#Don’t let anyone bully you past your boundaries ESPECIALLY when it comes to sex

[castielmacleod]

Listen to me. Take off your shipping goggles. That’s it, just for a moment. Look me in the eye. I am telling you that Castiel the gay angel is as vanilla as they possibly come. If you think he is anyone’s horny sex god you are genuinely and I mean genuinely, off yer head

[hotwings0203]

I feel like Dabi would be the type of dude who would bully you incessantly at the LOV and for the life of you you can’t figure out why. He’s always around you and making snarky comments or pulling your hair, trying to catch you messing up on missions. You’re sure he hates you, and you do well to stay out of his way, or sometimes when you feel bold you’ll offer a quip of your own. The bullying increases whenever you talk to other guys at the bar, especially when you make Tomura crack a smile, Dabi’s breathing down your neck the second your leader leaves, calling you terrible names and pushing past your boundaries.

Cw: language, nsfw, noncon, manga spoilers, some angst?

In a perfect world, Touya would not have been abandoned and rejected by his family. In a perfect world, Dabi would not exist, and Touya would be eating dinner with his family right now as he shows his little brother how to properly wield fire to its fullest extent.

But there was no such thing as a perfect world, and therefore Dabi did exist. And Dabi doesn’t care for anyone, or anything.

Or so he tells himself.

“Slut”

“Nothing but eye candy, and shitty eye candy at that”

It’s nothing you haven’t heard before, but it doesn’t make it any easier to ignore him

“What was that all about, huh? The fuck are you and crusty snickering about?”

Fed up with his continuous antics, you decide to mouth off a little too.

“Oh nothing, just talking about how adorable you and Hawks would make as a couple. And wipe that sneer off your face, it looks like some of your staples fell out of your mouth.”

It’s nothing too snarky, but in a second he’s shoving you in some dark room, forearm pinned against your throat as his hand is lit up with blue flames merely inches away from you, snarling in your face.

“You wanna be funny, bitch? I got jokes of my own too, why dont I show you what happens to dumb little girls who don’t know their fucking place? I think that would be real funny.”

But his hand is stopped from drawing near your wide eyes when you both hear Twice and Toga calling everyone for their next meeting.

He pushes you away from him, giving you a murderous look over his shoulder as he leaves the room, not paying mind to the way you slide down the wall in the dark.

You take extra precaution to try avoiding him for the next few days, not even making eye contact with him when you two get teamed up for tasks. He never mentions the room incident, if anything he acts as if it never happens. It’s like whiplash for you, he tries to weirdly talk to you more but all you offer him is mumbles and hums of agreement.

The conversation is never long, but it starts to be less talk of degrading you and more of begrudging questioning of what you’ve been up to. You never engage, opting to pretend like you never heard him, and strangely enough he leaves it be.

You give him a side eye one day as he joins you at the bar (much to your discontent), downing your glass just to fill another.

He says nothing as he slides into the stool right next to you, and pours a glass of whiskey for himself as well.

It’s awkwardly silent, you’re not sure if you should leave or not, but you’d be damned if you try to initiate small talk with this psycho.

But then, he speaks.

“Is Shigaraki sending you on the mission to get that UA kid?”

His gravely voice rumbles and cracks from his usual lack of use, and he clears his throat after he talks.

“No.”

“Oh.”

This is excruciating, you think to yourself as he mulls over the drink in his hand for a silent minute or two.

Toga calls you over thankfully at the exact same moment, and you breathe out an inaudible sigh of relief as you slip off the stool to join her.

“Wait-“ Dabi grabs your arm and you flinch out of instinct, expecting a slap or a burn to come from him.

He sees your reaction and shakes his head dismissively, letting you go and muttering a “Nevermind”. You don’t ponder over it as you trip over your own feet to join the eccentric blond.

A week passes, and then two. With each day you maneuver your way around him, request to be partnered up with different people in private, and busy yourself in random tasks. Every time you pass him by the bar he lifts his head from whatever he’s doing and tries to maintain eye contact with you, even going so far as to open his mouth to say or ask god-knows-what.

You try to ignore the foreign hopeful glint in his glacial eyes as you walk right past him, ducking your head as you do so.

It drives Dabi crazy.

He can’t handle any more rejection, he thought his family would be the last straw for him to ever want recognition or love validation from again. He wants to talk to you, to hear your voice as it snaps back with witty comebacks of your own that he secretly enjoys so much, even if it means he has to force it out of you with hateful words. He wants to feel your hair underneath his scarred hands, even if he has to mask the soft wanting of you in forms of yanking the strands. He wants nothing more than to see your eyes fill up with no other sight than him and think only of him, even if it means he has to corner you and scare you into submission.

But your silence is something he’s not used to.

Well, to be fair, you weren’t silent completely, but the only sentences he was hearing from you nowadays was when you were speaking to Shigaraki or the other League members.

You were the only idiot who didn’t notice the smoke curling from his nostrils and ears comically when he’d finally see you stop your stoic act just to open up to other men apart from him. Spinner, Twice, and Compress backed off almost immediately from talking to you for too long when they’d see the look on his face as he watched you surrounded by them, but Tomura would merely smirk from behind your shoulders and keep a level gaze with his subordinate, knowing fully well why he was so pissed off.

You began to notice the weird energy at the base soon after the rest of the men would keep curt conversations with you in comparison to your long talks about video games, sex, and life after you would all win the war.

So you thought it would be best to ask the most semi-normal person there that wasn’t fueled with testosterone and aggression.

“I just don’t get it, why are they all being weird? I mean, we all used to talk so much and now they just...try avoiding me. Except for Tomura of course, he’s still normal I guess. But he always has this smirk on his face when I’m with him and I can’t figure out why.”

Toga stops cleaning her blood-laced needle to give you a sly look, all fangs and glinting white.

“And Dabi?”

“What about him?”

She sits back on her haunches and cocks her head at you. “You really don’t know what’s happening here, do ya?”

“No,” you roll your eyes in exasperation. “But I’ll gladly take any theories here, since apparently I’m the only one who doesn’t get it.”

“He likes you.”

You gape at her for a moment and then burst out laughing.

“What? That’s crazy, he doesn’t like me, he hates me!” He can barely stand being in a room with me, all he does is talk shit and harass me.”

The blond curiously licks at a bead of red from the top of the weapon and you cringe when her own tongue rips from the sharp point.

“You say he can’t stand being in a room with you, so then why is it that he’s always there? He might talk shit, but he talks to you out of everyone else right? Regardless of if it’s something mean.”

You’re thoroughly flabbergasted. She had a point, but it was too much to wrap your head around. She cheerfully hums and gets up to flounce around the room, cleaning her already-tidy room up to a T.

“And that little silent treatment act you’re giving him isn’t helping either. I swear, Jin told me Dabi almost burned his mouth off that one day you, him and Spinner were talking about GTA. He totally cornered the poor guy and threatened his life if he didn’t stop talking to you.”

“You’re joking.”

“Am not. He wanted to do the same to Tomura but I figure he wants to keep his job, so he won’t. Doesnt make it any better for him when you’re all chummy with the one person Dabi can’t stand the most, though.”

No wonder your leader was so smug whenever you two were in the same room, your attention solely focused on him.

You run your hands down your face, moaning about the whole situation being fucked. It’s just your luck that you couldn’t take a clue, but to be fair, how could you? Being called worthless and a waste of space wasn’t exactly what you had in mind for flirty banter.

“Soooo what’re you gonna do now? I heard he’s gonna try talking to you for realsies like, tomorrow or something.”

“Tomorrow?” You yelp, jumping up to your feet. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I can’t face him!”

“Oops,” she giggles, twirling with outstretched arms around her room and falling down onto her bed.

“Oh god, I can’t do this. I don’t even know if I like him! He’s such an ass, and even when he tries to come off as normal he’s just so..unsettling. I don’t think I’ve ever had a good conversation with him.”

Toga props her elbow up to rest her chin on her hand, frowning in thought.

“Why not just tell him how you feel?”

You snort and fold your arms. “Yeah, because the psycho arsonist is really gonna take the word no well.”

“Hmm.. I see what you mean. Oh well, whatever you choose, I’ll support you!”

And with that she skips out of the room sing songing for Twice to make a clone for her.

You were fucked.

And sure enough, the next day he approaches you, hands stuffed in his pockets and an almost bored look on his face.

“Yo newbie, I gotta talk to you for a second. Come with me”.

You look blearily up at him through eye bags and mussed hair, a direct telling of your sleepless night. Your stomach drops when you hear his words, but you nod your head and take a deep breath, mentally preparing yourself of the speech you practiced till the sun rose.

No one else is bothering you both today, Shigaraki having gone to visit All For One and the rest of the League left to their own devices. It was something you weren’t so comfortable with, but you doubted a hero would come to save you.

He leads you through the short winding hallways, each step of his growing louder and heavier as the space started growing smaller. Finally, he reaches a dimly lit room and stops outside the door, gesturing for you to go in with a casual wave of his patched wrist.

“After you.”

You raise an unsure eyebrow at his uncharacteristic show of consideration, and do as he says. You’re sweating bullets, fists balled so that your nails are digging into your palms, and vision going in and out of focus as your eyes begin to adjust to your surroundings.

A loud bang pulls you out of your stupor, and you whip around at the sound.

Dabi is already staring back at you with lidded eyes, leaning his weight against the door, his arms crossing over each other.

You shift on both feet, picking at your nails nervously.

“So, what did you wanna talk about?”

He says nothing, but just observes you, his head slightly tilted as if you were some abstract art piece.

“Dabi.”

“You got a lot of nerve, y’know that?”

He pushes himself off the wall and advances slowly towards you, hands stuffed in his trench coat pockets.

You immediately back up with raised palms, sputtering indignantly at his offensive movements coming closer and closer. However you thought his ‘confession’ would go, this was most definitely not starting out like how you planned

“Excuse me? What’re you talking about-“

“I know what you’re doing. You think whoring yourself out to ol’ crusty and the rest of the guys here is gonna make everyone forget just how useless you actually are. What the fuck do you even do here? You fuck up half the missions which I have to come bail your ass out of, you constantly put us in jeopardy by being all friendly with everyone, and you can’t even keep your mouth shut when I need to let off a little steam, as I rightfully should.”

In a perfect world, Dabi would be the light of your eyes, the hero of your world. In a perfect world, Dabi would be able to hold your hand in his smooth one and tell you that he wants you so much that it impairs his rational judgement and makes him say things he doesn’t mean. He’d tell you that your presence is like a weight lifted off his chest, your presence means he doesn’t have to think or worry about the outside world, he just wants you all to himself without anyone interfering.

But this is not a perfect world, and Dabi is not a hero, but rather one of the worst villains.

So he does exactly what one does as a villain.

Instead of a loving look that he knows he’s incapable of, Dabi looks down into your horrified gaze as he traps you against the wall between his scarred arms, spewing misplaced venom at you.

“I don’t know what your problem is, but you need to chill out. First you go ballistic on me ‘cause I talked to Tomura for no reason, then you act all weird and quiet as if you’re some decent person, and now you think you can just bring me in here and tell me how worthless I am? Go fuck yourself, seriously.”

You scoff and make your way to push him but stop when he does what he did a couple weeks ago. You hold bated breath as he casually brings an inflamed hand to scratch at his face as if he can’t feel the hellfire emitting from it, and let out a whine of distress as he lowers his head mere inches from yours, lips almost touching.

“Stop talking to the rest of the guys,” he breaths. “Stop smiling, laughing, or going near anyone who isn’t me.”

You wonder if he knows how insane he sounds. He does, but that’s nothing he doesn’t know already. If anything, it solidifies in his mind that if he is to be as bad as the world has made him out to be, then he is acting exactly fit for the role.

“Why?”

“I don’t need to give sluts like you a reason. It should come as easy, right? What’s putting out for one more person?”

Your eyes are brimming with tears now, your stoic facade showing cracks as you sniffle a little bit.

He eats it up and groans watching salty rivers cascade down your cheeks. Suddenly, he feels as though he can no longer hold back anymore, he feels as though if he thinks for one more second he’ll combust.

So, acting on instinct, he surges forward and presses his lips against yours, swallowing your cries of distress and holding your hands above your head in midst of them frantically beating on his chest.

Your lips are so, so soft compared to his and it’s making him sink deeper into this instinctual daze. He puffs against your writhing lips as he thrusts his hot tongue in your mouth.

You try to bite him but when his hands heat up against your skin you resign to your fate and wail, allowing him to pull his hips flush against yours and start humping your thighs.

He draws back and bites your lips, teeth clacking against yours as he does so. You open your terrified eyes and blanch when you see the look on his face.

Lust is clearly drawn everywhere, from his blown pupils to his heaving chest, all the way to his flushed face and wild eyes. He looks as though he’s about to eat you alive and it’s appropriate that you feel like a lamb about to be slaughtered.

“Dabi, wait, please stop-“

But he cuts your pants off again in favor of slamming his hips against yours again and grinding impossibly hard on your legs, the friction of his jeans catching on your clothed cunt and forcing a mewl out of you.

“I’m not gonna stop. I’ve had enough of you teasing. You’re mine now, and if it takes burning our dear leader alive and this whole place down for you to understand that then I’ll fucking do it.”

He thought that terrorizing you would ease the empty feeling in his heart, that continuously berating you would force him to see you as what he always said you were, just another empty headed cunt. He thought that distancing himself from you and focusing on other things would make him forget about the soft feelings he longed to share with you, feelings he thought perished in the fire he was in when he was a young boy .

Even now, there is an ache in his chest as he hears you beg for him to stop, to let you go, that you’re sorry for whatever you did.

But this is not a perfect world, and not everyone gets their way in life.

You should really learn that, because Dabi already has.

And so Dabi will act accordingly to what life has put out before him .

[moonlightchess]

On Lesser Ghosts, my perpetually in-progress novel, a cast of current characters:

Brandon Graham: 30 years old, police investigator for the Dorset Police Department of Dorset, Vermont. The sole survivor of serial killer Seth Morgan, active throughout the bulk of the 90s and all the way through 2003, when he was captured shortly after a 15-year-old Brandon escaped his nightmarish year of captivity in the Morgan house. Casually alcoholic, gay, entirely jaded and weary of the world, but stronger than he appears at first glance. Recently assigned to the case of Cora Tycho, a promising young physics student from the Lower Prince area of Vermont who has gone missing.

Dr. Casey Tycho: 30 years old, and Dorset PD’s newest medical examiner. A British expatriate originally hailing from north London, Casey is the antithesis to the human disaster of Brandon. Sharp, extensively educated, responsible and diligent, he wears silk-lined suit vests and ties to work and has been sleeping with Brandon for six months in an arrangement that Brandon refuses to acknowledge as any sort of relationship. He’s quietly accepted this, both out of respect for Brandon’s boundaries and because being black and openly gay in a small Vermont town may not be the most desirable situation. His sister Cora has gone missing, and he hates how little he wants Brandon on the case, but he knows better than anyone how unstable the man can be.

Sara Graham: Brandon’s younger sister at 27 years old, a folk musician and “crafty mess” by her own admission. Bright, curious, extroverted and warm, much of her life has been dedicated to worrying about her brother. She makes beaded jewelry and pottery on the weekends, collects coffee mugs, and is a driving force in Brandon’s life, though he occasionally wonders if she doesn’t resent him at least a little for the way his kidnapping and subsequent fame as Seth Morgan’s sole surviving victim dominated her younger years. The two are very close, and she’s determined to not allow him to lie down and give up on the Cora Tycho case, no matter how much tension and distance it’s created between he and Casey.

Sasha Prescott: Brandon’s boss, police chief of the DPD. Tough as nails, but she harbors a soft spot for Brandon in spite of his sporadic displays of instability and recklessness in the past. Especially protective of Casey, having long since come to the conclusion that Dorset’s black community is small at best and they have to stick together - the disappearance of Cora, a young black woman in her town, has been keeping her up at night. Her hawk’s stare and firm hand keep the entire department in line, but this also means that she has a constant target on her back.

Kris Alden: A mystery. Was with Cora Tycho on the night she went missing during a camping trip in the woods. Claims he went home early, a result of stomach problems. Not much intel on him yet.

Audrey and Stephen: The forensic lab techs, working directly under Casey. Odd, dreamy types, ensconced in their own little world much of the time. May know more than they’re letting on.

Read the first few pages below!

                                                   🔍🔍🔍

09.12.19:

A burning and industrious early-morning sun insisted upon bullying the pleasant warmth of Casey’s skin into something too harsh to ignore as Brandon groaned, rolling over onto his stomach in bed.  Beside him, Casey stretched, languid as an enormous cat, his sleep likely having been far more restful. Still, his smile was tender as he reached for him, and the scent of coffee brewing from the kitchen suggested that he’d already been up once to make it for him. The sweetness of the gesture hurt, and he curled away from his touch. “Too fucking hot.”

“It’s only going to be about seventy today.” Because of course Casey knew the day’s predicted weather already, of course he was as on top of it as he was everything else in his life. Casey, with his autumn-brown skin and gentle, fox-gold eyes like candlelit amber, of course he was ready with coffee brewing and the forecast on his phone. They were the same age, thirty, but Casey was one of those rare people who had been an adult since twelve. He’d probably delighted in collecting school supplies for a new year when none of his friends gave a shit, he was the type of person who always knew where his keys were. He had a set-in-stone laundry day, which had blown Brandon’s mind when he’d first learned of it. Even now, at six AM, he smelled like fresh fucking bread. Literally the worst human, Brandon had long since concluded, but the sex was fantastic.

Wordlessly, he rolled over for his first cigarette of the day, ignoring Casey’s softly disapproving sound behind him. He briefly considered reminding him of his total lack of access into his personal life, that whatever happened between them sexually meant ten kinds of nothing outside the bedroom, but Casey had never pushed or questioned his boundaries. He kept his distance as Brandon rolled naked out of bed, ambling to the window to shove it open before disappearing into the bathroom without further comment. He gave him time to shower before following, tapping his fingertips against the glass shower door with a quiet, “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Want company?”

“Oh, uh. No.”

There was a pause, and then Casey’s silhouette nodding silently, turning to go. He was unique in that Brandon never felt so much as a semblance of guilt about bluntly rejecting the affections of anyone but him, and now it felt sharp. The hot spray of water went needle-harsh against his skin, but he still ignored the coffee Casey had left on the counter for him, as well as the text blinking on his phone. Eat something. Don’t be too late for work, Sasha will have your ass. Even now, he did his best to take care of him as much as Brandon would allow, but he rationalized that he’d never promised the man a damn thing. In fact, he’d made his limitations abundantly clear on the first night they’d tumbled, panting, into bed together, roughly six months ago. The problem was, there was another man. He was persistent and jealous, and he was always around. He was sitting on the edge of his bed right now, in fact. Late forties, moon-pale skin and sleek, ink-black hair, his deceptive youthfulness undercut by the coldness lingering in his dark eyes.

Seth waited, silent, watching Brandon dress. The most attention he ever paid to his honey-blonde mess of hair was a quick tugging of his brush, and the woodsmoke cologne his sister had given him for Christmas last year was left mostly unused on the dresser. His morning routine had long since boiled down to a quick shower, shave, and brushing of teeth and hair before throwing on whatever happened to be clean regardless of its fashionable implications. Today, Seth watched him button up a loose black Oxford over a pair of battered jeans, before embarking upon a ten-minute search for his keys because he wasn’t Casey and never would be.

A light drizzle began to dissolve the heat of the day like sugar in warm coffee once he was on the road, clouds going dense and dark with the sweet threat of a proper rain. Sasha had already texted him - 9:10, Graham. Late again. Casey had tried to warn him, but then he always did, and Brandon never listened. Elgar helped to swallow Sasha’s nearly tangible contempt for his time management skills as he drove, and beside him, Seth settled into the passenger’s seat to stare thoughtfully out at the increasingly heavy rain.

10.4.2003:

This far north into Vermont, where Seth’s house teetered on the border into Canada, winters descended early and lingered long. The ceiling-to-floor steel and rebar support pipe Brandon had been handcuffed to by the wrists for the past two weeks had absorbed the seeping chill, and Seth had only dressed him in a filthy, tattered wifebeater and a pair of old blue flannel pajama pants that smelled suffocatingly of mothballs. He woke every few hours with numb, stinging toes, shivering and dripping. The handcuffs Seth had restrained him with had to have been ordered from somewhere - there was no soft pink fur lining to suggest an intended use of foreplay, and instead they were solid in a deadly way, a way that thunked every time he slid them locked with a firm sense of finality. 

A fever burned through his bones overnight near the middle of October, and finally some part of Seth seemed to awaken to his basic human needs. He was provided a deeply itchy wool blanket that felt woven from canvas and sandpaper, but it did the job of keeping him warm. Every few nights, his worn boots would thud down the basement steps to offer him a plate of cold, congealed noodles that he’d clearly been keeping in the fridge. His wrists went raw and scabbed with the endless scrape of the cuffs, his knees cramping in their bent position. Stretching his legs was possible, but uncomfortable. The days began to melt together, the constant darkness of the basement transforming time into a static thing. He slept when the wave of exhaustion became too much to fight, he woke and watched the shadows when sleep eluded him. He lost all sense of night or day, the passage of hours.

Three weeks deep, the frantic hope that he’d be found began to fade. The basement began to feel like his place, and he began to forget what it felt like to not fall asleep hugging a metal pipe. Seth was strangely reassuring, an exponential effect that seemed to correlate with his slow acceptance of his situation. As time dissolved and desperation waned, Seth’s approval bloomed. Sometimes, now, the noodles were warm and slick from boiling water, fresh. His blanket was replaced with a less abrasive one, albeit filthy. At fourteen years old, Brandon learned that life began and ended here in his cold, dark basement. The memory of the day he’d been taken seemed irrelevant now, the faces of his parents to whom he’d clung so desperately in those early days.

“I know that you don’t understand.” Seth’s voice was soft, gentle more often than not, sedately erudite like a classics professor on vacation in the woods for the holidays. He was quite articulate, expressing himself fairly eloquently whenever he came into the basement to speak to him. “It sounds trite, like something Keats might have written, but believe me when I say that this is your chrysalis phase, Brandon. It’s tight and uncomfortable and emerging will be a painful struggle, but I want you to trust me. I know it’s asking a lot of you right now, but I also know that your eyes are open and you’ll get there. I trust you already.”

He wore a lot of high-collared fleece sweaters in earth tones and he kept his silky hair longish, framing his face in a soft sort of way that left him mild and relaxed to the eye. Brandon learned to crave him, the only human voice, presence, that he’d experienced in a month as the end of October approached. He couldn’t express this yet, but Seth would smile down at him, bending at the knees to wrap him in a new blanket or to offer him the day’s plate of noodles. Sometimes the blankets were splattered with fresh bloodstains and sometimes the noodles were wrapped around bullets of sausage that tasted blandly wrong, but he was there.

Once, shortly before Halloween, the burgeoning bond between them inspired him to blurt, “I wouldn’t say anything, you know. You could just let me go, you wouldn’t even have to drive me home. I’d never tell anyone, I understand your work here--” because Seth had often referenced his cryptic “work” without elaborating. “I won’t try to stop you, you could just--”

Seth’s open hand slammed into the side of his head, smacking his skull into the metal pipe with a gut-churning clang. The world exploded into white fire, his vision briefly going dark as his brain struggled to retain consciousness. A thick, hot ooze of dark blood began to gush from his nostrils, but he was too resigned at that point to so much as scream. Instead, he moaned softly, sagging forward as his head began to throb in time with his heartbeat. The agony was blinding, but he didn’t pass out, which came as something of a disappointment.

A month and a week passed.

09.12.19:

Dorset’s PD’s station was one of the lingering bastions of old-school police architecture, all museum-high ceilings and wooden desks arranged in rows. Brandon wove his way between them on his way to Sasha’s office, set high above the ground floor grunts and their ancient desktop computers. He’d always respected the way she’d left the glass panels that made up the front wall of her office intact, leaving her visible to her officers and techs alike. She was typing on her own laptop when he tapped his fingers against said glass, waving him inside. A still-steaming paper cup of Two Brews sat on her desk, littered with loose papers that themselves were littered with her scribbled notes. My office, whenever you decide to show up, she’d texted him.

Sasha Prescott was forty-four years old with dense, dark curls clipped short and precise. With her high cheekbones, full lips and velvet-dark skin, she could easily have been a model even in her middle age, dominating an industry obsessed with youth. And dominate it she would have - there was a carefully cultivated air of laser focus that she wore like armor wrapped around her, her narrow, jewel-black eyes piercing through lies and alibis like a hot knife through butter. She and Brandon’s mutual respect had led to a highly efficient and successful working relationship over the years, and they both appreciated that neither was in any way interested in developing any sort of personal friendship outside of work.

Now, he dropped into the Quaker chair in front of her desk and considered making an attempt for her coffee, which she didn’t appear to have started drinking yet. Her signature plum lipstick had not yet stained the rim, but she zeroed in on his intent with her standard razor perception and shook her head. “I will literally stab you,” she said casually, and he let his hand fall to his knee instead.

“What’s up?”

“First off, roll in here late again and I’ll write your ass up. Secondly, we have a delicate situation in our laps right now and I want some input on how to deal with it.”

Arching an eyebrow, Brandon kept his tone as nonplussed as possible. Too much visible interest might have convinced Sasha to change her mind, one of her stranger quirks. “I’m listening.”

“Cora Tycho is missing, as of somewhere around midnight last night.”

He nearly rose to his feet despite his resolve, an icy fist punching straight through his ribcage to seize his heart. “Casey’s sister?”

Sasha confirmed this with a short nod, her lips pressed tight. “She was out camping with a friend near the Lower Prince quarry. Her friend, Kris Alden, fell ill shortly after they ate dinner and decided to go home. Cora wanted to drive him, but there was no one available to take her back once he was home and he claims he felt guilty about making her miss some super-moon or whatever the hell it is, told her he could make it home on his own. She never came back from the woods, the Alden kid shared a class with her that she skipped this morning and no one has been able to reach her via call or text. It’s not enough to assume that she’s officially a ten-fifty-seven just yet, but people are starting to worry. She’s never been someone to just bail on everything like this, Kris described her as very thoughtful and responsible.”

“You’ve already sent someone out to talk to him? Does Casey know?”

“Not yet. That’s actually what I wanted your input on - obviously he’s not getting anywhere near this case, but given the personal nature of your relationship with him what are your thoughts on his capability to handle the work environment in general as it’s investigated? Should I just send him on a vacation until this is cleared, or is he frosty enough to stay professional here at the station while his sister is missing? You know him better than any of us.”

Brandon’s brain reeled. “Personal nature? I don’t know what sort of relationship any of you are under the impression that we--not that any of you should have any impression of our relationship, I mean. Shit. We’re not in a relationship! I barely know him!” His voice was raising in pitch while he remained completely unaware, his knuckles going white around the armrests of the Quaker chair. Sasha exhaled sharply through her nose.

“Jesus. Do I need to send you on a vacation too? Get your shit together.”

“Fuck. Okay.” Pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, he exhaled. “Casey is one hundred percent able to handle working while this is being solved, but that doesn’t mean he should. I doubt he’ll let you send him on a vacation, but try anyway. He doesn’t deserve to be here all day, trying to focus on other shit while half of Dorset is trying to figure out if his sister’s body is rotting in the woods somewhere. He should be with his family.”

“I’ll do my best. I’m giving this girl until tonight to turn up, and then I’m issuing a gloves-off ten-fifty-seven.” Sasha’s voice went to iron, and it occurred to Brandon that she cared for Casey as much as anyone at the DPD did. He was the lifeblood of the forensics labs, their unflappable new medical examiner whose lingering British accent left over from a youth spent in west London had a way of soothing even the most panicked and horrified relative of one of his corpses. 

“I need you to go into far more detail about the supposed “nature” of my relationship with Casey, up to and including just how the hell you even knew about it at all. Not that it’s anything. At all.”

“Would you kindly climb off my dick, Graham? I’ve got enough shit on my plate right now.”

“Sasha.”

“Settle down. No one else knows anything, even though according to you there’s nothing to know. It’s just that a lifetime of police investigation have left me a highly observant person--”

“A lifetime? You’re in your forties, don’t start writing your memoirs yet you drama queen.”

“...And as such, I’ve noticed you two leaving work together occasionally, showing up around the same time in very deliberately separate cars but sometimes accidentally wearing each other’s shirts, things like that. Things only I would ever notice, I promise. No one else has mentioned anything to me, and you know they would if the rumor mill was running about it.”

“Fine. Whatever. Any more intel on Cora?”

Wordlessly, Sasha slid a manila envelope across her stately desk. Opening it, Brandon was confronted with a glossy photo of a beautiful young woman, all sparkling honey eyes and rich dark skin like a sunset’s sweet glow, thick black hair meticulously oiled and wrapped and beaded into immaculate dreadlocks that she’d pulled back with a sky-blue silk scarf for her senior high school photo, Cora wore her brother’s beauty as elegantly as he did. They shared the same royally rounded nose and high cheekbones, full lips and dimples. His chest ached, and he brushed his fingertips against the photo thoughtfully without realizing he was doing it. Sasha had compiled everything - her academic records, notes on her hobbies and habits, her generally expected whereabouts on any given day. She had no legal record to speak of, her profile speaking to a bright, clean-cut girl with a gleaming future in physics.

“She was a student at NVU,” Sasha supplied. “Is a student. Solid grades, a quiet type, well-liked by her peers but not known to be a partier. Close with her family, especially our Casey. Loved to cook, according to reports. She entered several baking competitions last year, even won a couple. Played the violin all throughout high school, but turned down a suggested spot on NVU’s student orchestra. Said she didn’t want it to interfere with her study time, according to the orchestra leader I called. She seemed laser-focused on her goal of working for NASA someday, had a whole vision board about it on Pinterest.”

“I’ll start with Kris Alden. I’ll head out to his place today.”

“Start with Casey. I don’t want him to hear about this on the news, and my official statement on the case is going live tomorrow morning.”

“Shit. Okay.” Scooping the file up under his arm, he rose to his feet. “I’ll go talk to him, he down in the forensics lab?”

“With Audrey and Stephen. See if you can get him alone, he won’t like his techs seeing him break down in front of them if he reacts poorly.”

“How the hell else do you expect him to react to the news that his sister is missing?”

“I’m just saying, let’s be conscious of how difficult this is going to be for him. You’re not exactly known for your tact, but you have the best shot at holding him together here. You know as well as I do that the longer we go without finding this girl, the less of a chance we have.”

Brandon paused at her office door. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Took me a year to get out of that basement.”

He hated the way her gaze softened, and so he made his way out without a goodbye to make a point, ignoring the irritating hiss of her compressed-air door mechanism that refused to let him leave with a satisfying slam. The forensics lab and department morgue was located in the basement of the station for obvious reasons, a narrow elevator depositing him into the DPD’s underground two minutes later. The temperature dropped by a few degrees once the doors slid open, the stone all around them cooling the air. He couldn’t hear the rain anymore, down here, and he found Audrey and Stephen hunched over a severed hand on a sleek chrome examination tray in the lab.

Audrey was tall and willowy, twenty-six with ice-blonde hair wound into a messy braid that she’d draped over one shoulder, so pale and slim that there was something ghostly about her, especially when taking into consideration her gray eyes so light and translucent they were nearly colorless, like a mirror or a deep-sea creature. She wore a white lab coat over a pair of black jeans and a loose, baggy gray sweater - she wore a lot of gray, black and white, and she always looked like a spectre, an overcast ocean. The selkies would have accepted her as one of theirs upon sight. Stephen was only barely as tall as her, with a much friendlier face, soft freckled cheeks and tanned skin suggesting a childhood spent outdoors working off baby fat. He had peanut-brown curls tumbling over his forehead and round, intelligent hazel eyes, a sharply defined mouth and an easily cheery demeanor. Oddly enough, he and Audrey were quite close.

“Hey guys. Anyone seen Casey?”

“Down in the morgue.” Audrey pointed to her feet, indicating the sub-level beneath them. “He left this hand with us and told us to collect data samples and disappeared. He’s been down there all morning.”

“Do you know whose hand it is?”

“Pretty sure it belongs to that wheat farmer who turned up in the hospital last week missing one. I mean, how many hands could there be unaccounted for in Vermont right now?” Stephen grinned, snapping his gum. He took a kind of morbid glee in his work, something Brandon had always suspected Audrey shared with him.

“Left hands, to boot,” Audrey added, shrugging. “How are you, Brandon?”

“I’m fine. I’d love to stay and um, look at the hand with you guys, but I’ve got to talk to Casey. Have...fun?”

Stephen’s grin widened. “Oh, we will, friend.”

“I hate the way you say things.”

Stephen’s laughter followed him back into the elevator, which delivered him to the bottomost floor of the DPD headquarters. Casey was there, bent over his own work, having forgone his stiff lab coat in favor of his neatly tucked-in dove-gray button-down, black silk tie, charcoal dress vest and matching creased slacks. His leftover British sensibilities were evident in his crisply classic style, always semi-formal and expensive even when he dressed “down” in Burberry cashmere sweaters and custom-tailored jeans. He looked so unflappable that Brandon’s faith in him was stirred anew, and he approached with more tenderness than was normal for him. His aura alerted Casey to something amiss upon impact, and he narrowed his eyes at him before saying a word. “Don’t see you down here often, love.” The last word slipped out before he could stop it, and Brandon watched him flinch minutely, almost imperceptibly.

[mallorytaylorblog]

How to manifest like a boss.

I’m a big believer in manifestation. In all areas of life we have the ability to call in what we so desire. The catch of this is, due to our natural inclination to be self critical, judgemental, and all round bullies to ourselves (thanks, social conditioning!) we have become masters at calling in the things which we don’t desire, and most of us are completely unaware. I want to share with you the three things I think are the keys to powerful manifestation.

First of all have you ever heard the phrase ‘what you focus on, expands’? I’d wager if you haven’t been living under a rock you probably have. Well, this phrase is one I like to keep in the front of my mind because if I’ve learned anything about manifestation, ‘The Secret”, and the Law of Attraction, is that it’s absolutely true. What we focus on is exactly what we bring about in our lives - in both the perceived negative and positive senses.

Manifestation is a skill we can all harness and it can be used across every facet of our lives. Let me give you an anecdote from my relationships. Before I got together with my current partner Nick (for the second time actually) I dated so many people who were emotionally unavailable. They were passionate flings that started off fast and ended just as rapidly, full of magnetism and bursting with chemistry. I kept meeting the same type of emotionally distant, non committal, no-strings-attached kind of guy, and deep down I thought I could “win them over”, woo them with everything amazing about me and suddenly they’d be keen as a bean to commit - right what I wanted! - but every single one of these passionate encounters fizzled out by way of ghosting or in an angry, tear stained crying mess. I persisted through so much resistance and at the end of it all I’d be left feeling lonely and pretty sorry for myself - as every fling ended I found myself asking “WHY DOESN’T ANYONE WANT TO BE WITH ME?!” Totally desperate stuff.

Let me tell you the truth. And this was a crappy lesson for me to learn. I was actively repelling the amazing qualities I craved in others because I had not yet owned them in myself. I’d been single for years but sat with this belief that dudes only wanted sex from me and that no one really valued me enough to consider a relationship with me. What do you think I attracted? Yep, you guessed it. Desperation is a stinky cologne.

One of the keys to manifestation is loving yourself first. Our relationships are our biggest cosmic assignments and are mirrors to show us what we need to address within ourselves. And we will keep encountering the same assignment (in my case the same type of doo doo flings) until we learn the lesson it’s trying to teach us.

I wanted deep love. But was I deeply loving myself first? I wanted loyalty and commitment. But was I being loyal to my Truth and wholly committed to myself? I wanted someone to honour me and love me for exactly who I was. But was I willingly to love others exactly as they were, without judgement?

The answer to all those questions was a firm NO.

Was I setting firm boundaries on what acceptable love was, or was I letting whoever was willing to get close to me dictate the way the relationship ran its course? You bet I was willing to throw myself at the first dude that gave me puppy dog eyes because I was so desperate for this idea of a dream relationship I created for myself that I was unable to set myself firm boundaries on healthy love. I hadn’t owned any of those amazing partner qualities in myself first so honestly I didn’t even know what healthy love looked like, and in addition to that I was looking externally for someone to fill the gaps I felt in myself. I was emotionally unavailable, so naturally that’s the only type of person I was able to manifest. It was a massive mirror that took me way too long to notice, and I did NOT like what I saw once I did. Does any of this sound familiar?

When it comes to manifesting the universe (or source, God, our higher power, the Divine, whatever you want to call it) needs to know you’re safe and reliable to work with. Have you ever tried to work on a project or complete a task with a Debby Downer or Negative Nancy? It’s painful and can feel like you’re dragging a dead weight - no thank you! Someone who is clear on what they want and is willing to take action towards achieving that goal with a positive mindset is SO much easier to work with! And the universe wants to work with you, she absolutely has your back. But make no mistake, manifesting does require some level of work - the universe needs to see you’re willing to make the effort for the things you desire. Once I committed to myself and put in the work the universe had my back and presented me my Nick - he mirrored all the qualities I wanted in a relationship because I’d worked hard to own them in myself first. I think a lot of people, especially when the Law of Attraction and “The Secret” became popular, seemed to gloss over this fact; it’s not as easy as simply wishing, praying and visualising something into existence, you have to put in the work too.

So that’s the second key to manifestation; putting in the work. Yep, sorry. You’ll have to do more than just say ‘yes!’ and hope you get what you want, some level of effort is required. When it comes to things like money and career we can absolutely manifest our dream job, our dream salary, or perhaps become a successful entrepreneur if that’s what our soul desires. But I’m not going to become a doctor just by doing my nightly meditation and hoping that someone will hand me a PhD. I need to do the work required to reach my dream career. In my relationships the effort required to attract my partner came down to me taking a massive interest in my own self care and working HARD on finding ways to truly love myself. It required a mammoth amount of effort. But the love we give is equal to the love we receive, and let me tell you it was absolutely worth all the discomfort.

The last key to epic manifestation is believing. This takes a certain amount of trust, which can feel very “fake it until you make it”. I mean, you have to trust that something is going to occur or show up for you without any tangible evidence that it will be so? Massive leap of faith, especially when dealing with matters of great importance. But if you really want to get the things you desire, absolute surrender and a knowing that everything you want is at your fingertips is what it takes. That knowing is a whole body feeling and this too requires practice. One way you can measure that feeling is to take a good hard look at the things you currently focus on. Are your thoughts and belief systems negatively or positively geared? Do you subscribe to the shitty and unhelpful stories your past experiences have told you about money, relationships, and your self worth, or have you recognised the beliefs you grew up with may not necessarily be yours and can be changed to support the narrative you want to engage in? Our emotions are messages to and from the universe, and tapping into this whole body feeling will tell you how supportive of your soul truths those belief systems really are.

When it comes to relationships, what do you hinge your self worth on? Do you believe all women are gold diggers, or men are only in it for the sex? What were the relationships you observed like when you were growing up? When it comes to the self, what is your inner dialogue like? Are you compassionate, loving and kind with yourself? Do you practice self care? What’s your relationship with food and exercise like? What media/books/music/news do you consume? How’s your ego? When it comes to money and career, what are the stories you tell yourself about money? Do you have an abundance or a scarcity mindset? Are you doing work that fulfills you or drains you of your energy? Do you feel passionate going to work every day? Are you taking steps towards living your dream career? Do you hoard money, have good investing habits, or do you spend it when you get it?

The things we believe and assign value to provide the guidelines the universe works with in order to bring about what we focus on. Surrendering to belief systems that don’t serve you is like trying to travel cross country while looking at a map without your glasses on - taking charge of your values and beliefs brings you the 20/20 vision needed so you can follow the path you’re destined to be on.

Being crystal clear on the things you want, believing wholeheartedly you’re destined to achieve them, and taking action towards making it a reality is what it takes to manifest your dream life. If there’s one important thing to remember in addition to all of this, it’s that you must let go of how you think it’s all going to turn out. Being firm on the way you want things to go will limit opportunities for it to happen in other, perhaps quicker and more beautiful, unexpected ways, and will only lead to disappointment when it doesn’t go exactly how you planned. The parable of the drowning man is an example of this - a man was stranded on his roof after a tidal wave crashed through and flooded his village. Soon a man in a rowboat came by and shouted to the man on the roof, “Jump in, I can save you.” The man shouted back, “No, it’s okay, I’m praying to God and he’s going to save me.” So the rowboat went on. Then a motorboat came by. The man in the motorboat shouted, “Jump in, I can save you.” To this the stranded man said, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me.” So the motorboat went on. Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, "Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety.” To this the stranded man again replied, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the helicopter reluctantly flew away. Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. When he went to Heaven he finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, “I had faith in you but you didn’t save me, you let me drown. I don’t understand why!” To this God replied, “I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?”

The man was so firm in the ways he expected his saving to happen that he missed every other opportunity to be saved. Be fluid in the way you allow things to happen and enjoy the journey.

Going after the things you want in life requires balls and it requires practice. Let’s have a conversation. If you’d like to talk about epic manifestation and ways you can start to implement the three keys message me on my socials and let’s chat about it. I want to hear what you’re all striving for and if I can support, you bet your butts I want to help in any way that’s meaningful to you.

Share this post with someone who needs it!

xoxo

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[xenuffisenuffx-blog]

Brandon Fuller: A warning

Who is Brandon Fuller?

Brandon Fuller is musician in the bay area punk scene and involved in political activism.  He has a history of violence, intimidation, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, gas lighting, and general disrespect for women.  Per the request of the survivors of his abuse he is now involved in an accountability process and this tumblr exists to make the community aware of what is being is asked of him.

https://www.facebook.com/brandon.fuller.186

https://www.instagram.com/brandamaged/

Why is this coming out now?

The 4 women previously thought their incidents with Brandon to be isolated.  As they became aware of each others events and the undeniable patterns in his behavior they decided enough is enough and that there is no space for this behavior in our community.

Our Experiences

************************************************************************************************

Brandon

          We dated for four years. You were one of the first people I met after moving here in 2009 when I was 21 years old and I thought I had met a nice guy.      

          Being so young when we met I missed all the red flags I can now see so clearly. From the start of that relationship you demonstrated misogynistic, controlling and toxic behaviors. You showed a jealousy towards any close friends especially male friends and even jealous behavior towards my best friend and brother. Right away you demonstrated  antagonism towards women and had something negative to say about almost every woman associated in the scene. You often chalked women up to being “drama queen gossips”, referred to women as “sluts”-trying to fuck their way into the scene or “heartless succubi” who just used everyone.  You very much only seemed to respect women in their relation to men in the scene and not on their own merit. You very much tried and were successful at keeping me from making connections with women you told me were “bad influences” and I should stay away from.  This was especially true regarding your ex girlfriend, and anyone she was close with. You were very successful at poisoning me against her and keeping us at arms length which I now believe was a deliberate act on you part to try to keep her from sharing her past experiences with me.

     To this day I lament the friendships that could have been and the years I lost with women I now know to be amazing human beings I didn’t let into my life because of you.  

  I recall one night early on in our relationship trying to talk to you about this behavior and how I didn’t like your sexist vocabulary and you flew into a rage and yelled and stormed out of my house and only came back later after I was forced to apologize for hurting your feelings. You had no interest in listening to me and had no interest in questioning any of you behaviors or toxic ideology. This tactic of shutting me down when you didn’t want to hear what I had to say using volatile behavior and guilt were to become staples in our relationship.

          In the last year of our relationship I was struggling to get a handle on a depression I have dealt with on and off my whole life. I decided to go off of hormonal birth control to try to get a better handle on my emotional and physical health. When we talked about this you had no interest in using condoms and were also uninterested in my other suggestion of being careful and pulling out or sustaining from sex. Low and behold I very quickly found myself pregnant. You automatically put all the blame on me and made me feel like I was entirely responsible-as if I got myself pregnant.

          Through my brief pregnancy and ultimate choice to have an abortion you were completely unsupportive. You didn’t help with any cost or go to the multiple appointments I had to do before I could even go In for an abortion. You inferred it was my problem and I had to deal with it alone. Though you often skipped class for trivial things like playing video games and smoking weed, on the day of my abortion school suddenly became a priority and you said you couldn’t make it. I had no one with me all day. You turned something that is a relatively mundane and common occurence in  many women lives into a traumatic and scaring experience. You did nothing in the subsequent days and weeks to support me and I felt alone, abandoned and unloved.

          After this happened I decided to get an IUD so I wouldn’t have to go through with this again.  For those who have had IUDs they know it takes months for you body to adjust to them. During this time sex was very uncomfortable for me and I lost all sex drive. You were very demanding and coercive and I often gave into sex that I didn’t want to have because I felt bullied and you made me feel guilty for not having as high of a sex drive as you. Even though you knew I was disinterested or uncomfortable you would still initiate sex regardless of what I was feeling. There were times when I was in obvious discomfort and you would fuck me anyway never checking in or reacting to my body language or silence.  I regard all sex during this time as non consensual and coercive. You would complain that I wasn’t “into it” enough and act like I owed you a performance every time. I can not recall you ever voicing concern over how I was feeling or how my body was healing, it was always about how you felt and what you wanted or weren’t getting.

          This came to a head one night after expressing how I was disinterested In having sex and rebuking you several times telling you to get off me and not to touch me. You then stuck your dick in my mouth without my consent and tried to force me to give you oral sex. I pushed you away and said something to the regard of  “what are you doing, stop.”

          This was something I couldn’t ignore any longer and I broke up with you soon after. Your sense of entitlement to my body was truly staggering and I have been trying to reclaim a sense of ownership over my body and my sexuality ever since. I have learned that I never owed you anything and my body is mine alone. Consent isn’t something given one time and  never discussed again. It is something reflected on throughout a sexual relationship and can be redefined and retracted at any point by any party involved.

          These are all things no “nice guy” would do. I hope you can reflect on your behavior and chose to do better in the future.

***************************************************************************************************

Brandon,

We first started hanging out over four years ago. My first red flag was that you refused to use condoms, even though I told you multiple times that I did not feel comfortable/did not want to have sex without them. The fact that you kept pressuring me to have sex without them even after I had addressed this with you showed a complete lack of respect for the boundary I had set.

When I ended up pregnant, you first said that you wanted to support my decision to terminate the pregnancy by getting me to/from the appointment and checking in on me in the two week period afterward when I was healing. However, it was difficult to get a hold of you in the week before the appointment in terms of making plans, and I began to doubt that you would follow through on your end of the deal. When I expressed my frustration to you via text a few days before the scheduled procedure, you came over to “talk.” You told me that I wasn’t your girlfriend, that I wasn’t even your friend, so you didn’t want to deal with this “drama” anymore. I was very emotionally distraught after you said those things, so I was completely bewildered and upset when you bent me over to have sex with me. I do not consider this encounter consensual. After this I was in complete denial. I tried to put it out of my mind and act like it hadn’t happened as I went into survival mode trying to arrange a new mode of transportation and support only a few days before the procedure. Then it happened again.

I called you out via text about a week after the abortion to voice my frustrations with your lack of responsibility during the whole thing. A few nights later, you texted me saying you wanted to come over. I thought this meant you had changed your tune and were actually coming over to check on me like you had originally promised to do. After I had let you into my apartment I realized you were just drunk and wanted sex. I didn’t want to have sex because it was too soon after the abortion to do so without a risk of complications. However, I felt scared and pressured because you can be aggressive when you don’t get what you want. I do not consider this encounter consensual either. It was physically painful as I was still healing from the procedure and I did end up with complications that delayed my recovery. Your lack of empathy in that regard was horrifying.

Just because I had consented to you in the past didn’t give you free and open access to my body whenever and however you wanted it. Just because I had consented to have you over to my house did not mean I consented to have sex with you. Just because we ended up continuing our sexual relationship after that doesn’t negate the fact that what happened in these two instances was non consensual sex. This is something you need to take accountability for.

I confided in a friend about the pregnancy, abortion, and your lack of responsibility. (I didn’t describe the non consensual encounters to her, as I was too traumatized to come to terms with what had happened until years later). When you found out I had talked, you threatened me. You told me that I was not to talk about it to anyone else, that I was no longer welcome in the community, and that I was no longer to come around “or else.” I feared the “or else” part meant physical violence against me if I did not comply. This threat worked; I was terrified to go out to any space or event I thought you might be at, and I was scared in my home and neighborhood because you live so close to me. I still am. When I finally got the courage to go out again, you feared the threats you used to keep me quiet and hidden wouldn’t work, so you spread rumors that I was a stalker, that I was mentally unstable, that I had threatened you. That way, if I did talk to anyone about what happened, it would only sound like the gossip of a madwoman thanks to your smear campaign. After this followed years of similar behavior, verbal and mental abuse, gaslighting, etc., which you used to keep me isolated and under your control. Verbal and mental abuse is just that, abuse, and you need to take accountability for that too.

I finally found my voice and stood up to you regarding your behavior in January of this year, and we agreed to meet in person to discuss it. However, I don’t feel like I was able to address all these issues with you due to you immediately beginning to yell and shut me down as soon as you walked in the door. I asked you to leave, and when you wouldn’t I felt threatened, so I started yelling back. You attempted to lie to my face, telling me that we had only slept together a few times, and you tried to isolate me again by telling me you would have me physically removed from shows and events if I made you uncomfortable because you “control your scene.” Needless to say this was a fruitless conversation, and this encounter made it clear to me that you had no intent to address or take accountability for your actions. Your aggravation and aggression during this discussion was traumatizing, so afterwards I went “no contact” with you. In February I sought help from a mental health care professional after suffering from panic attacks and terrible anxiety, and was clinically diagnosed with PTSD from years of dealing with your abuse. I’m currently in counseling to help navigate through it all. I will most likely need years of therapy, and even with all the therapy in the world, my experience with you is a scar that I will carry for the rest of my life. I am one of multiple women who you have traumatized in a similar fashion. I hope this letter clarifies the issues you need to address, Brandon, because this pattern needs to end here.

- Dina

***************************************************************************************************

Brandon

In 2015 when I lived in Oakland with Caitie and Kevin, you spent the night and you and I hooked up a couple of times.  The last time this happened we had been drinking and I started to feel sick.  I pushed you off of me and rolled over to go to sleep.  You got up out of bed walked around to my side of the bed and proceeded to shove your dick in my mouth as I was trying to sleep.  I pushed you away from me again, feeling sick and defenseless.  After this I blamed myself.  Angry at myself for putting myself in a position where I couldn’t defend myself or stop something I didn’t want to happen. I had clearly stopped sexual activity with you and you proceeded anyway.  If you couldn’t use one part of my body to climax then you tried to use another. I  told My best friend about the incident right after.  I shortly after moved to Richmond and quit drinking. Though we ended up in some of the same spaces I rarely saw you and when I did, I didn’t speak to you except maybe a hello.  You as well never contacted me again after that incident.  I tried to just pretend it didn’t happen and move on but as I found it increasingly more difficult to do so and struggled with it while seeing you around, this friend brought your behavior with Dina to my attention.  We commiserated and debated talking to you in person but we were scared of your anger and volatility that we have both witnessed from you in the past with others and us individually. As other incidents with other women came to the surface I feared a fight breaking out at manic which could potentially ruin the show.  Jose’s aggressive behavior at the Sunday show made me even more uncomfortable about talking with you in person as well as you slandering me saying I needed counseling.  It showed me you did not want to take accountability. I hope this can lay out for you exactly where trust and consent were violated so you can work on this aspect of your behavior in therapy.

-Andy

****************************************************************************************************Brandon’s Statement

“I am aware that I have hurt a number of women. Regardless of when, I am confronted with the undeniable pain I have caused and am recognizing that I need to be accountable for my actions. In some way, shape, or form, during sexual encounters I have crossed these individuals’ personal boundaries and engaged in levels of non-consensual sex. I have made past partners feel emotionally coerced and have also been emotionally neglectful in times of need and verbally abusive in past relationships. This is never acceptable and it is absolutely necessary that I am accountable to anyone I have harmed and to my community. Part of this accountability requires that I take a step back from playing music to allow space and time for people to heal. Through my own initiative as well as community input, all upcoming shows have been cancelled. It is important that I take the time to seriously reflect on my actions and per the request of those harmed I am currently seeking counseling so that I can begin to unravel how my actions can directly contribute to systems of oppression. I must respect the requests of my community as well as recognize that it is my obligation alone to dismantle my own harmful behaviors. If you have any questions you can reach out.”

The Beginning of Mediation

“Brandon was given a list of requests as a part of his accountability process. He is being asked to not visit several different bars and venues in San Francisco and Oakland (listed below). Additionally, it was made clear that the survivors are not currently interested in dialogue or interaction with Brandon so if they end up in the same space or social situation, Brandon is to leave without question and respect their space. It was also asked that Brandon seek out and begin attending therapy to address his patterns of harmful behaviors regarding non-consensual sex, intimidation, violence and/or threats of violence, refusal to wear condoms  and general lack of respect for women who he is involved with. Brandon agreed to respect these demands and to take part in this process to work towards healing for those he has hurt and to address and change his harmful behaviors. It is planned to have a three month and six month check-in to discuss progress, lack there of or any other relevant changes.”

This list includes:

Golden bull

Eli’s mile high club

St. Mary’s Pub

Bender’s

Knockout

Thee Parkside

Doc’s Clock

Molotovs

Gilman

Elbo Room (SF and Oakland)

Uptown (SF and Oakland)

- The mediators

Contact

for questions, concerns, statements, and general information please email xenuffisenuffx@gmail.com

[clairefrasersbitch]

I agree w most of the stuff you're saying about ace discourse (bi ace girl here) but I'm kinda confused? I'm a minor so I'm probably not as informed as I could be but I've experienced bullying, invasive questions constantly (by straight ppl not LGBT ppl) and for awhile I thought I was broken + hated myself. I'm part of the LGBT community bc I'm bi but I'm trying to understand why I'm not also a part of it bc I'm ace? (Part 1)

(part 2) I also think part of the reason I identify as ace is bc of past trauma/abuse. I know you said you had trouble separating your feelings towards sex w you being autistic and I’m wondering how you did that bc I can’t help but equate one w the other in my mind even tho I know there’s nothing wrong w sex and I’d never judge another person for being interested it. I’m trying to understand where you’re coming bc I want to be better informed. I understand if you can’t answer my questions. Thank you

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hmm this is hard to answer. as for being a part of the community for being a bi ace, you’re right in saying you are part of it for being bi. bi people are all part of the community regardless of whether they are also ace. but the ace part of your identity is not what makes you lgbt, just the bi part. because ace people who aren’t also lesbians, gay ppl, bi ppl or trans ppl are not lgbt because asexuality is not inherently lgbt. does that make sense? now when it came to separating my feelings toward sex from being autistic, i didn’t necessarily separate them. i just came to understand that my feelings toward sex were rooted in being autistic and not in being asexual. IDing as ace was harmful to me bc it was preventing me from learning where those feelings were coming from and properly addressing them. i can’t tell you how to identify, but if you think your own feelings about sex come from trauma, i recommend exploring that and dropping the ace label. if you feel the ace label is helpful to you, then go right ahead and use it. i just know that for me personally, it was harmful and dropping the label made a big difference in how i viewed myself, my sexuality, and sex in generalin fact, as a general rule i believe asexuality and one’s feelings and boundaries when it comes to sex are personal and don’t require explaining to anyone except to a possible partner. and since you’re a minor, i’d wait a little while before labeling your sexual identity if i were you anywaysalso, i’m so sorry you’ve felt you were broken because of your feelings about sex. no one deserves to feel like that, especially if those feelings are rooted in trauma. you aren’t broken, i promisei really hope this makes sense and that i answered your questions, if there’s still something you need explained pls let me know and i’ll try my best to answer!

(i’m on mobile so i’ll have to tag this later)

[unmaskingtheglamour]

Bigger Epiphanies about Rejection

It’s been interesting the past four days of doing the Marisa Peer Living and Uncompromised Life. I feel like it has been the reinforcement of the reprocessing part to my EMDR therapy sessions. I had moments yesterday of emotions and feelings coming up but I am doing my best to move through them instead of reacting when they come up.  I was on the AT hiking and so I was processing through feelings about the past 6 months especially.  Some days I find that I fluctuate.  I am guessing that is normal.  Memories that are good and then the memories of being basically ignored.  Not so good but I am seeing my value and worth in it all.  

In EMDR we worked on the main moment of trauma from last year.  So reprocessing that all week has been tough.  I am doing my best to remember to sit in white light and that “I am allowed to have a loving long lasting and sacred relationship!” but the UL is taking on some of this too.  There is one hyponotherapy session about Overcoming Rejection.  It’s been a tough part of my life in my relationships.  I had to really sit with this today though because images of the ex and his best friend, smiling, together in a car (like a photo image) was popping up.  I realized how much rejection was there.  I also was able to go back and look at some childhood scenes as well. What I realized today was that most of the rejection I have ever felt and allowed myself to be hurt by was actually a dumping of energy of sorts.  It was the fucked up gifts of others who could not handle rejection due to boundaries.  I have my own rejection issues and am owning that but I saw it all in a different light. 

I always think it is 100% me and not anyone else who is responsible not only for my feelings but for others.  It’s been an issue for a long time.  Since I was a baby I “took it on”.  It’s all I knew.  I was in the session on rejection and realized a ton!  In the mental image I had of the ex and his friend (I guess partner since they all hooked up) was that they were planning how to get me involved in whatever sex stuff they were doing.  How to manipulate the situation to get me in their twisted game.  Except the ex knew I would never do whatever it was they wanted the women to do.  Never!  He knew I would reject the idea or plan.  He knew the whole time.  My guess is that the three of them (him, his friend and his friends wife) were involved sexually for a while.  When I broke up with him back in February of 2015 he grabbed his phone and told me he was telling this couple and he immediately messaged them both.  I thought it was really weird.  I knew them longer than he did so “what the hell??” but I ignored it, brushed it off and didn’t question even though something in me knew it was off. 

Sex is a delicate thing with humans.  I feel most people don’t get that.  In my heart it bonds humans soul energy in such a different way.  You are vulnerable. You are exposed physically, mentally and emotionally.  You are raw.  It can be very beautiful but most people don’t see it that way.  It’s so surface for many these days.  I don’t care what your preference is, if you are being manipulated than that is the issue.  there is a lack of purity and I don’t care what kind of partnership you are in.  If it is sacred that purity of the relationship and the sex involved will be upheld.  If it is not then it becomes degraded.  I look at this and see how they both, or all, were ashamed of their sexuality so much so they had to hide it, and hid behind me and my life.   When the ex broke up with me he, at first, was hiding so much that I believe he was having trouble keeping it together, and when I found everything out his true colors along with those involved came out.  It was interesting to realize that the pain of rejection was deep.  I remember him talking about rejection - especially in school where he was a victim of bullying and no one liked him.  I honestly feel he was actually the bully.  I believe that he was lying to manipulate through out the relationship.  I see where he was ashamed and rejected his own sexuality in our relationship as well by pretending he was something that he was not.  It’s sad to be that sick and twisted up hiding constantly behind people and then making sure you hurt them so much that you hold onto that for the manipulator.  Except I am realizing the truth and letting it go.  I realized and know it had nothing to do with me.  Most rejection isn’t always about you.  It’s an innate fear.  fear was another bad relationship...which that came true.  He knew how to play that once it was all said.   In my I saw, from my past, how my sense of rejection started when I was tiny.  This “fear” coming from a parent that had been sexually abused.  With a parent that has been abused sexually you take on so much without knowing it’s happening. Not to blame them but unless they really get the help they need the feelings of trauma have no where to go. The intense feelings of rejection of the self because of that from that parent I could sense.  I somehow remember it as I do my therapy and see how it was stuck in my body.  

Sexuality = rejection of a part of the self that was never mine to take on.  Healthy sex is beautiful, sacred, enjoyable and o one should ever have to feel less.  If someone is sexually abused it takes all of that away.  So I understand the whys and yet there is no way I can take that on for anyone in my life. 

Sometimes you reject others after being rejected.  You don’t mean it but you play it out without even knowing.  I see in the last relationship where I did it because I wasn’t really ready as much as I wanted to be in that relationship.  That person also was rejecting me.  We were kind of back and forth in gifting rejection (probably from so many other people before us.  We both had beliefs that we would be anyway and we both did not want that gift any more.  The only way to release it is not to the other but from within and heal it and give that gift back to the person who gave it to us in the first place.  Weird but true.  Your body decides to play it out in it’s response.  I turned my back on this person literally at one point.  It was awful!  I couldn’t stop! After he kept rejecting me in different ways (excuses of too much chaos, lack of good communication, no plans to visit even when we were talking daily, etc.) and I was chasing (which I don’t like to do at all!) and running away so I ended up finally just cutting it off.  I regretted that last bit because it was harsh and yet I knew things were not going to change and the only one who would had to be me.  It hurt to do so but I did deserve better attention and care.  He even said so apologetically.  When you look back in self care reflection you can see so much.  You see where  you could have done things differently and that would have made a difference.  Or not.  I don’t know yet.  

Rejection is something that I have realized isn’t mine to take on.  I realized that most were unworthy and so rejection was going to happen.   Because I had no idea what was actually going on in the first relationship they hid behind a facade of lies.  Once that whole group realized I was not going to be manipulated into whatever it was they were seeking sexually then the massive rejection came toward me instead of being honest about what was happening.  They knew I would respond in a way that was not supportive because honestly I would have figured it all out anyway.  I had boundaries and have boundaries and they knew it.  They knew they would not ever change those when it came to me.  Boundary pushers are a problem because if they are sick on top of it then they find ways to get around them.  The tough part for me is discerning when I am sticking up for myself or am I being manipulative to get my way.  It’s like the type of abuse.  I think it makes you feel like you are doing that and yet you are really just trying to take care of yourself in a good way.  I feel like master manipulators really want to do damage.  People try to say that they don’t but they really do.  Not my thing.  I just want clarity, authenticity and integrity in a relationship not to really control anything.  It’s confusing but I am learning.as I do this therapy.  I also see points in the manipulation tactics that were used over time with this person.  How they continuously made me believe whatever it was they wanted me to believe.  He figured me out.  He knew I was compassionate.  He used my best to play out his worst.  But I did have boundaries. or a while after I believed I didn’t but after therapy I was told how good mine were.  I was a challenge to a person like this and then to two people.  This was a group of people who tried to take me down after I found out.  One person is usually enough, many, well that takes more to process in it all. But I am actually doing really well!

The men who were involved enjoyed the game of it.  How can we convince her of _____?”  I wrote down all the lies I was told by the ex and I saw how confusing they were and how it screwed with my intuition.  From asking about other women (which no one should ever have to do in any relationship!!!) and being told they were “just friends” to asking about the closeness of the ex local best friend I was looked at like I was crazy and “How could you ask that?  We are just friends”.  My gut knew and was being directed by another.  The day he broke up with me and I said “There’s someone else!!” and he said “No!  No there isn’t!  I don’t even think I want to ever be in a relationship again!”  To trying to manipulate me into the bedroom to “hold me” and told me “this is what I liked best about us.” I jumped up because I knew something wasn’t right.  I knew he was lying.  I flat out said, “No!  You are trying to manipulate me!!”  And he gas lighted me by saying, “No I am not. I understand.  This is about boundaries”.  And yet I found out how right I was the whole time about all of it.  There was more but this is how intricate it was. I was second guessing it because I was manipulated to give power and authority to someone who I felt I could trust.  I believe that started when I was most vulnerable and that was when I was in the hospital in 2013.  We almost stopped the relationship but I went to visit him.  Then I got sick.  I landed in the hospital and he was a nurse at the time in a mental health ward at a hospital in Massachusetts.  I fear what happened there to be honest with you all right now!  He came down, swooped in and “played” the hero.  He wasn’t.  He wanted attention and to “look good” and yet he was not.  He was sicker than I realized, than anyone realized to be honest.  None of it was healthy at all.  I think the tough part of it was that prior to this I took 7 years off from relationships to get healthy.  I thought I was and I was close but then I contracted a disease from him that made me feel stuck.  My own insecurities about that were an issue but now I see the game plan.  But he didn’t win at all.  I got my power and control of myself back. It’s been good to be in therapy because the therapist shows me how I have these amazing boundaries.  I see how it was even with this last person.  I cared a lot about them but they certainly were not going to do anything different than what they were doing.  I definitely deserve much better than what I was getting even over the past 6 months.  And certainly over the years with the other people in my life.  I won’t compromise my position on deserving better!  Shoot maybe ANYTHING was better than what I had been through...hmmmnnn...but I also do not want to negate the beauty of what I had experienced with the last person.  It was a balm on my spirit.  He opened me up again. He made me realize I could feel love again.   That is a blessing so I want to stay positive even though it is where it is at this point.  I am growing in leaps and bounds and I am happy to be here right now.  My light is coming back and I am grateful!!