door especially as she was still not sure of this girl. Jen simply said "come in when you are ready" before she walked toward the seats in the room while leaving the door open. Adi gives Anani one last glance, seeing her give a reassuring smile, before she stands up striaght and with a determined expression enters the room and closes the door. Adi walked toward the couch as she ignored Jen's eyes on her before she sat down. before Jen could comment, Adi stretched out so she was laying down on the couch before she finally turned her attention to Jen who was looking a cross between bemused and curious. "what are you doing?" Jen asked with an amused tone. Adi's expression was a blank one as if not understanding what she meant. "laying down?" Adi said in a way that it sounded more like a question then a firm answer. "did Gigi tell you to do that?" Jen asked becoming a bit puzzled as this behavior was far from what she had expected from Adi and it didn't really resonate as something Adi would normally do. "yes, she did" Adi agreed with a nod and Jen almost snorted as well as roll her eyes in amusement. "Do whatever is comfortable for you" Jen commented watching carefully to see how Adi reacted to that. Adi eyed her for a minute before she stood and started pacing only stopping to demand "what is the point of this? you hardly seem the sort i would speak to freely" Jen was calm, in her element, as she replied "The point is that there are people worried about you. they want you to open up with them but since you won't they involved myself and Anani." Jen could see that that answer didn't really help ease Adi's mind or nerves. Jen could see that at this rate the pacing and agitation would only worsen because Adi didn't want to be there but felt trapped by wanting to appease her friend. Jen stood and walked to a cabnit in her office before pulling out the box of a board game. the game was called Trouble and for the most part she only pulled it out for more movement oriented patients. Jen went back to her seat before she started setting up the board. the game was more for four players but they could still play and if they wanted to make it more challenging they could always play using two colors each. Jen could feel eyes on her, though the pacing didn't stop it did slow. "wanna play?" Jen asked and heard a snort. Jen felt amusement though she didn't show it with the thought 'a difficult patient then' though Adi was far from the most difficult patient Jen had ever had. Things kept on in that line for about half an hour with Adi pacing while Jen played a large solo version of Trouble. After that, Adi finally caved and joined the game. Jen wondered if she might be more receptive to playing and possibly talking if Anani was in the room as well. she didn't plan to test it but it was definitely something interesting to consider. The session ended half an hour later and while it hadn't been super open or anything, it did end with Adi at least a little less reluctent to return for another session so Jen counted it as a win. especially when Anani seemed to relax a bit more upon hearing that. ~ It took about five more sessions before Jen made enough progress for Adi to talk even a little beyond small absentminded game comments, it was during the seventh one that she even broached the subject that had apparently weighed heavy on her. "do you ever wonder why you exist?" Adi asked sounding almost as if she was far away likely only in thought. Jen didn't know what answer she wanted though she did ask a question in return " i'm guessing that you do?" Adi only hummed in reply though it did sound like she was agreeing. "i can't seem to figure it out. i'm only 'special' in that i have powers but i never really used them when i was at Cadmus" Adi spoke and Jen could only be silent. she knew the bare minimum about Adi's creation though she could imagine why Adi might be hung up on it. though it sounded less like Adi was hung up on it and more like she was testing the waters on being honest. "do you believe that others think that way?" Jen finally asked watching as Adi poundered it. "most of them, yes. there are others like Anani, Marisol, Gigi, Bart, Jaime, Leah, and maybe Diana that don't" Adi admitted and Jen was quiet for a moment. "what about Conner and Kori?" Jen asked keeping her tone as soft but neutral as she could. "they don't think i am special at all. i am only a mistake to them and one they didn't even make." Adi replied in that far away voice again as if detatched from it all. "why do you think that?" Jen asked only to realize it might have been a mistake when Adi became focused in a sharp manner. "I don't think it. i KNOW it" she bit out with anger in her voice but the slightest wetness in her eyes. "How?" Jen asked in a firm but still gentle voice. she knew from Anani that even when blinded by rage, Adi still somehow was able to rein herself in enough not to hurt anyone that wasn't able to handle her powers. "they rejected me! they walked away and didn't look back! they left me when i needed them most!" Adi raged in a brittle voice. Jen knew she would have to ask some clarifying questions later whether she asked Adi or someone else was the question. "and how did that make you feel?" Jen asked almost cringing at how that sounded. it was a reasonable question but it definitely didn't sound as genuine as she had meant it to. Adi absolutely despised most pretenses or anything she viewed as fakeness. "you want to know how it made me feel?" Adi asked and her voice had a dangerous undertone to it. "it made me feel worthless. like i was an abomination, a monster! because someone else decided to create me without asking, the people that should love me and see me as their daughter" Adi raged not losing steam. "they couldn't wait to get away from me and they hate me. wanna know the funniest part? they hate me and i didn't understand why, but now i do because i hate me too." Adi finished quietly and stood before Jen could even blink. Before Jen could speak or try to stop her, Adi quickly left Jen's office. ~ for three months afterwards, Adi avoided everyone. Jen's attempts to find her or someone who knew where she was left her with no luck. Once Adi came back, she still avoided Jen for another month; she even went as far as flying off mid-conversation if Jen entered the same room. Conner and Anani both had gone to see jen in that time to find out what happened but only Anani went away with the understanding of what had happened. Jen hadn't said a word but Anani knew Adi well enough to know that Jen had both made progress and Adi had said something she hadn't meant to. it was at the start of the fifth month that Adi was forced to go back to see jen. however, things seemed as if they had gone back to square one. Adi didn't speak, play games, or even seem to acknowledge that Jen was there or spoke to her. She only paced from start to end of every session she was forced to go to. Jen understood her a bit better now though so even the smallest of movements meant something. Adi's body was just as good at expressing Adi's thoughts as her words could. It would take another three months before Adi started playing games again but without commenting.

[fairladymarian]

This Is My Fight Song, Take Back My Life Song || Self

May sat at the table with the other Board members doing her best not to scream. There were 7 other people in that room. One of them had willingly become her uncle’s crony and argued against every move she tried to make. One was generally against her because of her youth and inexperience, and she was good friends with the other. Two were wishy washy, sometimes with her and sometimes against her, depending on how persuasive the argument was. Two of them stood on her side because they believed in her father and disliked her uncle, which she supposed wasn’t the kind of thing she could argue with. Only one of those people stood with May because they actually trusted her to do a decent job.

For the past few months, she had tried her best to accommodate the complicated group dynamic. She had tried to be understanding of the fact that they only saw someone young and inexperienced instead of the apprenticed heir. She had tolerated the barbs, made compromises, and delayed decisions she knew were going to be too divisive because she didn’t necessary have the votes to win. In essence, she had tried to win them over. But after everything that had happened, she had had enough. They were damn well going to respect her decision on this matter at least. 

“Enough,” May interrupted Roland Davenport as he tried, yet again, to return to her uncle’s cheaper sources of supplies. “This matter is closed and has been for months, it is a waste of time to continue discussing it.”

Everyone looked mildly surprised at the steel in her tone, but all Roland did was smile condescendingly at her. “Now, I know you didn’t care for the decision before out of a sentimental attachment to the way your father worked, but surely, you can see now how our profits have taken a slight dip since we went back to the more expensive supplies.” 

“Our profits also took a dip when my father disappeared and my uncle took control of the company, a fact you continually neglect to mention.” She saw the beginnings of surprise in his expression, which meant he knew that fact and had been hoping she didn’t. More fool him. 

“It is understandable at this point in time that customers are questioning whether or not they should purchase from us. My father was well known to not only be the face of the company, but one of its driving creative and ethical forces. Customers bought Firebolt because they know they are the fastest, the safest, the most beautiful, the best. Not ‘the best that could be made with inferior materials’. The best. This is only possible if we work with the best materials from the best suppliers. As I’m sure he has told you in the past. But I will remind you.”

At this point, Caroline and Carlton – the two wishy washy members of her Board – started to nod slightly. Good. This meant she had most of the room on her side. In the past, she would have left the discussion there and tried to keep things moving, but this wasn’t the past anymore. She was in charge of this Board. And this was one argument she was going to win by God.

“I know there are still a lot of concerns with the fact that I am not my father, for you and the customers. But I assure you, as head of this company I will do my best to stay true to his vision while still bringing in new innovation to keep this company alive and growing. This means I will expect to be making some changes, and I will want honest input on the direction of those changes. But there are core principles to this company that will not be touched. This means that there will be no change in suppliers of our materials, unless a thorough investigation reveals that they are no longer ethical and there is a better option available. Not cheaper.

“Now it is more important than ever that we give the customers a sense of consistency. They need to know and trust that when they buy into Firebolt, they are going to be getting one that is kept to the same high standards we are famous for. On a purely business standpoint, this may cut into our profits in the short term, but in the long term will allow our brand to stay at its top prestigious position and increase our customer base and our general desirability. In addition, working with inferior materials opens us up to increased law suits due to accidents. Law suits that will be expensive, both monetarily and in terms of our trustworthiness.

“So, this discussion is closed. As I do still have the controlling interest in the company, you would need to convince me that this is a good decision for Firebolt to make it possible. There is nothing you can say that will convince me. Therefore, any attempts to continue this discussion are obviously just a waste of time and a distraction from what we need to accomplish. I have no time to waste. Therefore, this discussion is finished permanently. Any attempts to bring it up again will be ignored. Is that understood?”

May looked around the table once, almost daring someone else to challenge her. Instead, she heard the voice of her only full supporter. “The motion is so moved.”

May couldn’t help looking at Alexandra with a hint of grateful surprise, but the older woman gave nothing away. Instead she looked back at the table and May followed suit. A breath later, Carlton spoke up. “Motion seconded.”

“All those in favor?” May asked, trying to hide the way her heart was pounding. This was the first time they were voting when she had been so clear and honest, and somehow it was as nerve wracking as the first meeting she had tried to lead with these people. Maybe more so now that she knew how hard fought each battle had to be.

One by one, hands went up around the table. Alexandra and Carlton were first, with Graham and Declan only a moment behind. Caroline followed them, but that wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was the way Bethany, who often voted against her, raised her hand and gave May a small nod.

“All those against?”

Only Roland raised his hand at that, and she could see the flash of temper that no one was willing to stand with him in this moment.

“The motion passes. Now, we should discuss the new thinner tail bristles that Research has been working on. I was thinking – “

Roland scoffed loudly. “Have you actually read the report?”

Now this sort of challenge, May was prepared for. He and Bethany alternated challenging her every time she tried to admit to some knowledge of the company and its movements, which had led to her taking more and more time to prepare for each meeting. With time, May thought she might be able to win Bethany over. Roland would be a thorn in her side until he left. But no matter what, she knew how to stand up to these challenges now.

Looking straight at him, May kept her hands folded on top of the closed report in front of her. “On page five of the report, the research team points out that while the new bristles, made through a magically grown substrain of the broomcom we’ve been using from the start, do in fact produce a slightly faster broom, the bristles themselves are slightly weaker. They are more likely to break with rough handling, and any attempt to strengthen them means a loss of that initial advantage of the speed. The detailing of the variety of tests used in this case are on pages 13-18 if you are interested in the specifics.”

Caroline looked at May quietly before breaking in, “So that’s it then, isn’t it? They may be faster, but if they break too easily, it looks like an inferior material. So there’s no point in trying to use them.”

“Not necessarily.” This was where May was going to need to try and pull them along so they could see her vision. She only hoped it would work. “I think they would be perfect for a line of seeker specific brooms.”

Silence greeted her announcement. Expressions ranging from thoughtful to dismissive surrounded the table, but no one looked especially enthusiastic. Here it goes. “In general, people expect our brooms to be faster. However, up until now we’ve only really tried to produce a new broom or two every year, and each time it has been a faster version of our old one. While this works, I think if we started to create more specificity in our products, it will give us more flexibility to experiment with creating exactly the broom the customer wants. We could still keep our main model, but it could be marketed more at chasers and potentially keepers. A slightly faster broom with weaker bristles would give seekers an additional edge on everyone else on the field, and as they rarely engage in the physicality the other players do, the weaker bristles wouldn’t be a detriment. Eventually, we could make brooms that are a little heavier for beaters. It gives people the choice to decide what style works for them, while still maintaining our exceptional quality.”

Graham was rubbing his chin as he always did when thinking through an idea he wasn’t sure about. “Yes. It might work. But it would be difficult to get people to give it a chance, especially with all the difficulties you already mentioned.” The difficulties around getting people to trust anything new coming out of a company in flux. It made sense he would bring that up, even if he was trying to be delicate about it.

But May was ready for that anyway. “Which is why we’ll host a promotional Quidditch game as soon as the brooms are finished, but while we’re still working up towards full production. One team will have the new broom, the other team won’t. People can come to the game and watch the broom in action, and afterwards the players will get to talk about the difference. Tickets to the game will be free, industry people will get the first chance, after that students, and anyone else interested will be chosen by lottery after we advertise it through the Daily Prophet and take interested submissions from there. But we’ll be selling concessions of all kinds. In addition, people can buy into a raffle which will allow ten people the chance to ride the broom that day with signatures of every player there, and one person will walk away with one of our finished prototypes.”

She had spent hours drafting together this plan. As she spoke, she passed around a projection of the budget and time necessary to make it happen, the probable profits, and the resulting press from this sort of event. She had lists of vendors and several potential dates where they could reserve the space necessary to do so. She’d tried to think through every possible angle, and she’d hosted enough parties and done enough work with her father to have some idea what people would be looking for. Nervously, she waited, hating the silence that stretched out in front of her.

Declan was the first to break the silence. “What teams could you get to do this?”

“The Holyhead Harpies are always willing to try new brooms, and it will appeal to them to be able to publically support the new female head of a major broom company. And if we could get Puddlemere United to agree to an exhibition outside the regular season, we should draw more than enough attention for nearly every Quidditch fan to try and make it to the game, whether or not they’re interested in the broom,” May responded.

“It’s brilliant,” Alexandra said, looking up at May with a grin. “People always spend more on concessions and merchandise at events like these which will make up for the lack of ticket income, and a raffle of that sort is going to draw large amounts of attention. It is egalitarian enough to allow all fans to participate, which cements the idea of our brand ethics in people’s minds, while still giving additional opportunities to the people who are willing to spend more for the chance to win. And an exhibition game between two of the biggest rival teams currently playing? The teams themselves won’t be able to resist, let alone the fans. And it all gets attention of the new changes Firebolt is making. I think it’ll be a rousing success.”

Roland broke in there, “Now hold on, I’ve barely had time to glance through this. Sure it sounds good when she says it like that, but we’ve had no time to evaluate the logistics –“

May smoothly broke in. “Of course not. Which is exactly why you each have your own copy of my proposal. I wanted to take the chance to introduce it today, and in two weeks, we can discuss any of the problems you all discover and vote on whether or not we wish to move forward with an event like this. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to make such a large decision on so short a time. Will that be enough for you?”

Most of the people around the table were nodding in response, and a few quiet ‘ayes’ followed it. But May kept her eyes glued to Roland until he slowly bent his neck in a hint of a nod. 

“Excellent. Next on the agenda….”

May walked out of the meeting almost glowing with her own success. She had done it. Without compromising on what was important, without bowing or apologizing or trying to play nice, she had been able to push her ideas through and they listened. She’d saved a piece of the company her uncle had stolen from her father and protected it from his influence as close to permanently as she was able to guarantee. It felt glorious.

In fact, it reminded her of the rush she got whenever she successfully cracked into a safe or picked the pocket of some asshole she had targeted on the street. It was a combination of competitive glory and personal satisfaction that could so easily become addictive. She’d thought she’d lost the chance for that permanently when she had put Amy behind her. But maybe, all she’d really needed was to find a way to turn those same skills and that drive into something new. She could put it into the life she’d always known she would have, and had secretly been slightly uncertain she would want. Now she knew it was hers.

May had part of the day left, so she didn’t bother to pay any attention to where she was walking. She didn’t really have any goal, just needed the chance to clear her head, and since classes had been cancelled for the latter half of the week, she had less homework than usual. But when she felt the familiar tension and the first ghostly touch on her elbow, she knew this was what she had been waiting for. Him. One last time.

May let herself be pulled around until she was facing Danny. Hungrily, she took in his appearance. His clothes were nothing memorable, and all too often, he wasn’t either. But the confident smirk and the conflicted hunger in his eyes – those she would never be able to forget.

“Well don’t you look rich and professional. Hard day at the office?”

“Of a sort. Actually, in a couple months you might want to look out for a notice about an exhibition game between the Harpies and United, sponsored by Firebolt, and you should definitely get a ticket. Those will be free, but we’re bound to have a rich crowd for other reasons. A free tip since I haven’t been able to make good until now.”

“Really? That would be quite the feat if you pull it off. I’ll keep it in mind.” 

“Oh we will. You know I never break my word.”

As they spoke, he drew her closer and down the alleyway that was obviously near by. He had a knack for finding those quiet places and drawing her in before they risked anyone seeing them. She’d counted on it this time. But when he started to lean in to kiss her, she put her hand on his chest and stopped him. 

“Danny, what are we doing?”

He paused, before giving her a look of amused exasperation. “I would have thought that was obvious. I must be doing something wrong.”

“No. I meant, why do we keep doing this? Or rather, I know why I kept letting it happen. But why do you?”

It was a question she hadn’t been able to stop herself from thinking about over the past month. He wanted her, that much was obvious. He clearly had some sort of feelings for Amy. But she couldn’t erase the past, and with how much of a disastrous mess they had become, she had to know why. She was still been in love with him. But it was no longer enough for her to be in love alone.

Danny stared at her quietly, mouth half open as if that would help find the words he clearly wasn’t sure how to say. 

So May said them for him.

 “You still love Amy, I think. In some way. But you can’t seem to accept the reality of who I am as a whole person. I tried to understand, I tried to give you time. But time isn’t enough. In the end, I can’t change who I am. And you won’t accept me.”

Saying the words left her chest feeling oddly hollow, but she didn’t let any of that show on her face. She had come too far into this to stop now. She had to take some of herself back, and if she couldn’t have a future with him, at least she could have the truth. And if a small part of her was hoping that he would argue with her, that he would say all he needed was time and that he was working on it, well. That small part died with one clear look at his face. Because she was right. Even after all this time and everything she had done, he still couldn’t accept May Marian.

“You-“

“Lied to you, yes I know. But the thing is, I never lied as much as you seem to think that I did. And the more time I spent with you, the closer those two personalities became because I only had one heart, and I gave it all to you. In the end, there was hardly any difference at all.”

“You’re right.” Danny said abruptly. “Amy just had more spine.”

May accepted the painful jab with no change of expression there either. She deserved that, because he was right. May hadn’t shown any spine when it came to him. She’d been so desperate to have him love her, so willing to blame herself, she had sacrificed what was left of her pride. She’d thought about that a lot too.

In the end, all she could feel over that was shame. Her mother had told her over and over again, there could be no lasting love without trust and respect. Danny hadn’t been able to do either with her. And instead of accepting that, instead of staying true to herself and demanding to be met in the middle like her mother had once before, May had done all the giving to try and fix it. In the end, that had only left her worse off. As much as she wished she was, she clearly wasn’t like her mother in the slightest. But that didn’t mean it was impossible for May to try.

“I’m working on finding it again.” 

He nodded slightly and took a step back. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to establish the space between them again. And while her heart yearned, May ignored it.

“This is the first step. I still love you. But as you don’t trust me, and you don’t respect who I am in the slightest, we need to be done. We aren’t moving forward, we’re just spinning in place, and I can’t do it anymore. So that means we need to be finished. I’ll still keep my word and try to get those tips to you when I can, but –“

“No.”

May paused, staring at him. This wasn’t what she expected at all. What could he possibly be objecting to in everything she’d said? “What?”

“No, you don’t need to keep your word. I release you from your promise to me. If you really want to pass along the occasional tip, fine, but no plans, no security information. I’ll keep your secret without it.”

She knew she should just say yes. This was what she wanted right? This was better than she had started to hope for. She no longer would have to make decisions about who deserved to be stolen from and who didn’t. There was no risk of her being an accessory to future crimes. He had given her back an aspect of her freedom she’d thought she had permanently sacrificed, and he had said it so casually. She should just say yes. Instead, what came out of her mouth was, “Why?” 

Shifting awkwardly, Danny looked away from her and down towards the entrance of the alleyway. “When I made you promise me that, I was angry. I wanted to hurt you, and I knew something like that would do it. After, well, it was as good a reason to see you as any.”

“Oh Danny,” she sighed unhappily. How did they get this way? How were they so screwed up?

“Aren’t you going to ask why I can’t trust you? Why I hate purebloods so much? Or did you already look it up?”

“No, I haven’t. It’s not my place. I figured you would tell me when you were ready.” 

Restlessly, Danny paced away from her before coming back to stand in front of her, hands shoved deeply in his pockets. “My mother was a pureblood. Grew up rich, privileged, and damn near useless. Which would have been fine, except she was stupid enough to fall for my father – another rich privileged pureblood. Only problem? He happened to be married. He convinced her that it would be fine. They’d make it work. He’d leave his wife. All the usual lies that get told to desperate girls who want to believe in happily ever after.” 

May could hear the bitterness in his tone, and her heart hurt for him. It almost hurt more because despite the disparaging way he spoke about his mother, she could hear the traces of love and heartbreak that he couldn’t hide. For his father, there was nothing but anger and loathing. 

“She got pregnant. No surprise there. And to no one’s surprise but hers, he didn’t stand by her when it happened. Told her that it was her fault she’d gotten herself in trouble, and she couldn’t expect him to deal with it now. Then she told her family. They were an old fashioned bunch of bastards too. Since she was pregnant, she obviously wasn’t a virgin, which meant she couldn’t get married anymore. And when she insisted on keeping the baby, they told her someone so ‘disgraceful’ wasn’t welcome in their house. It broke her heart. And she never really recovered.

“She spent the next twelve years working herself to the bone trying to take care of me. She didn’t know how to do a damn thing, and everyone fleeced her. She was such an easy mark. And over time, she just got weaker and weaker until she started to have trouble going to work at all. She tried anyway though. After all, she still had me.

“One day, I saw my father on the street. She’d pointed him out to me. I’ve always been a quick study, and I saw the way other pick pockets work, so I decided to give it a go myself. Bastard deserved it for what he’d done to my mother after all. And she needed medicine. Wasn’t it only fair he paid for it? Stupid fucker didn’t even feel me pick his pocket, and I walked away with the whole thing. What was in there bought us a little time and medicine. She started to look a lot better. So I kept going.

“Eventually she died, and then I was on my own. Her family wouldn’t even come to her own damn funeral. So I stole from them to pay for it. I figured it was the least they could do.”

He paused, running one hand through his hair before smiling humorlessly at May. “So there you have it. Isn’t there some saying about no one hates you more than your own kind? Or it takes one to know one? Something like that.”

May caught the way he tried to make light of it, but her head had gone out to him at the story. How could it not? She knew plenty of the kind of pureblood he was talking about, and it was the reason there was often so much bitterness towards her class. But his story was filled with a pain so much more personal. It was a story of purebloods who took what they wanted, used people for their own gain, and broke whatever promises were convenient in the process.

Was it any wonder he’d reacted so badly to her? She was yet another pureblood, making use of people in order to accomplish her goal, and putting other people in danger in the process. Never mind that she’d had reasons for doing so, and she thought they were good ones. Didn’t people always?

“Oh Danny, I’m so sorry.”

He let out a short bitter chuckle. “The bitch of it is, I think you mean that.”

And with that one comment, May was reminded exactly why she was ending things between them. Her heart ached, and she just felt so tired. “I do. And I’m sorry that it still surprises you.”

He shrugged and looked away from her. He was clearly done sharing these stories that hurt him so much, and maybe that was as much as she had a right to under the circumstances. She knew, in a way, it was also a sort of apology. He couldn’t take back what he’d done or the way he felt, just as she couldn’t stop the way it hurt her. But he could give her an explanation for it. She was the one who would have to make sure that was enough.

Part of her thought it was time to leave. To call an end to this thing once and for all, and move on with her life. But she couldn’t. Things still felt so unfinished and – of course. Despite everything, despite the hurt and frustration and emptiness, she still cared for him. They’d been friends before they were lovers, and without him, none of the rest of her life would have been possible. She couldn’t forget that. So she couldn’t leave things on this note either.

“Well. If, someday, you do find it in you to forgive me, perhaps you could come find me again. I’d like the chance to be friends with you again.”

He looked up at her in surprise, as if he couldn’t believe she would make an offer like that. Maybe it was completely unbelievable. But while May was many things, mostly she was kind. It might take a little time, but she already knew that she would forgive him. And if he was able to forgive her, well. Anything might happen. Someday.

He smiled at her, and for the first time in months, there was nothing else behind it. No baffled hurt, no frustrated desire, no angry bitterness. Just the charming amused man who had taken a chance on a desperate girl. “You know what they say. Sometimes goodbye is a second chance.”

The comment surprised a burst of genuine laughter out of her, and she shook her head. “Matix would be appalled to hear you apply the Shinedown to us.”

“Yeah, well, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him will it?”

“Just be sure you can keep the knowledge out of your face when you see him next. I swear he can read minds when it comes to things like that.” 

“I’ll take my chances.”

May paused briefly, but there was nothing holding her here anymore. No driving sense of incompleteness. So instead, she took a step forward and pressed a quick kiss to Danny’s cheek. “Goodbye. And good luck with that second chance.”

Before she could think better of it, she turned and walked away from him. She didn’t look back to see if he watched her, the way she had so often watched him, or if he also faded away back to his own life. In the end, she couldn’t help but smile a little. It felt right that they can to an end with laughter on their lips. After all, that was how they had started hadn’t they? And there were good memories, in the middle of all the heartbreak and hurt that had followed. In time, maybe the good memories would overpower the bad. Maybe she would get to see him someday, and they could reminisce over what had been and find a new path to what could be.

After all, today she had one a minor battle at her company, taken a part of herself back, and she’d been able to walk away from Danny first. Maybe it wasn’t much. Maybe she was still drowning in all the things that needed to be accomplished, all the stress and misery and worry that came from trying to balance all the different aspects of her life. And she knew herself well enough to know that the current euphoria would fade at some point as she dealt with the reality of never seeing Danny again. But that wasn’t right now. That was later.

For now, she was going to let herself feel ok. And maybe someday, someday not too far away, she would even believe it.

[shawnjacksonsbs]

And "they wonder why we can't be happy in their shade" while trying to reconcile with what my heart tells me. 6-21-20

“I’m afraid if I listen with my heart once, I’ll never figure out how to ignore it again.” —adapted from Colleen Hoover Coming out from behind their shade was all it took to feel that sun on my face again, and so I decided to fight to keep it there. This whole entry is based loosely on the notes from an entry I axed about why it's "my way or the highway" that's important for me and keeping with that rear-view analogy that continues to hold my perspective in place. Gratitude is still such an understatement. Now let me try to explain the 3 Heart Phases Formula. Some you original readers from way back might remember my obsession with trying to find that one size fits all formula to pull people out of their darknesses. This ain't that. As unfortunate as it is, and let's be real here, unless it's in an extraterrestrial language, there's no one set of words that will hit everyone the same, with the same reactionary responses. Can we say unrealistic pipe dream? Lol Instead, how about another option. 1st ♡ Phase is listening TO the heart; At first, it was about learning to listen to my heart. Having a limited amount of hope in the beginning almost proved the process too difficult. That is until I realized that the ways I saw and felt things were every bit as valid as those who subscribed to other ideas and other ways out. It was a hard-won battle that not everyone had to recognize, but I did. Only I did. This made all the rest effective, and worth it. I don't have to believe in any God and trying to for so long kept me sick. Trying to force things into my being, that I later knew weren't right was very detrimental to my recovery process. I know without a shadow of a doubt that this played a significant role in why I failed to get right at every other time in my life. I was fighting with what I knew deep in my heart wasn't accurate. And because so many people that I know do believe in some version, and because it plays such a dominant role in communities that I've lived in, just made it all that much more difficult to be honest with myself and in turn honest with the world around me for fear of abandonment, lack of acceptance, or outright retribution. It took a tremendous amount of courage to be honest about what I believed and why. And it wasn't just about my lack of belief in god or religion. It was about a lot of things. Which way I leaned politically was also a thing because it didn't fit with the way most of the people in my life leaned. 12 step groups were also a hold-back and that took some time to reconcile as well. I am not a drug addict. I was, but not anymore. Hopefully will never be again. Religion and a belief in a god helps some people, but not me. 12 step groups have helped more people than I care to try and count, but not me. I had to really start being honest with myself. I didn't know what was right at first, or the right way exactly, but I had a lot that I knew wasn't. So it started there. 2nd ♡ Phase is listening WITH my heart; From this point, the point of listening to my heart, something in me clicked. I started to realize that all the ideals and all the nonsense pushed on me, kept me and others from actually hearing what I was trying to say, like the way that I felt things and felt about things. I wondered if I had done that to others. At that moment, I absolutely knew that I had. From there on, I tried to start listening with my heart, which essentially is just being as open-minded as you possibly can. Listening without, or with limited, judgment. It helps make way for real understanding. Just so ya know, this too proved tricky at first. I'm fortunate enough that I had people who kept me as friends as they helped me find my way through. It's been a slow process, to say the least. I've argued against things pretty hard in the last several years that I 100% know better about today. Listening with my heart, through love, and empathy has taught me so much more about myself than I ever imagined it could. All the while it opened my eyes and my heart to the plight of a lot of other people. I don't shut those people down immediately like I used to. It's easier for me to decipher the importance of their message without getting so hung up semantics and wording. That seems to a huge thing with a lot of people. If I asked you to listen with your heart, like really listen, without judgment, could you? Do you sincerely believe that you'd be capable of it? Because it's hard. It's like one of the hardest things you'll ever really learn to do. And I believe it is a learned behavior. It was for me at least, learned, and hard to do. I'm still nowhere close to absolute in this area, but the growth I've accrued from the practice and patience I've given to this is hands down the most rewarding, satisfying, and fulfilling parts of my journey so far. I encourage you all to try and listen with your hearts. Listen, as open-mindedly as you possibly can, to someone who you tend to feel as opposition. Hear the underlying tones of what they're trying to convey. And never respond. Don't even tell anyone you're doing it at first. Take a few steps into listening with your heart and see how it feels. See if what I'm saying makes sense. There will be times where what you're hearing is still 180 degrees off from your true north, but keep trying to understand without condemning, without judging, or getting hung up on parts of the whole. Sometimes you won't be able to see through certain messages, and from certain persons and that's ok. Just keep trying until one finally hits you. From there, if you're anything like me, it'll snowball, until it's near impossible to not feel them coming through their words. You can still disagree completely. It's not a prerequisite for understanding another side, that you all of the sudden change your mind or you're heart, but having that better understanding of their side makes communication a 1000 times better and smoother. Arguing to argue is pointless and stupid. Win hearts by actually communicating and find common ground, middle ground, and we will find comprised solutions. It's not rocket science. It's listening with your heart. 3rd ♡ Phase is wearing that same heart on your sleeve; Trust me when I say that wearing your heart on your sleeve can be exhausting at times, but it gets easier the longer you do it. The longer you do it the freer you become. There's nothing like knowing that I don't have to meet anyone's preconceived notions of who they think I should be. My definition of what makes man may vary from yours. I can tell other men I love them, without fear of feeling less than. I can push for kindness, compassion, sensitivity, and civility across the board, and still, be able to hit someone in the mouth if it ever came to that. But it probably won't. I don't have to prove anything to anyone. I can just wear my heart loud and proud and fuck what you heard, think, or believe if it makes you think less of me. I work hard every day. I take care of my family and I probably look more like those who oppose my views than not. What do you think makes a man a man? For me, above all else, it's being a good person, a good human, and treating others, not just some but all other people the way I'd want them to treat each other. Also, I can sing along with Manic Monday by The Bangles surrounded by anyone, any time, anywhere, and loud. ~"I wish it was Sunday,   'Cause that's my fun day   My, I don't have to run day,   Its just another manic Monday '~ I had other components, several smaller components that made this formula personal to me. As would/will anyone who can truly subscribe to this way of life. The number one thing, as luck would have it, was that my first granddaughter was born during the early stages of my transitioning and I became a Pawpaw. It changed everything. My grandchildren continue to be a positive driving force and a daily reminder of who I am now, and why I do what I do, without their even knowing it. With my heart laid wide open, those little vulnerable people give me pause enough to reflect on how I failed my kids, their parents, when they, themselves, were little. In my attempts to amend my relationships with my kids, I made a promise to always do my very best to promote through love and understanding all that I should have shown them, but can now, show them all, kids, and grandkids alike. My kids see the change I'm living. Just ask any of them, and as for my grandchildren, they will never know any other version of me than the one that walks this fucking walk every fucking day, inside and outside of this blog, for the rest of my life. I guess that's it. Remember that is more than one way out, if you really want it, you will find what fits you. The 3 Heart Phases Formula may not be for everyone, but its what I needed, when I needed it. Keep sharing the love and laughter with the world around you, and always, always try and be kind to one another. At the very, very least be civil. Life Goals - Win Hearts, Be Kind, and Stay Grateful, and not necessarily in that order. lol Until next week; "Well, in Whoville they say – that *[his] small heart grew three sizes that day." - from the *[Grinch] Who stole Christmas.

[authorsofparadiseroleplay]

James and Mae: The Charnel House

Post transfer for @wintermae​

James

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”

___________________________________

Mae

“Well you’re not me, are you darlin’?” Which, in Mae, was a very polite way of telling the man to bug off.

___________________________________

James

“Clearly not.” He gave her an appraising sweep with his eyes and noted the coolness of the gaze and set of the jaw that told him she was used to insisting on her way. Goddess above, he did not need this right now.

The old slaughterhouse was perhaps a bit of a cliche as far as illicit meeting places went, but at the same time, the creatures that met within probably drank up the violent residual energy within like fine wine. They were, he knew, creatures much like himself, but unlike him, they had surrendered fully to the feral sides of their natures. Half-breeds– like James, like the ones inside– lacked the intense cultural conditioning of full-blooded Dragons that should have taught them how to master those base urges. He had learned by trial, error, study, and a grim determination to do right by the world. Not all of them would have had that sort of motivation.

There was no way this woman knew what she was getting into. They would rip her to pieces, and that would be the kindest part of what they would do to her.

“Turn around and leave,” he warned her, unable to keep the low rumble of a growl from underscoring his voice. “This is not for you.”

___________________________________

Mae

The abattoir made the hairs on the back of Mae’s neck stand the moment she stepped inside. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. Nor did it give her a shred of hope that whatever was going on was anything resembling happy. Much less good.

Add running into whoever this was–bossy as he was–she just wasn’t in for a good time. At his growled out order she stood taller, an expression of frustration on her face. Her hand curled around the hilt of her knife.

“I don’t do well with orders an’ I don’t know you from Adam. Now…’M goin’ in there. You can come or you can stay behind. I don’t rightly care.”

___________________________________

James

For a few seconds, the dominant, aggressive side of him teamed up with the more protective aspect of his nature, and he considered the merits of throwing her over his shoulder, carrying her to his car, and locking her in the trunk where she wouldn’t be able to get in his way and endanger herself. His more rational side intervened, especially as he noticed the way she was readying her hand on her knife. He didn’t especially relish the idea of fighting with a wildcat tonight; the other halfbreeds inside would be more than enough if he had to confront them. He was almost certain they had already captured their intended victim, and he needed to extract the young man before he could be transported to wherever they were intending.

Speaking of which, it was readily apparent that this woman wasn’t one of them, so what was she doing here?

“Do you know what it is you’re getting yourself into?” he murmured, pinning her with his gaze.

___________________________________

Mae

Mae resisted the urge to sigh. Standing here and arguing semantics–which is what they were doing, make no mistake–was eating up precious time for her. She’d heard through contacts that there was going to…well she didn’t know what, exactly. But she knew the one taken wouldn’t likely live through the night if help didn’t come.

And she might as well be help.

Still she found herself unable to move under the weight of his gaze. A brief wave of nervousness washed over her. The man in front of her was powerful. He had to be.

“More than most,” she answered after a moment. Her voice caught despite her best efforts to keep from doing so.

___________________________________ 

James

James did not miss the slight hitch in her voice as she supplied her non-answer. He narrowed his eyes, then sighed and shook his head.

It went against his better judgement, but short of locking the woman in his trunk, which would come with its own set of complications that he did not need, there was little he could do to keep her from going in there if she was as determined as she appeared to be.

He glowered down at her, and though he kept his voice low, an intensity laced his words that he hoped would be difficult to ignore.“The beings inside are powerful and very dangerous. Physically, any one of them will outmatch you, and as a group they could be nigh unstoppable. And pray to whatever god you worship that they do not unleash their magic. There is very likely a boy in there who is being held captive. If you get in my way and he is harmed because of it, I will hold you personally responsible. Do we understand each other?”

___________________________________

Mae

She laughed. It wasn’t a bright, weightless sort of laugh so much as one that was tired and devoid of actual humor. “There goes offerin’ the lot of them cookies an’ milk.”

Being sarcastic made it easier to ignore the sudden knot in her stomach when the man told her that it was a boy being held.

A kid. Goddamnit.

Mae locked her jaw and nodded. She wasn’t about to fight him anymore on any of this. It was too important. In and out. “I understand an’ I’ll follow your lead.” See? She could play nice. Mostly.

___________________________________

James

He cocked an eyebrow at her attempt at humor, but nodded at her acquiescence with something that wasn’t quite satisfaction– he would prefer her to stay out of it altogether– but more resembled mollification. “Good. Stay close and do as I say.”

He had intended to undergo a partial transformation before entering the slaughterhouse, to even the odds a little bit, but with the woman there, he wasn’t willing to expose that particular secret just yet. He regarded her silently for a few seconds, taking her measure. Stars above, it was difficult to gauge someone’s strengths and weaknesses, and where they might be an asset versus a liability at first glance. She looked fit, and there was something about the way she carried herself that suggested experience in combat situations, but without knowing for sure…

He could have opened up his Sight and seen her more clearly, but he didn’t want to risk being thrown off balance by what he might see. However, there was another possibility.

“To begin with,” he said, “Tell me your name. I want to know who I’m going in there with.” Hearing her Name, even a small part of it, might help clarify the nature of her existence in his mind. Of course, that would be absolutely useless if she gave him an alias.

___________________________________

Mae

“I bake,” she informed him when she caught his expression. Then she rolled her eyes. What was it with men throwing out edicts like that? Rather than make a snarky comment along the lines of simply keeping that sort of thinking in the bedroom, she nodded. Sarcasm as she tended to use it wasn’t needed or wanted just then.“You’ve got the reins, darlin’. I give you my word.”

At the demand to tell him her name, it was her turn to raise an eyebrow. Names were dangerous in more ways than one.

For her there was the added benefit (or detriment, depending on your viewpoint) of multiple surnames. “Mae Singer.”

___________________________________

James

He narrowed his eyes a little as she told him. The name seemed to hold some truth, but it felt… diluted somehow, as if it only carried a small fragment of her story. But it was enough for now. The partial Name flashed through his mind with an impression of resilience and experience, and the shadow of a lingering link to another, someone who bore the surname she had given him. This was not, as the modern saying went, her first rodeo, and he would also lay odds that she was either married or widowed. The link was still too strong for her to be divorced.

He nodded. “James Cavanaugh.” He knew the alias would hold none of his true nature, and a small part of him twitched at the lack of equilibrium his reply created. A Name for a Name (or a partial Name for a partial Name, as the case may be) should have been the exchange, but instead the circle was left unclosed.

To assuage his need to compensate, he gave her a small piece of information about himself that he would not have otherwise given her. “I have been alive for much longer than my appearance would suggest, Mrs. Singer.” He put his right hand beneath his jacket and withdrew his Glock from its shoulder holster.  With his left hand, he retrieved a plastic water bottle filled with a murky liquid. “I have encountered these creatures many times before, and they are extremely dangerous. Stay in the shadows and do not reveal your presence to them unless it becomes absolutely necessary.” He held the bottle out to her. “Drink half of this. Stiff upper lip, now. It tastes vile.”

___________________________________

Mae

The dull ache that accompanied that specific name for her made itself known as it always tended to. She ignored it. Also as she tended to. “Pretty name, James.”

Of course being told that he was far older than he looked made Mae give him another once over. He wasn’t celestial. Nor a vampire or werewolf. But what else was there? Rather than waste time going over the impossibly long list of supernaturally inclined people or the fact that he’d pegged the missus part, former as it was, she nodded.

“Keep to the shadows,” she murmured.

When James held out the bottle she regarded him thoughtfully, expression shifting slightly. “If I drink this an’ it turns out that you’ve drugged me…You better run an’ hide cause I’ll castrate you.”

Then she opened the bottle and shotgunned half of it. Mae held a hand to her mouth and worked past the taste as much as she could. She shoved the bottle back towards him. Vile had been an understatement.

___________________________________

James

One corner of his mouth quirked up at her comment, and he accepted the bottle back from her. “If I had wanted to sedate you, Mrs. Singer, I would not have handed you the drug in hopes you would simply take it. This is a potion that will… encourage them to overlook you. It will not make you invisible, so don’t rely on it to conceal you altogether. And take care that you do not become apathetic from its effects.”

He tilted back the bottle and choked down the remaining contents, grimacing at the taste. Almost immediately, he noticed the effects beginning to creep over him. The world around him dimmed, draining of color until it seemed as if he viewed it through a window covered with murky film.

The fact that they had shared the potion should make it easier to keep track of her, without losing his awareness of her to its effects, and when he looked back at her, he confirmed that theory. She had taken on a dull, nondescript appearance, but he could still focus on her.

And then, a panther materialized in front of them.

Presenting its usual perfect, if somewhat startling timing, Scáil, his created servitor, returned from its reconnaissance mission. James had sent it, in its immaterial form, to scout ahead and report back. And, of course, the little brat had seen the stranger with him and had decided to be contrary, showing itself without warning, not as its usual harmless-looking housecat, but in its other favored shape, the form of a large jungle predator.

Cats. At least it hadn’t talked.

“Been keepin’ Dixie like y’ said,” Scáil said. His voice was low and gravelly in this form, and had, inexplicably and without James’ direction, developed with a pronounced Liverpool accent– not an authentic accent, but one pulled straight from a terrible movie. “Buncha meff’eads in there, got the lid trussed up in the bloody office. 'E’s aahhht of it. Must be bevied up.” The big cat looked at Mae, grinned a toothy Cheshire grin, and winked. James sighed and hid his face in his hand. “Don’t worry, lydy,” Scáil continued. “You’ll wake up soon and fin’ abaht wot a proper west dream ya just 'ad.”

___________________________________

Mae

The missus part also tugged at her but it got pushed to the side like everything else. Mae rolled her eyes. “You’d be surprised how many times just that has happened.” Or maybe he wouldn’t. He didn’t seem like someone who really got surprised all that often.

She focused on James even as the world around her seemed to take on an almost sepia tone.The same sort of thing happened with him but he was a touch or two brighter than the rest. It was striking and unremarkable at the same time.

As she reminded herself to take in the views with a grain of proverbial salt a panther appeared out of thin air. Panther. A literal one.

Mae started, inhaling sharply before exhaling in a rush. She swept her view from the giant cat to James then back again. A familiar? Or somethin’ like that.

“Darlin’ cat if I was ever able to do that you two wouldn’t be what I dream about.” She rolled her shoulders back. “So they have the kid drugged an’ tied up?”

___________________________________

James

“Aw, yer breakin’ my ‘eart,” Scáil said before James could interject, its voice edged with disdain. “An’ ‘ere I though’ ya were ‘ere t’ be my intended. Me ‘opes are dashed, they are. ‘Ow shall I ev’r continue?”

“Shadow,” James said, his voice as strained as his patience. “Go home.”

“An’ no’ a word o’ thanks from ‘im, neither, the snide arlarse. Got a cob on, do y’? ” the panther said, and then vanished in a curling wisp of shadow.

James let out a breath and stilled the spike of annoyance his familiar had, as usual, inflicted on him, and then murmured a soft thanks under his breath, knowing it would be heard. Though Scáil tried his patience daily, he was fond of it; there was no denying that. The entity had been with him for millennia, and had been unceasingly loyal despite taking on independent thought and action, as such creatures did if allowed to live beyond a few months. Most practitioners who were capable of such things created and destroyed their servitors within a few hours to a few days, however long it took them to carry out their task. A servitor was a collection of energy, intelligence, and will, built with the clay of the earth and fueled by the powers of creation, and had no proper form of life– or so it was thought.

James had been unable to do that, having seen the spark of life gleaming at its center. It had been impressed upon him in that moment that creating such a being was an undertaking of enormous gravitas, a considerable and even sacred responsibility not to be undertaken lightly, and not to be treated with the callous disregard that his teachers and peers had shown. And so, against the command of his master, he had given the servitor a Name, secretly allowing it to grow and develop and flourish, and it had willingly taken on the role of his familiar.

Turning back to Mae, he faltered for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain Scáil as succinctly as possible, before giving up altogether and turning his attention back to the matter at hand as though they had not both just been accosted by a talking panther. “Yes. They’ve got him bound in the inspector’s office up front.” He used the lockpick tool he had brought with him to jimmy the padlock on the back door, which according to the blueprints led to what had been the holding pen. Scáil had shown him an image of one hybrid guarding the boy in the office, with six or seven more milling around the rest of the building, apparently waiting for someone. “We’ll have to move through the whole building to get to it, and there are several thugs in there, so think unobtrusive thoughts and hope we get out of this alive.”

___________________________________

Mae

Really a talking panther wasn’t that big of a deal. Just a way bigger version of Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Who said that TV wouldn’t help me out? The thought makes her smile, though it vanishes just as quickly as Shadow had. Now wasn’t the time to be flippant. If anything she did caused any harm to the boy that was being held prisoner, Mae wouldn’t forgive herself.

“I’ve never been that good at bein’ subtle but today seems like a good day to change that.” It was said with a heavy amount of sincerity, her mind clearly on what they needed to do. She nodded toward the now unlocked door. “Lead the way. I’ll cover you.”

Mae didn’t add that if things went pear shaped she’d be the only one alive at the end of the day. No need to be a killjoy.

___________________________________

James

James nodded, drew a slow breath, held it for a single second, and exhaled, centering his mind and emotions to a state of balanced stillness. Then he opened the door and stepped inside.  

He had found the blueprints to the place and memorized them before coming here. Working alone as he always did, he had long ago learned the value of planning ahead. He didn’t always have the luxury. And now, he had an unknown element tagging along with him, and he didn’t know how that would effect the execution of this mission.

As always, he carried, carefully wrapped in plenty of padding so as not to accidentally crush them, the glass marbles he had prepared with a befuddlement enchantment. And, in case those didn’t work, he also carried the equivalent of a magical flash grenade in a bottle, a cocktail meant to overload the magical senses enough to render anyone with talent within a twenty-yard radius insensate for an hour or so. Including himself. He’d have to take the time to shield before using it, if it came down to that.

The door he went through led to the offal room. The abattoir was long abandoned, so there was no current evidence of the room’s function, but the energetic– and physical, to his sensitive nostrils– stench remained, the putrid decay of the years. His stomach lurched, but he ignored it and pressed forward, motioning to Mae to follow.

They made their way through the room, past the stun pen, past scales and industrial-sized sinks and a variety of equipment that he didn’t want to think about too closely– partly because the thought of it was making his Dragon hungry for fresh meat, though the rotten smell was still tempering that instinct a bit.  He kept his sidearm in a two-handed stance as he walked, pointed to the floor in front of him, ready to use at a moment’s notice. The gun wouldn’t outright kill one of his kind, at least not without repeated, point-blank shots, but it would slow them down if push came to shove.

___________________________________

Mae

The moment Mae stepped into the slaughterhouse with James, she could feel that Death had made a home there. It was a sensation that she hated the familiarity of. Mae’s stomach knotted up almost violently and she found herself grateful that she hadn’t eaten the past few hours–Though the potion that had been shared with her did roil around uncomfortably.

Her steps, light and quiet as she could make them, followed his as she kept her fingers wrapped around her knife. She rolled her shoulders back, gaze sweeping the expanse of the room while trying not to visualize just how it was used back during it’s days of operation.

…Maybe I’ll forgo meat for a little while.

It was a thought that nearly drew a nervous laugh from her, the sound thankfully cut short by Mae stuffing her free hand in her mouth to hopefully muffle anything.

Then, as the building gave a settling groan, another thought occurred to Mae.

Too easy.

[okkrist-blog]

WHO ISN’T AFRAID OF KAYODE FAYEMI?

I must confess. Getting engaged in the public discourse of Ekiti State politics doesn’t come naturally. It’s really not in the top bracket of issues of national importance that I look forward to intervene in. But my intervention has almost always been due to some knee-jerk reaction.

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This reaction comes either when Fayose do or say something that demeans human decency that makes me to wonder if some people in some remote corners of the world are not giggling and wondering if Nigerians are truly a civilized people, or when someone, in an attempt to lend his voice on what can now aptly be described as the “Fayemi Question” in Ekiti politics makes a fool of himself with comments so illogical and odious to my senses.

But the inspiration for this piece came from a slightly different direction. It was inspired by two interrelated sources. The first was from a brilliant piece by an unknown author that made the rounds recently on social media which was entitled “Who is afraid of Fayemi?” This unnamed author had expressed his dismay that more than 30 of the governorship aspirants in the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their supporters are yet to talk about what they and their principals have in store for Ekiti state if given the party ticket. Yet, they would rather speak derisively about a man who hasn’t even expressed his intention either publicly or privately to join the governorship slugfest.

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The piece also admonished the aspirants and their supporters to concentrate on the state’s ruling party and Ayo Fayose, a governor who has, for all practical purposes, turned the state into a wasteland. Speaking of wasteland, a story appeared in The Nation newspaper on Friday, January 26, 2018 with the headline “APC tackles Fayose for allowing liquidation of Gossy Water.”

In the report, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state had “blamed the governor (Fayose) for allegedly creating an unfriendly atmosphere for businesses, regretting that instead of building on [the] initiatives of his predecessors to sustain job-creating businesses,” Fayose have “created conditions that hampered businesses with attendant job losses.” The report added that the “board of Warm Spring Waters Limited had given liquidation notice to stakeholders, citing failure of the company to pay its debts and other challenges, one of which was lack of electricity supply for three years, including the non-patronage of the company’s product by Fayose’s administration because the company was the initiative of (Fayemi) his predecessor.”

I felt bad about this report not only because of the imminent death of a company and its resultant effect on workers who would no longer have incomes to sustain themselves and their families, but also the mention that Ikogosi Warm Spring itself (which is the company’s water source) is now diseased, no thanks to Fayose’s penchant for killing all things that ennobles civilization. The Ikogosi Warm Spring was one of the places I visited for the first time at the tail-end of the Fayemi administration.

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I could not believe how he had transformed this place into a world-class tourist resort. Being a lover of nature, I was immediately attracted to this resort because of its serenity, its air quality and its regal appearance. I immediately concluded that it was a perfect place to escape from the Lagos ‘madness’ on occasions. About a year after Fayemi left office, I drove by the resort to spend just a few hours before proceeding to Ado-Ekiti. It was then I knew that the place was on a nosedive because the gate-keeper at the first entrance was nowhere to be found for close to half hour of waiting. And I left in disgust. One can onlyimagine how Fayemi himself would feel now with all the reports about how his works are deliberately being dismantled by his successor right before his eyes to the eternal detriment of the state and its people.

There’s hardly any point in lamenting anymore about what Ekiti has become under Fayose. The present governor is a classic embodiment of that time-tested truism that you cannot give what you do not have. Fayose also personifies another age-long adage that no matter how a pig is expensively dressed, it will always find its way into the mud to revel and scavenge because the mud is its natural habitat. Perhaps, the history of Fayose’s emergence on the political scene of a state that prides itself as having the highest academically credentialed number of people per capita and the subjection, if not resignation of this very same people to the most inhumane treatments by their governor should be left to sociologists and political scientists worth their onions to unravel.

But what about John Kayode Fayemi?

Perhaps there’s no one that has affected the politics of Ekiti state in profound ways (in a relatively short period of time) with the intensity and curiosity he generates since the state’s creation than Dr. Kayode Fayemi. It’s for this reason that, at intervals, one must interrogate what may have been responsible for a public personality with no history of political brigandage behind him or known to having any earth-shaking oratory prowess to have become an issue that has now transmuted into the

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“Fayemi Question.” What is it that unsettles some people about this man that even Fayose—-with his self-acclaimed fearlessness—-had to resort to constitutional illegality just to keep him away from the state’s political landscape? Why are people intuitively disoriented that there’s a “Fayemi Question” yet, doesn’t seem to know exactly what the “Question” really is, let alone having an answer? For someone who could have walked the length and breadth of Ekiti State without anyone noticing less than a decade ago to now become a compelling issue in Ekiti politics should also be a subject of curiosity for sociologists and political scientists. It is perhaps against this backdrop that the “Fayemi Question” in Ekiti state politics should be interrogated with a view, once again, to attempt to decode the man and his essence.

Man has been sufficiently documented as having a mortal fear for what he doesn’t understand. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was sufficiently misunderstood at the initial stage of his political life by a significant segment of people in close proximity (his own people) with him. One then wonders if Fayemi may not be following the same trajectory as the late sage at least at the earliest state of his political life. Like Awolowo who ‘unseated’ his people from their comfort zone of reckless superstition and ignorance into modernity within a relatively short spate of time when they were hardly ready, the novelties and intellectual approach that Fayemi brought into governance when he ruled the roost in Ekiti that the people may not have prepared for (at least not so soon) may have contributed—-in the main—-to his being misunderstood.

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Like Awolowo, Fayemi probably has in his DNA a fundamental principle that society must be constructed along those values and principles that defines them even when they’re hardly ready or when they may have lost or when they’re yet to come to any appreciable understanding of those values and principles. In other words, he shares this innate belief with the late sage that a leader may not reflect the people he leads. That he must be—-in the main—-a discernible notch above their base and primordial instincts.

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This belief must have triggered the social reconstruction or engineering—-which has been loosely defined as the art of using centralized planning, through giving the people the power to order their own priorities in an attempt to manage social change and regulate the future development and behaviour of a society—-they both presided over in their geographical enclaves. To have uprooted some of the dominant paradigms that had become second nature to some members of society with new building blocks as seen in the novelties in the nooks and crannies of the state during Fayemi’s time could be unsettling.

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