#But we had this anti drug presentation from this guy who was friends with him

[teledild0nix]

I grew up in LA but haven’t met thaaaat many famous ppl like I can count them on one hand. But my favorite celebrity proximity story for myself is that I met Phoebe Bridgers before she was famous because she used to busk at the farmer’s market in the town where we both lived. I tried to buy a CD from her and she said she didn’t have a CD and I should look her up on MySpace and I was like ugh as if

[diggersofgraves]

fucking hate when someone calls out other ppl for appropriating latino culture or making fun of some aspect of it. and then in comes some random ass latino, "we dont care abt this, we're laughing with them, we're not sensitive 🙄"

bitch First of all, stand the fuck up for yourself. they made a fucking joke at ur expense and they continuously do it and u wanna laugh with them 🥺

and its not just at ur expense. its at the expense of ur parents. siblings. friends?? if as a latino you've never experienced aggressions or had ppl already decided ur not trustworthy or speak to you like a child bc they assume u dont speak english or call you names or have police target ur dad and push him around when he's just walking or claiming that ur mom had drugs on her on a random ass stop bc for what fucking reason, idk, but it fucking happens or getting referred to as "you people" constantly paired with just an awful assumption abt "you ppl" or bullied for an accent ir not speaking english.

thats great for you. im really glad you didnt have to deal with that, specifically if u grew up in the US, but honestly, anywhere else where these might present as problems.

but this whole "latinos aren't sensitive 🥺 not like other ppl" shut up shut up shut up

BC the Second thing im talking abt is the fucking rude ass implications always attached to that fucking statement. these people always bring up "being sensitive" and "other people". underhandedly undermining the progress and valid statements and concerns and violence brought up by other racial and ethnic minorities. theyre speaking out abt their experiences and the unfairness of it and in comes this fucking guy, claiming its ppl being sensitive and they can't take a joke, but he can so he's better and he's different. YOU HEAR THAT, WHITE PPL??? HE'S DIFFERENT!! YOU GOT THAT?? UR SURE??

literally fuck you dude, you'd rather laugh next to an oppressor than the black, brown, or indigenous person who's speaking abt the endless struggles that the oppressor ur standing next to causes that makes their lives difficult and, many times, dangerous. good job, ur just like them now, im pretty sure thats what u want? like genuinely, thats what u want?? did they choose u??

and yeah, Third, bc despite the fact that its not obviously there sometimes, the fucking anti-blackness/racism in these statements and occurrences and within the community as a whole. your experiences as a white latino or even as "mestizo" (i dont particularly like using that word to describe myself or others bc of its roots in the spanish caste system, but I don't have a better word, if anyone can help out there, I'd appreciate it very much <3) dont encompass all latino experience within the US OR within the country your family might have immigrated from. talk to your fellow afro latinos and indigenous members of the community. even if you're dont experience any struggles to speak abt, if ur families doesnt, listen to other people in ur community and be a fucking ally. fucking idiot

my Fourth and probably final point is documentation status within the US. if u came into the US with documents, if u were born in the US, etc etc. thats privilege baby. i guarantee you ur experiences as a documented latino is going to be different than the experiences as an undocumented latino.

there are resources you can reach when ur a citizen that are unavailable to undocumented ppl. and not just latinos in this case, i mean from all over the world, but especially if ur a racial/ethnic minority in the US.

my mom came to the US undocumented. she was getting that shit ready when my family had a fallout and we became homeless. the fucking. obstacle's she had to go through to access resources were fucking crazy. many many times they didn't want to offer these resources to her or us simply based on her undocumented status. many many assumptions were made abt her and our family. she was taken advantage of in jobs and programs.

the problems didnt exactly stop when she finally became a resident, but that weight was so so so much lighter on her after that. we finally had access to resources they refused her before and things became much easier.

I know that as someone who was born in the US, im already less likely to face such events that my mom did. that's privilege already.

if u go to or went to a majority latino school, there might be a chance that there are students who recently came from latin america, maybe within the last year or few months or weeks (my hs school had new students come in every couple of months). pay attention to how they're treated. not just by students, but by the staff. there is discrimination going on there. teachers might make little comments, call them lazy, stupid. its not funny. speak up for them. these teachers are making nasty comments in english when the students usually dont grasp the language so well yet, they JUST moved there. if you dont need to speak up for yourself, fine, speak up for others.

making jokes out of latino struggles reinforces stereotypes and its not you on the bad end of them bc ur laughing with the white man on the otherside. but there are still members from ur own community that might fit some of the stereotypes (bc ur reinforcing these stereotypes by making fun of the CULTURE, our actual way of life) and thats enough for some racist or xenophobic asshole to grasp onto and make a persons day or life a little shittier.

ur not the only person in ur community. there are actually communities out there, latino ppl who speak up on the issues ur laughing abt. in laughing with the oppressor, ur undermining ur community. fuck off dude, fr.

[mermaidsirennikita]

Yeah but weren't the rumors that she was walking off from set in response to his behaviour? Plus at this point we've had cast members talking about not great experiences on set and several talking about being uncomfortable with the sex scenes and nudity.

Some rumors said she was responding to his behavior. Some said she was walking off set because she disagreed with the writing for Kat. Either way--you literally can't walk off a job and not expect repercussions. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes it's not.

Personally, I'm kind of over a lot of allegations about Sam Levinson being levied with very little concrete evidence that he's done anything abnormal, beyond being the type of guy who probably wears a beret and talks about his vision and is generally insufferable and dumb (remember when people on TikTok were saying that he clearly sees Sydney as a stand in for his mom, who he wants to fuck, because they're both busty blondes? Okay then). I've seen extras complain about being on set for 8-12 hours and only having shitty craft food... Welcome to being an extra on a TV set. I don't see why anyone thinks those hours are especially wild, when television shows have been filming with them from the dawn of time. You have Zendaya, who to be frank is known for being a professional above anything else, not only praising him but repeatedly choosing to work with him. Hunter Schafer had tons of praise when she worked with him on her solo episode. As much as people like to cite Sydney Sweeney, what she said was actually? Not damning at all? She was presented with more nudity than she wanted. She requested less nudity. He gave her less nudity.

I don't think he's an angel by any means. In fact, I think he's an annoying navel gazer who sometimes strikes brilliance but most of that is due to hiring the right people, both in front of and behind the camera (which, I suppose, is in itself a talent). I never liked how Kat was written. (I actually had a ton of complaints about season 1--it was a ritual for me to log on after each episode aired and bitch about it in the DMs with a friend of mine.) I'm sure he and Barbie had disagreements about that, which led to friction.

But here's the thing: I've been watching this show since the night the pilot aired. Most people were cool and groovy with Euphoria when season 1 was new--then season 2 blew the fuck up due to a lot of people watching season 1 during the pandemic, and everyone suddenly acted like Euphoria was a walking hate crime against literally everyone known to man, including white guys. And then, as with the above conspiracy theory TikToks, the rhetoric became weirdly more personal and more... fucked. Almost like nobody cared about being socially correct and fair, and it was actually just typical fandom bullshit masquerading as activismy concern We'll talk about how Jules being confused about what the fuck she wants (as a teenage girl) is homophobic, apparently... But we won't talk about how for a minute there a chunk of Twitter was suggesting that Sam Levinson, a Jewish man, must be secretly powering the IDF with a show adapted from an Israeli television series? And how that's an incredibly anti-Semitic thought process? You're gonna worry about the depiction of drug use on the show while calling a recovering drug addict a crackhead on Twitter, and blaming his uneven writing on his brain being "fried by meth"?

Like, I honestly can't believe I'm defending Sam Levinson on main, but I don't have to like you to be fair, and I do try to be fair. There's speculation and picking apart quotes, and there is KNOWING WHAT HAPPENED. And when you don't know what happened, you tend to start spinning out into some pretty wild shit; something I've been guilty of myself, and I'm trying to get away from that.

As for discomfort with sex and nudity... There's a difference between being uncomfortable with something because it's new and being pressured to do something you don't want to do. I have seen nothing about people being pressured to do something they don't want to do--the opposite, in fact. As I stated above, Sydney said the nudity got toned down because she asked for that. Personally, I think a lot of people just don't like the plot lines for season 2 and are looking for a political reason to validate their feelings so that they can win an argument. You can't like season 2 if everyone was being pressured into going nude! Ignore

Who knows? Maybe it'll all come out that the show was an incredibly abusive environment. But thus far... I'm not seeing the actors who've worked on the set saying that.

[arlingtonpark]

SNK 139 Review Part I: On Eren Jeager and Genocide

Why?

Why is this happening?

Folks, I’m going to be honest here: there are no words for this. The main thrust of this chapter is completely inexplicable. It’s stupid. It’s ill conceived. FML.

Just…just the term itself is laughable.

Eren redemption arc.

Sksksksksksksksksksksk

After everything he’s done, everyone he’s killed, you’re going to try redeeming Eren in the final chapter?

Eren didn’t need to be redeemed. He was a bullheaded kid who didn’t let anyone stop him from doing what he thought needed to be done. He sees the titans outside the walls as enemies to be exterminated. When he learns that his real enemies are other humans, who have a right to freedom as much as he does, he can’t accept it and decides to just exterminate them too. That mindset led him down a tragic path of genocide.

That’s not a bad character arc!

In fact, I’d say it’s very compelling. Nonconformity and obstinance are often presented as virtues; flipping that paradigm on its head and showing the vices of those virtues was legitimately smart and provocative.

Making people rethink what traits are virtues and vices is a great moral to the story, and it paired well with the other moral of cooperation and loving your fellow people.

Then this chapter came out, and they threw all that away.

Eren’s arc once made me think of Aristotle, who argued that true virtue lied between extremes: neither too submissive nor too rebellious.

Now Eren’s arc makes me think of pseudointellectual 4chan philosophy, and dumb teenagers: “He’s not a bad guy, he’s just human!!!”

Eren’s motivations are a mess now. He had no free will, but he also had a plan, but deep down he wanted to do the rumbling no matter what, but actually he really wanted to be with Mikasa.

Oh, and B T dubs, he killed his mom too.

You can tell Isayama is desperate to make Eren as sympathetic as possible to justify making him the anti-hero because he’s throwing everything he can pull out of his ass at Eren.

Really, though, all he ended up doing was smearing shit on the character.

Eren’s plan was to kill a significant part of the human population so the world wouldn’t be as overwhelming a threat as before. Simultaneously, he planned (“planned”) for the alliance to become vaunted heroes to the world when they killed him, thus paving the way to peace.

This…makes no sense?

There is no reason Eren should have believed this would work. During the battle of Trost, Pixis asked him if humanity could unite if threatened by a common enemy. Eren said no.

Eren is a pessimist about people. He sees how much the walldians fought with each other and concluded that people would always be at odds.

And the Tybur family helped defeat the Eldian Empire, but only the Tyburs were seen as heroes by the Marleyans. That good will was not imputed from the Tyburs to the other Eldians on the continent. There’s no reason to think that would happen here when it didn’t back then.

I’m assuming, anyway, that the alliance becoming heroes is supposed to lead to a world where Paradis is safe since that’s supposed to be Eren’s goal.

I’m willing to grant that maybe this part of Eren’s plan was more of a hope on his part. Peace would come only after his death, so he can’t truly “plan” for anything afterwards.

I think it’s safe to say that killing the world’s population was the main part of his plan, since that’s the part he had the most control over.

To the extent he had any control over his actions, which brings me to the next point.

So, turns out Eren had no free will.

Can you not feel Isayama’s desperation?

After all the awful things Eren’s done, Isayama’s brilliant idea to make him sympathetic is to strip him of all agency.

This is done by two routes throughout the chapter.

The first is by building him up as a victim. Eren’s mind is fucked; he can’t really control himself. Any decent person would feel pity for him, which is reinforced by the sorrow Armin visibly feels for him.

Then, like a shotgun blast to the face, we are told that Eren killed his mother in a moment that is clearly supposed to endear us to him.

This is such a transparent appeal for our sympathy. Isayama’s desperation leaps off the page and mugs us of it.

The only thing that this revelation adds to the story is that it gives Armin a reason to take up Eren’s hand, and show him support. You can see Armin’s heart breaking for Eren in that moment.

That’s mostly why this is here: to give the mass murderer a hard luck story so our hearts melt for him.

The second route is that depriving Eren of agency absolves him of blame for what he did.

Eren beat Armin bloody, but you can’t really blame him for it. He was drugged out on the Founding Titan and didn’t want to do it. He was acting on impulse, just going with the flow, so he deserves, at the very least, some leniency.

Eren both having a plan and not having much in the way of free will is contradictory. Everyone still talks about Eren as if he’s someone who is doing stuff even though we’re told he’s not really capable of rational decision making.

I’m going to be nice and assume Isayama’s intent is that when you parse this all out, you end up in a place where Eren is not truly responsible for what he did, and in any event this all ended with the titan curse broken and the world at peace, sooooo break out the champagne everyone, we achieved world peace!

…

Yeah, bub, I’m not partying right now.

Isayama’s ploy to absolve Eren of blame didn’t work. Eren is still responsible for the people he killed and his Founding Titan lobotomy counts for shit. Turns out it helps to know how free will works when you’re writing about free will.

Free will is the quality of being in control of your actions, at least to the extent necessary to be held responsible for them.

Eren was just going with the flow (wonder what Annie thought of that…), acting on impulse, and getting dragged along by fate, but that’s not actually important.

It’s been known for centuries that current events are caused by previous events and that the current events will bring about future events in a never ending chain of cause and effect. One domino causes another to fall causes another to fall and on and on. This is called determinism.

And that’s ok because we free will exists. It exists even if we can’t do anything other than what we are going to do. It exists in spite of, or even arises out of, determinism.

This premise, that free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive, is the foundation for a family of theories about free will called compatibilism.

Compatibilist free will is the most popular theory of free will. There are a couple of variations on the basic idea, but the gist is that free will exists when your actions can be linked to an aspect of yourself that you identify with.

For example, if you had no choice but to do something, but you’re ok with that because it’s what you wanted anyway, then you have free will.

Even if I didn’t know you’d stop me in the end, I think I still would have flattened this world. 

-Eren Jeager

That’s all I needed to hear.

EREN, FUCK YOU!!!!

Eren had free will, at least as much as necessary to blame him for his genocide.

Isayama threw this curveball at us and all it did was ruin Eren as a character while leaving him just as repugnant as before. Incredible. It’s the worst of both worlds.

Before this chapter Eren was a guy who believed in something and followed that belief no matter who got in his way. That was great! It was tragic and sad, but great storytelling.

Where does this chapter leave us?

What we learn in this chapter is that Eren didn’t really believe in anything. He may have free will enough to be a shithead for what he did, but that doesn’t mean he has free will enough to be an interesting character.

Eren coming to grips with him not being free, in an absolute sense, would have been so much more interesting than what we got. Eren started the series comparing humanity to cattle in a pen. He ends the series being literally sheparded by fate to his death like cattle to a slaughterhouse.

And yet we get no exploration of that at all.

It’s lame. Everything about this is lame. From a storytelling perspective, Eren was just along for the ride. Who would want to reread this series now? A story about a boy who’s quest for freedom neither ends tragically nor happily, but is just forgotten about by the end. What’s the point?

There is none.

Eren’s journey ends up lost in the author’s own ignorance of the very thing this is supposed to be about.

Unfortunately, SNK isn’t interested in 80% of the world being dead. If it were, Eren wouldn’t have gotten such a warm send off.

I was honestly shocked when I read this chapter.

I thought it had been made clear. SNK had come firmly down against genocide. I never imagined Isayama would try a 180 in the final chapter.

And, well, he did, and here we are.

SNK is pro-genocide.

To wit:

Once Eren’s abominable plan is explained to everyone, he is lavished with love and comfort by his friends.

Armin did punch Eren for being callous about Mikasa, but overall all Armin had nothing but sympathy and understanding for Eren. They held hands and hugged and gave Eren a tender farewell.

All they talk about is how great a sacrifice Eren is making.

Not the sacrifice of 80% of all people, but the sacrifice that Eren personally is making of himself.

I don’t know what deranged mindset Isayama has that made him think this was sensible, but no, Eren is not sacrificing anything. He was always going to die. We’ve known this for several dozen chapters. It’s not a sacrifice to befall the fate you were always going to suffer.

He lost nothing. If anything, he gained from this ending.

Eren died knowing he was loved and appreciated by his friends. What more could a dying man ask for?

Eren is rewarded by the story for killing 80% of humanity.

His ultimate fate was no worse than was expected even before he committed the genocide, and he went out in the knowledge that his friends loved him for it.

It doesn’t even make logical sense that his friends would be so receptive to what he did.

There is no difference between Eren’s plan and what we thought Eren’s plan was before this chapter came out.

Armin thought Eren’s plan was to murder humanity to ensure his safety, and Armin was appalled. Armin was willing to sacrifice his life to ensure Eren failed. He was truly acting for the greater good of humanity.

In this chapter, Armin learns that Eren’s plan is actually to murder most of humanity to ensure his safety, and Armin loves him.

Again, hand holding, hugging, “thank you.” No mention of the unfathomable harm caused. The 80% killed are not even a footnote in this chapter.

Even after the fact, Eren’s friends showed no qualms with Eren essentially winning and procuring their safety through genocide.

When previously the mere thought of that was what motivated them to lay down their lives to stop him.

I don’t think Isayama believes this genocide is supposed to bear on how we think of Eren. I say, having just read the chapter that’s all about Eren, in which his genocide doesn’t bear on how his friends think of him. At all.

Was that too great a leap in logic? I apologize if my rationality offends you.

Eren may have died, but he won in the end.

His friends are safe and the world looks set to conclude a peace treaty with Paradis.

I don’t buy for a second that the world is a threat to Paradis anymore, and I don’t buy for a second that there won’t be a peace shortly after the end of the story.

It’s very telling, to me, that it’s the world that’s come to grovel at Paradis’ feet, begging for peace, when previously it was the other way around.

The contours of this “peace,” if you can call it that, were made pretty clear in the epilogue. The world is in ruins while Paradis is stronger than ever, so the world sues for peace for fear of Paradis attacking further. 

This is the moral of the story. Frankly, it’s been staring at us in the face the whole time.

How do you end the cycle of violence?

The answer is to win. To be stronger. More determined.

The only peace is enforced peace through domination.

Peace through the barrel of a gun.

To be continued in part II (and possibly part III)

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Reunions & Resistance

A JSE Fanfic

This one took me a while, but luckily, I was able to get it all done within the week, and do a lot of my homework too lol. Can’t wait for summer break, man. More time for writing. Anyway, a lot happened last chapter, and we’re mostly following up on that. I don’t want to say too much in case people haven’t read the last one, but basically we switch in between Chase and JJ’s points of view to see how they’re dealing with their respective...challenges. Hope you enjoy!

You can find the other stories under the pw timeline tag!

“Good night! I’ll see you later!” Chase stood on his front door and waved as the car pulled away from the side of the road. In the windows, a pair of small faces pressed up against the glass and waved back. Chase kept at it even as the car drove down the street, right up until the moment it disappeared around a corner. At which point he dropped his hand and turned around to head inside, smiling softly to himself. Halloween wasn’t his favorite holiday, but this? This was a good holiday.

He turned on the front room lights and was about to sit down when his phone vibrated in his pocket. Quickly, he dug it out to see a text from Marvin: Hey call me now please!

Perfect timing. Once he got settled in, he was planning on calling Marvin anyway, to tell him the good news. He guessed he could do it now. Quickly navigating to his contacts, he called Marvin’s number.

The other end was picked up on the first ring. “Chase!” Marvin said.

“Hi Marv. Are you out of court by now? You better be, it’s late.” He glanced out the window at the twilight sky. They ended up only going trick-or-treating for an hour, but the kids were still young and Stacy was worried, so it was fine. They’d go longer next time. “How’d it go?”

“Good, but Chase, there’s a thing—”

“So you won?”

“Yeah, that’s what I meant, but Chase!” Wait a second...Marvin sounded...frantic. “Have you seen JJ today?”

“Huh? No, not yet. I was gonna go over later. I was actually thinking about asking you if you’d seen him today. I expected you to rush right over after you got out.”

“I wanted to stop by home and pick up his present first,” Marvin explained. “So I did, and I went to his flat, but he’s not here.”

“That’s not too weird, is it?” Chase asked, wandering over to sit on the sofa. “Maybe he went out for dinner or something, it is his birthday, after all.”

“Maybe, but he would’ve told us, right? He knew that we were going to stop by.” Chase could hear the sound of Marvin’s nervous footsteps on a hardwood floor. “I’m still at his place, and the only thing that’s different is there’s these weird cupcakes on the counter. So maybe he did go out, but he has to have been here since then to drop them off, if that’s the case. I texted him a couple times, but he hasn’t answered any of them! There’s not even the little ‘Seen’ message popping up.”

“Whoa, Marvin, calm down a bit,” Chase said gently. “He’s probably just...maybe his phone is out of battery?”

“I don’t think so. He likes to keep it fully charged. Even has one of those portable battery things. Chase, it’s really weird that he’s not here,” Marvin insisted.

“Well, yeah, but there has to be an innocent explanation, right?” Chase wasn’t too sure himself, but he had to get Marvin to stop freaking out. He could hear faint thumping sounds on the other end now. “Are you hitting yourself? Marv, be careful, that could bruise.”

“R-right.” The thumping sounds changed, now more like knocking on a wall. Marvin’s breathing was shaky. “Should we call the police? I really don’t think he’d be gone, especially not today.”

“You can call them if you’re sure. Or I can, if you don’t want to talk.”

“Right. Right. I-I’ll text him one more time, just in case.”

There were a few moments of silence as Marvin took his phone away from his ear and started texting. Chase waited patiently, slightly amazed that Marvin’s phone could stay on a call while he needed to use it. He must have a more advanced model.

“Wha...?” Marvin made a small, confused sound. Then, after a slight pause: “Chase, his phone is here. JJ’s phone is here.”

“Well, no wonder he hasn’t been answering texts, then,” Chase said, trying to sound lighthearted.

“No no no, Chase, he wouldn’t leave his phone here if he was going out! He uses that text-to-speech app for people who don’t know BSL. A-and I can see his usual notepad on the coffee table, he didn’t take that either. He wouldn’t risk leaving both of those at home when he goes out!”

Chase’s heart slowly sank into a sea of dread. It was true; Jameson always made sure he had a backup way of communicating in case he ran into someone who couldn’t understand him. “The only way he would do that...” he said quietly. “...is if...either it was an emergency, or if someone...”

“I’m going to call the police now Chase!” Marvin practically shouted.

“Dude, do it! I’m hanging up right now!” And Chase did just that, ending the call.

It couldn’t be true, could it? Something couldn’t have happened to Jameson, right? He didn’t have any enemies or—

No. Wait.

“Shit!” Chase cursed. He was an idiot! The day had been going so well, he’d completely forgotten about Anti. He would certainly count as an enemy, even if he was Jameson’s brother. Maybe especially. Chase quickly sent a text to Marvin. WAIT I JUST REMEMBERED. Yo don thin kit could be that anti guy??.? Tell the police that too!

“God damn you,” Chase growled. “Fucking...Anti.” He’d never even met him, but he just kept making his and his friends’ lives hell, didn’t he? For over a year, now.

Would this ever end? Or would this cycle continue?

——————

Someone was driving a chisel into his head with a hammer. That’s what it felt like. His head was pounding, and each new spike of pain could have easily been in time with the smack of a hammer. He couldn’t even move, the headache was too overwhelming, tears leaking from his closed eyes. The moment it started to lessen up, he quietly drifted off to sleep.

Then, of course, he woke up with his head still hurting. But this time it was bearable. Still awful, but he managed to open his eyes.

This...wasn’t his room. This wasn’t his apartment. Nor was it a room in any of his friends’ houses. He didn’t recognize the pale yellow wall he was staring at, or the white blanket covering him. Slowly, he rolled onto his back, not wanting to make any sudden movement in case it aggravated his headache, but he didn’t see the ceiling. Instead, he saw wooden slats and the bottom of a mattress. A bunk bed? He didn’t know anyone who had a bunk bed. Where was he? Actually, what had happened before he ended up here? He cast his mind back, and—

Instantly, Jameson sat straight up, hitting his forehead against the oddly close bottom of the bunk above him. Crying out, he fell back and rubbed the spot of impact. That definitely didn’t help the headache.

Movement. Coming from the bunk above him, it sounded like, accompanied by creaking and the sound of fabric on fabric. “Wh-who’s down there?” A voice asked. “Are you—you’re awake?”

Actually, that voice sounded familiar. JJ pushed away the blankets and rolled over to the side of the mattress. He grabbed the headboard to help him stand up, since he felt strangely dizzy. Once up, he transferred his grip to the edge of the top bunk, pausing a moment to stop swaying. Then he looked up at the person on the top bunk.

“Wait a second. Jameson?! That’s you?!” It took JJ a moment to recognize Jackie, but once he did, he gasped. It had been almost a year since he’d last seen him, and in that time period, he’d changed a lot. Now he was a lot paler, his hair grown to shoulder-length, and his red hoodie was significantly darker, apparently not having been washed in a while. Jackie was holding onto the railings that surrounded the edge of the top bunk, dangerously leaning over. There was a metal cuff around one wrist, a length of chain connecting it to another cuff attached to one of the railings.

JJ slowly nodded, letting go of the bed to finger-sign. J-A-C-K-I-E?

“Oh my god. You too?! Why don’t we get everyone in here?! Fucking...Kidnapped party with the boys, hey-o!” Jackie laughed hysterically. 

...Are you okay? JJ asked.

“Well, uh, relatively, I guess. I’m not, like, actively hurt or anything.” Jackie pressed a hand against his head. “Killer headache, though. You too?” JJ nodded. “Great. Fantastic. Probably from whatever drugs he used. Are you okay? What the hell are you doing here?!”

I’m fine. But it’s a long story. JJ looked around the room. The walls were all painted pale yellow. No windows, but he thought a square on the wall looked a bit different, so maybe the window had been bricked up and painted over. The bunk beds weren’t the only furniture. There was also a white wooden dresser and a similar-looking table, along with two chairs. A corner of the room had a mini fridge and several cabinets that looked like they belonged in a kitchen. There were two doors. One, open, led to an attached bathroom. The other door was closed. Though he knew it was probably a waste of time, JJ walked over there, staggering a bit with the dizziness, and tried the doorknob. Locked, of course. Do you know where we are? He signed, turning around to face Jackie.

“Where we are? No, sorry.” Jackie shook his head. “I’ve been held hostage in a couple different places by now, and this isn’t any of the previous ones. Or maybe it is. It could be in that first house, just in a room I didn’t get to see. But, uh. Yeah. We’ve probably been asleep for a while, judging by his usual style. So there’s no way of knowing.” He paused. “You, uh. Seem weirdly calm about this.”

I'm saving the emotional breakdown for later and looking for a way out now, JJ said, then idly tried the door again. He leaned down to look more closely at the knob. It looked normal. No loose screws when he shook it or anything.

“Oh.” Jackie paused. “Well then, fair enough, but I mean. You haven’t even asked who kidnapped you or why I’m here or what’s going on. Just where we are. I was expecting a bunch more questions.”

Well I already know all those, so I only wanted to know where. JJ tried to peer through the gap of the door. Weren’t there some locks that could be worked around if you slid something through there? Idly, he patted his pockets despite knowing there probably wouldn’t be anything in there. But then he had to stop. He didn’t have any pockets. What? Impossible. He looked down at his clothes, and noticed for the first time that they didn’t belong to him. Blue T-shirt, black pants, white socks. Strangely, he still had his pocket watch, now hanging around his neck. Also I want to know where my clothes are.

“Man, he gave you new clothes? Lucky,” Jackie said jokingly. “But anyway.” He returned to being serious. “What do you mean, you already know? That is what you said, right? You can’t already know everything.”

JJ turned around. Jackie wasn’t as knowledgeable in BSL as all the others, given how he’d been abducted before he could become fluent, so he signed slowly, finger-spelling occasionally. I know I’ve been taken by a man calling himself Anti, and that he took you back in December and Henrik in August. He’s a mercenary who has apparently started kidnapping and serial killing as a hobby. He made Henrik help him with some of that, and now Henrik is in a mental hospital because of all the trauma combined with previous issues. And I know Anti isn’t going to kill me.

That was a lot, and Jackie went silent for a bit as he processed it. “Well. Okay, then. You actually know more than I do.”

JJ tried to smile, then walked over to the dresser and started pulling open its drawers. More clothes, similar to what he was already wearing. No shoes, only socks. Jackie. Do you think you could get down from there, or are you stuck?

“Uh...I think I’m stuck, but honestly, I haven’t tried yet,” Jackie mumbled. “I woke up like. A few minutes ago. Oh hey, there’s a clock on the wall! That’s new. Man, this is the nicest place I’ve been captive in yet. Hang on, I’m gonna see if this chain is long enough to let me get down.”

The ladder to the top bunk was over at the foot of the bed, while Jackie was cuffed to the railing near the head. He crawled over, managing to put his feet on the top rung. But that’s where it got difficult. Spinning around, he could only reach the middle rung before he had to stop, arm yanked taunt to the side. “Yeah, no. Sorry, JJ.” He climbed back to the top bunk, sitting once again at the top of the ladder.

It’s alright, JJ said, frowning. But I can see several complications with that.

“Oh yeah, trust me, it all sucks,” Jackie sighed. “Uh...so. How do you know Anti isn’t going to kill you? I mean, honestly, I’m still not so sure that I’m...um...” He suddenly looked uncomfortable, and more than a bit scared. “A-anyway, you seemed like you definitely knew.”

JJ sighed. He walked over to the chairs at the table and sat down, taking a break to press his hands to his throbbing head. He should probably tell Jackie, right? After all, he’d told Chase and Marvin. And it would be good for them all to be on the same page. Anti is my brother, he explained.

“What?! Like, biologically? For real?”

Yes, unfortunately. He’s my older brother, I lived with him for seven years. Well, technically longer, if you count when we were kids, before we were put into the system. But I mean, he practically raised me from sixteen. Jameson paused. He wasn’t good at it.

“I can imagine,” Jackie muttered. “Wow. Wow, man. That...that sucks.”

Jameson nodded. I thought I’d never see him again, but then he appeared in this city, got involved with all of you, and...I guess it was only a matter of time before he...realized who I was. But I hoped...He squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden wetness in them. I hoped that this wouldn’t happen.

“Wait, did you know he was going to kidnap you if he found you?”

No, but I knew it was a possibility. JJ laughed quietly. That really says something about the kind of person he is, doesn’t it?

Jackie shook his head slowly. “I’m...so sorry, Jameson. Is there anything I can do?”

Jameson thought about that. Well, we need to get out of here. I know it’s going to be difficult, but if there’s anything you can do...

“Right.” Jackie glanced down at his cuffed wrist, then nodded. “Right. H-how about I start with...telling you everything I’ve noticed about him? Maybe if we know how he acts, that’ll help.”

That sounds like a great idea. It had been three years since he’d seen Anti, after all. A lot could change in that time. And I’ll tell you what I remember.

“Pool our information,” Jackie said. He took a deep breath. “Right. Okay, so to start from the beginning...”

——————

A day passed. The police looked over Jameson’s apartment, finding nothing suspicious. Marvin identified everything in the rooms as belonging to JJ except for the cupcakes in the plastic packaging, with their blue frosting. Normally, the police probably would’ve dismissed them, but once Marvin explained the situation—namely, that JJ was part of the friend group that included Dr. Schneeplestein and a missing private detective named Jackie Donovan, both of whom had been proven to have been kidnapped—they decided to run tests on them.

Two days passed. Chase finally got around to explaining the good news he’d received earlier on Halloween to Marvin. That cheered him up briefly, but he was quickly overcome with worry for JJ again. And Chase felt that same worry threatening to engulf him as well. Especially after the detectives contacted them both and said that the strange cupcakes had definitely been laced with illegal sedatives: namely, the strong, but slow-acting, variety. That pushed them to label the case as a definite abduction, with this strange Anti as the main suspect. The same detectives that were working on Jackie’s case took this one, as well, since it was so likely to be linked.

Four days passed. Marvin wasn’t doing so well. Chase was newly busy, but he made sure to check on him. A good thing he did, too, because there were a couple times when he walked in the house and Marvin was just lying in bed, clearly been there since he woke up that morning, often with a cat or two nearby and a bunch of tearstained tissues. Chase wasn’t one to miss the irony of the situation, having been in that position before with his friends being the ones to check in on him. But at least he knew what to do. Make food, insist on hydration, encourage movement, and offer distraction. And also feed the snake and the cats. That part was new.

A week passed. No news from the police. Chase had to admit that maybe there wouldn’t be news for a while, though he didn’t express that to Marvin. After checking in on his friend one more time, he headed out for his other business of the day, which was, incidentally, more visiting and checking in on people.

Chase had stopped by the hospital every day that week. Honestly, the routine distracted him, and it was good to see some progress being made somewhere. By now a lot of the staff were familiar with him, and didn’t even bother to ask him who he was there to visit. Though a lot of them still directed him to the appropriate wing. It was probably required to.

One short trip up an elevator and down a hallway, and Chase pushed walked through the open doorway of the room, making sure to put on a cheerful expression. “Hey bro. It’s me again.”

Jack’s eyes immediately opened at the sound, head swivelling over to look towards him. He managed a small smile—that was good, he was having trouble with facial movements—and a slight up-and-down hand motion that wasn’t really a wave as much as it was a flop. “Hhh...hhiii. Sha-ays.”

“Hi Jack.” Chase took his usual spot in the chair next to the bed. “You’re looking good.”

“Mmnh.”

“No, really.”

Jack reached to the side and hit the controls for the bed, raising it into more of a sitting position. He pointed towards the table next to the bed.

“Oh, right.” Chase twisted around and picked something up. A board about the size of a large school notebook, with rows of squares printed on its surface. Each square had a different word or phrase written inside, some accompanied by handy pictograms. This was a communication board. Dr. Emerson had explained it was meant to help people who had difficulty speaking normally. It looked a bit childish, with the pictures and color-coded squares, which made sense, because they were apparently primarily used for kids. But Emerson said that, since Jack was still having trouble talking and moving, this was a good alternative. “Here you go, dude.”

Jack dipped his head in a slow nod. He adjusted the bed a bit more, then propped the board up using an arm and used the other hand to point. Chase scooted a bit closer to look at the square he was indicating: How are you?

“Oh, I’m good,” Chase said. It was, of course, a bit of a lie, since he was still really worried about Jameson. But that was a complicated situation that he didn’t really feel like talking about. “What about you? How are you feeling?”

“Mmnn.” Jack pointed to a square labelled Bored.

Chase laughed. “You need a TV or something in here. I thought hospital rooms were all supposed to have them. Like, they came pre-installed with those old boxy models that hang from the ceilings.”

“Heh.” Another small smile, though this one was a bit weaker and quickly fell. Ater a moment, Jack pointed to a different square, this one simply labelled Phone with an accompanying simple picture.

“Yeah, I have my phone.” Chase pulled it out of his pocket. “Why? Do you want to text someone?”

The No box, accompanied by a slight head shake.

“Okay. Then...do you want to take a picture or something?”

The Yes box.

“Really? Well, I don’t know if you can hold the phone,” Chase said reluctantly. Jack was having trouble even holding a pencil, hence why he couldn’t write. “Here, we can take a picture together, okay?”

“Eeuh.” The Yes box.

“Alright.” Chase opened up the front-facing camera, then leaned over next to Jack. “Look at the camera.” Jack appropriately turned his head towards the raised phone, and gave one last small smile. Chase matched him with a big smile of his own, and took a couple pictures. “There we go. Look at us.” He showed the phone to Jack, swiping through the photos. “I like this first one, what about you?”

“Ffferr.” Jack tapped a box with the number One in it.

“Right? We look good.” Chase laughed a bit, then put the phone away. “Hey, none of those tubes got mixed up or pulled out while we were doing that, right?”

Jack turned to look around, then slowly reached up and touched his nasal cannula. I don’t think so, said the box on the board he tapped.

“You have a call button you can press, right?” Chase asked fretfully.

Yes box.

“Good. Good.” Chase let out a short breath. If anything happened to Jack after all of this, he would...he would...well, he honestly wasn’t sure what he would do, but it wouldn’t be good.

“Shhays?” Jack asked. “Wh...wherr Mahffin?”

“Where’s Marvin? Oh, uh.” Chase hesitated. “He’s been busy lately.”

“Mmmm?” I don’t think so box.

“You don’t believe me, huh?” Chase shrugged. “Well, it’s true. I don’t know that much about it, either. I guess maybe one of his holidays is approaching. That or he’s looking for a new job.” That second one was actually true. Or at least, it had been before Jameson disappeared. Chase knew Marvin had put in applications at a couple different places, but he didn’t know if any of them had been accepted.

“Mmnnh.” Jack blinked slowly. “Sshays? Whh...whhbout faays?” There was a worried edge to his voice. “Ffay Shays. Fffay Mhffin.”

“The fakes. Right.” Chase nodded slowly, swallowing back a lump in his throat. “I guess I did promise to explain that.”

“Eeuah.” Yes box.

“Well...” Chase hesitated. “Did...did the doctor explain to you why you were in a coma?”

Yes box. “Ssneeep.”

“Yeah, Schneep made some mistakes. I-I guess only you know what really happened that day.” Chase sighed. “And I guess you can explain that once you figure out how. Y’know, I...explained the whole situation to you a couple times, while you were asleep. I don’t know how much you heard. But...basically. What’s important when it comes to the matter of ‘the fakes’ is...” And he hesitated again.

“Shaays,” Jack said, sharply gesturing to the Now box.

“I know, I know, it’s just...it’s hard, bro.” Chase took a deep breath. “Okay. So there’s a criminal running around. Which is, I know, freaky. But basically, he’s one of the dopplegangers. Looks like us, you know? So ‘the fakes’ are when he...would pretend to be us. A-and I guess he came in to see you while doing that?” He shuddered. “I don’t know why. None of us do. But it’s going to be okay. The doctor knows, a-and he knows to make sure it’s me. Uh...because Marvin’s been...busy this week, he hasn’t come in to see you. And when he does, I’m gonna come, too. So...if Marvin comes in alone, that’s not him. But you, uh, probably shouldn’t indicate that. Um. Got all that?”

Jack stared at him for a long while, then slowly tapped the Yes box.

“It’s a lot, I know,” Chase said reassuringly. “It can be uh...do you need a moment?”

Another long pause. Then the I am okay box.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Chase let out a breath. “What would even happen when ‘the fakes’ showed up? Would they just talk to you?”

Yes box.

“Probably not about normal stuff.”

No box. Followed by the I am scared box.

“Wha—” Chase coughed awkwardly. “Y-you mean he said upsetting things?”

Jack made a small sound, almost like a whimper. Yes box.

“Oh...oh no.” Chase shook his head. He knew from experience that it was really easy to talk to someone who couldn’t answer, to pour out everything you wouldn’t normally say because you knew they couldn’t tell anyone what you said. In the past, talking to comatose Jack had been a way for him to be honest when he felt terrible, but for an actual criminal to come in and talk like that? Those secrets would probably be a lot darker. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Jack blinked at him. Then indicated the How? box.

“...right. The board is good, but I guess it wouldn’t have all the words you need.” Chase nodded. “Well. I mean, later. If you want to talk about it, you can. I-I can teach you BSL, when you’ve got, y’know...better hands.” Jack wheezed at that, a short laugh that made Chase smile. “Yeah, JJ taught me. You remember me telling you about him, right?”

Yes box. “Hhee...sow-sounsss...nai-nais.”

“He is really nice. I think you’d get along.” Chase went quiet. What was happening to Jameson now? It couldn’t be good, not if Anti was involved. Damn it. He couldn’t let anything else happen to his friends! All of them have been through so much already. Marvin was breaking down, Schneep and Jack were in hospitals, and Jackie and Jameson were being held hostage by Jameson’s psychopathic older brother. Enough was enough! He had to do something!

“Shays?” Jack’s head listed to the side, and he tapped the How are you? box. 

“O-oh. Yeah, I’m alright, bro, don’t worry, I was just thinking.” Chase shook his head. It was settled. He’d figure out a way to deal with this situation more directly. “Anyway, I was wondering. Can you, like, eat normal foods yet?”

No box.

“Aw, man. I was gonna offer to bring you coffee tomorrow.”

Jack’s eyes widened a bit. “Waa-aay. W-whhayy!”

Chase laughed. “Glad to see that hasn’t changed. But, well, doctor’s orders and all that.”

“Ahhhh.” Jack tried to frown, but only managed a twitch in his mouth.

“One thing to look forward to after all that physical therapy,” Chase reached over to squeeze Jack’s wrist. “You know, you’re already improving really fast. You might be out of here in a couple months.”

“Heh.” That definitely cheered Jack up.

Chase smiled, and quickly moved on. Later, he’d try to think up a way to deal with other situations. He couldn’t just abandon his friends, after all, and he was getting real sick of all this terrible shit happening. But that would need some more planning. For now, he’d focus on one thing at a time.

——————

They’d been stuck in the room for a week, and JJ was starting to get really worried. Why hadn’t Anti showed up yet? What was he planning? Luckily, they wouldn’t starve, as it turned out the mini fridge and strange cabinets had been stocked with food. But that had to run out eventually. What was going on?

The room was locked down tight. The door outside was solid, and that weird square on the wall that might’ve been a sealed-up window showed no signs of wear. There wasn’t a window in the bathroom, either. But on the morning of the second day, JJ did find a small key in the bathroom’s medicine cabinet, which turned out to unlock the cuff on Jackie’s wrist. “Thank god for that,” Jackie had muttered when JJ unchained him from the bunk. “Not gonna lie, though, it’s weird being able to actually walk around.”

Jackie seemed mostly bored with the whole situation, to be honest. Which probably made sense. After all, he did keep reiterating that this was the most comfortable captivity he’d been in since Anti took him. But Jameson just found himself getting more and more worried as time passed. He tried to distract himself by helping Jackie catch up on his sign language learning, but eventually that didn’t work, and he just kept pacing the floor, anxiety slowly growing with every passing hour.

When the locked door finally opened, JJ was almost relieved that the anticipation was over with. But that relief was quickly overshadowed when someone stepped into the room and shut the door.

It was Anti, of course. He didn’t look too much different from how Jameson remembered him. Same brown hair, same single blue eye accompanied by a fake green one. Same scars over half his face, though the long one across his throat was new. However, that watch hanging on a chain around his neck...that was not new. Jameson recognized that immediately, and resisted the urge to reach up and grab his own watch, around his own neck.

The moment Anti entered, Jackie went pale, sitting down hard on the bottom bunk and scooting back until he hit the wall. But Jameson couldn’t move. He stopped his nervous pacing against the wall by the dresser and instantly froze, eyes locked onto Anti. And Anti stared at him in turn, eyes occasionally flicking up and down as he looked him over. The room was silent enough for the three men’s breathing to echo in the air.

Then, slowly, Anti took a couple steps away from the door. He was still standing in between the other two and their only exit, but he didn’t keep guarding it. JJ then noticed that Anti was holding two plastic bags in one hand, which he then set on the ground. Finally, Anti looked away from Jameson, searching the room with his eyes before landing on Jackie. He frowned. “What are you doing? That’s not your bed.”

Jackie flinched. He scrambled up from the bottom bunk and towards the ladder, climbing up it to the top, where he resumed his position with his back against the wall. Anti nodded, then glanced towards the other end of the cuffs still attached to the railing. “Where’s the key?”

Nobody answered, but Jackie instinctively glanced towards Jameson before glancing back. That didn’t go unnoticed by Anti, who looked back towards him. Jameson still couldn’t move. He couldn’t if he wanted to. He was a statue with limbs made of cold, solid stone, a beating heart in his chest pounding loudly in his ears.”Well...I guess it’s fine, then,” Anti finally said, not looking away from Jameson. He went silent for a few seconds. Then: “Jamie.”

That finally broke the spell, and Jameson backed up. What was he supposed to do? He’d been so worried about why Anti wasn’t showing up, that he didn’t think what to do when he finally did. His mind was scrabbling for purchase on shaking ground. His pulse was racing wildly. He couldn’t think of a solution. It wasn’t even an option underneath the sudden appearance of emotion whirling around his brain. Fear? Grief? Dread? Surprise? Relief?

“Do you...like the room?” Anti asked.

It was such an absurd question that the only response Jameson could muster was a strangled choking sound.

“I-I mean, it’s not exactly a five-star hotel, but I tried to make it nice. You have to share it, unfortunately, limited space. Do you two know each other? You’re friends the rest of the group.”

He just had to respond to that statement. How do you know that? Jameson asked, signing shakily.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on them,” Anti stated plainly. “Didn’t realize who you were until I saw you signing with that long-haired one, Marvin. You’re not online, so I couldn’t figure it out from tagging or anything. Took some more old-fashioned work.”

You were stalking me, Jameson said. Weren’t you?

“I had to find out where you lived, didn’t I?” Anti said, ignoring the faint shake of Jameson’s head. “But you caught on. Hah. You always were a clever boy.”

What do you want? Jameson asked. Why did you do this?! He added, signs growing steadier.

“Well you were going to freak out if I tried to talk to you normally, weren’t you?” Anti’s voice was unnervingly calm. “And I was right. I didn’t want to do this, but you kind of made me. So here we are.”

I didn’t ‘make you’ do anything! Jameson protested. You never have to kidnap people!

“This isn’t a kidnapping.”

Jameson just pointed over at Jackie, staring at Anti significantly.

Anti hesitated. Then he laughed. “Alright, I guess it is. Like I said, you’re a clever boy, Jamie.”

Stop calling me that! Jameson signed sharply, feeling a rise of sudden white-hot rage. I hate it, I’ve always hated it, and it doesn’t make this whole thing better if you keep calling me by that stupid nickname! It doesn’t change the fact that you drugged me and took me to some place far away and are now keeping me here against my will!

“Against your will? Aw, you mean you don’t want to see your big brother again?” Anti tilted his head to the side and smiled sickeningly.

Jameson shook his head violently. No! You’re a murderer who just abduct—

“Because I’ve been dying to see you again,” Anti interrupted, walking closer. Jameson paled, but found he couldn’t back up. “Did you know I thought you were dead? Did I tell you that already? I doubt you planned it to look that way, honestly, you’re clever but you never plan ahead. So I guess it was just a coincidence that the note you left sounded like a...permanent goodbye. Why’d you throw your jacket in the river, though?” Anti slowly reached up and grabbed the watch around his neck. “Did you think about what that would imply?” he asked softly.

And once again, Jameson was a statue, petrified by Anti’s dual-colored gaze like a real-world victim of Medusa. God damn it, why did Anti sound actually hurt by this? Was he actually hurt? JJ hadn’t really been thinking when he’d dropped his old jacket in the river three years ago, he just saw his reflection in the water, and suddenly wanted to get rid of the jacket his brother had bought him. So he did, then fled with the suitcase he’d packed. It was true, he hadn’t really been planning ahead when he left, though he’d thought about how Anti would react. Sometimes he wanted to go back, hating to make him sad, but convincing himself he was probably angry. Still, he remembered almost doubling back at a couple different bus stops, thinking it wasn’t worth it. 

Had Anti really thought...? Something like that would be upsetting to anyone, especially over someone who’d been under your care for years. He never meant to—

Why was he thinking about this?!

Jameson shook his head, and pushed Anti back. I don’t care what you thought, he said harshly. I don’t care how you felt.

“Of course you do,” Anti said. “I saw how you were hesitating. We’re brothers, Jameson, we care about each other. And you’re so sensitive, of course you can’t help it.”

No, no, no. Jameson continued to shake his head. I don’t care how you felt because you never cared what I felt. A seventeen-year-old shouldn’t be helping to dispose of a body. A twenty-year-old shouldn’t be afraid to go outside because his brother convinced him enemies would be after him.

“I didn’t want to get you involved in any of it,” Anti insisted. “But sometimes I had to! I couldn’t do it alone. Jamie—Jameson, it killed me to ask for your help. I just wanted you to be safe, but I was putting you in active danger out of necessity. So I had to make sure that nothing happened to you, especially when I was out and couldn’t protect you. I was just trying to keep you safe.”

You’re contradicting yourself, Jameson signed, keeping his face carefully expressionless. Keeping me safe, yet continually involving me in your work? You were a hypocrite back then, and you’re a hypocrite now.

“Oh my god, why can’t you just understand?!” Anti suddenly shouted. “No, of course! You don’t understand! You’re not even trying! It was so fucking difficult, Jameson, I did what I had to.” He took a deep breath. “Please, Jamie. You’re a sweet boy. Always have been. Why can’t you be now?”

Because you fucking kidnapped four people and killed thirteen! Jameson signed, aghast. Are we forgetting that? Or are you just trying to get me to?

Anti sighed, looking disappointed. “Alright. We can stop for the night.” He backed up, glancing over towards the bunk beds to make sure Jackie was still sitting there. “It’s a complicated situation, all of it. But you’re my little brother, and I care about you.” He reached the door, and grabbed the handle. “I brought you groceries, since I saw you were about halfway through them. I’ll stop by again.” And quickly, he opened the door and slipped out, the lock clicking behind him.

Silence.

Then Jackie let out a long, slow breath. “That was...that was f-fucking terrifying.”

JJ relaxed, letting out all of the tension he’d been holding. I told you he wasn’t aggressive all the time, he said, walking over to the plastic bags Anti had left on the floor and crouching down to look through them. A lot of dry foods. No drinks, but that was fine, since the mini fridge was full of them. He grabbed the bags and moved them over to the cabinet area.

“Yeah, but...it’s an entirely different thing to see it in person.” Jackie slowly inched back over to the bunk beds’ ladder, sitting with his feet on the top rung. “Mother of fuck. I thought it couldn’t get worse than the time he was strangling me, but that. It wasn’t exactly threatening, but it was...wow.”

Sorry, the time he what?! JJ asked, eyes wide as he turned to look back at Jackie.

“Oh. Uh...I-I’ll explain later, if you want,” Jackie mumbled. “What did he bring?”

Dropping the subject for now, JJ glanced through the bags again. Everything we need, he said. You’re right. He’s watching us.

Jackie nodded. “Of course. Wonder where the camera is this time.”

Jameson gave the room a sweep with his eyes. There wasn’t anywhere obvious, but then again, modern cameras were so tiny. It could be anywhere. A direct connection to Anti. He’d be always there, always watching...

Suddenly, Jameson’s legs gave out and he fell to the floor.

“JJ!” Jackie scrambled down the ladder and rushed over. “What happened?! Are you okay?”

“Hhhhnnn.” Jameson covered his mouth. His furious blinking couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, and a few slipped out. He got into a kneeling position, slowly shaking his head.

“Are you hurt? I-I mean physically?” Jackie reached out to touch Jameson’s shoulder, only for him to sharply pull away and shake his head harder. “I—okay. What’s wrong? What do you need?”

He just kept shaking his head, now trembling all over as he bent over and covered his head with his arms. It was just one conversation. One conversation, and in the course of that conversation, he had frozen up, gotten angry, then slowly started buying into what Anti was saying. He managed to catch himself this time but...It was going to go back to the way it used to be. There was no way to escape it. And now, he was physically trapped as well, unable to leave. He’d just keep listening to Anti. God damn it. God damn it! He couldn’t do this!

“H-hey, it’s...I mean, that looked really hard to do.” Jackie sat down on the floor next to him, crossing his legs. “But you did it, you know. It was really impressive, actually.”

Jameson looked up, and managed to start signing. I won’t be able to do it next time.

“What are you talking about? Of course you will!” Jackie smiled a bit, before looking grave. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s still going to be hard. But you’ve done it before. Hell, sounds like you managed to run away from the bastard in the past. When you were on your own, too. I probably can’t do much to, like, fight back, but I’ll still be here. Kind of have to be, ha. So...that’s different, I guess. Tell me if you need anything. Okay? I promise I’ll help.”

Jackie’s positivity was a bit awkward, but his tone was genuine. JJ found himself relaxing. He took a few deep breaths, then looked around the room. Things he could see: bunk bed, bags, bathroom door, mini fridge, Jackie. Things he could hear: his heartbeat, breathing, Jackie talking, slight humming from the lights. Things he could feel...he went down through the list.

“You...are you okay?” Jackie asked.

Better, JJ replied. But a bit drained. I think I’m going to take a nap.

“Alright. Go ahead. I’ll get these groceries sorted out.”

JJ nodded, and stood up, making his way over to the bottom bunk. Pushing the covers aside, he climbed in, turning to face the wall. His pocket watch was still hanging from his neck, and this time, he couldn’t stop himself from holding it. Then he took it off. Not around the neck. Somewhere different. To remind him that things weren’t the same.

Slowly, he fell asleep to the sound of Jackie rummaging in the cabinets.

——————

That hadn’t gone well. Anti sat down at his desk, replaying the conversation over. Where had he gone wrong? There must have been a couple places. Jameson clearly didn’t trust him, for obvious reasons. So, he’d need to find some way to gain it back. If Jameson wanted him to leave him alone, then he would. For a bit. Refine his conversation skills and what to say. Put more effort into it. He might have to lie at times, but that was fine.

He glanced at his phone. Some notifications alerting him to new messages in his...“work” email. Eventually, he’d have to answer some. That was how he got money, after all, which allowed him things like this new safe house.

What about Jackie? He’d been pretty quiet during that encounter. Good. If he was trying to gain Jameson’s trust, it would be a shame to hurt a friend of his. He’d let him be for now.

Anti looked over at the other item on the desk. A small turquoise notebook. After a few seconds, he reached over and picked it up, fanning through the pages until he reached one in particular. Then, he slid something out from between them. A keycard. He’d been reading this notebook for a while, and based on the contents, he could guess what this card was for. Why Marvin had it, he wasn’t sure, since it clearly belonged to that doctor woman.

And he wondered...should he make use of the card now? Or should he wait a while?

He played with the card for a minute, flipping it over his fingers. No, he’d wait. He already had enough to deal with at the moment. Maybe once he’d adjusted to the change. Still, it didn’t mean he couldn’t give the idea some thought. Bring it into solid reality.

Three at once might be a little much, but he could handle them.

And Jameson might like another friend.

[flyonthewallmedstudent]

Watching House as a Physician.  Season 2 Episode 3. Infectious diseases & Respiratory.

Welcome to another episode of medicine done badly.  I’ve been watching House on Amazon prime.  Got the subscription during the pandemic, as like everyone else, I’ve garnered an online shopping habit now. 

Alright. In the opening scene a young roof worker falls off the roof presumably due to acute shortness of breath. i.e. trouble breathing. (why do we use the term shortness of breath? it’s the english version of the greek term dyspnoea - the actual preferred language of Western doctors. Fuck do I know why we like Greek and Latin so much. Moving on.) Then cut to Dr. Cuddy examining him in the back of the ambulance. 

This would never happen in real life. Yes you can be on the scene and handover to the paramedics or EMT when they arrive as a doctor. But they would take over. I personally wouldn’t have the balls to look after a patient in a different environment, different resources and field I’m not familiar with. You can have field Emergency docs - but requires different training. 

Also, ethically, you’re not meant to treat family or friends. Dr. Cuddy later in the episode gets a bit emotionally involved - this is why we don’t treat people close to us. We lose objectivity. We make mistakes. And you see later see Cuddy do some pretty bad ones. 

I feel like much of this episode is not really IM. THere’s less differential diagnoses being made. More side tracks into trauma, emergency, intensive care or vascular surgery. 

Anyhoo. Trauma and emergency would manage the fall and post fall traumatic injuries. And the trauma protocol was either not shown or completely off in this episode. Surgeons don’t seem to exist in House, at least not very much. Similarly, no other doctors exist except surgeons in Grey’s anatomy.  Also you can’t clear a C Spine clinically, which is what Dr. Cuddy does in the back of the ambulance. You’d need a CT first and clearance both radiological (by a radiologist) and a clinician. 

Aaaanddd, you can’t just listen to the chest and go no pneumothorax (air in lung or collapsed lung) - yes it’s reassuring, but again you’d need imaging to confirm this, given how serious a condition this is. It is realistic to consider in the setting of a fall, particularly if there are rib fractures that can puncture the lung.

Once the more critical injuries are managed, we would look after the IM side to things. 

So. Finally.. differential diagnoses.

Takes what seems and feels like days before they finally sit down and go through differentials. Really not much on that white board. Dark fingers, broken ribs, fever and lung infiltrates. Time line’s not clear on when he developed the fever.

Presenting complaint isn’t really addressed. It could be: - Dyspnoea, leading to the fall, he’s requiring O2 via nasal prongs, which suggests that he’s hypoxic (this is definitely odd in a young guy who’s normally very physical fit if he works as labourer). so much to unpack here, but they never get into this well.  Post fall, Cuddy notices his ring and pinky finger becoming dusky, which becomes very central in this episode. Very few things would cause this. pains me that they do no differentials on a white board for this alone. 

Then a lot of throwing around medical terms. 

PTT prolonged and Fibrinogen off. These are markers of your coagulation pathway and signs that you’re not forming the clots the way you should if you have an injury.  DIC is also thrown around. What is DIC? Disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. Certainly severe sepsis and trauma can cause this and lead to severe bleeding. It will throw off your coagulation pathways (things that stop bleeding). It’s not common. I’ve treated it once, while I was rotating in ICU, it is not standard ward medicine practice. Standard therapy is fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and even large metropolitan hospitals only have a limited supply. It’s a huge concern for surgery and post-op (as you patient will just not stop bleeding after you cut them open, and if not treated, potentially bleed to death). Cuddy mentions ARDS. Acute respiratory distress syndrome, it could be a complication, but it’s not a cause. Again, falls more into the realm of critical care (a la ICU). However, patient had SOB prior to the fall. Finally HOuse makes the observation. of “what if he was sick before he had his run in with gravity...” Everyone jumps to Pneumonia. And this is where it gets confusing.  If he was unwell, the minute he entered the emergency department with a fever and hypoxia, they would have worked him up for any garden variety pneumonia, bacterial or viral. Cultures would have been sent and imaging. Any young hypoxic patient would prompt a closer look at the chest. And no one waits that long to start antibiotics - “sepsis kills” is a slogan often used around hospitals. You have to initiate empirical therapy within 30 mins, to reduce mortality and morbiditiy. 

Ordering an Echocardiogram (USS of the Heart) also makes no sense in the context of a lung infection. I would order one, but not to look at the lungs.

Then there’s the most unrealistic thing about this series. Doctors breaking into patient homes.

It is however, a good way to showcase social history. It’d be boring to watch a doctor ask the patient outright about their living situation etc, but it’s far more interesting to see exactly how they live. We try as much as possible to illustrate to each other and ourselves what the living environment and working environment of our patients are like. 

In the context of infection, a good social history can point out exposure. As they exemplify by showing dead rodents and mould. This leads to 2 further differentials: Rat bite fever (caused by streptobacillus, something you’d see in the US, but probably not anywhere else), it’s an unrealistic differential in general. And the 2nd is aspergillosis.  Okay..  So aspergillus is a mould commonly found in our environment. In fact it’s everywhere around us. 

THere’s few times when it’s an issue.  It is a concern in respiratory syndromes like asthma or bronchiectasis. And also as an opportunistic infection in immunocompromised individuals. in the context of asthma, it’s not so much the aspergillus itself that causes issue, it’s our body’s over reaction. It’s a hypersensitivity issue that causes inflammation in the lungs or a pneumonitis. We even gave it a name. Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis. It’s still badness, but it doesn’t happen that quickly. We also have specific tests for this, which were obviously not considered in this episode of medicine done badly. In the immunocompromised host (steroid therapy in transplant patients or those on chemo, etc.), you can get the invasive mould as an opportunistic infection.  I don’t really understand why they think it would be the case here. Also, killing the bug with heavy duty anti fungals will only give more issues rather than do anything. They start him on amphotericin. this is not standard practice.  And now it flips to why amphotericin is not standard practice or first line treatment for invasive aspergillosis. The patient has now become anuric (not making any urine). (First line drug by the way is voraconazole, superior efficacy in trials with a lower mortality rate and ADRs) Also, note that they have just jumped straight to dire renal failure from the amphotericin. No work up. That said, heavy drugs like amphotericin are often a cause, but  It’s often temporary with the appropriate supportive measures (stop insulting agents, give hydration, monitor fluid balance), reversible, even if you require temporary dialysis or haemofiltration. Anyways, would get into AKI another day, that’s a whole other post in and of itself.  Then his hand is apparently “dying.” There’s pain on light touch, but it’s not a cold, pulseless limb. Or discoloured. doesn’t add up. This now enters vascular surgeon territory. Again. It’s interesting that there’s never any referrals to any other teams. If he has good circulation, I would imagine they would try to save the hand and consider other differentials. 

The only time I can think of an emergency amputation in this situation is necrotising fascitiis. That’s the only thing that would occur that rapidly  AND necessitate losing tissue or limb.  With a young person who’s this ill, there’s often multiple subspecialties involved by this point. I’m also surprised he’s not in ICU.

Then there’s a buncha filler scenes of the cast of house getting emotional. Ho my god, they’ve taken the hand of a young 20 something physical labourer. Indeed, this is badness. Unlike House, we actually are trained to always consider how a patient’s illness impacts their activities of daily living and livelihood. 

I find the general population assumes that we practice medicine in a vacuum, we merely treat the clinical illness and ignore everything else. They imagine that we all must be like house. 

Actually we try to put things in perspective as much as possible and knowing our limitations in this area, we often enlist the help of friends - physiotherapists, occupational therapists and social workers. They never exist on TV or on the movies. Ever. Unless it’s to portray how terrible it is to be a social worker.  From time to time in this episode, Cuddy laments that being chief of medicine is too administrative and she hasn’t been a doctor in years. That also doesn’t happen in real life. If you’re chief you’re still a doctor. You have admin shit to do deal with yes, but you still practice. It’s like being chief resident, in all the TV shows with one of these, you still seem them working as residents, be it scrubs or grey’s anatomy. 

Back to the differential. They finally get to endocarditis. Culture negative to be precise. That indeed would explain the bilateral dusky fingers that led to unnecessary amputation. Septic emboli. 

Going to stop here, more out of exhaustion now. I’ve created quite a lengthy post. Happy to reblog thoughts on culture negative endocarditis on request later. This is a worthy topic to study up on for students or residents. At least review Duke’s criteria and think about your clinical features like Roth Spots and Janeway lesions or Ouch Osler’s nodes. 

The ending is also a far fetched connection to make, but is one that we would consider. In fact, we would ask in detail every time from day one - have you had any exposure to animals. It’s very rare to see someone so young be that sick out of the blue when you’re immunocompetent and have no underlying predisposing conditions. If there’s no focal source, then we would even ask about injectable recreational drugs, exotic travels, sexual health. 

Most of the time, patients that sick are honest to their doctors. 

But what about..

Frankly, much as we lie as humans, when our lives our on the line, we’re generally pretty honest (sometimes too honest) with the people we want to save us. 

Any patient who is young and comes to hospital requiring inpatient admission, they’d be investigated by subspecialties with expertise in certain areas such as infectious disease. The dept of infectious disease would either be home team, or all over this patient as they special in the realm of both common and rare infectious diseases, culture negative endocarditis would have been considered before a hand amputation.

The term, “department of diagnostic medicine is laughable,” particularly when they consider it the only department in the world in the show. 

In actuality, it’s a department that is universal and exists everywhere. it’s Internal medicine. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the next surgeon general (and also the last one under Obama) is an internal medicine physician. Ken Jeong of Community and the Hangover fame is also a physician of internal medicine. 

Beginning to get the sense that most episodes are going to end with a diagnosis that is either infectious disease, rheumatology or haematology. But generally those tend to be most interesting and give the most plot twists or meaty differentials V.s. a stroke or acute myocardial infarction is fairly straightforward to diagnose. 

This is a very twisty episode in all the wrong directions. 

Dyspnoea is a very common presenting complaint. There’s a properly done approach to this in the podcast by the Curbsiders by the way. 

[drawlfoy]

The Wonders of Ohio P.4

masterlist - find parts 1, 2, and 3 here

request guidelines

did you miss me :P

pairing: draco x reader

requested: by prepubescent me

summary: american high school student y/n y/l/n’s senior year gets turned upside down when her family hosts a british exchange student that’s clearly keeping some secrets.

warnings: language and drug use mentions

a/n: hi everyone...i know that this has been a long time coming but. here she is. i finally finished this after the draft sat for over 6 months...here she is though! i’m excited weeee

tags tags tags

word count: 2k

music recs: hate candidate by BLOODHYPE, archie, marry me by alvvays

“No, no,” Y/N interrupted,  gently pushing Draco’s hands away from his locker. “It’s right to the number, left past the next number once, and right straight to the last number. You twist it right to reset it...no, like this...”

“This is pathetic, I don’t even need to put anything in a box in the wall,” Draco snarled, his gray eyes flaming.

“It’s really not that deep,” she said, snorting at his attitude. “Do they not have locks in England?”

Instead of answering, he huffed dramatically and scowled. “Open it up for me, will you? It’s not worth my time to learn.”

“You’re going to be here for a whole year, you know.” Y/N’s remark contradicted with her actions as she reapproached the locker and twisted out the combination. “But how can I say no to you, ever the gentlemen?”

She held out a hand out expectantly as he stared at her, his eyes full of confusion. 

“Your phone,” she said.

“My...my what?”

“I know, it’s weird, but they prohibit phones in orientation. Something about bonding or whatever. Just give it here, and we’ll keep it in here. If it goes off in any of the activities they’ll take it from you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, okay, I respect that attitude.” Y/N smirked, patting him on the shoulder as he flinched away from her. “Just don’t be mad at me when they confiscate it until 2.”

He stared at her for a few seconds longer before clearing his throat and nodding. 

<^>

The speeches at the beginning were always the longest part--the unnecessary dramatization of the importance of high school, the faux motivation mantras, the “love yourself” bits ironically being performed by some of the most insufferable members of the ASB--and Y/N was ready to get it over with, Draco seemed to feel the same way, as every time she looked at him, he looked another shade of uninterested.

She tried poking fun at the performances a couple times to see his reaction, and surprisingly enough, it was slightly well received.

“You see the redhead down there?” she whispered to him, gesturing towards the current speaker with her chin. He gave her a tight nod in response. “That’s Heather, our ASB president. She’s a total tool. Spews all this ‘vaping in the bathrooms isn’t cool!’ shit but one time I walked in on her doing lines in the performance wing bathrooms. She’s crazy, I’m telling you.”

Draco seemed amused at this, resting his cheek in his palm and watching her intently. “Lines?”

“Cocaine.”

“Cocaine?”

“You know what? I’m gonna quit while we’re ahead. I don’t want to be the one to corrupt you.”

Draco scoffed. “You’re worried about corrupting me?”

“Well, yeah,” she said. “I’m not the one who doesn’t know what cocaine is.”

He sniffed at this, turning his attention back to Heather’s mind-numbing anti-bullying presentation that was clearly put together moments before. Silence ensued for the next few moments before Draco sucked in a breath and turned to look at her. “What’s an ASB?”

“Oh, you should be so glad that you have to ask that,” Y/N stage whispered. “It’s student government. It’s an acronym for something. I never cared enough to remember it. The elections are super corrupt--it’s basically a popularity contest. They don’t do anything either...I don’t even know why it exists anyways.”

“So I take it you’re not popular?” 

“By choice, I’ll have you know,” Y/N pointed out. “I just made friends with the people I had stuff in common with. We all just happened to not be big fans of putting vodka in our Hydroflasks and the like...What I mean by that is that we aren’t big partiers.” She was quick to clarify when she saw the confusion on Draco’s face. 

He didn’t seem to understand any more of what she had said, or at least didn’t show any interest in it, scooting away a few inches from her and turning his head back to Heather’s speech.

The presentation ended within another 10 minutes, much to Y/N’s delight. One had been enough for her--two orientations was pushing it.

Maybe that’s why all the ASB kids are so awful she thought to herself as they made they way to Draco’s first class on the schedule. If I had to be here every year, I’d probably be a grade A rat as well.

“How’d they put you in AP Physics C?” Y/N asked him as they walked into the science lab. “I’m in your same period...and I had to take two years of physics before that to be qualified to take it. Did you take a Physics A level or something? Is that what they call it?”

Draco blinked twice. “Er...sure. My professors told me that I was skilled in Arithmancy, if that’s what you mean..?��

“Arithmancy? Is that just a fancy word for math?” she pressed. “I thought you guys just called it maths.”

“You could say so.”

Before she could push for any more answers, someone behind them cleared their throat. Y/N spun around, her face lighting up when she saw who it was.

“Mr. Whitacre!” she exclaimed. 

“Y/N, my least favorite student,” he greeted, a cheeky smile concealed by a rather bushy black beard. “I’m surprised they haven’t kicked you out of orientation. Haven’t you head? This is supposed to be an event for new students...not jaded old souls such as yourself.”

“Oh, you know me.” She rested one of her hands on a lab table, raising an eyebrow. “I just couldn’t stay away from the thrilling suggestion of physics.”

“Sure. And you are...” 

Draco just stared at him for a few seconds with a disgusted expression until Y/N elbowed him in the side, hard. “You’ll have to excuse Draco. He’s still going through jet lag. Aren’t you, Draco?” 

Y/N sent him a death glare until he wiped the expression off his face and uttered an awkward, “Er, yeah.”

The rest of orientation was just as uncomfortable and unnatural as Draco’s introduction to Mr. Whitacre. Y/N was surprised to see that they had a very similar schedule as Draco seemed entirely clueless to what the subjects even were. She mentioned her concerns to him briefly, but he seemed entirely unbothered.

“It can’t be any harder than school back home,” he told her in his prim and proper voice, prompting a small smile to grow across Y/N’s face. 

“Oh, I’m sure,” she said, her voice hardly containing her sarcasm.

The rest of the morning was spent toiling around each of the empty classrooms and memorizing room numbers so Draco wouldn’t be lost come Thursday morning. Y/N wasn’t having an entirely terrible time, as, much to her surprise, Draco wasn’t a complete dickwad. There were moments where he actually had something interesting or worthy to say, and when he didn’t look like he just stepped in something disgusting, she enjoyed the walks between classes. By the end of 5th period, she had concluded that Draco could make absolutely anything sound beautiful in his accent.For once, they were both being entirely civil to each other, and Y/N found herself wishing that the school day went on a bit longer. At least...until the walk to French.

“Excuse me,” a voice carried over Y/N’s as she was in the middle of telling Draco some particularly hot gossip from last year. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

Heather stood to their left, leaning coolly on the wall of lockers, her right shoulder just subtly dropped in their direction. 

“Hey Heather,” Y/N greeted. “This is Draco. He’s our exchange student this year.”

“Hello.” Draco’s voice was stiffer than usual.

She smiled, her lips stretching out over perfectly straight white teeth. “Hi Draco! Listen, I know it can be hard here at first, especially if you haven’t grown up around here, but I swear we’re all super friendly.” She held out her hand, smiling even wider. Y/N hardly managed to hold back a laugh as Draco took it and limply shook it like one would fondle a dead fish. 

Heather’s face remained just as cheery. “I just want to say that, as ASB president, it’s my job to make sure you feel like you fit in. Let me give you my snapchat, so if you ever need anything, I’m just one snap away.”

“Oookay, thank you Heather,” Y/N interrupted, wrapping her fingers around Draco’s sleeve and pulling. “I’ll give it to him tonight if he wants it. We have to find French now.” She couldn’t tell if it was just her imagination, but she swore that she could see Draco send her a slightly grateful look.

“AP French? Quelle coïncidence! I’m headed there too.”

No matter how briskly she dragged Draco along, Heather was able to catch up and chatter away, asking him about life in the UK and how he found Americans. She couldn’t help but allow a little smirk when he answered, telling her “a little annoying, quite frankly.” 

French was even more insufferable than she was expecting it to be. The strict teacher, M. Smith (despite being more American than everyone in the room, yes, he did insist on being called Monsieur), coupled with the weird, forlorn glances Heather kept sending Draco made Y/N feel crushingly uncomfortable. With the way that Draco was fidgeting, she could guess that he felt the same way. 

Suddenly, 2 couldn’t come soon enough.

<^>

“So, what’d you think?” Y/N asked as they made their way back to Y/N’s car. She toyed with her lanyard, turning and twisting the keys until they couldn’t twist anymore. 

Draco stepped over to the passenger side door, waiting for her to press unlock. “Your friend Heather is very friendly.”

“She’s not my friend, Draco, I already told you that.”

“She certainly comes up to talk to you a lot for someone who isn’t your friend.”

She shifted into drive and began pulling out of the parking lot. “It’s an American thing. And plus, she wouldn’t be talking to me if I didn’t have a pretty boy with an accent living with me.”

Draco froze up, sending her a weird sideways look.

“Don’t be so overdramatic, kiddo,” she continued. “American girls go crazy for British accents. Trust me. There’s going to be so many girls throwing themselves at you come tomorrow that you won’t even know what to do with yourself.”

Y/N tried to keep the bitterness from creeping into her tone as she told Draco this. It wasn’t like she liked him or anything--no way--it was just frustrating to know that the moment he stepped foot on the school grounds tomorrow, he would be snapped up into a flurry of admirers. These few days had felt like she was keeping a delicate, sophisticated secret in the guest room in the hall over, but it was time for her to snap out of it. 

“The feeling certainly isn’t mutual,” he finally said. Y/N could see that his head was rested against the window as he looked out into the trees as they passed by a particularly wooded area. “American accents give me a migraine.”

“Funny, me too.”

“But you have one.”

“Your point? Pass me the Advil.”

“The...the what?”

Y/N sucked in a deep breath and tried to keep herself from bursting out into a cackle. “Paracetamol, maybe? I think that’s the British version.”

“Er...I’m sorry?” Draco had moved his head from its resting place on the window to send her a confused look.

“Forget about it.”

The drive back was silent for the rest of the way. Upon arriving, Draco made a beeline for his room and made no indication of wanting to come back out, so Y/N spent the rest of the evening ironing out her physics problem sets and getting her backpack ready for school. 

My last first day she thought to herself as she zipped her binders and pencil pouch up, a hint of nostalgia threatening to choke her up for a moment. 

The entire situation felt eerie and strange. All her life, she’d been waiting to get out of school so she could go to college and meet new friends and have her fun life experiences, and now it was all beginning to happen. She tried to imagine how Draco must’ve been feeling in that moment and could hardly manage to come up with anything she could relate to. He’d been uprooted from his home, his family, his life, all to move to fucking Ohio of all places to finish out school. Y/N would feel a twinge of pity if he wasn’t such a prick.

Which, by the way, now that she really thought of it, was perhaps becoming overshadowed by all the little things she noticed about him. Obviously, he was very pretty, but there was something else just magnetizing about him that she’d never seen before in a person. The way in which he carried himself, the regal manner he spoke in, the delicate and practiced motions of his hands whenever he did anything menial--it all added up to paint Draco as the picture of elegance. She came to the realization that she’d never met anyone quite like him before as she was getting into bed and turning her lights off. He seemed so incredibly detached from reality, but decidedly so, that she couldn’t help but feel fascinated with it all. 

And he was all hers to figure out for the next 9 months. 

final a/n: huhhhh isn’t that funny that i actually came out with a different fic than i said i would? i think i want to do that quarantine thing a little bit later and make it a series. i’ve planned that i want to finish mirror, mirror in the coming weeks and then transfer to writing the “one shot” that was scheduled to be posted today as a series as well as this. exciting stuff to come!

[gangstalkersexposed]

Truth Comes to Light

Since I was a teenager, I was subjected to abuse by men who manipulated me to trust them.

*This is not an “anti-men” spew/blog. There are women involved, too. But the fact is, these men hurt me, manipulated me, gaslit me, groomed me, and then slandered my reputation with no consequences because no one gave a fuck about that kind of thing 10 years ago. I have spoken with justice departments for the past abuse, I was told I could file a report and have it “on hand” if these people continue to bother me/slander me/gangstalk me. I deleted the evidence, because when I tried to make police reports when these incidents first happened, I was blown off, laughed at, and ignored, by people who are suppose to protect teenagers from predatory adults, and trauma in general. I deleted the evidence because i got sick of being reminded of the pain...if I had hindsight and knew these people would continue to torment me, I would’ve kept it. Never delete anything. And to the 14-15 year olds out there thinking they’re special for talking to an older man...he is using you, he will leave you broken, with no care for you. Do not fall for the grooming and manipulation.

I will not be naming names. For the sole purpose of

1. These people will come across this blog, and know its about them.

2. I am not speaking to them, I am speaking to their souls...if there is any left present.

3. I do not want to fuel their fire. They can feel free to get mad about this, and expose themselves. They will not receive anymore of my energy.

4. If something happens to me, this is public information. The proper Justice Departments know the names of these people. I do not need the internet to go after them.

5. I am not out to ruin their lives. All I ask is they own up to what they’ve done/are doing TO THEMSELVES and STOP doing it. They are ruining their own lives just fine, they are miserable which is why they harass me and continue to try and steal my energy and tear my life down. These people have left their friends to die of ODs, they do not want to be exposed, it is their greatest fear.

When I was 15 years old, I met a guy at a local show through friends. He was pretty popular amongst the ladies, but I wasn’t into him like that. I saw him as a big brother, and he even agreed. One day he offered me to hangout, I accepted. When we got to his house, he kissed me and I didn’t really know how to react. Then it turned into making out, which turned into him fingering me. It all happened very quickly. I told him I was uncomfortable, and he knew I am a virgin and I don’t want my first time to be like this. He didn’t believe me. He over-powered me, bent me over, and raped me. He only stopped when he saw blood, and realized what he’d done. This man threatened my life if I went to the police. He was 20. I was 15. Of course I believed him. This man now has a wife and a child. I wish I had gone to the police, and still regret it to this day. I did confront this man before I got off social media. He told me some man I literally never met, told him that he took my virginity. I quickly realized this man I had never met was a scapegoat for his actions. When I called him out on it, he blocked me. I never told anyone about this, besides recently told a trusted friend, and then contacted authorities to see if there was anything that could be done/if evidence could be salvaged. You know who you are. Admit what you did. And stop slandering me. YOU made the choice to do what you did. I told you to STOP, NO, STOP, NO, I AM A VIRGIN, STOP.

Later in the year, I met a senior who went to my school. He was new, and came from another state. I hungout with older people most of the time, so we ended up chatting. I had a really big crush on him. He was 19 years old. We were in the same friend group on some occasions, and ended up clicking and exchanging numbers at one point. He told me he liked me, and wanted to be with me “but he could go to prison”. We did exchange photos during that time. 3 months before I turned 16, we began officially dating, or so I thought. It turns out, this man never told anyone we dated. When I made it public on my myspace page(lmfao) His Ex girlfriend flipped out on both me, and him, and threatened to send him to jail. He then told me we could “date in secret”...he was hooking up with girls his age the whole time. While making me out to look like a crazy, obsessed “little girl”. Well, you slept with me. You admitted to me that you used me. You even made a tumblr post about me how I was like a “dead fish in bed” because I had told all the girls you fucked behind my back what you were doing to me. I took this guy to New York...I never held his age over his head...I never wanted to cause him any pain. Literally, all I had for this man was “love”, really a stupid girl crush, but at the time it was my perception of “love”. It wasn’t until he made the tumblr post, that I threatened to go to the police, and its because I was horrified he’d made our sexual acts public...let alone sexual actions with a minor. This man then guilt tripped me into how his “life would be ruined” if I were to go to the police. Recently, his friends..who I didn’t know at first were his friends...started drama on the internet..they then doxxed my home address and phone number and called me threatening me under the false guise of one of their boyfriends being a police officer, when he is not (thats a felony btw...oof) If you are reading this, please leave me alone. You caused me a lot of trauma when I realized the truth about “us”, you caused me a lot of trauma when you made that tumblr post about me and made me out to look like a whore. I “loved” you, in a stupid teenager way. You knew I was struggling with God, you knew I was struggling with my family members death, and you sunk your claws into me, and to this day refuse to admit to others what you have done to me, hence your friends targeting and harassing me. You, are a sick coward. I don’t even want you to admit anything, at this point. I just want you to fuck off and eventually burn in Hell like you’ve always gloated about doing. Also seems like your literal, self-proclaimed, witch wife is sucking out the remnants of your soul, anyways. I hope this paragraph gives you a panic attack, karmas a bitch.

When I was 16, one of my friends joined a local band. I did date the one member for about 2 weeks, but he lived in a different state and we never actually hungout, so because of this we broke up. I still saw them at local shows, and my friend was still in the band. I assumed we were all friends/acquaintances, whatever. One day around 5-6PM, the one guy texts me and invites me out to a local show, he is covering for the drummer in his friends band. He assured me everyone else would be there, and he could give me a ride home. Once I arrived, he told me their set was over and tossed his bracelet on to the ground, and told me to “pick it up if I wanted to get in for free”. I asked him if that was a joke, and he said no. Things got very awkward, and tense..and they told me they wanted to get going. They then tell me, if I want a ride home, I would have to give them both blowjobs. I thought it was a joke. Until they actually left me there. Two weeks later, the one guy names a song after me, and told everyone it was about me. This song, was not written about me and was written about the lead singers ex girlfriend of the other band. I want to thank the vocalist for owning up to the truth, as he thought it was disgusting, too. The drummer, gave it a malicious name intertwining with mine as retaliation of me rejecting him. The bands involved in this were _______ pending legal consequences* I am also speaking to a lawyer about suing for slander, sexual harassment, endangerment of a minor (the one guy was 18), and emotional/mental abuse. If you guys are reading this, enjoy being extradited to my state for court. Once/If that is settled I will be posting their full names and court documents. If you are reading this, and want to avoid court, admit to what you have done. I will not hold it over your head in a legal manner. I will accept your apology, as long as you make it public like you made my slander and harassment and trauma, I had to relive that night everytime someone mentioned that band title. You two, hurt me that night. You knowingly lured me out to a show, in attempts to get sexual favors from me so I could get a ride home. The friends I met with after you left me for saying No, have also written statements against you both. The choice is yours.

I will stop here for tonight. For the next story is a long, complicated rollercoaster.

To give you a summary:

I met this man in 9th grade, and we were on & off from my sophomore year until late 2016, when I finally left him for becoming physically abusive. It is a long, long story. To this day, he attempts to torment me, and literally gang stalks me through his groupies, who are mostly women (jezebels)

Read my stories. Share them. Learn from them. Don’t do what I did. If you ever come across people like this, cut them off with no explanation. These people will gaslight you, manipulate you, torment you, feed you drugs, and try and drive you to suicide. They will do everything they possibly can to not be exposed once you see who they truly are,so don’t let them know you know, and just quietly walk away.

[dearinheadlights-archived]

11 April 2021

it’s always a mix. i’m anxious about my current classes, and how the semester will end, and being ready for the summer. and summer in general. i don’t know if i’m staying in my college city or going back home. i’d hate to have to go back home. it’s more cost effective, but i can’t stand it. every time i think i can handle it, for holidays and breaks and summer vacation, and i always can’t. the arguments and mental abuse always starts. usually soon after, but sometimes i can escape it until the later part of a short holiday break. but it always does, and it wears me down. i’m already worn so thin after this year, with the pandemic and everything that happened, where i found out my ex cheated on me with my best friend, and i harshly fell out of communication with all of hometown friends. for the better, probably. i have good friends now. we take care of each other. but it was so hard. i can’t go back home, to my parents, and to everyone in that neighborhood. [001] would be in the same neighborhood. i’d think about it every time i drove past where i would turn onto her street. [002] and [003] live just a street away from me. [004] lives in the neighborhood where a boba tea place just was build. fuck [004], though. he’s elitist and made me cry because he made me feel like i made poor college choices based on loans and family’s money. sorry my parent’s can’t help pay my tuition and buy me a car like they did for the rest of everyone who i used to be friends with. they never really understood what it was like, but that was one of the shittiest conversations. i hated crying in front of him, all of them. they all had it so easy when it came to money.

driving past [005]’s street would be hard, too. i miss his cat. one of my old friends that i have on snapchat still, and am on good terms with, i think, posts videos of her sometimes. one video showed her pawing rapidly at a tall carboard box until the accidentally knocked it over. it was cute. i wish i had a cat. i wish i was on okay terms with [005]. the worst part, i think, about going back to my hometown for the summer, would be that i would have no idea who was in town at any given time. i would constantly be on edge whenever i left the house. not that that would be much different from leaving my dorm room right now, though, since [001] lives on the same floor. god, i hate that she and i were so happy that i was moving to this dorm. i partially did it because i knew i’d have a friend there. then she dropped me a week later. i’m so tired of being hurt. ugh, but i guess i wouldn’t even mind running into [005]. maybe. i don’t know what would even happen. it’s not like he would talk to me. he probably hasn’t changed at all. he’s a pretty stagnant guy: he was a junior last we talked, and he’ll be a rising senior this summer, and he had hardly changed since he’d graduated high school. which is weird, since i’ve changed a lot since then. that’s part of why we broke up, i think. plus all the other stuff.

basically, i really hope i find an internship for this summer... i say, as i’m writing this instead of applying for any of the internships i found earlier OR doing my homework for tomorrow. i’d like to stay in my college city. i like it, and my friends will be here. and i can take my summer class here, and stay away from my parents. plus, [006] would probably be here. i hate whenever i factor a guy into my academic/career plans even the tiniest bit, because that’s lame, but it would  be nice to not be away from him over the summer. i like him a lot. plus i certainly have other reasons for wanting to stay in the city, so it’s not like he’s my only reason. but yeah. hopefully it all works out and i get my internship soon. i’m actually really looking forward to it. i want an income, and i really want to do some political science work.

things with [006] have been going really well the past few days, i think. he was feeling kinda sad the other night and didn’t know why, which always makes me nervous. mostly because i hoped it wasn’t about me. i hope he’s feeling better, regardless of what it was about. but yeah, things have felt like they’re going well. he makes me really happy. i like that we look out for each other, and all the things we do together. we have a check-in tomorrow, and i’m a bit more nervous for it than i’d like to be. just because of our track record, i guess, lol. it’s only been two weeks since we’ve been officially together, so i hope he’s not being too hard on himself if his nerves about being together haven’t fully calmed down yet. plus, he has an appointment to be prescribed anti-anxiety medication in a little over a week, so i’m sure that’ll help with his nerves about everything—not just our relationship—too. i know starting medication is scary, so that’d be another bonus for me staying the summer in the city: i don’t want him to go through that alone, because i know he’s nervous. and i’ve got his back. of course, he could always call me or text me or whatever, but being physically present is preferable. i’d honestly miss him too much over summer vacation too, if i had to go back home. he’s my best friend, too. and i love him. sheesh, i say that every time. it’s on my mind a lot, i guess. i think he’s really cool, and great, and sweet, and i like him a lot and i love him.

but i REFUSE to end on such a sappy note. that was dripping with sap. uhhhh.. i’m finding that i really like mentos? they’re like, gum, but. a mint candy, genius. idk, lmao. sometimes i get really hooked on a certain candy. drugs? no sir. i’ve gone through certain candy phases. once it was sweet tarts: i would eat them so much my tongue bled. another time, it was those haribo berries? like the candy raspberries and blackberries? then another time it was werther’s hard caramels: oh my god those were so good. i felt like a grandma, lmao. i always had those golden-wrapped candies in my bad. that was all in high school though. wayyy back in middle school, it was icebreakers mints. the wintergreen kind. i kinda mentioned this to [006] the other night, but i think i have addictive tendencies? i find something i really like and i just keep getting it until i burn out. like, how [006] and our friends go to this one chinese food place probably four times a week. it’s my favorite, and i’m not consuming it at unhealthy rates, so there’s not a problem, really. i don’t know. gonna sweep that under the rug for now, haha.

[fashionfiestashop]

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It is prone Q1 on our anti Q and a Til Death Do Us Part Dog Lovers Vintage Retro T-Shirt to ensure there is no promotion of violence you see that they’re trying to insinuate that you went on is it is promoting violence which is another mainstream media bullshit talking points when you see them engaging in censorship and using mainstream media talking points as their excuse then you know side there on this is why I’m moving my march from tea spring to a different platform as soon as I find but for now you can get your emergency spring now twitter Facebook histogram mainstream media they’re all engaging. The consequent golf or was it going to happen some other way if he had that attention will happen no matter what with whenever there is no answer whether we will Santos is discovered now that he has essentially caused the end of everything there will be nothing so he will be alone forever is no point having your ultimate power is like stuck their right the only way he can actually effectively matter again is my stock was himself to use the power to repair the universeand and bring it back into existence so but he won’t exist with the new rule that you kids come back come back from death but respect universe eventually he’ll just come back somehow was then owes you will be a godly more but he’ll just be back right except he was the only guy in believes that like if he does bad because he’s part of the creation itselfand because he’s a person with a personality was like a beginningand an end that like that will be the one exception to this reignite universes of fans were right as he had to be outside of it created yet so he can also be in the why it has to be our current continuity because if that were the case that means that Dan is never existedand so that any store within usand it doesn’t happen right but that isn’t the case because a course for starlet is in continuity in the stores that happen in the course merely following the steps back so you don’t but the front of the level of about whether or not like you should sacrifice yourself if you know can never existed no one or not alluded to say I have the I am I am God of the entire universe I will destroy everything in order to re create everything I do give up the power why your God well will because that is what it takes to reignite it because I look to the powerand I aghast of how work in the hotel will it take to destroy everything won’t it to pick up our but it didn’t beat him at that point he saw that all he sucked everything into him yet you actually kill everything you wantedand so he immediately resurrected I guess right or is knowing it from him all the will be over there he’s over here he’d like to it’ll take everything that is him to do it so actually not a good way no so anyway at a more lifelike will all go back in my room so I remember alland is that enoughand doesn’t know you suck you care about that as well here are some panels you know I’m not the only one was spared by your wrathand then death appears a little depth is here to get death escaped wrath maybe was in the room without warlock or maybe deficit outside of all this death was within vessels is meant to so death was watching little girl call warlock moreover Gabe is I technically desk that has to exist anywhere but yeah probably feels like I’m warlockand more will die even outside of the universe so you definitely happen so you anyway so death is thereand Adam warlock’s like you know if you make this trip it basically says come in mind that areand then death shows upand she forms into a beautiful womanand she says thank you to vandals this to talk to me directly she never does that you never done but then she leans inand kisses himand then we like this was the gesture the deaf one from the mall right not killing universe allows primary impressive it was the sacrifice right that he owned willing to die he askedand so he’s like okey doke he like how ironic that my power Avenue really ironic that like my destiny turned out to be a universal healerand so that he expels the powerand then everything is as it was only then owes his dadand that plant that he went to to chill with time convinces the planet that he went to when he was thought that infinity gauntlet Emma Gardner is his cowl is left there the global Santos mask now more picks up is like good on you Santosand then he leaves that’s normal BMV it’s like the end of the status quo that you know marble to be which is the death of the revolving door right but it’s also not trueand he is violating Mr marble still back more woman or whatever else Normal delivered while the more was a different Design of housing in which he broke it knows wonderment Unser wonderment what do you want to come back one more time but now it’s only the original wonder man before he died right you get here. He said that it makes me smart so it’s smart to pay for our military smart not to pay for veterans it’s smart not to pay for teachers all of us who do pay for those things I guess were stupid and the last thing I’ll say ready entitled to last one has never been signed has had to give Donald Trump his tax returns to show he was qualified to be vice president Donald Trump must give the American public’s tax returns to show that he’s qualified to be president and breaking his promise Elaine I have to respond to the leaders Donald Trump his file over hundred pages of financial disclosure which is what the law requires that he can review that and he’s going senator you are going to release the audit first overreaches your tax returns on a huge act since Carol Kennedy for responsible for your current dollars per year your administration do first where it protects us a security which is one of the greatest programs that the American government is ever done it happened at a time when you would work your whole life

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[graglithans-library]

Welcome to Paris, Fur-ance Ch 1: Phone Calls, Spandex, and School Yards

Summary: 

With Anima City no longer in danger from certain individuals, Kagemori Michiru, Oogami Shirou, and Hiwatashi Nazuna wanted to live as healthy a life as they could. This plan, however, is ruined when Shirou has to investigate a break-in at the Medical Facility (again). Naturally, Michiru wanted to tag along, taking Nazuna to show off what she’d been up to for the past few months. Upon confronting the criminal, Shirou's attempt to capture him only sends them all flying into a portal, and they find themselves separated in what looks to be Paris, France. The only problem is, none of them smell any Beastmen other than themselves, and the last time he checked, there weren’t superheroes in France, or anywhere for that matter. And why is everyone screaming at the sight of Michiru?

Meanwhile, Marinette is stressed about yet another of Lila’s lies, further stoking her class’ well-meaning stupidity. On top of that pile of stress, there was a guy who she was pretty sure was Akumatized and was teleporting whenever she and Chat got close. So why wouldn’t a Tanuki girl show up out of no-wait what?

Chapter 1 AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25615810/chapters/62177413

Or, read the rest of this post

...

did you keep reading?

Then the chapter starts............NOW!

________________________________________________________________

The sounds of a basketball landing in the basket was continuous on the roof of the Beastman Co-op. In the makeshift court, Michiru was busy practicing while Shirou and Nazuna sat off to the side and watched. With every score she’d make, Nazuna would pass her a ball so she could keep going, and Shirou was collecting the ones that bounced off the roof, enjoying a moment out of the office.

Michiru was catching the ball as it was passed back to her like second nature now, taking another shot and scoring with ease. The smile on her face felt like it could never be wiped off, and when she caught the ball again, she sighed and wiped the sweat from her head. “It feels so good to be back in shape!”

Nazuna giggled and nodded. “Yeah, I remember when you could dribble circles around the entire enemy team.” The two shared a high-five as Shirou closed his eyes and enjoyed the sun.

Michiru took that moment to lean in close to her friend and whisper. “Hey, Nazuna, can I ask you something?”

“Hm?” Nazuna tilted her head a bit. “What?”

Michiru’s face split into a smirk as she jabbed a thumb over at the wolf. “Do you think Shirou would let us join him on one of his outings?”

Nazuna rolled her eyes a bit and shook her head. “Knowing that grumpy wolf, he’d shoot you down in a heartbeat.”

Shirou, not even opening his eyes, only smiled. “She’s right.”

Michiru jumped a bit and glowered at him. “Oh, come on! Using your wolf ears to eavesdrop is cheating!”

“It’s hardly eavesdropping when you’re talking right in front of me.” Shirou cracked an eye with an amused smirk. “And besides, I thought you said you wanted to be away from the excitement for a while?”

“W-Well yeah, it’s just...” Michiru blushed and rubbed the back of her head, only for the conversation to cut off as Shirou’s phone rings.

Shirou’s smirk vanished as he pulled out his cellphone and walked to the edge of the roof. “Mayor Rose?... Is that so?... I’m on my way.” Hanging up, he turns to the two girls. “I have a job, so I need you two to behave while I’m gone.”

“I behave!” Michiru shouts indignantly, which Nazuna just raises an eyebrow in response.

“Right.” Shirou deadpans as he rushes off, leaving the two alone on the roof as he bounds away in wolf form.

Once he’s gone, Michiru pouts and heads back into the Co-op, Nazuna following behind her. “And he runs off before I can finish.”

Nazuna puts a hand on Michiru’s shoulder and smiles. “You can tell him later. Come on; Melissa should have lunch ready soon.”

“Yeah...” Michiru sighs and tosses the basketball onto her bed before heading downstairs.

________________________________________________________________

In Paris, France, a young girl was running as hard as she could down the sidewalk. “I’m late. I’m late. I’m late!” Black pigtails fluttered in the rush of wind that almost toppled her as she reached the school gates, and soon Marinette was rushing across the courtyard of Francis-Dupont, praying that she had at least managed to get there before her teacher. Bursting into the classroom, she found she was at least given that blessing, as Mme. Bustier was nowhere to be seen. However, there was still the other thorn in her side she had been worried over.

A very Italian thorn.

“So I wanted to try at least to ask Adrien out, but then I remembered how Marinette gets when I bring him up, and I was afraid she might try to do something.” Lila simpered as the class gathered around her. If any of them had been paying closer attention, they would have noticed the razor-sharp smirk as it flashed across her face when she saw Marinette enter the room.

Sighing, Marinette just rolled her eyes and went to her seat, finding Alya raising an eyebrow. “That girl’s not serious, is she?”

Alya finally getting her head out of her butt was one of the few good things that happened recently for Marinette. All it took was a few moments of Lila’s less than polished actions being personally heard that made her realize the Italian’s true colors. It took over two weeks to get Alya to stop apologizing.

Marinette shook her head and raised an eyebrow. “If you remember who Adrien’s dating right now, you’d know I’m not the one she should be afraid of.”

A snort escaped Alya’s nose as she fought back a laugh. “You think we should unleash the Ice Queen on Lila?”

With an amused smile, Marinette shook her head again. “As amusing as seeing Lila getting beaten to a pulp would be, I don’t want to see Kagami arrested for murder.”

“Amusing? Since when did my girl get so catty?”

“Hey, I’m allowed to grow up too!”

“True. Pretty sure that’d put Sunshine in a bad mood for a while. Knowing the class’s beautiful princess is growing up into a queen might get him to pay attention to his surroundings.” Alya frowned, before leaning over. “And I’m not giving up on you two getting together. I will see my ship sail.”

Groaning, Marinette shoved Alya to the side and put a hand on her face. “Alya, for the last time, I’m putting romance to the side.” She looked out the window for a moment before smiling. “Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the time I was dating Luka, but we both agreed that it was going as far as friendship at best.”

Pouting Alya was going to say something when Mme. Bustier walked in and cleared her throat. “Everyone, please take your seats so I can call attendance.”

________________________________________________________________

Shirou stood in the Mayor’s office, hands in pockets. “You asked me to come as soon as I could?”

“Yes, I did.” Mayor Rose turned away from the window and clicked a remote, turning on the display that hung across the room. “We’ve been receiving troubling reports as of late regarding the Medical Center.” Camera footage on-screen showed a man in a skintight suit and masked, leaving one of the labs with a crate of medical supplies before moving into another room. The footage showed him going again and returning with another container. It, by all rights, shouldn’t have fit in the room with the first one. Yet, it was placed inside with ease. “This man has been spotted on surveillance multiple times; however, not one of the receptionists, security guards, or even the outside cameras could spot him entering the facility. As we can’t find how he keeps entering the Medical Center, I was hoping you could take a look and see what you could find.”

Shirou frowned as his mind raced back to the last incident with Sylvasta. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the anti-beastman drug that Sylvasta produced, does it?”

“Surprisingly, no. In fact, the opposite is true.” Mayor Rose frowned in thought. “The items stolen ranged from basic medical equipment to a few of the assault machines, yet not once did they take the anti-beastman drug or any other medicines.” She clicked her remote, showing a video of the man seeing the samples before smashing the vials and running when the alarm went off. “If anything, he was repulsed by the anti-beastman drug, which makes me believe this may be the work of the start of a Beastman Terrorist organization.”

“We want you to try and catch this individual. That way, we can ascertain their motives and plans.” Koichi Ishizaki stepped from the shadows of the room and walked over to Shirou, handing him a file to go over. “Aside from the video presented, this is all the information we have on the perpetrator. From what we can see of the pattern, he may choose to strike sometime today, if not tomorrow.”

Shirou opened the file and looked over the information, grimacing. “I see.”

“We trust you will handle this matter properly.” Mayor Rose’s stern face quickly bled into one with a friendly smile. “After all, you’ve yet to let us down. Even after you’ve spent more time babysitting than advising lately.”

A small blush, barely perceptible to even a falcon’s eye, hit Shirou’s cheeks as he scoffed and turned his head. “You’re the one who put her under my care.”

“Only because she asked, and you didn’t refuse.” Mayor Rose had a mischievous glint in her eyes before giving a quick nod to Shirou. “That will be all, Shirou.”

As Shirou exited the office, a nagging little voice whispered in the back of his head. I hate it when she does that.

________________________________________________________________

It was around lunch that the Akuma alert went off. Marinette was halfway through another bite of her croissant when she groaned and let her head fall forward. Seriously!? Making sure no one had seen her, she quickly shoved the last of her food into her mouth and rushed into an empty classroom. “Tikki? Spots on!”

Slipping out of the window, Ladybug zipped her way to the rooftops and was swinging across Paris when she found Chat Noir kneeling on a roof. “Evening, My lady!”

Ladybug smiled and gave him a nod before kneeling next to him. “What are we looking at with this one Chat?”

A glance over his shoulder let her see a man in black spandex, with glowing green and red lines erratically trailing down his limbs. He was busy fiddling with what looked like a white sci-fi blaster pulled straight out of a movie. Whoever he was, he hadn’t seen them yet. “Don’t know. He hasn’t done anything yet besides pop out of a portal.”

At that, Ladybug had to bite back a groan. A teleporting Akuma? Great, just what we needed. Hawkmoth is getting 'more creative' with his powers. Ladybug sighed before eyeing the blaster. “I think that blaster of his is where the Akuma’s hidden.”

“Think we can end this if we take him by surprise, or should we get Pegasus?” Chat smirked, readying his baton to launch him forward.

Ladybug had to think about that one for a moment. On the one hand, Chat had a point. Bringing Pegasus into the fight would make it easier to follow the Akuma around. But, with how things had been going in class, she was hesitant to bring Max into a battle again. How could she trust him, or any of her classmates for that matter,  if they believed a balled-up napkin could gouge out an eye through a pair of glasses.

“On three.” Ladybug readied her yo-yo, kneeling and eyeing the device. “One, two-” The Akuma flicked his wrist, the one not holding the blaster, and a glowing blue portal formed. He chuckled a bit and casually walked through it. “He’s getting away!”

As they landed where the Akuma had been, the portal closed just before Chat could dive through, and he found himself eating the roof. “Dang it!”

Ladybug tumbled to a stop next to him and helped him up. “You alright?” She tried to grab his arm to help him up, and he hissed back a scream. “Chat, your arm!”  

“I’ll be fine.” Chat waved off her concern, even as he winced a bit. “Just a bruise is all.”

“Chat that isn’t just a bruise, you could be hurt.” Ladybug rolled back the arm of his suit, finding that his left wrist was starting to swell. “Hold still, Chat. I need to look this over.”

“I’m telling you, I’m fine, My Lady.” Chat tried to argue, only to yowl a bit as Ladybug gently touched over the swollen area of his wrist. “Okay... it does kinda hurt a bit.”

Ladybug shook her head with a small smile. “Silly kitty. Be glad this wasn’t your neck.” She looked over the wrist slightly longer before sighing and getting up, opening the compact of her yo-yo. “It’s just sprained, thankfully.” She pulled a roll of gauze out of her compact and started wrapping Chat’s wrist before pulling the suit back over to hide the bandages. “There, that should help until I can cast the cure.”

“You sure this won’t lead to my identity being compromised?” Chat asked with a hint of worry. “If I have to transform back before we can find this guy, it would be strange for me to show up back in my civilian life with an injury out of nowhere.”

Mentally, she knew he was right. The people of Paris could say what they wanted about Chat, but if one thing was right about her jokester of a partner, it was that he was far from stupid. Maybe not socially adept as he should be, but his wit was as sharp as his claws.

If only he used that big brain of his for something other than puns more often, Ladybug would have less to worry over.

“Then we’ll just have to find him first.” Ladybug and Chat shared a determined nod before she pulled out her yo-yo and flipped it open, looking at the display with a frown. “There are no updates yet from the Akuma Alerts. We’ll just have to scout for him ourselves.”

“Meet back here in fifteen?” Chat cockily grinned as he put his baton over his shoulder.

Ladybug gave him a nod in return, and the two heroes zipped away to begin their search of the city. Yet as she swung overhead, she had a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that something wasn’t quite right.

________________________________________________________________

Groaning in boredom, Michiru was lying down on the couch Shirou had in his room. Nazuna was playing on her phone off to the side. “Nazuna~.”

“Yeah?” Nazuna pulled her attention from the screen and raised an eyebrow.

“I’m bored. Want to go for a fly?” Michiru flopped across Nazuna’s lap and pouted. “Pleeeeeease?”

Nazuna rolled her eyes, but still had a smirk. “What’s stopping you? It’s not like you need me to lift you.”

Michiru hopped up and threw her arms towards the window. “I know, but it’s more fun when you can fly with someone.” she reached forward and grabbed Nazuna’s arm, pulling her from the couch with a startled yelp. “Come on! It’s better than sitting on your phone all day.”

“Okay! Okay, already!” Nazuna laughed as she put her phone in her pocket, and the two spread their wings and took flight. As they flew, Nazuna couldn’t help but keep peeking a glance over at Michiru. What she saw made her chest ache.

Michiru was smiling, clearly enjoying the flight, but there was a hint of pain from something. Yeah, Shirou and Michiru had told her of all the things that Michiru had gone through before she had arrived in Anima City and she had enjoyed most of the stories, it was clear that there was something else Michiru wasn’t telling her.

The two ended up on top of an antenna and took a seat, resting their wings. As they watched the sky drift overhead, Nazuna took a chance. “Hey, Michiru?”

“Hm?” Michiru looked over at her and raised an eyebrow.

Nazuna’s frown deepened as she leaned over a bit. “Are you feeling alright? You were a little tense while we were getting up here.”

Michiru hesitated a bit before waving a hand with a smile. “I-It’s nothing.”

A glare soured Nazuna’s face as she huffed. “Weren’t you the one who got onto me about lying when I was still doing that whole Déesse Louvre act?” Michiru looked away at that, and her ears pressed back onto her head. Sighing, Nazuna scooted closer and put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Come on, Michiru, you can tell me.”

“I-” Michiru grimaced a bit and kept her eyes trained on her knees. “I never did tell you about how most of my little adventures went, did I?” At Nazuna’s silence, Michiru sighed and grabbed one of her arms. “Ever since I decided to run away to Anima City, I-”

Before she can finish, a boom rocks through the air and makes both of them stumble. Nazuna keeps her grip, but Michiru falls forward and grabs onto the antenna with her arms stretched out. Off in the distance, they can see smoke coming from the Medical Center. “What was that!?”

They hop down from the antenna and land on the roof, watching in surprise and horror as a blue flash keeps bouncing around the Medical Center, windows shattering as pieces of equipment are thrown out. Shifting her eyes into a falcon’s, Michiru looks closer. There she sees a guy in a spandex super-suit of all things trashing a room. “Some guy is wrecking the Medical center. I think it’s a mental patient or something.” Shirou soon entered the room, lunging for the spandex man. “Oh, I guess that explains why Shirou got a c-GAH!” She had to close her eyes as a sudden blue flash burst from the man, and when she looked back, Shirou was the only one in the room. “HUH!?”

Nazuna looked at Michiru worriedly. “What? What happened?”

“The weird guy teleported!” Michiru threw her arms towards the medical center, her eyes bulging out of her skull. “How do you even do that!?”

“Teleported?” Nazuna blinked in surprise until a flash came from behind, and the two turned around in shock.

Only to get pushed back as the guy from the medical center shoved them each in the chest.

As they landed on their backs, Michiru’s eyes widened at the sight of the man’s suit up close. She hadn’t been able to tell from before, but the design was reminiscent of a beastman suffering from Nirvasyl Syndrome. His face was covered by a mask that made him look vaguely like a goat. Or maybe he was a goat? The lack of a mouth and glowing red eyes made it hard to tell.

Either way, he terrified her.

The very familiar tranquilizer gun that he pulled from his hip did nothing to help.

“Well, I found you two quicker than I thought.” He quipped as he messed with something on his wrist, casually holding the tranquilizer gun towards them both. “I’m going to need you two to come with me. I need your assistance for a project of mine.”

Snapping out of her stupor, Michiru and Nazuna pushed themselves back to their feet and glared. “Yeah, we're not going to help a creep like you.”

He chuckled and shook his head a bit, twisting his arm forward as if to shrug. “I feel you’ll soon realize you don’t have a choice.”

“Wha?-” Both girls suddenly felt like they were swimming underwater. Michiru’s eyes wandered over to Nazuna, where she could see a small dart, sticking out of her friend’s chest. Looking down, she could see one on her as well. “When... did you?”

Michiru and Nazuna fell forward and landed on the ground with a thud, the man chuckling to himself as he flicked his wrist and a teal portal formed in the center of the roof. “Soon, I’ll have all I need.” Grabbing the two, he started walking closer to the portal. “Shame that stupid company failed to-” A howl caught his attention, and he stopped a little way from his escape.

The man spun around in surprise as a glowing silver wolf joined him as Shirou caught up and landed on the roof. “My, this is unexpected.” Rather than talk, Shirou lunged forward to catch the man. In response, the man tried to lean back and fall into the portal dragging the two unconscious girls with him. The two collided mid-fall, and all four fell into the gateway with the man’s wrist catching on the side and sparking wildly. “NO!” The portal destabilized, and the four vanished from Anima City without a trace.

________________________________________________________________

Fifteen minutes had passed, and Ladybug still had yet to see any sign of the Akuma. Landing on the roof, she grimaced and looked out over Paris. “Maybe I should have gotten Pegasus out again after all.” She shook her head and sighed. “No, it would be too risky. Hawkmoth already knows that it’s Max under the suit.”

Chat landed behind her and twirled his baton in his right hand before setting it on his back. “Any luck, My Lady?”

Ladybug just shrugged and shook her head. “Not today, it seems.” Crossing her arms and putting a hand to her chin, she paced on the roof. “It just doesn’t make sense. An Akuma normally ends up terrorizing the city to both fulfill their desires, and to attract us to take our Miraculous. Yet this guy hasn’t done either.”

“Maybe their desire has to deal with something outside of Paris?” Chat offered with a concerned frown.

“If it did, you’d think we’d have heard from Doorman over in America by now. He usually starts snooping in other's business when it comes to international problems like that.” Ladybug frowned as she sighed and sat down on the roof, head in her hands.

“Ladybug? Are you alright?” Chat sat next to her. He wanted to put a hand on her shoulder, but hesitated and let it fall back to his lap.

Ladybug chuckled humorlessly and rubbed a hand across her face. “Honestly, Chat? No. I’m not. I haven’t been for a while.”

Chat leaned forward a bit to get a better look at her face, and his breath hitched at the sadness he caught in her eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She laughed harder and looked over at him. “I do. God, I do, but you know the reason why I can’t.”

“Oh, right. Identities.” Chat nearly hissed out the last word. “My Lady, if whatever is bothering you in your civilian life is affecting you this much, you need to talk to someone about it.”

A blue flash off by their school drew both of their attention, and Ladybug just sighed and stood up. “Why is it always that school? Does Hawkmoth have an obsession with the place or something?” The two leaped towards the school, making it there in a matter of minutes to find the place in chaos. Students were running into classrooms and screaming, doors barricaded from the inside, and the principal was shouting for everyone to remain calm.

And in the middle of the courtyard laying on her face, was a girl maybe a few years older than herself. She was wearing a red jacket, shorts, and-

A fursuit?

Ladybug had a feeling this was going to be a long day.

________________________________________________________________

And there you have it! Chapter 1! The first 14 Chapters are already written, and you can read them all on AO3 right now. Either way, I’m going to be continuing to post here on Tumblr as well, for those who don’t want to jump to a different website. Updates here will be Wednesdays and Saturdays (unless I forget Tumblr exists again like an idiot), until it has been caught up with the AO3 files. Then, they’ll be updated simultaneously whenever I finish a new chapter.

If you can, Like, Share, and what have you on Tumblr and AO3 to show your support. 

Also comment. 

I live off of those.

[walksinlatewithcoffee]

I said I’d do it and I’m posting it as I complete it so I’m actually motivated to finish

May I present to you:

Not The Same, But Close

Summary: Ex&co never really got over the disappearance of one of their oldest friends, and they always sort of blamed the Hermits for it. I mean, the only member of their group without a hermit counterpart mysteriously vanishes, and in the very next season the same guy with a different name shows up in the Hermitcraft server? Suspicious.

And one day they found what they thought was their long lost friend, trapped in a strange world, with no memories.

Only he wasn’t the same. Not at all.

Was this their friend? If he was, could they get his memories back?

And if he wasn’t their friend at all, then who is he?

Note tag things: Future Ex/NPG if Ex can get his act together, some swearing???, I think that’s it? Ex is just gay and sad and doesn’t know how feelings work.

Uh the chapters are just gonna get posted as I finish thrm and tagged “ntsbc by Della” and there shouldn’t be too too many, im estimating 5-8

When it’s done I’ll make a post with links to all the chapters and link that in my pinned post

(Reblogs>likes but if you bother to do one you might as well do the other)

Ch.1

Exander Void, often known as Ex if you like him, and Evil X if you don’t, was not prepared to be the leader of the Anti-Hermits.

Sure, he’s their admin. He handles code tweaks and commands and helps keep things running smooth on that front. But he was never their leader. Not like he had been.

A smack of royal blue amongst the blacks and reds of their home, soft smiles and kind eyes and a sticky sweetness to him that unnerved more people than it usually comforted.

Ex couldn’t even bring himself to speak his name (what a lovely name it was too, from the same root language as his own but so much more elegant and unique, it was safe, familiar, he felt like home-) but he could never force himself to stop thinking of the man who brought them together.

He had no hermit counterpart, which was their first clue that he was different. And then, unlike the sporadic, often melancholic or even malicious members of the Anti-hermits, he had always been so calm, so soft, until he needed to be firm. He believed firmly in practicality, in moderation, in planning. He worked hard to make sure that the group always had exactly what they needed, but not a bit more.

That’s the thing he’d always hated about the Hermits. Their excess, their pomp and showmanship. Big builds and diamond economies and ridiculous contraptions.

Ex always thought that their leader’s counterpart would have likely been the most fun person to ever live. Not someone you’d put in charge of a whole town, but a very fun person to hang out with.

And he’s never been more upset to be right.

What the hermits don’t know is that the increased presence of the Anti-hermits is due in part to their leader having gone missing. Said he had something to check on and vanished, never to return. And all the admin controls in the world couldn’t figure out what happened.

Ex had originally reached out to his own counterpart, hoping for some kind of assistance. He didn’t get it.

And then who showed up but a chaotic, ridiculous, charming, fun lad with his leader’s ageless face and a bright red sweater.

Ex tried to force the issue, he tried ignoring it, he tried making up a conspiracy that this Grian guy was his Leader, having been brainwashed into being a Hermit. To be everything their Leader hated. To build impossible, ostentatious buildings and flaunt his wealth and cause fights.

But Xisuma didn’t know about the rest of the counterparts.

And that’s just not something the hermits would do.

And well it never really made sense that their Leader had no counterpart, ya know?

But that didn’t stop Ex from wanting to hack into Grian’s private server, just in case.

So that’s how Ex found himself with Heksknight and Badtimes, standing in a superflat world that looked like the set of some kind of game show, standing at the door of a storage shed, face to face with what looked like a damn corpse.

A Grian corpse to be specific.

“Bad, please tell me that’s not a dead body.”

“...it’s not a dead body?” Bad squeaked.

“Thanks, very encouraging.” Ex rolled his eyes.

Hels knelt down next to it, “wait no I actually think he’s not dead! He’s… he’s breathing!”

The rest crouched as well, surrounding the slumped body.

Bad swipes a finger across his wrist and rubbed his thumb against the finger, “magic residue, of what kind, not exactly sure but I’d bet on it being some kind of sleeping drug or something. Old though, or else we’d all be out by now just from being in here.”

Ex looked up at him, “Old? How old?”

Bad shrugged, “Depends on the strength of the spell, the skill of the caster, among other things. Magically included coma’s can often far outlast the initial spell and judging by the state of the room-“ he motions to the accumulating dust, “I’d say it’s been well over a year since it’s been touched, maybe two?”

...that matched up pretty well with their Leader’s disappearance.

“Let’s not get hasty.” Ex said slowly, “I know what you’re all thinking, and I’m thinking it too. But the Hermits have dabbled in cloning before. This could be a failed clone, or an Android.”

“Regardless we can’t just leave him here.” Hels decided, standing up, “like he’s literally in a magic coma, locked in a tool shed, in an abandoned world. That’s fucked up!”

Ex looked back to Bad, “Can… can you reverse this spell? Or wake him up?”

Bad examined the unconscious man for a minute before nodding, “if I can get him to my lab. Is his communicator around here? We’ll need to whitelist him.”

So they set about it.

—

[bountyofbeads]

Will Brexit Bring the Troubles Back to Northern Ireland? https://nyti.ms/2rHSWA7

This is a fascinating look at the very real and immediate consequences of Brexit. While looking back at the violent sectarian history and what Brexit could awaken in the very near future. WELL WORTH THE TIME

"In Northern Ireland, Brexit is stirring up an especially volatile brew. Sectarian tensions have been roiling in one form or another since at least the 17th century, when King James I encouraged the migration of Protestant colonists from Scotland and England to the northern Irish province of Ulster, where they enjoyed special privileges. An act of the British Parliament in 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, led to Ireland’s partition, creating a Protestant-majority Northern Ireland. Catholic grievances over discrimination fueled animosities that helped precipitate the Troubles. By the time of the Good Friday Agreement, some 3,600 people had been killed and tens of thousands injured. The peace deal created a power-sharing system of government, but it did not bring reconciliation."

Will Brexit Bring the Troubles Back to Northern Ireland?

As the United Kingdom confronts the prospect of dissolution, old factions are bracing for the possibility of new violence.

By James Angelo's | Published Dec. 30, 2019 | New York Times | Posted January 2, 2020 |

Belfast, like Berlin and Sarajevo, draws many visitors not despite its history of murderous conflict but because of it. Guides there take tourists to “peace walls,” the tall barricades of corrugated metal and concrete erected during the sectarian conflict, known as the Troubles, that began in 1968 and ravaged Northern Ireland for three decades. The walls were built to divide Protestant and Catholic enclaves and to prevent people from killing one another as the spiraling cycle of attacks took hold. Today tourists from around the world visit the walls and take selfies. This type of tourism is more peculiar in Belfast than in some other cities shaped by a legacy of atrocity. You can visit the intact parts of the Berlin Wall, for instance, with the knowledge that the wall no longer serves its original purpose. In Belfast, however, the walls are still there to divide, their continued presence deemed necessary to prevent a resurgence of violence.

Tours of the peace walls are often given by ex-paramilitary combatants who were active during the Troubles. The bald, stout, tattooed driver who took me on one such tour last June said he was “connected” to a paramilitary called the Ulster Defense Association, or the U.D.A., which was responsible for the killing of hundreds. He described himself as “no angel” during the Troubles and asked that I use only his first name, Robert, so as not to attract attention from the authorities — those involved can still face criminal prosecution — or from old foes. “We’re all paranoid as hell here,” he told me shortly after I got into his van. “The war is not over. Far from it.”

Robert had a quick, friendly smile and a fast wit that made it a little hard to imagine his past paramilitary connection. But those were almost unimaginably violent times. In the rote manner of tour guides everywhere, Robert told me his father was a U.D.A. member who in 1975 was shot dead by the Irish Republican Army, or I.R.A., the most lethal of the paramilitary groups, at the bus depot where he worked. Robert himself had dodged three I.R.A. assassination attempts, he said, and the organization also “blew up” his brother-in-law and murdered seven of his friends. We pulled up to a section of the peace wall in an industrial part of West Belfast that divides the neighborhood around Falls Road, heavily Catholic, from that around Shankill Road, which is heavily Protestant. Robert pointed out the metal gate that opens during the day to allow traffic to pass and closes again at night. In 2013, the government of Northern Ireland announced a goal of removing the walls within 10 years, but Robert was against this. The situation, he said, was still too turbulent. “We’re not ready for it,” he said. “I’m sure you’re probably fed up with hearing about Brexit,” he said. “But people are worried about a bad deal, the wrong deal or no deal.” If things went badly, he added, “I think we’re going to need these walls more than ever.”

The 1998 peace deal, known as the Good Friday Agreement, subdued the violence in Northern Ireland, but it did not resolve the underlying sectarian conflict that propelled it. Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom. “Unionists” or “loyalists” — who tend to identify as Protestant and as British — want it to remain that way. “Nationalists” or “republicans” — who tend to identify as Catholic and Irish — want a united Ireland. The peace between these factions was facilitated by a tangentially related circumstance: Both the United Kingdom and Ireland had by then joined the European Union. This arrangement ensured uninhibited trade across the border, helping to render it virtually invisible and placating many Irish nationalists with circumstances they deemed acceptable if not ideal.

At the time the peace agreement was signed, however, a different movement was growing across the Irish Sea in England: a skepticism of the European Union, bubbling up among voters on both ends of the political spectrum but embraced in particular by the conservative hard right. As populist, nationalist parties grew in strength across Europe and much of the globe, this skepticism culminated in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Few of the hard-line politicians who advocated Brexit seemed to consider the consequences their push to “take back control” would have on the delicate peace in Northern Ireland or, for that matter, on the cohesion of the United Kingdom itself. In the more than three years since the referendum, the matter of Northern Ireland has presented a unique and treacherous stumbling block to any agreement between the British government and the European Union on the terms of withdrawal. How would the United Kingdom “take back control” of its borders without hardening the Irish border, thereby endangering the Good Friday Agreement? However this question was answered, one side or the other in the sectarian divide was bound to be upset.

On Dec. 12, voters in the United Kingdom gave Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party a sweeping parliamentary majority based on his pledge to “get Brexit done.” His success, attributable in part to the electorate’s sheer exhaustion with the Brexit limbo, means the United Kingdom will almost certainly leave the European Union by Jan. 31. This occasion, however, will by no means bring closure to a United Kingdom that has become so deeply fractured — not only along party lines but also by geography — that many people predict the most salient and enduring consequence will be a kind of monumental self-immolation: the breakup of the United Kingdom itself.

As if to illustrate the volatility of the matter, Robert pulled up to a mural on the Protestant side of the wall. Murals are ubiquitous on both sides of the divide, sanctifying former combatants who are invariably considered coldblooded murderers on the opposite side. This one, repainted around the time of the Brexit referendum, depicted Stephen McKeag, a commander in the U.D.A. known as Top Gun, against a cloudy sky, as if floating in heaven. “If you believe the stories you hear, he was one of the ones who won most of the trophies, what they call a trophy for the amount of people he has supposed to have allegedly killed,” Robert told me. McKeag, indeed known as one of the U.D.A.’s most lethal assassins, died in 2000 of a drug overdose. “Remember With Pride,” the mural read. Several tourists snapped photos. Robert got out of the van and shook hands with another tour guide, a man who looked much like him, with a bald head and dark sunglasses. “Thirty years ago, we would have been trying to kill each other,” Robert said. The other guide, apparently a republican ex-combatant, nodded in agreement. They exchanged a few niceties. Robert got back in the van.

“We’re friendly, but we don’t fully trust each other,” Robert said, his tone quickly changing. He showed me a picture on his phone of the same man at a militant republican parade. He then showed me a video, taken the previous month, outside a wake for a former member of the Irish National Liberation Army, or I.N.L.A., a Marxist republican paramilitary group formed in 1974. The I.N.L.A. ostensibly decommissioned its weapons along with other paramilitary groups as part of the peace process. The video, however, showed six men in balaclavas. One of them carried an assault rifle. They lined up in formation, and the gunman fired several shots into the sky. The mourners applauded.

Robert pointed to the soaring twin steeples of a Catholic cathedral on the other side of the wall. The shots had been fired around there just a few weeks earlier, he said. “That’s why I say these guys have never gone away,” he added. “That’s why we don’t trust each other.” As long as people on this side of the wall felt threatened, he said, loyalist paramilitaries would remain. “You think we’re going to go away?”

While British euro-skepticism is far from new, its culmination in Brexit represents the most tangible manifestation yet of the re-emergence of the nationalist strains in Europe — and beyond — that the European Union was meant to temper. The British conservatives who advocated Brexit acted partly under pressure from the far-right U.K. Independence Party, which under its former leader Nigel Farage grew more popular in the years leading up to the referendum with a staunchly pro-Brexit, anti-immigration platform. Implicit in the “take back control” message employed by the “Brexiteers” were themes promoted by populist-right movements everywhere: a reassertion of national sovereignty coupled with the claim that only those who advocate this represent the true will of the people against a globalized elite. As far-right parties have risen across Europe, Brexit has provided them a concrete victory — and it’s possibly not the last, as such parties in countries like Italy, France and Hungary seek to corrode the European Union from within.

The more immediate consequence of Brexit, however, may be not the dissolution of the European Union but the dissolution of the United Kingdom. Brexit and Boris Johnson’s decisive election victory were propelled primarily by voters in England. The United Kingdom, however, is made up of three additional smaller countries — Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — that contain nationalist movements of another sort. In Scotland and Northern Ireland in particular, left-wing nationalist parties perceive the source of unwanted foreign meddling to emanate from London rather than from Brussels. Majorities of people in Scotland and Northern Ireland, in fact, cast ballots in favor of remaining in the European Union, and many of these voters now see Brexit as a reason to split from the United Kingdom. This is particularly the case in Scotland, where the pro-independence Scottish National Party, or S.N.P., won a landslide victory in December. When Scotland held a referendum on independence from the United Kingdom in 2014, 55 percent of voters elected to remain. Now, in light of Brexit, the S.N.P. is calling for another referendum. Polls suggest the result would be much closer now. “Independence is coming,” Ian Blackford, the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party in the British Parliament, said during a debate there in October. “We will take our place as a proud European nation.”

In Northern Ireland, Brexit is stirring up an especially volatile brew. Sectarian tensions have been roiling in one form or another since at least the 17th century, when King James I encouraged the migration of Protestant colonists from Scotland and England to the northern Irish province of Ulster, where they enjoyed special privileges. An act of the British Parliament in 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, led to Ireland’s partition, creating a Protestant-majority Northern Ireland. Catholic grievances over discrimination fueled animosities that helped precipitate the Troubles. By the time of the Good Friday Agreement, some 3,600 people had been killed and tens of thousands injured. The peace deal created a power-sharing system of government, but it did not bring reconciliation. Currently, the two largest parties elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly are Sinn Fein — once the I.R.A.’s political wing — and the socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party, or D.U.P., which advocates continued union with Britain. The partisan rift between them has been so great that the assembly has not fully convened for nearly three years. Many people in Northern Ireland, exhausted with the sectarian paradigm, have tried to move beyond it; this is evident from the recent growth of the cross-community Alliance Party.

Still, the sectarian rift remains palpable in much of daily life, influencing everything from which soccer team locals support to the everyday language they use. Many Irish nationalists, for example, refer to Northern Ireland as “the North of Ireland.” Schools in Northern Ireland remain mostly segregated along religious lines, and children often learn disparate versions of history. Attempts to administer justice for past atrocities seem only to deepen divisions. A former British paratrooper known to the public as Soldier F is now on trial on charges of murdering two people during the massacre known as Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British troops opened fire on unarmed Catholic demonstrators in Londonderry, killing 13 that day. For many Irish nationalists, the trial is painfully belated and woefully insufficient. Many loyalists, however, see it as a witch hunt, and it’s not uncommon to see flags celebrating Soldier F’s parachute regiment fluttering in loyalist strongholds.

Sectarian tensions are most evident in the so-called interface areas, urban working-class neighborhoods where Catholic and Protestant communities live in proximity but often barely interact. In addition to the physical walls of separation — of which there are some 100 in Belfast alone — territory in such neighborhoods is demarcated by paramilitary flags hung by front doors or sometimes by painted curbs, either in the colors of the Union Jack or the Irish tricolor. Residents in these areas often avoid patronizing shops located on what is deemed enemy turf, even if they have to walk farther to buy what they want. These communities live “cheek by jowl, but in separate worlds,” John Brewer, a sociologist at Queen’s University Belfast, told me. Publicly funded cross-community programs for youths in these areas aim to bridge the rift. But poverty and unemployment in interface areas tend to be high, leaving many young men hopeless and vulnerable to radicalization. Rioting and violent clashes in these areas are not uncommon.

Attitudes on Brexit, too, largely fall along sectarian lines. A majority of Protestants in Northern Ireland — 60 percent — voted to leave the European Union, according to one survey, and the D.U.P., long skeptical of the European Union, backed Brexit. A majority of Catholics — 85 percent — voted to stay, a position also backed by Sinn Fein, in great part because many people feared that Brexit would result in a hardening of the Irish border. The fate of that border presented the main obstacle in negotiations between successive British conservative governments and the European Union on a withdrawal agreement. The European Union, mindful that a hard border would undermine the Good Friday Agreement and quite possibly lead to violence, wanted a deal that avoided customs checks at the border. In October, Boris Johnson found a partial solution by agreeing to a new customs border in the Irish Sea, between Britain and Northern Ireland; this means checks on goods traveling within the United Kingdom instead of on the Irish border. But hard-line unionists have been outraged by the deal, with some calling it the “betrayal act.” English conservatives, they believe, have abandoned Northern Ireland and endangered its place in the United Kingdom. At the same time, many Irish nationalists, though relieved that the immediate prospect of a hard Irish border has faded, have nevertheless been so angered by the uncertainty of the last years that they see continued membership in the United Kingdom as less tenable than ever.

Passions around Brexit are heated across the United Kingdom, but nowhere are the stakes potentially higher than in Northern Ireland. A 2015 report on paramilitaries drafted in part by MI5, the United Kingdom’s domestic intelligence agency, said that all the main paramilitary groups that operated during the Troubles remain intact; moreover, not all their weapons were decommissioned. The report’s authors considered it very unlikely that these paramilitaries would return to political violence, but the fact that they continue to hold on to weapons just in case seemed to underscore the fragility of the peace. At the same time, some so-called dissident republican groups have continued, since the Good Friday Agreement, to launch violent attacks in the name of achieving a united Ireland. The police judge the terrorist threat from these groups, including one calling itself the New I.R.A., to be “severe.” Dissident republicans have tried to use anger over Brexit as a rallying cry to win new recruits. Amid the confusion and bitterness sparked by Brexit, one thing seems clear: Northern Ireland’s delicate, hard-won equilibrium has been upset, and the consequences are potentially grave.

The headquarters of Saoradh, a small, self-declared political party whose name means “liberation” in Irish, is on a narrow street in Londonderry, Northern Ireland’s second-largest city, close to the Irish border. A mural on the facade of the building pretty well encapsulates the group’s outlook: It shows a masked paramilitary soldier wielding a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher under the slogan “Unfinished Revolution.” Northern Irish police officers say Saoradh is inextricably linked to the New I.R.A.

Inside the headquarters one afternoon in July, a thin and meticulously coiffed 27-year-old named Paddy Gallagher introduced himself to me as the party’s national press officer. While Saoradh calls itself a party, it does not engage in electoral politics, because this, as Gallagher put it, would mean becoming part of the “British infrastructure.” The party consists of “disaffected republicans,” he said, who “don’t believe the signing of the Good Friday Agreement was a good thing.” I asked him if the peace the agreement made possible wasn’t a good thing. He objected to the premise that such a peace exists. “The ongoing struggle for Irish unification and freedom hasn’t ended,” he said; people remain “willing and capable of carrying out acts of resistance.” He then provided an example: A few weeks earlier, a bomb was placed under a police officer’s car in Belfast. This was true. The officer spotted the bomb before getting in his car at a golf club, and it was safely defused; the New I.R.A. claimed responsibility. “I would assume that it was intended to kill that member of the British crown forces,” Gallagher told me.

On other occasions, the New I.R.A., which was formed in 2012, has killed intended targets. It claimed responsibility for attacks that killed two prison officers: a man named David Black, who was shot dead in 2012 in his car on the way to work, and Adrian Ismay, who died in 2016 after a bomb exploded under his van. The New I.R.A. killing that sparked the most attention and outrage came one night last April, during a republican riot in a Londonderry neighborhood called Creggan; when a masked rioter fired shots in the direction of an armored police vehicle, a bullet struck and killed Lyra McKee, a 29-year-old journalist who had arrived on the scene to report on the riot. A few days later, the New I.R.A. released a statement to a local newspaper saying that its volunteers were engaging “British crown forces” when McKee was “tragically killed,” depicting her death as collateral damage. Police officers later raided Saoradh’s headquarters as part of their investigation into the shooting, though no one has yet been charged with McKee’s murder. When I visited Creggan, I found signs posted on street lamps warning people not to cooperate with the police. “Informers will be shot,” read one of them, signed by the “I.R.A.”

Gallagher denied that Saoradh supports or has had links to the New I.R.A. — or any other armed groups — though he did not disavow their violent methods. “The Irish people can use any and all means necessary to achieve Irish freedom, whether it’s armed struggle or not,” he said. “The party believes that is up to the Irish people.” Gallagher spoke as if observing events his party played no active part in. The effect was menacing, particularly when he talked about the possibility that Brexit would result in a hard Irish border. “If there is a hard border in Ireland, and it is a manned or fixed installation, I can only assume it would be attacked,” he said, just as such installations were in the past.

Sinn Fein — the party that represents mainstream republicanism and whose leaders participated in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement — has offered a stark political response to the anger Brexit has fomented. Enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement is the “principle of consent,” which means that the people of Northern Ireland have a right to decide to which nation they want to belong. The demographics of Northern Ireland have been steadily shifting, and within the decade, a majority of its people will be Catholic, making the prospect of a united Ireland seem almost inevitable. This population shift is evident in election results that increasingly favor nationalists; in the United Kingdom parliamentary election in December, voters in Northern Ireland elected more nationalist representatives than unionist representatives for the first time in the country’s hundred-year history. Now Brexit has provided an opportunity for Sinn Fein to argue that the time to make that choice is near.

In July, I met Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Fein’s vice president, in her cavernous office in Northern Ireland’s palatial Parliament building. Brexit, she told me, had changed the paradigm in Northern Ireland, necessitating a referendum on Irish unity. Northern Ireland, she said, should not be dragged out of the European Union against its will. She seemed eager to assure not only her base but also the moderate unionists who voted to remain in the European Union and who might swing such a referendum. “I want to see a united Ireland,” O’Neill said. “But it has to be an inclusive Ireland. It has to be one where those who have an Irish identity and those who have a British identity feel part and parcel, feel that they have their place, and it’s valued and cherished.”

This seemed a shrewd political approach. But Northern Ireland’s history often reads like a case study in how the most extreme elements in the society can wreak undue havoc. Northern Irish police officers have warned that the threat from violent dissident republican groups remains severe even without the prospect of a hard Irish border. On the other side of the divide, many are outraged in the belief that the prospect of militant republican violence drove Boris Johnson and the European Union to keep the Irish border open at the expense of Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.

After Johnson’s deal was announced, a few hundred loyalists, including reputed paramilitary members, met in East Belfast to discuss how they should respond to their perceived betrayal. Following the meeting, Jamie Bryson, a self-described “loyalist activist,” told local reporters that the Brexit deal would be met with mass resistance. “One of the main reasons we were told there can be no border on the island of Ireland is because dissident republicans may attack it, but yet there’s been no consideration given to the loyalist community on how people may react to a border down the Irish Sea,” Bryson told a reporter from The Belfast Telegraph. “I don’t think anyone in loyalism wants to see violence. But obviously there’s a lot of anger at the minute.”

On a June evening in East Belfast, a group of men belonging to a Protestant fraternal organization called the Orange Order gathered at their meeting place in a red-brick Victorian hall for a special occasion: the unveiling of a new parade banner. The Orange Order is a staunchly unionist organization founded in 1795 and is named after William of Orange, the Protestant king who in the late 17th century took the throne after King James II, a Catholic, was deposed in the Glorious Revolution. Every year in Northern Ireland, Orangemen — who number around 30,000 — conduct thousands of parades, and they’ve been staging them for centuries. The biggest day of parading falls on July 12, a Protestant celebration that marks William’s decisive victory over James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and on the eve of the holiday, unionists light large bonfires. These parades were historically seen as a display of Protestant supremacy, and they frequently led to sectarian clashes. Today they usually go off peacefully, though often under a heavy police presence. Orangemen say the parades are an innocent expression of their culture. Many nationalists still view them as intimidating.

This particular lodge, called the Young Men’s Christian Total Abstinence Loyal Orange Lodge 747, consisted, contrary to its name, largely of older gentlemen who wore suits and ties along with the orange sashes worn by Orangemen. The abstinence in this case was real — the men drank juice out of wineglasses — and the event began with the singing of a hymn. Then the parade banner, which had been covered with a white sheet, was unveiled, revealing a depiction of William of Orange atop a white horse at the Battle of the Boyne. The men applauded the banner, put on their bowler hats and filed out into the street, where a neatly uniformed marching band awaited. The drummers snapped and pounded, the flutists piped and the men marched their new banner past the brick rowhouses and storefronts of East Belfast, a working-class stronghold blighted in parts by poverty. The Orangemen strutted past homes decorated with flags of loyalist paramilitaries and murals showing armed paramilitary men in balaclavas. It made for a somewhat jarring juxtaposition, seeing men of such apparent decorum pass such harsh images. The Orangemen ended their march with a rendition of “God Save the Queen.”

Back inside the hall, as they dined on plates of roast beef and potatoes, a Presbyterian minister named Mervyn Gibson, the grand secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, approached the lectern. “Today some are trying to bribe us out of the United Kingdom by claiming to offer us a better lifestyle in the Republic of Ireland,” he said. Gibson seemed to be referring to arguments that the Northern Ireland economy would flourish within a united Ireland. “Our loyalty and identity are not about economics,” Gibson went on, “not something to be bartered or traded.” Those now threatening a referendum on Irish unity, he added, were the same people who “tried to bomb and murder us out of the United Kingdom. They failed then, and they’ll fail again,” he said, and then concluded: “We’re born British, we’ll remain British, we’ll die British.” The men of the lodge responded: “Hear! Hear!”

The key question, it seemed, was how far these men would go to remain British. On another occasion, Gibson told me he would accept a democratic vote for Irish unity it if it came to that. Others, however, are more strident. Many loyalists feel a sense of decline as Catholics have gained more rights and upward mobility; young loyalist men in interface areas who used to be guaranteed factory jobs by virtue of their identity now face high unemployment and a sense that their standing in society has eroded. Such grievances seem to only reinforce people’s sense of identity. Loyalist paramilitaries feed off this to gain recruits, though according to the police, these groups are more often involved in organized crime than in politics. Still, in East Belfast, I observed how one paramilitary — the U.V.F. — had the capacity to stir up sectarian passions.

Last summer, in advance of the July 12 celebrations, members of Belfast’s republican-led City Council voted to remove a pyre made of wooden pallets in East Belfast — set up for the coming bonfire night — saying it was illegally on city property, namely the parking lot of a recreation center. Local loyalists responded angrily and vowed not to allow the city to remove the pyre, resulting in a standoff that, for days, became the main news story in town. At a demonstration one evening that drew hundreds of people to the site of the pyre, I met a number of masked young men who told me they were protecting the pyre from being dismantled. Jamie Bryson, the loyalist activist, spoke to the crowd. “Standing exposed tonight is the actual agenda of Belfast City Council,” he said. “And it is the total demolition of every aspect of Protestant unionist and loyalist culture,” he went on. “We will not have it!” This inspired a fervent round of applause. “No surrender!” shouted a woman next to me who wore a shirt that said “Me Wrong?” on it. “This is British land, and it will stay British land,” she then told me.

Police officers said the standoff was whipped up by the U.V.F. In a letter to the City Council, the police warned that any attempt to remove the pyre would “cause a severe, violent confrontation, orchestrated by the U.V.F.” and that the “use of firearms during such disorder cannot be ruled out.” Ultimately, the police did not move in. This was, Bryson later wrote in an online newsletter, a “momentous and hugely symbolic victory within the context of the larger cultural war.”

On the bonfire night, I went to another pyre on a barren plot next to a peace wall in West Belfast, where my tour guide, Robert, had taken me. As the sky slowly darkened, a D.J. played pulsing techno. Drunken teenagers milled around. A small, impromptu marching band of revelers formed. They sang a U.V.F. tune at the top of their lungs: “On my gravestone, carve a simple message: ‘Here lies a soldier of the U.V.F.’ ” I spoke to one woman among them who told me that this was all in good fun, just an expression of loyalist culture. But you couldn’t help noticing that the pyre that was about to be lit had been bedecked with flags of the Republic of Ireland.

______

James Angelos is a contributing writer for the magazine based in Berlin. He last wrote about anti-Semitism in Germany. Ivor Prickett is an Irish photographer. He was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in breaking-news photography for his coverage of battles in Mosul and Raqqa.

[lavendersoft]

Until I met you.

-Street fighter!Jimin x Reader

2/?

Synopsis: While on a date for their 2nd anniversary, Jimin loses Yoongi while being attacked in an alleyway by a robber. Yoongi sacrificed himself for his lover and Jimin could never forgive himself for not being able to do the same. The survivor’s guilt ate away at him over the months and it definitely didn’t help that he saw Yoongi’s face everywhere. In mirrors, dreams, large crowds, on trains, and even when he closed his eyes. Although, Jimin found a way to cope. He began a rigorous training schedule. Boxing, self-defense classes, Tae Kwon Do, he even started street fighting and got caught up with bad people. Anything and everything. His hands would bleed, his muscles would ache, his bones would break. Jimin was offered multiple full scholarships to prestigious martial arts schools for his talent, all of which Jimin turned down. He didn’t want to make a career out of this, he just didn’t want to be haunted by his dead fiancé. The only time Yoongi wouldn’t haunt every moment of Jimin’s life was when he’s training, as if Yoongi is saying “I won’t rest, nor will I let you rest, until you’re stronger.” Jimin will never lose anyone that he loves again.

Everything felt like a downward spiral,

until he met you.

Warnings: (There’s a lot- and it’s kinda dark, be warned) PTSD, implied schizophrenia (sorta? take that with a grain of salt), PTSD induced delusions/hallucinations, depression, paranoia, night terrors, character death, major angst, unhealthy coping mechanisms, masochism(?), alcoholism, minor gore, mention of drug abuse, mention of blood, mention of sexual assault/ harassment, mention of asylums, profanity, Jimin goes through one hell of a mental breakdown.

Author’s notes: super slow burn :/ basically, in which jimin copes with the traumatic incident of his fiancé’s brutal murder by street fighting. this story isn’t yandere but has dark themes.

“I gave her your number.”

Jimin almost spits out his gator aid in shock.

“You what?!”

The two friends had been kickboxing for two hours now and decided to take a break.

“She’s, like, really into you.”

Jimin’s sighs. He appreciates his friend but a relationship is the last thing he needs at the moment.

It hasn’t even been a year yet.

“And you’re really into her. You’re just the only one that can’t see it.” Jungkook states.

“What are you talking about?” Jimin is genuinely surprised.

“You were oogling over her all night, dude. It was so obvious. Like, you blushed. You actually blushed! I haven’t seen you look at someone like that since-“ Jungkook catches himself before he says the name, Jimin’s glare daring him to go on.

It was true, Jimin knew that. There was something about her, the way she presented herself, the manner in which she spoke, the slight light-hearted sarcastic comments. Something reminded Jimin of Yoongi.

“I’m not ready for another relationship, okay? Just drop it.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrow into slits of suspicion.

“Have you been seeing Dr. Bang lately?” The air around Jimin becomes thin at the mention of his therapist.

“Not in a while.”

“What about your meds? Have you had your anti-depressant refilled?”

“No.”

Jungkook sighs, his head hanging low.

“Seriously?”

“I’m not a child, Jungkook.” Jimin scolds. He finishes the conversation by standing and heading towards the shower, leaving a sulking Jungkook.

That night Jimin doesn’t get much sleep. His mind kept wandering over to her face. The way her eyes lit up when he spoke to her. How her voice got a bit louder when talking about dancing.

He used the be that passionate. Now he spends all of his time fighting. He had no time- or need- for passion.

The chime of his phone brings him out of his thoughts.

11:30? Who the hell is texting me at 11:30?

Unknown: Hey, is this Jimin?

Jimin: yeah? Who’s this?

Unknown: It’s Y/n. We met last night?

His heart jumps.

Jimin: Oh, yeah, of course! how are you?

Unknown: I’m great! I was just wondering if you wanted to go see Singin’ in the Rain the musical? I was given two tickets by my dance instructor and just thought since you have a background in dance..? It’s @ 7:00 tomorrow night.

A date? Like an actual date? Without other people? For romantic purposes and not meaningless hookups?

Jimin: Sorry. I’m working.

A lie. He doesn’t even have a job. He lost it months ago, when he started fighting for money.

Unknown: oh, that’s okay. :)

Jimin’s eyes can’t leave his phone screen. They start to burn since the bright screen is such a sharp contrast to his dark room.

Should I...?

He shakes his head and turns off his phone to try to get as much shut-eye as he could, the rancid smell of lingering alcohol surrounding him.

—

The next morning is the normal routine- he gets up, showers, eats, grabs a beer, and makes his way to the gym.

He hits the punching bag just a little harder than usual, though.

Her face doesn’t leave his mind. Her disappointment emits through the last text she sent. He wants to go. He really does.

But he can’t. It’s dangerous. She’s already been able to take over his thoughts in such a short amount of time. No one’s been able to captivate his mind so quickly since... him.

He won’t let himself go down that hole.

-

Y/n: Awesome! I’ll see you tonight then!

Yes. He texted her. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a play. A play he’s wanted to see since he was little.

That’s the only reason he’s going.

They’ve decided to meet at the theater, for that Jimin was grateful. It would save him the awkward first pickup that he’s had to do so many times.

He waits at the entrance door for her, albeit a bit impatiently. It looks as if it’s about to start raining and everyone else is entering and taking their seats already.

She’s late. He hates when people are late. If he had his ticket he probably would have gone in without her. His hands stuffed in his pockets, his foot tapping the ground lightly. He sighs. If she’s not here in the next two-

“Hey, Jimin. You look nice.”

He turns to the sound of the pleasantly soft voice. She’s wearing a black velvet, formfitting slip dress.

No, she looks nice. Better than nice, even. If he were the old Jimin, he would have told her that.

But he’s not, so he only nods in acknowledgment.

“Thank you.”  

He hopes she doesn't notice the healing bruise on his left cheekbone. He doesn't think it's noticeable but yet again, he's desensitized to wounds like such.

They take their seats and to Jimin’s pleasant surprise, they’re close to the front. He can see the entire stage perfectly. When the lights dim and the show starts, he feels entranced. He forgot how much he used to love music. He hasn't listened to a full song on his own time since he gave up dancing. He finds himself almost jealous of the way the actors float across the stage as they dance.

Glancing over, he finds Y/n just as engaged. Her eyes all but sparkle in awe, a small smile etches her face as she watches intently.

She’s glowing.

The play ends too early for Jimin’s liking. He wishes he had a longer opportunity to study her facial expressions more. He doesn't know why she fascinates him so much.

“You hungry?” Her question catches him off guard at first, her eyes meeting his own.

“I could eat.”

“Great. I know a cute little place not too far from here.”

-

The food was gross.

Jimin didn’t care. He didn't care about much these days anyway. She seemed to enjoy it though, so he couldn't say it was a total waste. The way her eyes lit up before closing in delight, humming softly when she spooned in another bite.

“So good.”

“Yeah.” He barely registered the smile that crept upon his face in utter amusement.

She’s pretty cute, I guess.

Then the passing thought jerked Jimin’s attention away.

He’s- no, it’s not here. It’s always here? It’s always lingering somewhere... but...

“You lookin’ for someone?” She questions, although her tone is light.

“No. I’ve just never been here so I’m taking in the ambiance.” It wasn't a total lie. Sure, the food wasn't the best but he’d ordered a glass of wine to compensate for that. Beyond that, the restaurant itself was cozy. It featured fairy lights and wooden fixtures. Various types of greenery adorned the walls and he had a direct view of the patio, which had a fireplace and a decorated oak tree that grew from the cracked pavement. He had to admit that was kind of cool.

“Well, hows the first impression?” She inquires.

“It’s cute, like you said.”

Jimin doesn't know how she talked him into letting herself walk him home, as if he needed a chaperone. But he doesn't argue, he’s too tired- and tipsy- for that.

They turn down the alley that he usually uses as a short-cut. There are always shady men that like to loiter around here but Jimin never pays them any mind. No sane person that knows anything about Demon wouldn't try anything fresh.

Apparently, these guys are new around here.

“Hey, baby, you’re lookin’ like a good fuck tonight. God damn.” A particularly tall man that looks unshowered comments, looking Y/n up and down with a predatory gaze. His equally gross friends become confident enough to start making their own distasteful comments.

Jimin can feel the anger start to boil.

Right as his feet stop walking, she grabs his hand to urge him forward.

“It’s not worth it. Let’s go.” Her eyes seem so desperate and pleading that it satiates his anger, if only for a second. Jimin notices that she hasn't even acknowledged the stranger.

Why won't she just tell him she's not interested so he’ll leave her alone?

His thoughts are interrupted when he hears the sharp sound of a hand slap on fabric.

“Damn, baby. That ass is incredible.”

He touched her. He touched her.

“Hey! Who the hell do you thi-” She’s interrupted by a flash of blond hair placing itself between her and the man. Jimin grabs the stranger by the throat and pushes him against the brick wall of the alley. The man’s eyes alight with fear and regret upon finding the strength that the smaller man had stocked away in his more petite frame.

“I think you owe her an apology.”

But the man is stubborn, unfortunately for him.

“Go fuck yourself, asshole. Your girlfriend’s a nasty whore anywa-” He doesn't get the chance to even breath before Jimin lands a hard punch to his jaw.

He felt the string snap. The same string that snaps when he’s in the ring. He sees nothing but red. He hears nothing but the sound his heart thumping in his ears.

The blood flies around him, his focus is only on one thing. Punch after punch, hit after hit, Jimin continues.

Jimin’s knuckles start to ache, his muscles are strained. He really does want to kill this man. He really does.

He probably might have if she hadn't stepped in front of him, her hands on his face.

“Jimin.”

Her face is confident, maybe a bit stern even. But anyone could see that she was concerned.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. Let’s go, come on.” She takes his bruising hand, easing him away, her eyes refusing to leave his.

Jimin is still dazed on the walk home but still manages to give her the directions to his house. The first thing she asks for when he unlocked to door was the first aid kit- and proceeded to clean his hands.

No one ever cleaned his wounds after a fight. He’s always had to do it himself.

He observed how her facial expressions would switch from concentrated to relaxed as she proceeded. Then a smirk crossed her face.

“You stare a lot, you know that?” She finishes wrapping his second hand and places in on his lap.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She was so relaxed around him, something Jimin wasn’t used to. “I think you broke his jaw. Not like he didn’t deserve it, though.”

“What happened to the other guys?” Jimin was curious. In his fury, when everything was a blur, he didn’t even realize that the other’s weren’t participating in the fight.

“They bolted as soon as you threw the first punch. All talk, I guess.” She responds with an amused grin.

“Why didn't you tell them?” It comes off a bit more accusatory than he expected.

“What?”

“Why didn't you tell them to fuck off, to stop, anything?”

Her eyes are locked on his wrapped hand in thought before she responds.

“People like them don’t listen, Jimin. Sometimes it’s just safer to ignore.”

Y/n took the silence that comes after as an opportunity to look around Jimin’s apartment. It was small but not cramped. In fact, there was barely anything in the house at all.

Jimin had gotten rid of anything that even remotely reminded him of Yoongi. Everything except-

“Who’s this?”

“Don’t-“ Jimin catches himself before he snatches the picture back from her hands. Instead, he places a hand nervously on the back of his neck, “Um- that’s just.. uh-“

Sensing his discomfort, she places the picture frame back on the shelf where she found it. The picture featured Jimin with his arms wrapped around his blonde boyfriend, a bit too close to be less than lovers.

He visibly sighs in relief.

“That’s my... my f-” The word gets stuck in his throat, refusing to budge.

“Friend. He died not too long ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you two close?” Her tone was nothing but sympathetic.

Jimin doesn’t understand the sudden irritation that arises in him. It was a simple, innocent question.

Were they close? Were they close??

“Yes.” He doesn’t realize that he’s been subconsciously playing with the ring on his left hand, “We were very close.”

Jimin doesn’t like newcomers. He hasn’t since Yoongi died. In fact, no one new has even entered his home in months. He doesn’t trust people, because they all leave. He didn’t even like Jungkook’s girlfriend at first, but he got used to her after a while. Jimin used to love meeting new friends, he was the most sociable person out of the group. But he was different from what he used to be. New friends, new relationships aren’t worth it.

His mind flashes to the faces of all the people he’s “dated” in the past six months. All the hearts he’s broken because he can’t return their romantic feelings. All the women who he’s made cry after fucking and ditching them. All the men he’s been yelled at for leading them on. But he doesn’t care.

No one stays, so why make yourself vulnerable to someone that’s not going to be there forever?

He knows it’s only a matter of time before she leaves, too.

“And you want to call yourself a good person? Bullshit.” Jimin gulps.

“Playing with people’s emotions is only something a monster would do. You’re evil. Weak and evil.” The dark growl sounds from behind him, a cold hand is placed on the back of his neck. Jimin’s breath quickens.

“Hey,” She steps forward, and the cold feeling from behind him disappears and it’s replaced with something warmer. Her. 

“Are you okay?” Her face is filled with worry. She must have sensed Jimin’s impending panic. Her hand is on his chest now, it’s comforting. She has to be able to feel his racing heartbeat.

“Yeah, sorry. Just bad memories is all.” He takes a quick, nonchalant look behind him.

But Yoongi’s not there this time.

[thebibliomancer]

Dark Crystal Age of Resistance ep 7 liveblog

“Time to Make… My Move”

Life got busy for a while and then I forgot to watch and then I remembered the game existed and I bought it and I played it and got to the point in the plot where I left off and realized crap I’d better get the plot from the show not the game, the game hasn’t been stellar with story.

So here we are!

Just a stream of thoughts.

And we start with vomiting Hup. Okay then. Good place to pick up.

Rian: “How could so much come out of one little podling?”

“The most beautiful desert flowers are always the most dangerous” This Dousan guy is a flirt!

Hup: -vomits-

Hah.

I like this desert with its random crystal spikes. Its very cool. Its got a lot of lightning which hits the sand and turns it into glass I guess.

The Circle of the Suns.

Uh oh lightning sandstorm

Lore: ‘i’m getting outta here!’ grabs brea and tries to climb up the mountain.

Brea: ‘don’t split the party my dude’

The CGI of Lore climbing the mountain looks a little stop motiony which makes me feel better about it being CGI.

Rian: “Well that was exciting” the anti-Jen.

I think Jen would have curled into an overstimulation ball by this point.

Heretic: “GELFLING”

Me: “SKEKSIS!”

Heretic: “WELCOME”

Heretic: “ITS WONDERFUL TO SEE YOU! LOOK UPON MY WONDER”

I like him

Hey, Heretic is Lore’s dad. Nice.

RIan: “You’re a Skeksis”

HERETIC: “I’M A WHAT??!?? THAT WAS A JEST! I’M A FUN SKEKSIS!”

I like him!

Heretic: “COME INSIDE AND BRING YOUR PODLING SLAVE”

Deet: “He’s not our slave, he’s our friend!”

Heretic: “????? EVEN BETTER”

He used to be the Conqueror and I could see it.

Heretic: “WELCOME TO THE CIRCLE OF THE SUUUN” -maniacally laughs for like a minute-

Rian: “Are you alone here?”

Heretic: “YES I AM ALONE so very alone BUT I’M ALSO WITH MYSELF”

Oh hey an UrRu

I think this is the first time any Gelfling has met an UrRu and they apparently they thought they were just legend.

Heretic losing his shit as UrGoh slowly walks over and slowly introduces himself.

UrGoh is apparently the Yakov Smirnov of Mystics.

Aw he’s shutting down Lore 

Lore hugs Brea goodbye

Heretic: “HMMPH HE NEVER HUGGED ME LIKE THAT BUT WHY SHOULD HE WE ONLY GAVE HIM LIFE”

And pulls out his shiny life ball.

Hup is not having a good time here.

Heretic: “WE HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU”

Brea: “We don’t really have time for a surprise”

Heretic: “WE HAVE WAITED OVER THREE HUNDRED TRINE FOR YOU TO SHOW UP! YOU WILL BE SURPRISED!!”

So over at the castle of the crystal, apparently the Skeksis have a hotline telephone webline right to the arathim. Not sure why since they’re apparently the sworn enemy of the Skeksis

OH SWEET the arathim are like a hive mind and form a big talking face to talk to the Emperor.

THis is really cool and creepy puppetry. 

Oh so the Arathim Ascendency were banished into the wild and been labelled public enemy one because they rose up against the Skeksis. So they were really just ahead of the curve.

The Emperor promises to return the arathim home cave to them if the arathim help quell the gelfling rebellion.

Deet: -almost eats some drug berries-

Rian: “Maybe don’t”

Poor Deet. I don’t think she’s had time to really adjust to the surface world before getting thrown into all kinds of misfortunes and mishaps.

Rian: “I think your nurloc rump dress is quite lovely” Aw, what a flirt!

I can see why the internet lost its shit over the Heretic and the Wanderer. They’re a delight.

Heretic is going to present THE TRUE HISTORY OF THRA

Aw poor Hup, he’s been press ganged into being an actor and Heretic has endless notes on his performance. Poor guy.

Hmm… what conquest could the Conqueror conquer if the Skeksis were seen as the rightful caretakers of Thra? What did the world look like in his prime?

Maybe the arathim maybe.

Then Thra gave urGoh and the Heretic a vision that Skeksis and UrRu should unite not divide. And the other Skeksis were like ‘gross’ and kicked him out.

They don’t mention what the Mystics said. Probably ‘lets not get ahead of ourselves.’

Heretic and Wanderer do an opera. Which is RANDOM VOCALIZING.

Emperor: “The Darkening!”

General: “Its purple”

Oh the arathim cave is infected with the Darkening so the Emperor is screwing them over. How expected.

Oh nerts the emperor thinks he can control the darkening eventually-

PUT YOUR NOSE BAACK ON SIR I DO NOT CARE FOR THIS

Emperor: “Never forget, there is absolutely nothing in this world which does not bend to my will”

If he’s messing with dark corruptive power no wonder he aged like crap and died before the other core group of Skeksis.

Oh double nerts, the Hunter is in the desert chasing down Rian.

Dousan flirt: “I’m not afraid of getting hacked to pieces by you”

His sidekick: “I AM, THEY’RE AT THE CIRCLE OF THE SUNS”

Deet is the only one who stayed awake through the whole opera. Aka the only one with TASTE

THEY’RE GOING TO DO PUPPETS

Puppets doing puppets how meta.

So they’re going over the plot reveal from the movie that the Skeksis and the UrRu used to be one. Hey they even have an UrSkek puppet. 

Also that the UrSkeks are aliens. 

They wooed Aughra with an orrery and then started doing experiments on the crystal. AND BROKE IT.

The worst house guests.

And then when the Skeksis started bullying the Mystics, they accidentally broke a shard off the crystal.

These are really good puppets that these puppets are puppeting.

UrGoh: “Every moment one is two is too terrible for one to bear”

Huh. Super special sword. The Dual Glaive. I guess since they can’t use the shard macguffin they need a different plot device.

Heretic: “Cast in the deepest fires of the inner sun, it carries the spirit of Thra. And when held by Gelfling holds the power to unite the seven clans and defeat the Skeksis!”

INNER SUN IS CANON

GIMME THURMA PLS

Pffft UrGoh accidentally set himself on fire the poor dear.

Rian just assumes that he’s the one who gets the plot sword. Pretty presumptive of him.

Heretic: “WE DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE THE DUAL GLAIVE”

They gave it to “the most reclusive of gelflings” where the three brothers dare not shine.

Deet: “oh hey its in my home”

Maudra Fara is planning to storm the castle. But a castle guard shows up and tells her that the castle guard were all killed by the skeksis

Fara promises to make the Skeksis pay.

Aughra: “Promises you cannot keep are no better than lies!”

Hello the all-wise buzzkill.

Fara: “No its cool after we overthrow the skeksis we’ll melt our weapons and have peace and stuff”

Aughra: “my point is that you should plot to survive you damn lemmings”

She’s not doing a good job convincing them to not try to fight because her suggestion is ‘go away and hide and a gelfling will eventually take care of things’

Also doesn’t help that she foretells that Stone-in-the-wood might fall and that just makes Fara indignant.

Oh no Tavra is getting chosen to be the ‘strong gelfling’ to be sacrificed to the arathim

She was too cool to live =(

UrGoh: “As   they   say……. Whats  good   in    the    gourd…… is    good    in    the    gelfling”

Heretic: “WHO SAYS THAT??”

UrGoh: “Every  one”

DAMMIT HUNTER WHY YOU BREAKING UP THIS COMEDY ACT much rude.

Hup stood up to the Hunter to protect Deet and whoops he’s light mass and got tossed

Hunter: “WHERES YOU FATHER NOW?”

Thats just a low blow.

Hey its the Archer! He’s come to shoot himself to save the others. That takes determination.

And Hunter runs off with Brea out of spite. What a dick.

Ooo near night sky in the desert of Thra is beautiful. Love the scenery.

And back at Stone-in-the-wood right when Maudra Fara is planning the castle attack on the war planning board the Skeksis General show up. WITH A WHOLE BUNCH OF SPIDERS

The General is kinda more extra than you’d think of him. I mean, all Skeksis are extra but I saw him as one of the more lowkey ones. Like a watered down Garthim-Master.

Huh. Princess Tavra is here. Looking… Oh no she’s speaking with the voice of the legion.

OH NO SHE’S MADE OF SPIDERS 

UNPLEASANT

I know these are dangerous spider monsters but they’re tiny and the Gelfling trying to stomp on them is kinda silly.

Then again I have minor arachnophobia so this is still working on me.

Oh gross the threader arathim borged the whole stone-in-the-wood village.

Wait, if they’re this dangerous how come they were a backwater problem this whole time?

One tries to get Aughra

Aughra: “What? You try to control Aughra? AUGHRA CAN BARELY CONTROL AUGHRA!” -yeets the spider-

That’s a mood.

Emperor: -watching the plot through a telescope- “lol”

[shipersanonymous]

Au

A West-Allen AU 💜

Worth more than gold

Iris West is a multi billionaire and heiress who’s emotionally scarring childhood has made her shut herself off to all possible emotional relationships. Her life takes an interesting turn when her adoptive grandfather passes away leaving her in charge of his fortune, including a share of S. T. A. R. Labs. While in Central City, she meets Barry Allen, an innocent and charmingly clumsy kind of guy with a high EQ who’s trying to climb his way up the science social ladder to become a recognized scientist. Can you guess his lab of choice?

Your average, every day, girl meets boy kinda story with a rags to riches twist, a dash of family drama, lots of angst and a love worth more than Au.

…………………………………………………………........

Author’s Note: 

Here we are! 

Au is finally making it’s way onto tumblr! I’m so excited! I’m gonna try to get tumblr updated by this week, so we’re all on the same schedule! Let’s do this!

XOXO

...................................................................................

WARNING : MAY CONTAIN CONTENT NOT SUITABLE FOR READERS UNDER THE AGE OF 18

*********** Cliffhanger Warning ***********

Chapter 1

Her hand rested on the cool glass of the floor to ceiling window as she overlooked the nightly view offered by her million dollar apartment. The sky was clear, not a single cloud concealed the sparkle of the stars that were dimmed only by the ever present Parisian city lights. The moon was full and white, its iridescent light bathed her naked body creating a picture out of shadows on her bare skin. Iris took a sip from her glass, the semi-sweet wine burning her tongue with a pleasant ardour before she swallowed and it heated her body from the inside out. Her latest boy toy came up from behind her, his body just as bare as hers, and wrapped his arms around her waist. He proceeded to leave a trail of kisses down her neck, savouring in the feel of her warm chocolaty skin against his lips and she simply took another sip of her drink, completely unfazed.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered on to her shoulders but she seemed unmoved by the compliment. With her stare trained on the city-scape bellow she simply said,

“It’s getting late.” Eddie knew what that meant, it was time for him to leave. It didn’t surprise him but even after months of this back and forth ritual between them it still hurt him to know that to her he was nothing more than a sex toy. He quietly moved away from her and made his way up the stairs to get dressed. As always he didn’t bother saying goodbye, he couldn’t say goodbye, not to her. She was like a drug to him, no matter how much she hurt him he’d always come running back when she called. That’s why he couldn’t say goodbye, he wasn’t done with her yet.

Iris waited until she heard the door close to let her guard down. She didn’t do that often but today she made an exception. She had too much on her mind to keep her walls up. With a partially full bottle of red in one hand and her glass in the other she made her way up to her suite. She showered, washing away the tension from her stressed muscles along with the sweat of her late night activities. Wrapped in nothing but a satin robe, she settled down in her bed and drank her way through half the bottle without so much as a minor buzz. She opened her side table drawer and from it took out a black, rectangular picture frame. Her fingers caressed the glass that held a picture of a younger less, damaged version of her, standing next to a kind faced older man. Grandpa West. The only reason why there’s still any shred of humanity left in her. She smiled, as happy memories played out in her mind and this time she didn’t stop the tears from flowing.

This was her one moment of vulnerability. The only minute of grief she would allow herself to have before she withdrew back into her safety shell and locked away her emotions from the world. This world that had chewed her up and spat her out on countless occasions and now it took away the one person that made her life livable.

Elvis West was a type of hero to her. He saved her from the crippling grasp of the foster system she was under and gave her a life fit for a princess. Now, like everything and everyone else in her life, he was gone. No wonder she didn’t open up to the possibility of new relationships. Her father didn’t want her, her mother died giving birth to her and every foster family she went to, succeeded in making her feel less than human. Grandpa West was the last person she ever showed genuine affection towards and nothing on Earth could ever make her open up again. Love wasn’t worth the pain it caused.

She fell asleep with that picture held tight against her chest, the empty bottle of wine rested on the nightstand and her pillow was bathed in her tears. The next morning she took the family jet to Central City for the memorial. The man was sentimental and his birth town held a special place in his heart. As she looked out the window at the tiny town below she remembered the countless stories he’d shared with her at bed time about how he met his one true love. Grandma Esther. Iris didn’t get to know her all that much. She had recently passed away when Grandpa West took her in so the only impression she had of the woman came from the many tales he’d tell. He spoke fondly of her and when he did she noticed that he’s eyes had a certain quality about them as he stared into oblivion completely lost in thought. As a girl she’d dreamed that she’d find someone who would look at her with those same eyes but time and knowledge wiped away that childish fantasy. True love was just a myth that man kind made up to silence their fear of being alone and make they’re animal like desires less shameful. It was an excuse used to answer the existential crisis of the more gullible who believed that a cerebral chemical reaction was good enough a reason to live. Pathetic.

She’d made her peace with it and found a new reason to live. Pleasure. Whether it lie at the bottom of a six thousand dollar bottle of champagne, at the end of the endless zero’s in her checks or a really good night of sex, she would have it and no one could convince her otherwise. No one could tell her that this wasn’t the way to live life. The only person who’s opinion she cared about was currently six feet under ground. The rest of the world was just a stage and she was the director.

The jet landed and she took a minute to touch up her make up before she cat walked her way out. As soon as she entered the airport she was showered with a billion flash lights. You’d think she was a movie star or big shot music sensation but all she was, was rich. She owned shares to five of the worlds most prominent media outlets varying from magazines to newspapers and that doesn’t count the old money she was raised in.

Linda walked up behind her and huffed under her breath.

“Mon Dieu (My goodness).” she exclaimed frustrated.

  “Que s'est-il passé? (What happened)” Iris questioned with her shaded eyes still trained straight ahead. Linda was the closest thing to a friend Iris would allow herself to have, mostly because she was a good assistant and Iris found herself enjoying her company. 

“Nous sommes entourés d'idiots. (We’re surrounded by idiots)” she explained and Iris let out an amused chuckle. Remembering that she needed to ease her tongue back into the English language she responded,

“That I already knew.” Her accent was still pronounced but she knew after an hour or two it would soon fade. She might have been raised and educated in France but she was brought up by Americans so english was more like second nature than it was a second language to her.

“What do I have to do today?” she asked, her step never faltering and her face never turning to acknowledge the curios glares. Her security detail walked a safe distance ahead, already accustomed to her need for personal space and fast walking pace.

“Uh…d'abord (firstly)-”

“En anglais Linda. In English.” she interrupted. 

“Oui, I mean yes. Sorry. Firstly you have the will reading with Monsieur Wells and then a share holders meeting at some sort of laboratory.” Linda listed out, her accent much more noticeable than that of her employer. 

“Great, just what I needed today. A sit down with a bunch of old mouth breathers who think they know about science because they invested in a laboratory.” It was all she could do not to slap her own forehead in exasperation. Not that she knew much about science herself but S. T. A. R. Labs wasn’t her baby, it was her grandfather’s and being his only heir, with his passing it automatically became hers.

The limo was waiting outside for her surrounded by reporters and a growing crowd all waiting to catch a glimpse of her. To the public and the press she was basically anonymous. They knew her face and envied her net worth but they couldn’t pin a single rumor on her. As scandalous as the life she led might have been Iris West knew how to be discreet and the mystery surrounding her life is the very reason why she wasn’t just another person apart of the wealthy minority.

She stepped inside the lavish auto mobile without so much as a wave in the on-lookers direction and as soon as the doors were closed she drove off with her security detail riding in a black Land Rover behind her. 

“Why on earth do we need a will reading exactly? I mean my grandfather had no one but me to leave his estate to and I’ve already taken care of all the charity’s he was associated with." 

She’d spoken to all the parties concerned and guaranteed that all her grandfathers monthly and yearly donations would remain on schedule despite his untimely departure. She was an anti-social socialite not an emotionless bitch.

  "I don’t understand the logic behind it either but Dr Wells insisted that you attend." 

Iris huffed out a frustrated breath and massaged her temple’s with her thumb and middle finger. 

"I’m gonna need a pain killer.”

They made a brief stop at the towering black gates and once an armed guard confirmed the identities of all the people in both vehicles they were let through. They drove through the perfectly groomed garden, that was split in the middle by a cobblestone drive way, and pulled up to a gigantic structure. It was a massive building, with just enough floor to ceiling windows to allow for the right amount of privacy. She stepped through the door and made her way up the stair case. 

“Where are you going?” Linda asked, her voice alert. 

“Les toilettes (the restroom). I need a bath.” she answered taking a short turn to the right and climbing up the remainder of the way. 

“But Monsieur Wells will be here any minute.”

“And I pay him handsomely for his time. He can wait." 

Iris shut the doors to her suite and took a moment to breathe before she walked to the bathroom and striped off her travel clothes. Her bath was already waiting for her (the servants knew the drill, they kept track of her whereabouts because as soon as she stepped through those doors she needed to have her bath). She stepped into the scalding hot water, the steam rose all around her in twirling wisps carrying with it the unmistakable smell of coconut. Coconut oil did wonders for her skin. She sank into it up to her neck and closed her eyes completely allowing her body to relax.

Her moment of bliss was short lived, however, because a few minutes later a knock came at her door. She cursed under  her breath before she told the person to enter. 

"Mademoiselle West? Monsieur Wells is here,” came Linda’s voice from the room. 

“I’ll be down in a minute,” she huffed out and waited for the sound of the door closing before she sank deeper into the tub, not worried that her hair was getting wet. She resurfaced and elevated her body from the bath tub. Without bothering to towel down she wrapped her self into a satin black robe that was decorated with yellow, orange and green flowers at the hems. The fabric stuck to her bare, moist body and her hair left droplets of water in her wake as she exited her room, making her way downstairs. 

She found Wells seated in the office with a small cup of coffee in his hands. He stood when he noticed her at the door, ever the gentleman. 

“Ms West. Always a pleasure.” he greeted and she walked into the room, slapping on her most convincing (yet neutral) smile. 

“Wells. Wish I could say the same but unfortunately the sentiment is not shared.”

She took the seat behind the desk and leaned back into it, crossing her legs and arms in the process. 

“Can we speed up the process?” she asked looking far from amused. “Unfortunately not,” he said. 

That response was not what she wanted to hear and after the night she had and the long flight Iris found herself losing her composure. 

“And why the hell not?” she demanded. 

“Because we’re waiting for someone.” Wells answered, loosening his tie as his discomfort grew. 

“Who?” Iris asked confused, as far as she  was aware she was her grandfather’s only heir. She didn’t have to wait long for an explanation because seconds after she uttered the question the door bell rang. 

“I believe that’s him right now.” Wells said standing up to greet the mystery guest. Iris followed suit, her confusion clear on her face. 

“Him? Him who?” she asked and the new comer stepped into the room. 

“Me.” he said. He was a tall, dark skinned man that looked like he was 

somewhere in his late forties. Iris gave him a once over before she folded her arms across her chest and shot him a suspicious look. 

“And you are?” She sassed out. 

“Joe West. I’m Elvis’s son.”